MAP29: Citadel at the Edge of Eternity (Community Chest)

MAP29: Citadel at the Edge of Eternity is the twenty-ninth map of Community Chest. It was designed by Kevin Reay (Magikal), and was his final map prior to his death. It is the longest, biggest, and arguably most difficult level in the megawad.

Beginning
You start in front of two staircases, leading up to a gigantic fortress. Take the western staircase. On your way, you will see a window with a zombieman or two inside. Press this window like a switch to lower the wall so that you can enter. Head down into the room, with the walls opening in front of you, and open the door. Walk around the dark computer room until the three wide columns open up. Enter the middle column and press the switch inside, and press the newly-revealed switch in the eastern column. This will allow you to access the switch in the upstairs room to the south, which will temporarily open the other big, wooden door. Head outside through it. Ascend to the top of the stairs and head north. You are now at the first of the tall ledges overlooking and surrounding the fortress.

Western perimeter
Head down the stairs and you will find yourself in a winding passage of green marble, with several monsters in and around it. At regular intervals you will see wooden doors to the west which will open and release monsters; some of these doors can be entered before they close - in particular, the northernmost door can be opened multiple times by running up the stairs leading up to it.

Each of the wooden doors leads to one of several, similar dark chambers that overlook the marble passage. Each chamber also has a second wooden door on the west wall, which leads to a small antechamber, which in turn leads to a long, outdoor hallway to the very west of the map.

In the northernmost chamber available from this hallway, the antechamber contains a passage leading to a skull switch, but it is blocked by white bars. Each bar can be opened by heading to another of the dark chambers (accessible by doors from the aforementioned hallway) and making one's way through the simple puzzle waiting in its antechamber (except for the southernmost chamber). Once all four bars are raised, press the skull switch to temporarily open a door in the western wall of the hallway, and run inside. You will go down a lift and end up in a dark room.

Here, as you walk around, the tiny niches in the wall will keep opening and closing more or less randomly. Enter the niche furthest to the north. Open the wall inside, revealing a winding staircase. At the top, press against the base of the column to lower it, then press the skull switch on the wall. This has removed the columns inside the dark chambers.

To get out of here, enter the second niche from the north (with a berserk pack inside) and open the wall in the back, revealing a switch; when pressed, it reveals another switch, in the third niche from the south. (This is timed, so you need to hurry.) Press this switch, then quickly run out of the niche and get on the revealed lift. Ride it up and press the switch to open the door back to the hallway.

Now head into the southernmost dark chamber. Enter the room with the barred window. Open the wall with the baron face, then go back out of the room and quickly shoot the skull switch visible inside before the wall closes. This has raised small platforms in front of this and other baron faces. Use the platform to enter the niche beyond the wall you opened.

You will now have to make it through these niches all the way to the northernmost chamber. (The one that was inaccessible so far.) Doing so will require careful timing; in the first few niches you will have to press switches to open the next niche; in the later niches, the next niche will open automatically. In each case, jumping across from one niche to the next will require backing out a bit and then quickly running across. (Be careful that no walls close on you - if you fall, you will have to try again from the beginning.) Eventually, you will make it to the final dark chamber.

The niche here is covered by a grate, but it is passable. Enter, approach the back wall and ride the lift down. Approach the skull switch; the walls will open up. Once the lift behind you stops, press the skull switch to call it back down and return up.

You will discover that all the dark chambers are now connected with one long, dark, marble passage. Its north wall is passable; go through it and press the switch. This opens a cavern entrance in the northwest corner of the outdoors area. Go out of the dark chamber, go north out of the marble passage, and enter the newly-opened passage hidden behind some trees.

Getting the red key
As you head down the passage, you will come to a more spacious area where to the north is an open-air yard with a marble building in the middle. (It is in this yard that you will find the keys later.) To the south is a ledge with some mancubi. When this spacious area is entered from the west, you will see a door open between rectangular slits in the rock wall. Go inside. You will find a huge skull switch, which will open a small door in the cavern passage. Go back west to find this door.

The way inside is linear; head forward, making your way through the rooms, until you come upon a switch. When pressed, it will lower down a column with the red key in the yard mentioned above. Leave, go to this yard and get the key.

Getting the yellow key
Get back into the rocky passage, go west, and drop down onto the wide ledge below. Make your way around it; near the southeast part, a wall will open as you approach, revealing a horde of demons and the red door. Enter.

Head to the top part of the hill, then climb the brick battlements onto the ledge to the east. Look around for a switch which opens a door to the north. Run in there and ride down the lift.

The lift puzzle:

1st lift: Walk into the pit and activate the computer console (from the east side). This lowers a lift in the northwest of the room. Wait for it to lower completely, walk onto it and press the left half of the satyr face. The lift will ride up; once it stops, press the satyr face again to make it rise some more.

2nd lift: Walk onto the next lift, turn around and press the air in front of you to activate an invisible switch placed on the west side of the lift. This will make it rise. (If the lift is raised and you cannot get on it, press the adjacent dark metal wall with some lights on it to lower it. Similar walls appear next to several other lifts here, too.) At the top, press the satyr face inside the niche of green marble to open the door to the south. Enter it, and press the switch to lower the third lift to ground level. Get onto that lift.

3rd lift: Press the left half of the eastern satyr face to raise the lift. Once the lift stops moving, press the switch again to make it rise to the next level, then move on forward to the next lift.

4th lift: Press the left half of the satyr face to lower this lift, and get off it (to the east) as soon as you can, then move onto the next lift. (If you do not make it and the lift ends up lowering all the way to the floor, raise it with the switch on its west side.)

5th lift: Instead of riding this lift up, use the wall with the lights to lower it. Get onto the lift. Quickly step off towards the east as soon as you are able to, and get onto the sixth lift.

6th lift: Raise this lift similarly to how you did with the previous ones, then move onto the seventh lift.

7th lift: Ride this lift up, too. You will end up on a ledge with a lion face switch which opens another door to the south, with a switch inside which lowers the eighth lift.

8th lift: Use the left half of the eastern satyr face to ride up.

Go through the door to the east, then cross the bridge into the next room with the metal pillars that open and reveal monsters when you pass near.

Metal pillars puzzle:

Approach the westernmost pillar in the middle row; pass to its west to open up its upper half. There is a tiny switch visible on its west side. Press it to open the lower half, then step inside to reveal a switch. It will open the pillar in the middle of the room. Inside that pillar is another switch, which opens the grate to the east of the room. Press the switch beyond the grate and quickly head back across the bridge, then enter the big door that the switch has opened.

Head on forward. In the large cavern with the Icon of Sin face, be careful, as there is no way to escape the acid if you fall in. Head across the bridge, then across one of the winding side-paths. Press the satyr switch in the southern of the upper rooms. This opens a passage in the northern room. Enter and go across the bridge; on your way, enter the first alcove and press the computer screen to the east. Going west across the bridge, you will find yourself on the familiar upper ledge leading to the key yard; a wall blocking your way has been lowered, thanks to the computer screen you activated.

As you enter this part of the upper ledge from the east, a door will open between the rectangular slits to the west, similarly to what happened before. Press the giant skull switch inside, then head back east along the ledge to find out that another small door has opened. Again, the route inside is linear. At the end, open a pentagram emblazoned wall to lower the pillar with the yellow key. Head back to the key yard and grab it.

The central bridge, and getting the blue key
Head back to where you started the map. Stand near the southeast corner of the pit, and drop down carefully onto the dark ledge below. (Do not do this before you get the yellow key, or you will be stuck.) Jump down onto a marble column to the north. Follow the winding bridge, which eventually will lead you to a cage with yellow bars. Kill the cyberdemon from a safe distance, then open the bars. (This might take a few tries, as you have to stand at an exact angle.) In the cage, a switch will be revealed. This switch opens up the central building in the key yard, allowing you to take the blue key. Drop down from the cage, then run to the yellow door and enter the teleporter beyond to be transported back up.

Go get the blue key, then enter the marble fortress in the middle of the map through the blue door.

Inside the fortress
Pay attention to the narrow columns along the southern side. There are shining marble faces set into them: in two of the columns, the westernmost and easternmost one, the light is out of sync with the other ones. The faces in these two columns are actually switches. The one to the west opens the door out of the building. The one to the east lowers a lift in the northeastern corner of the building. The only way to make it there before the lift rises back up is to use wallrunning along the eastern wall. (If your source port does not support it, see if you can turn it on in its options menu; otherwise your only option is to cheat.) You will find yourself at a ledge running around the building's edge.

In the middle of the southern part of the ledge are several skull switches. Press the switches until you have got clear passage to the teleporter pad. (You will have to make two or three rounds around the entire ledge.) Teleport to the final arena.

Finale
Move away from your starting location, and wait for the pillar in the middle of the arena to rise. Press the satyr face on its west side to reveal a switch below the southwest column. (The columns open up as you approach.) The switch will in turn reveal a switch below the northeastern column, which reveals one in the northwestern column, and this finally lowers a switch to the southeast. (The switches vanish as you approach them, but can still be pressed even when retracted back into the ceiling.) This final switch will create a staircase leading up to the central pillar. Climb up the staircase, go back down, and climb again until the exit switch rises from the floor.

Secrets

 * 1) In the dark computer room to the southwest of the level, a portion of the western, brown wall, near the stairs, is brighter than the rest.  Open it to find a supercharge. (sector 825)
 * 2) At the north of the outdoor hallway to the very west, the northernmost imp compartment can be pressed on.  Do so, and enter it to find a megasphere. (sector 1323)
 * 3) In the area at the northwest of the map, in the largest central room, one of the heavy weapon dude cages (the one in the southwest) contains a box of rockets.  The bars of this cage can be walked through, allowing you to obtain it. (sector 415)
 * 4) In the area after the red key door, the southwest cage contains an energy cell pack and a supercharge.  Climb onto the second battlement from the north, and jump to the bars on the east side of the cage.  Walk along the edge to find that the southern side of the bars can be walked through, allowing access to the items. (sector 321)
 * 5) In the eastern room with the eight lifts, once you reach the third lift from the west, press on the western satyr switch to raise it.  After the lift reaches its destination, press the switch again to be taken to an alcove containing a berserk pack. (sector 361)
 * 6) Once you get to the fifth lift from the west, press on the eastern switch to be lifted to a compartment with a stimpack.  Press on the satyr face on the northern wall to find a medikit and a box of rockets. (sector 1402)
 * 7) After reaching the second lift from the east, lower it, and you will eventually find a compartment containing megaarmor. (sector 376) You can enter it as the lift is lowering, or you can wait until it has fully lowered, before raising the lift once and entering it.
 * 8) Once you reach the first lift from the east, lower it, step onto it, and you will eventually find an alcove with a box of rockets. (sector 377) As with secret #7, you can enter it as the lift is lowering, or you can wait until it has fully lowered, before raising the lift once and entering it.
 * 9) On the bridge following the moving platforms room, look at the automap to find a small platform to the north.  Jump and fall onto it to get a megaarmor. (sector 496)
 * 10) Teleport back to the bridge, and look at the automap to find another northern platform to the west of the other.  Jump and fall onto this one to get a supercharge, and find a closet containing a bulk cell. (sector 1240)
 * 11) At the bridge that leads outdoors out of the Icon of Sin cavern, the second set of bars from the east can be walked through to obtain an energy cell pack. (sector 1249)

Bugs

 * Because this level goes over the game engine's 32768 segs limit, attempting to play it in Doom Legacy, or any Boom-based source port apart from PrBoom and the Eternity Engine, will cause the game to crash due to a segment violation.
 * A zombieman (Thing 1952) in the south-west has no flags set for any of the three difficulty classes, so it does not actually appear in the level.

Current records
The records for the map at the Doomed Speed Demos Archive are:

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