MAP18: Arena (Hexen Upstart Mapping Project)

MAP18: Arena is the twelfth and final map of Hexen Upstart Mapping Project. It was designed by Tom Jensen (HexenMapper) and uses the music track "Octo" by Kevin Schilder.

Essentials
As the level starts you will be carried along a "sky tunnel" containing all the weapons and various artifacts; at the end you will teleport into a circular arena. There are ettins and green chaos serpents around you followed by some slaughtaurs and afrits, but use caution as when you start shooting you will alert a gray death wyvern that flies clockwise around the perimeter of the arena; this wyvern is invulnerable so you will need to avoid its attacks. Head to the south-west corner of the arena and jump over a lava river to confront one or more brown chaos serpents, then head east and north to an area with two lava streams - there are several green serpents, slaughtaurs and afrits on guard here so you may want to use your fourth weapon. Walk west under a bridge to find some steps leading up to the top of the bridge, then walk along it until you see a star switch on your left - this is one of three needed to reach the center of the arena.

Now head north-east over some collapsed rocks to get to the north side of the arena where you will find a sludge pool containing stalkers. In the middle of the swamp is a wooden platform - use the steps on the north side of the platform to get up there, where you will see a second star switch embedded in the floor that you can flip by pressing any side of it. Drop back into the sludge and head round to the east side of the arena, which is covered in ice and guarded by a number of wendigos, then head round to the west side of the columned platform in this area to find a section of steel floor. Look west from here to see a minotaur switch and pull it to raise some stairs, which you can climb to find the third and final star switch. After flipping it, return to the south side and look north to see that a teleporter leading to the center of the arena has opened.

The center of the arena contains two copies of Korax that each have 8,000 hit points; as well as their regular attacks, they can command spikes to rise from the floor and also raise turrets that fire ice shards, and they will call in green serpents, centaurs and reivers when they reach half health. There are several spinning blades in the middle of the room that should be avoided, but you can lure enemies into them to deplete their health. Once both Koraxes have been killed, enter the teleporter that is revealed at the north end of the room to finish the game.

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 February 19, 2022.

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