Pathways Into Darkness

Part 22

So going back to the green golem dudes, can you kill them after you are poisoned?

Nope. If I shoot them while poisoned, they don't react at all. I guess all they care about is

and whether it's poisoned or not.

Meanwhile, down in the catacombs...

The room we're in has nothing but a save rune, the teleporter back to the previous level, and two doors. Only the left one opens, and through it are a number of teleporters.

Once again, this is a small room with 2 teleporters to elsewhere in the level and a connection to a second, similar room. I sure am glad Bungie learned this sort of repetition is boring level design and avoided it in future games

Let's try the leftmost teleporter first (the leftmost one that doesn't just go to the other teleport hub, at least).

We're dropped off in a dead end. At least it isn't another large room full of monsters.

Ah, there are the monsters.

There and there and there...

Beyond the monsters are more hallways. But something's missing here...

Ah yes. Those guys.

We find a red potion on the way.

The hall terminates at a door.

It leads back to the room we started in, then closes behind us.

The first path through the level.

Let's try the next teleporter.

We're back in another cul-de-sac, but this time the skitters hit us right out of the gate.

Beyond them is a choice. We go right.

At the end, we net a violet potion.

Going left nets us monsters.

And then more monsters.

This path also ends at a door.

It lets us back into the teleporter room and closes behind us. We can go save after each path if we feel like running down the first path again.

The second path.

Now let's go through to the second teleport hub and try the paths available from there.

The third teleporter drops us at a WHAT

THAT'S WHAT MOTHERFUCKER

With that out of the way, we keep going down the hall. If it's anything like the other halls with doors in them that I know...

Who's surprised. Honestly.

(Stopping to taking this screenshot resulted in my getting poisoned. The things I do for you people

)

And this room doesn't even have anything in it

You're not going to catch me with that one again.

OK, maybe you are.

This room is also useless

Let's get this over with.

I'm used to disappointment by now. But at least we're finally done with

That's it? What, did you run out or something?

At least this room has an interesting feature.

The hall dead-ends at a red potion. Was it worth putting up with all that?

Past the last ambush door...

..we are once again returned to the teleport hub.

The complete third path. Only one place left to look.

The fourth and final path beckons.

The fourth path also drops us at the end of a long hall, but for once we're alone.

The skitters are trying to block the hall and pound on me, but I'm already poisoned so they can't do much

The hall leads to a larger area with a ton of monsters and columns for them to hide behind.

There's a teleporter on one side. We'll return to this later.

We can also leave the room through this side passage.

We're back in ambush territory, and they're bigger and more elaborate than before.

Not that it matters

This one slightly redeems itself...

...by giving me a blue potion for my trouble.

There's a second blue potion at the path back to the teleport hub, but we're not going there this time.

The complete fourth path. We're about to jump into the brand new teleporter.

326.7 meters down. That's less than half a meter up from the previous level. If these levels aren't stacked directly on top of each other any more, and there's no way to judge how far a teleporter goes, there's no telling where we could be

Oh, thanks for saving that rune for me!

We go around clearing out the area so no one will disturb our poison recovery and resting.

There's a second save rune about ten yards from the first

Once again, we have more than enough potions to spare one blue one.

Now we're ready to face the rest of this level. First up is a very long hallway full of alcoves for monsters to pop out of.

Sometimes we can't hide in them.

At the north end of the map the hall bends over and continues back down.

Some skitters really don't want me going around that corner.

There's another one of those useless rooms here.

Finally, we reach the end of the hall. A chance to retreat, rest up, and make ammo.

By the time we're ready to go on, it's Wednesday. Two and a half days to save the world.

The next challenge is a set of large rooms where it's easy for monsters to pop out behind you and poison you.

Sometimes I do the popping.

And sometimes there are treats hidden in corners.

Monsters that are already dead when I reach them? I bet that means...

Dead bodies

And is that what I think it is?

Wasn't there supposed to be

in here?

This must be the guy who stole the key from Walter on Feel the Power.

AK-47 HE ammo does more damage than SABOT rounds, but it doesn't work against greater nightmares so I'll stick with the latter. It only takes 5 or 6 hits to kill them anyway, and with fully automatic fire that's not hard to do at all.