MAP28: Whispering Shadows (Alien Vendetta)

MAP28: Whispering Shadows is the twenty-eighth map of Alien Vendetta. It was designed by Anders Johnsen and uses the music track "Sinister" from Doom.

Walkthrough
Head straight into the building grabbing the super shotgun. Climb either staircase up, open the red wall, and go left at the junction. There will be a spider mastermind or a cyberdemon here depending on your difficulty setting. Get rid of the monster then jump out the window onto a red path with a rocket launcher and supplies. Head into the next structure and hit the switch here. Jump back out into the lava and go around it, to a newly-opened door. Through here, head down the steps to the wooden halls here. The small skull-marked doors here only contain chaingunners, so they are not too useful. Instead, grab the plasma gun here and jump out to a new open area. Head up the stairs here to the next room, where the next switch lowers a lift with an arch-vile on it. Up here, jump out the next window here to another open area. There are a number of monsters to contend with, just like the other open areas. Go up the stairs to the northwest, and then head east, being wary of some window traps. To lower the next lift, head out into the ledge in the open area, fending off either a number of revenants or a single cyberdemon depending on your difficulty, and press the switch here. Quickly run back to this lift, and ride it up to the next area, following the path all the way to the next switch. Press this to lower yet another lift and ride it up. Grab the BFG 9000 to open the wall behind it to the next open area. You have two choices of travel here.

Go through the east part first. You will end up in a large valley with bloodfalls around you. Lots of cacodemons are on these bloodfalls. Find the entrance to the red building here and enter. You will see the yellow skull key sitting on a throne, but be careful of monsters teleporting in when you pick it up. Also look out for the swarm of revenants back in the valley.

Now go back and take the northern path. You will be in a cross-shaped area. Go to the right here to a switch, watching out for the trio of arch-viles. After pressing it, head back and there should be stairs leading north. Go up here, and you may notice that chaingunners will appear out of the blood pools. You can go through these. The right one leads to a secret, but the left one leads to where you want to go. Follow this bloody river to a small cavern. There are several monsters in here. Head to the far end of the cavern to find the blue skull key.

Now you need to backtrack a lot. Go back to the place where you had two choices, the one you accessed after grabbing the BFG, then head back down the lift using the switch. Go through the metal pillars here to lower them revealing barrels. Destroy them, then use them as an elevated platform to jump out the window here. There is a small tunnel in the blood where a hell knight may be stationed at. Inside this tunnel is the yellow door. You will appear back in the lava-filled room. Head east here, and go through the teleporter you see. You will end up back near the hall past the red wall close to the start. Now head eastward to the blue door. Behind this door is a large, hellish yard with a marble fortress. Watch out for the cyberdemon hiding behind the wall here, and find a door to the north. Head through here, to a room with red closets in it. Approach the center one and all of them will simultaneously open, revealing chaingunners, an arch-vile, and the red skull key. Grab it, and if you want, head through the red door where the two caged revenants were for a soul sphere. Otherwise, go through the faceted wall into the marble fortress (the wall is an unmarked red door).

Here is another fork, and although you do have the yellow key, the faceted wall to your left will not open, so you should go right. Hit the switch to open the next hallway and use either switch to lower the lift. Ride it up and follow the path all the way to the east. There will be either a spider mastermind or a cyberdemon in this room with the switch, depending on the difficulty. Press the switch, and watch out for a duo of arch-viles behind you. Then, backtrack to the fork again. Go through the newly opened passage, following the path up the stairs and to the exit portal.

Secrets

 * 1) At the southwesternmost end of the map is an outdoor blood-floored area surrounded by wooden walls, with a red brick structure in the center. There is a wooden staircase leading up to the north. At the top of the stairway is a door, with a small room behind it. In this small room is a skull switch and a window overlooking the blood pool. You will need to run from the raised doorway (notice that it is a little higher than the actual floor of the room) onto the windowsill. This is really difficult to do (and may not even be the intended method) and will likely take several tries; straferunning helps. Once on the windowsill, you will see an alcove with a soul sphere on it in the wall below. Drop down into it to get the secret. Another way to do this is as follows. Once in the room with the skull switch, hit the switch, ride the lift up, turn immediately right, and then turn right again (it is from here that you jump down to where the arch-vile is). Before you jump, take a look at the chaingunners. After you jump to the ledge of the arch-vile, you need to get on the ledge (by running) of the chaingunner to the right (north). Once you are here, turn west (to where the chaingunner and soul sphere are), and carefully step on the very north edge of this ledge, and run to the soul sphere room, trying to land on the edge (this is also quite difficult to accomplish; you might want to save your game before you run from the chaingunner's ledge).
 * 2) Return to the small windowed room from secret #1, and flip the skull switch to a lower a lift behind you. Ride it up, and follow the path to the blood river. Run along the river onto the structure in the middle of this area. Go through the skull door, then turn 180 degrees and flip both skull switches, one on either side of the door you just came through. Drop back down into the blood and make your way to the northern side of the structure and flip the skull switch. Step through the adjacent teleporter and run back into the central structure. Go through the skull door again and run through the leftmost window ahead of you to regain access to the rest of the level. Return almost all the way to the beginning of the level, to the hall with the scrolling spine texture high on the wall. At the west end of this wall a wall will have opened, granting you access to a secret room which holds an arch-vile inside.
 * 3) At the northern end of the map is a plus-shaped hallway with a pillar with red lights in it in the center. Down the eastern arm of the plus-shaped hallway are some stairs leading up to a window-lined room in which three platforms with arch-viles will rise upon entering. Once the three platforms have risen and the arch-viles killed, stand on one of them and run through a window. You will land in a slime-floored outdoor area with some ammo.
 * 4) Press the skull switch in the room mentioned in secret #3. This causes a stairway to raise at the northern end of the plus-shaped hallway. At the top is a pair of alcoves with blood pouring from the ceiling, one on either side of the entryway. Go through the eastern bloody alcove (the bloodfalls can be walked through; they are not solid) and you will fall down into a bloody room with some armor.
 * 5) Across from the other blood alcove mentioned above (the one leading to the blue skull key) is an arched window with a soul sphere inside. Step through the second alcove and continue a short way, then turn around and run back out of the alcove and into the window. The "lip" of the alcove gives you an extra height boost, allowing you to reach the otherwise too-high window.
 * 6) At the northeastern end of the map is a short bridge across a blood river leading to the building with the yellow skull key inside. There is a small portion of falling blood to the west of this bridge. Step through the bloodfall to be teleported to a nearby ledge.
 * 7) Inside the red-skull-locked green marble building at the southeast corner of the map, go down the hall to the right into the gray marble room with four pillars in it. Press either of the skull switches at the back of the room to lower a lift, then ride it up and follow the hall into a second gray marble room. There is a demon-faced door at the top of some stairs. Walk to the top of the stairs, but do not go through the door yet. Return to the first gray marble room, where a secret alcove with some green armor in it has opened.
 * 8) After opening the yellow door inside the aforementioned green marble building (at the end of the level), ascend the flights of stairs to a window-lined, gray marble hallway. Note the bars blocking a glowing, hexagonal red tunnel to the right. Continue along the path, then up some stairs into the exit room. Upon reaching the landing of the stairs, the bars down below will open temporarily. Quickly run back through the bars before they lower again (it may take a few tries), then through the narrow, hexagonal hallway to a secret area. Inside is a soul sphere.

Current records
The Compet-N records for the map are: