MAP27: Stench of Evil (Alien Vendetta)

MAP27: Stench of Evil is the twenty-seventh map of Alien Vendetta. It was designed by Anders Johnsen and Jan Endre Jansen. It uses the music track "Suspense" from Doom.

Essentials
There are a lot of weapons and backpacks in the hallway in front of you. Grab them and approach the wall and it will raise up revealing a mancubus. Go down the stairs here and you will see a door and a switch. Press the switch to open the door, watching out for two arch-viles who teleport in. The door leads to a room with revenants and a one-way passage with vines as borders. Go down this passage to the next room which is filled with demons. Be careful, as the demons could teleport around the halls here and confuse you. Find the switch in the area, then head southward to a room reminiscent of the marble room in Hell Beneath. This room has revenants all over it. Head around to the backside of the metal wall to find the next switch to press. If you want, you can lower the metal wall by finding the green torch and pressing it, revealing a nifty E4M1 tribute, except there are a lot of chaingunners here. Now head through the northwest hall to a new hall, following it through the next dark hallway all the way to the end. The dark hallways have cacodemons in pens, but they cannot leave them. In fact, it is possible for them to get crushed by the pen walls. Plus, if you progress further, you will crush them anyways, so it is recommended to save your munitions.

Use the lift at the end here. This next area is symmetrical with walls of chaingunners to the sides along with barons of Hell and mancubi. The castle turrets have loads of chaingunners on them. Drop in the middle of the room here to find a hall with pain elementals. The door leads outside of the castle. There are barons of Hell outside here, as well as an arch-vile and some imps on cliff ledges. Head straight north to reach an ice maze. Despite its chilling nature, there are arch-viles roaming this place, so be alert for them. Cross through the maze only to find yellow bars to the north. You can go east though, to a small fortress with imps and spectres. Inside is a spider mastermind and the yellow skull key. You can lower the key's pillar directly. Now return to the yellow bars and open them, proceeding to a much larger fortress.

A cyberdemon guards the front gate, and there are spider masterminds and mancubi in the moats. Head through the front door and take either path to a small yard with mancubi and Hell knights. There is a teleporter here, which takes you on a parapet just south of it, where you can get a few supplies from the pain elementals and chaingunners. There is also a marble tower here with a barred-off lift, however if you approach the lift two of the bars will lower for you. Ride the lift up, and press the switch here. Then go back down, and then up the stairs and all the way around, since you cannot open the blue door yet. Open the door to the next hall with a ton of revenants. There are two paths in the middle of this hall. Take the left one up to a cyberdemon and a switch, and after pressing the switch, take the right one. There should be two more paths here, the southern one is blocked off for now, but thanks to the two previous switches you pressed, the northern one should be open. Follow the path of ammunition to a moat with an arch-vile and pain elementals, then go to the lower right corner of the moat, to find a place to drop down. Do so, and follow the path to an arachnotron and a switch. Press it and take the teleporter to return. The section of the moat where the arch-vile was will rise up, allowing you to make a running jump to the other side. Over there, there are two switches to press. The one on the west side opens the faceted wall here, while the eastern one raises the bars in the previous path.

Hit the switch on the right and return back to this passage to find the blue skull key. A lot of imps will teleport once you obtain it though. Backtrack to the blue door in the fortress yard and go through it. Go through the next passage, looking out for revenants beyond windows and arch-viles behind you. Take the path to the right and follow it all the way to a rocky area. Before entering the wooden shack find the switch here, which will lower the pillar containing the red skull key inside the shack. Picking up the key releases several monsters in this area.

Now backtrack to the marble area with the moat, making the running jump back across. This time, press the switch on the west side, and get through the faceted wall before it rises. On the other side, take the green teleporter to the right. Open the red door here (it is unmarked) to a wooden area. Through the windows here you will see a wall of chaingunners on the bloodfalls. If you want a soul sphere, use each bloodfall as a lift and then find the teleporter at the left end. Head through it to be whisked on top of a metal pillar, where you grab the soul sphere instantly. However, you will also release a cyberdemon in the lower right corner when you leave. Behind the windows in the wooden hallway, head west then north up to an arch-vile and a switch. Press this, then head back and east this time. Go all the way east, and you will find a dark room with lush, red structures and a ton of monsters. Fend them off and hit the switch at the far end, then leave the way you came.

Back behind the faceted wall, take the lift up. This is the last area you will have to go through. Before taking the wooden path, fall down into the lava on the left side. Go all the way south, and slightly to the left of the two revenant cages, there is a switch which lowers the nearby lift. Ride it up and press the switch that is here. This lowers a barrier along the path. Also, the switch you pressed in that lush, red area has lowered another barrier here. Now fall back in the lava and take a teleporter back to the beginning of the wooden path. Traverse the path, being wary of teleporting Hell knights. You should find a switch at the very end of the path, hit it and return to the closest room to find the exit portal.

Secrets

 * 1) Near the start of the level, you will come across a mostly green marble room, with a vine-lined walkway leading to the next area. There are two shallow alcoves with slaughtered barons of Hell in them to the left and right. Both of these walls open, leading to a security armor vest. Dropping down onto the ground from here will allow you to get some boxes of rockets at the cost of fighting a few mancubi. (sector 264 in the first release; sector 707 in the second; the releases have different sectors as secrets)
 * 2) Same as secret #1, but on the other side of the room. (sector 263 in the first release; sector 264 in the second; the releases have different sectors as secrets)
 * 3) In the first large outdoor area (with the white-stoned floor), there is a teleporter that takes you to a ledge leading back to the previous, higher area with the red brick turrets. Instead of going through this teleporter, face it and open the wall 90 degrees to you left. Follow the small secret tunnel around and open the wall behind the teleporter, and go through it from this side. You will be taken to a ledge at the far end of the outdoor area, from which a soul sphere is accessible. (sector 388 in the first release; sector 387 in the second)
 * 4) After the outdoor area, you will be in a very blue, maze-like cave. From the entrance, take the first right, then hug the left wall until you reach a portion of the wall with an opening near the floor. Open this wall to get some health and shotgun shells. (sector 276 in the first release; sector 275 in the second)
 * 5) A bit farther on in the blue cave is another portion of wall that has an opening along the floor; open this one in the same way as secret #4 to get some more health and a few bulk cells. (sector 278 in the first release; sector 277 in the second)
 * 6) Once inside the big green marble fortress, look to either side of the door and you will see a big green monster-faced depression in the wall. Open either of these, both are secrets containing a single box of shells (and two arch-viles). (sector 13)
 * 7) See secret #6. (sector 407, second release only)
 * 8) Only a few yards north of both of the demon-faced walls from secrets #6 and #7 are two more depressions with the same face. These, too, can be opened, revealing a teleporter that leads to one of the parapets on the outer wall of the fortress. Both have an assload of imps, a little bit of ammo and a single medikit. (sector 550 in the first release; sector 2 in the second; the releases have different sectors as secrets)
 * 9) See secret #8. (sector 553, second release only; the releases have different sectors as secrets)
 * 10) In the courtyard a bit beyond secrets #6-#9, go through the teleporter in the middle. You will be taken to a ledge overlooking the courtyard, with three lion-faced walls in front of you. Press the center one, then drop back down to the ground. Go to the northeast corner of the courtyard, where a small secret area has opened. Inside is a megasphere. (sector 63)
 * 11) After going through the blue door, go up the stairs, around the corner, and up another set of stairs straight ahead (not the one on the right yet). In front of you is a dead end with a tall strip of lights and a box of shells. On the left (west) side of the dead end hallway is a misaligned portion of the wooden wall; lower this wall to get a soul sphere. (sector 172 in the first release; sector 171 in the second)
 * 12) After passing through the red door, follow the walkway to the left and up some stairs. At the top, there are blue and black flags hanging on the wall. Notice that the wall between the two flags is misaligned, but cannot be opened. Instead, you need to walk through it, though it at first appears that you cannot do that either. This is because your passage is blocked by some explosive barrels behind the wall. Blindly shoot at this wall until you hear the barrels explode, at which point you can finally walk through. To open the back wall of the newly accessible alcove, press on either of the flags. Inside is another soul sphere, security armor and a computer area map. (sector 462 in the first release along with sector 463 which is only a secret sector in the first release, sector 461 in the second)
 * 13) Near the end of the level is a big, lava-floored room with a bunch of pipes in the ceiling with lava flows coming out of them. Visible high up in a wall at the eastern end of the room is a seemingly unreachable alcove with yet another soul sphere inside. Drop down into the lava on the northern side of this room and make your way to the northeast corner (in a narrow passage between the wall and the walkway). There is a gray teleporter pad in the wall here that takes you up to the supercharge. (sector 681 in the first release, sector 680 in the second)

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

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