MAP08: Pale Monument (Sunder)

MAP08: Pale Monument is the eighth map of Sunder. It was designed by Insane_Gazebo and uses the music track "Fight the Logic if you Can," originally composed by Chris Laverdure (Dashiva) for Alien Vendetta.

Pale Monument was featured in Doomworld's Top 100 Most Memorable Maps, placing 17th.

Essentials
This level is just about as massive as the previous, with even more enemies to deal with. One thing to note is that this level completely lacks arch-viles, so you will not have to worry about resurrections here.

As usual, the shotguns and green armor are dead ahead. The welcoming committee has Hell knights and mancubi on the ground floor, Hell knights on a ledge southeast, revenants on a ledge northeast, and imps and a cyberdemon on a ledge to the south. There is another cyberdemon to the southwest, along with a high ledge of revenants you will access later on. Directly west of where you enter are two barred areas containing ammo and a BFG9000. You will get these later. The rocket launcher, plasma gun, and chaingun are all on the ground here. Get them and get rid of the ground enemies as well as revenants, and take note that both you and your enemies can climb the steps leading to the Hell knight or revenant ledges. As always, keep your supplies close. When you are ready to continue, there is a small passage to the north you must take. Revenants may have came from this direction, and more Hell knights will be on the ledges here. Crossing the bridge that contains supplies teleports more enemies inside the first big area, including Hell knights, mancubi, and cacodemons.

Continue past the bridge to the next hall for the north and south walls to lower. Mancubi will be on a ledge at the north wall, and imps will come from the south wall. Meanwhile, more imps, Hell knights, and barons of Hell will teleport in from a corner near the locked door, so stick around as necessary. Afterwards, climb to the south wall and head southeast, then east to a switch. Return to the locked door to find it open. On the other side will be Hell knights and two cyberdemons on the ground, three mancubi on a high ledge on the south wall, and barons of Hell, revenants, and a spider mastermind on a higher ledge to the north. When it is clear, climb to the southeast and go northeast. If you want a megaarmor, it is down in the blood pool with a cyberdemon and a switch nearby. The switch opens the way back. On the ledge above this switch will be another switch guarded by a cyberdemon. This particular switch allows access to the high ledge of revenants accessible from the first big area.

When you go there, take note that you can now get the ammo behind the bars from earlier, but not the BFG9000 yet. The nearby teleporter here just takes you back to the area to the north, beyond the bridge, in case you forgot anything. Press the switch and take the lift up to the ledge that had revenants on it. At the top, four pain elementals will attack, along with a cyberdemon to the south. A ledge with mancubi will be further to the southeast. You will notice you are on the high ledge that had contained imps and a cyberdemon from before. Take the time to clean this area out (there is a teleporter in a blood pool downstairs at ground level, but it only takes you back to the first big area), but do not approach the megasphere until you are ready.

When you are ready, collect the megasphere. The massive wall to the south will lower revealing lots of cacodemons, some revenants, arachnotrons on the outer walls, and four cyberdemons on the inner walls. You may want to back up as you are firing. In fact, go all the way back to the barred area to collect the BFG9000, as it is now accessible and will prove a major help against the cacodemons. It can become extremely difficult to see, especially with the cacodemons and their corpses. When finished, be ready once again if you attempt to go northeast towards the medikits and ammo. A large group of revenants will appear far to the northeast, and mancubi will teleport both on the way there and behind you. It is nearly suicidal to run across this high ledge, so drop down instead to contend with a cyberdemon and a blood pool full of revenants, then work your way back up. When you are ready, continue northeast across the high ledge, then north to the area with ammo.

Ahead of you is a soul sphere and a switch. Approaching the switch will reveal twenty revenants, four mancubi, and two cyberdemons. Make sure to press the switch, you will have to wait for another one to lower regardless, then backtrack to find more enemies have teleported into the vicinity. Hell knights, cacodemons, six arachnotrons, and a cyberdemon will appear on this ledge, imps will teleport to the eastern ledge, and more imps will spawn in the blood pool to the west of the switch, and will likely climb up to join the rest of the enemies. Be vigilant about where they are. When you are ready, the next switch is in the blood pool, and after that, the next switch is on the ledge southeast from there. This switch will open the way up to the middle of the map, where the final challenge awaits.

Grab the megasphere and the door will close behind you. There is a wall on the left side of the room that will lower, but will take a while, so you will be busy fighting off hordes of teleporting enemies while it lowers. Imps will come in to the middle of the area, while Hell knights, barons of Hell, revenants, and cacodemons will show up on the outer perimeters. A good strategy here is to continuously head around the outer perimeter to bottleneck most of the monsters in the middle, likely causing monster infighting by doing so. Be vigilant of enemies that spawn on the outer perimeters though. Eventually, arachnotrons will join the fray, quickly followed with six cyberdemons, so be extremely cautious when the arachnotrons show up. When the left wall lowers all the way, a switch will be revealed. The switch will open the path to the exit in the middle. The switch next to the berserk pack opens the door back out should you have missed anything beforehand.

Secrets
There are no official secrets on this map.

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: