The Let's Play Archive

Pathways Into Darkness

by HB

Part 15

This is the first thing we see when we drop down the purple ladder. Welcome to The Labyrinth.

The Labyrinth is full of blank metal spheres that float around in midair and chase you around. They move much faster than I do.

And if they get too close...

They only do 0.4 points of damage (and I have 16 health by now), so they're more of a nuisance than a real threat.

They also fall to 3 MP-41 bullets. Not that conserving ammo is important any more

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

We've explored a good bit and taken some damage, so we retreat back to Beware Of Low-Flying Nightmares to rest and harvest ammo.

Now let's go back down to The Labyrinth.

As soon as we get back to-

The spheres are still here, but...

This isn't- but it was the same ladder- where...

Well, that ladder still goes up to BOLFN, so we have a safety net. Let's go down a third time.



The Labyrinth is not like the other mazes in the game: it's randomly regenerated each time we visit it. We can't map it out because if we leave the level the map is cleared and won't be the same when we return.

There are only 2 things that stay the same on this level. The center of the map always contains this.

The Violet Crystal shoots lightning (read: flashes the screen purple). This will hit every monster on the screen for a good bit more damage than the Orange Crystal did. We have to save this crystal for an important fight near the end of the game, so I'll try not to use it. Having unlimited ammo helps there.

Welcome to the ballroom


The other thing that stays the same is the ladder locations. We came down the northeast ladder to get here. The northwest ladder leads back to Happy Happy Carnage Carnage; it's the purple one I skipped several updates ago. The two south ladders lead to brand new levels. We're going down the one I'm nearest.

We arrive in a square room with 4 doors and a ton of columns.

What's behind the doors?

Figures.

We're in an octagonal room filled with columns and monsters.

While circling, we find another member of our team. The mission really isn't going very well, is it?

The guns and magazine are all empty. No wonder he's dead. And I still have no M-16 or Colt ammo

Time to whip out the Yellow Crystal...

He also says this for Sean or Darren.



It sounds like something really bad happened to the rest of my team.

The complete area I'm in.

At the north end there's an open area with a save rune and 2 doors. The left door stays shut when I approach it.

The right door opens onto an ambush.

Not nearly enough of one, though

When I step through the door, it locks shut behind me. Nowhere to go but forward.

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