MAP03: ...And Hell Beneath (Memento Mori II)

MAP03: ...And Hell Beneath is the third level of Memento Mori II. It was designed by Matthias Worch and uses the music track "Give In with Pleasure" by Mark Klem. It contains a separate area for multiplayer competition.

Mission briefing
According to both the text file and the Infopack:


 * Intelligence has reported a large underground complex in the ground of IO that is inhabited with monsters of all kinds. Several scouts have been sent into it and reported that the whole structure seems to have been built around a large cave, containing a deep pool of blood. From its ground evil laughter and more unnatural sounds can be heard.
 * Access to the pool is blocked by some barrier, so that nobody has been able to reach it so far, after short time the contact to one after another scout has been interrupted, their fate is unknown. The last scout was lost while being in a temple-like building, the last picture of his camera that was trans-mitted [sic] has been included with this file.


 * YOUR MISSION:
 * - find the pool and close it before more monsters are able to reach the moon
 * - find the exit.


 * DO NOT LEAVE THE CAVE WITHOUT CLOSING THE POOL!

Note that in spite of this description, closing the blood pool is not necessary to complete the level (see Routes and tricks).

Essentials
Start & Blue Key

You begin facing a long hallway. If you want, you can turn left, kill a former human or two and snipe any enemies that you can see through that window. Either way, continue down the long hallway and clear out the shotgun guys (Hey, not too rough and below) or chaingunners (Hurt me plenty and above)in the three windows high on the left wall. There are two alcoves in the right wall - watch for two demons or spectres, depending on your difficulty. Flip the switch at the end of the hallway, which opens a cross-shaped hole in the wall to the west. Continue through that hole into a marble room.

In this first marble room, you need to clear out up to five imps from cages in the north and west walls. Head into the alcove in the northeast and continue up the stairs to the eastern cage, where you will find a switch. As you approach the switch, bars will lower behind you, preventing you from re-entering the staircase. Flip the switch, and the corner of this room will open, revealing two shotgun guys and up to two imps, as well as the blue key. Dispose of them, then shoot the lion face switch behind them to unblock the bars. Go back down the staircase, and use your newly acquired blue key to open the blue door in the south of this room.

You now enter a larger marble room. Kill the former humans on the floor and in the alcoves high in the east and west walls of this room, then deal with the imp cage high in the north wall. Find the stairs in the southwest corner and go up them into another room with a hanging corpse behind bars. Kill any remaining shotgun guys that have not gone down the stairs. Find the switch on the eastern wall, flip it, and immediately turn around and backpedal to the stairs. This switch opens a trap in the northwest corner behind you, releasing up to three demons. At the stairs, you have less risk of being boxed in and can deal with them more easily.

Once they are dead, head back to their trap and flip the switch. This builds stairs in the alcove in the northeast, leading to the imp cage in the previous room's north wall. Flip the switch in the cage, which opens the big door to the south.

Northern Nexus and Yellow Key

Go through the big door in the south. This leads to the large darkened room that you first saw through the window in the starting area. Be wary of demons on the floor, and any enemies left on the ledges in the west. Head for the door in the northwest of this room and go up the staircase into a brown room with lamps in each corner. This brown rectangular room acts as a central hub for the next few sequences in this map. First, head through the eastern doorway into a marble staircase. As you go up it, be careful of shotgun guys and chaingunners in four cages on the north and south walls.

Continue around the staircase to a cage, which happens to be the one in the west wall in the first room. The corner that you grabbed the blue key from has closed again. When you walk into it, bars will again lower behind you. Flip the switch in the cage, and just like before, the corner in that first room will open up, this time with a shotgun guy, an imp and on higher difficulties, an extra shotgun guy (Hurt me plenty) or chaingunner (Ultra-Violence and above). Shoot the lion face switch behind them to unlock the bars.

Backtrack down the marble stairs, and lower the metal step that rose up earlier to return to the rectangular room. The door in the north has opened, revealing a large brown hall. As you enter, watch for shotgun guys (Hey not too rough and below) or chaingunners (Hurt me plenty and above) in cages on either side. Pay attention to these cages later - teleport traps will refresh these cages with new former humans later.

The gargoyle switch at the north end of the hall is too high to flip. You need to flip two switches to raise a platform to the correct height sot hat you can flip the switch. One switch is located in each of the hallways in the west and east side of the hall:
 * Go down the eastern hallway to a crypt with six graves. At the east end of the crypt is a small room with a grave, behind which is a switch. This is one of the switches that raises the platform in the brown hall. As you head back, you will find that the six graves have lowered, releasing six shotgun guys (Hey, not too rough and below), four shotgun guys and two chaingunners (Hurt me plenty), or six chaingunners (Ultra-Violence and above). Kill them and return to the brown hall.
 * Go down the western hallway to a circular room with a grave. Kill the shotgun guy and zombieman in here. Follow either hallway around to a chamber in the west, but keep the two graves in the alcoves beside it in the back of your mind before entering. As you step into the chamber, steps form and a switch rises in the back wall. Flip this switch and head back out of the chamber. The two graves on either side have lowered to reveal shotgun guys (Hey, not too rough and below) or chaingunners (Hurt me plenty and above), and the grave in the circular room has lowered as well, revealing a switch. This is one of the switches that raises the platform in the brown hall. Flip the switch and make a run for the stairs - up to six demons will be released behind you when you flip the switch. Kill them and return to the brown hall.

Do note that every time you complete one "side", a fresh pair of shotgun guys or chaingunners will be teleported into the cages near the entrance to the brown hall - be alert for them.

Once both sides are complete, go to the north of the brown hall. A new platform has appeared, and it reaches the gargoyle switch. Use this platform and ride it up, then flip the gargoyle switch. Quickly turn around, and you will notice that a bloody pentagram has appeared on the floor, and monsters are teleporting in. In total, this teleport trap releases:


 * Hey, not too rough and below: Six imps and one Hell knight.
 * Hurt me plenty: Eight imps and one Hell knight.
 * Ultra-Violence and above: 10 imps and two Hell knights.

Even in a full playthrough, your arsenal is limited. Use your chaingun to tear through the imps, then your shotgun to finish off the Hell knight(s).

Once the trap has been defused, head out of the brown hall back to the rectangular room. A new platform will have risen in the west of the room. Ride it up to the western alcove. Head up the steps, and proceed south down a hallway with lamps, then through a second hallway with pillars to your left. Peek out from behind the pillars and kill the monsters that have teleported onto other raised areas in the distance. Continue south, where you can see the yellow key at the end of this hallway.

Enter the tan brick room at the end of the hallway. Head down the stairs and kill the imps in this room. Pick up the box of bullets, then flip the switch in the south of this room to lower the pillar that the yellow key is on. Unfortunately, this also triggers a trap near the entrance of this room, releasing two demons (on Ultra-Violence and above, two demons and two spectres) to box you in. Put that ammo box to good use and use the chaingun to force your way out of this trap.

Red Key and Exit

Exit the tan brick room and return to the hallway with the pillars. Facing the pillars, walk between them and gently drop down onto a ledge below. Turn around, and flip the switch in the raised panel. This raises the bars in the southeast of the large darkened room, allowing access to the blood pool that the mission briefing mentioned. It also lowers the berserk pack (Hey, not too rough and below) or super shotgun (Hurt me plenty and above) in the middle of the large, darkened room, so grab it - you will certainly need to use it later.

Once you enter the blood pool area, you will awaken a large number of enemies in a room north of the blood pool. However, the moment you open fire at them, you will hear an ominous hissing sound - cacodemons. Up to four will rise out of the blood pool, so you might want to back up into the large, darkened room to fight them. In these larger spaces, they should be less of a problem.

When the cacodemons are dead, go to that room north of the blood pool. Dispose of the enemies and pick up the red key - but don't forget to flip the switch in the south wall of this room. This not only closes the blood pool (which you were briefed to do), but also creates a pair of platforms that bridges the final slime pit.

Return to the large darkened room, go through the door in the northeast and retrace your steps to the hallway with lamps. Find the yellow door in the east wall and go through it. Kill the lone imp inside. There is a gargoyle-faced switch in the south side of this room, in a corridor with two doors. Seasoned veterans should be able to smell a trap coming, and they would be right. Go through either door and walk towards the switch, and imps suddenly appear behind the bars in the north of the room - use the chaingun to pin them down through the window. Flip the switch, and the bars raise. Head behind where those bars were and flip the switch in the west wall.

This switch opens the brown door in the east wall. Bridges have risen from the floor of previous areas to lead you to a new area. Run all the way to the east, and you should be in the alcove in the east wall of the larger marble room near the start of the level. Kill the two spectres and chaingunners in this area, then find the window in the east wall of this room. This window is actually one of the windows in the starting hallways, and faces a gargoyle switch. Shoot this switch.

A teleporter will have opened near the entrance to this room. Go through this teleporter, and you will be teleported to the ledge in the large darkened room with the red door. Do keep a lookout for the last few enemies that may have teleported onto any of the other raised areas in this room, and finish them off.

Go through the red door and go through the corridor to see a deep slime pit. If you remembered to flip the switch to close the blood pool, two thin ledges will have appeared, allowing you to run across them to cross the pit. Kill the imps in the raised areas on either side of the pit, then cross the pit and head for the big wooden door at the end of the corridor.

As you open the big wooden door, you will be confronted by the level's final enemy: a chaingunner (Hey, not too rough and below) or a Hell knight (Hurt me plenty and above). The item that you picked up from the pillar in the large, darkened room is going to come in handy here again. Speed is paramount, since you don't exactly have much room to move.

Once you have disposed of the enemy ahead, flip the switch in the exit chamber to end the level.

Secrets

 * 1) In the hallway leading to the blue key door, the eastern wall with the hung body (sector 424) can be opened to reveal a stimpack and a set of shells.
 * 2) In the green brick alcove (right west of the blue door) with the switch opening the door into the southern cave, there is blood on one section of the wall. Open this section (sector 321) to find two medikits.
 * 3) When you approach the switch in the northeast of the map, various stone coffins will open to reveal enemies. To the north of the central, northern coffin, a portion of the wall is misaligned. Open this (sector 347) to find two sets of shells.
 * 4) In the hallway with the yellow key door, one of the lanterns does not give off any light. Press on this wall (sector 236) and you will find three sets of shells.
 * 5) After the yellow key door, the western wall in the southern, metal corridor has ridges in it. Open this wall (sector 251) to find a box of bullets and a medikit.

Bugs
Because of a berserk pack not marked as multiplayer-only in the multiplayer area, you can only obtain 94% items on this level. Also placed in this deathmatch arena are the chainsaw, ten shotguns, two super shotguns, both chainguns, both rocket launchers, nine sets of shells, seven rockets and seven stimpacks.

Demo files

 * [[Media:M203jump.lmp|Demonstration]] (file info) of the red door shortcut jump (see Routes and tricks).

Routes and tricks
Like all of Matthias Worch's contributions to Memento Mori II, this level will take quite some time to complete compared to levels such as MAP12: The Waterway, due to the almost complete lack of shortcuts. However, in spite of the description given in the mission briefing, it is not necessary to close the blood pool to finish the level. The only thing needed from that location is the red skull key. The gap after the red key door can be strafejumped across even without raising the platforms in it first.

It is possible to perform a strafe50 jump to the platform in front of the red door from the highest platform in the west of the room. This jump should be started from the westernmost wall, and you must run between the two southernmost metal pillars on the east side of the platform. This trick was discovered by Sergey Kapustin in 2003, but has yet to be used in a processed Compet-n demo. (See Demo files for a demonstration.)

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

The data was last verified in its entirety on May 7, 2014.

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