MAP23: Blood Sacrifice (Alien Vendetta)

MAP23: Blood Sacrifice is the twenty-third map of Alien Vendetta. It was designed by Kim André Malde and uses the music track "Demons on the Prey" from Doom. The par time defined in the executable is 9:30.

Essentials
From your start head across the bridge but do not head through the path directly in front. Just pick up the nearby shotgun and head up the stairs here. The super shotgun is in the next room, and the big hall next to it has several chaingunners on walls as well as an arch-vile. Head north here into the next hall, then east. You might catch a good glimpse of the fortress as you go. Press the switch in the room with the pool, looking out for the arch-vile in the water, then continue eastward. There is a cyberdemon in the next big room, and when you go halfway across it, two monster closets will open. If you want, use the other monsters to infight with the cyberdemon. From there, just follow the path until you hit ground floor. Grab the rocket launcher on the wall, and continue northward and westward along the path to the next open area.

Here you will have a dock with some ammo on it, and a choice of two castles. Go to the northern one as the southern one is locked. In the northern castle, you can explore if you want, finding among other things a cyberdemon in the middle of it. You ultimately need to reach the eastern side of the castle though. When you make it outside on the eastern side, there should be a switch and some cacodemons. Hit this switch, and then go back into the castle. Head up the curvy staircase you should see on your left. Then climb up the next set of stairs to the next level of the castle. Cross the bridges all the way to the southwestern part of the castle which should have a mancubus in it. Before, this area was barred up, but it should now be open. Climb down the stairs here and hit the switch here to reveal a revenant. Hit the next switch to open the nearby bars back into the middle of the castle. You should now be able to go to the northern end of the castle, where another cyberdemon will be walking around. Here is another fork, go right first to find some pain elementals and the yellow skull key. Then go left, and when you reach the bars, press on the yellow skull on the wall to open them. Look out for the revenants, then make sure to press the switch in this room.

You will be able to exit this castle to the south, so do so, and head back to the docks to go to the southern castle. This should now be open, so climb up the curvy staircase and kill the imps. Just follow the path, you will see a familiar hallway that you have already been in soon, but you will not need to come back here. At the end of the path is a soul sphere and a switch. Press it to lower the floor to four mancubi, then head eastward and northward to find a spider mastermind. Now backtrack all the way back to the bridge you started on, going the other way, and you should find the exit open for you to go through.

Secrets

 * 1) At one point fairly early in the level, you have to flip a satyr-faced switch in a room with a square-shaped water pool in the middle in order to open a nearby door. Behind it is a green torch with an obvious differently-textured wall next to it. To open the wall, look inside the alcove the torch is in. There is a thin opening in the back wall; you can see inside the secret area behind it. On the far wall of this secret room is a green section of wall; shoot this wall through the narrow opening behind the torch to open the nearby wall. Inside is a plasma rifle and some ammo. (sector 235)
 * 2) Further on, you will reach an outdoor area in which you walk along a parapet and a soul sphere is visible inside an adjacent, but seemingly unreachable castle turret. Make your way to the gap in the parapet wall closest to the turret itself. Notice that one of the bricks below the gap is sticking out a little; you can use it as a stair to run through the gap and into the turret to get the soul sphere. (sector 279)
 * 3) Once you're inside the fortress in the second half of the level, you need to flip a lion-faced switch on a dock to open some bars elsewhere in the fortress. On the back side of this switch is another, gargoyle-faced switch. Flip it to open a secret room in the fortress wall. (sector 617)
 * 4) At the south end of the map is a room with a soul sphere in front of a lion-faced switch that lowers the floor of the entire room. Like in the case of secret #3, check the back side of the switch for a second switch that opens a secret area across it. This one contains a BFG. (sector 128, second release only)
 * 5) Inside secret #3 is yet another switch. Flipping it removes some bars blocking access to a soul sphere way back in the first half of the map. To get it, return to the start/exit point, cross the nukage bridge, go straight through the archway ahead of you and up the stairs to your left (south). The alcove with the soul sphere is in the northern wall of this walkway. (sector 86)

Design oddities
It is possible to seemingly get stuck behind a torch in sector 550, next to a stairway. Using strafe speed momentum you will be able to get out of this confined area.

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

The data was last verified in its entirety on July 6, 2020.

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

The data was last verified in its entirety on September 21, 2022.

Deathmatch
This level includes its own, separate deathmatch arena.

Player spawns
This arena contains four spawn points:
 * 1) facing north-west. (thing 329)
 * 2) facing south-east. (thing 330)
 * 3) facing south-west. (thing 331)
 * 4) facing north-east. (thing 332)

Things
The following things (per skill level) are placed in the arena:

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