E1M8: The Guardians (Doom: Damnation)

E1M8: The Guardians is the eighth and final map in the first episode of Doom: Damnation. It was designed by Ofisil and uses the music track "The Baron". The par time defined in the DEHACKED lump is 2:30.

Essentials
Press the skull switch in front of you to lower the wall then head through the light tunnel to a chamber with an armor, a shotgun, a chaingun and ammo, then climb the steps to a red brick lift with a chainsaw that will lower as you approach. The lift will take you up to a marble arena with two barons of Hell, but when you start shooting more monsters will teleport in from the fire walls on the east and west sides of the arena - you must hold them off while waiting for two more barons to appear. Use the invulnerability pickup and four supercharges to help you; note that the supercharges are on teleporters that will send you to the opposite corner when you step on them.

Once all the barons are killed, the bars at the north end of the arena will lower to reveal a flesh wall; walk through it and you will be teleported into a lethal ambush. The episode automatically ends when your health drops to 1%.

Other points of interest
Use the teleporter in the middle of the arena to return to the chamber with the supplies. Note that any monsters that try to step on the lift will be teleported to the start of the level.

Secrets
There are no official secrets on this map.

Speedrunning
As this level does not contain official secrets, the NM 100S category is redundant.

Current records
The records for the map at the Doom Speed Demo Archive are:

The (absence of) data was last verified in its entirety on April 3, 2022.

Player spawns
This level contains six spawn points:
 * 1) facing south. (thing 150)
 * 2) facing west. (thing 151)
 * 3) facing north. (thing 152)
 * 4) facing east. (thing 153)
 * 5) facing north. (thing 154)
 * 6) facing north. (thing 166)

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level: