18/11/97 ================================================================================ Title : Haunted Revenge Filename : Haunt.bsp Author : Tiarnan Breffni Email Address : JBreffni@dial.pipex.com Description : One new Quake level Additional Credits : Ben Morris for WorldCraft, and Id Software for Quake. ================================================================================ * Play Information * Single Player : Yes Cooperative : Yes (4 starts) Deathmatch : No (Tell me if you want to play Deathmatch on this level) Difficulty Settings : No New Sounds : No New Graphics : No Demos Replaced : None Transparent Water : Yes * Construction * Base : One new level from scratch Editor(s) used : WorldCraft Known Bugs : Scrags sometimes fly through walls. I personally think this adds to the gameplay, as one minute you think your safe, and the next you've got a group of Scrags hovering around you. Build Time : About a month Compile Machine : P200 w/ 32MB RAM QBSP Time : 565 seconds Light (-extra) Time : 487 seconds Vis (-level 4) Time : 394 seconds Brushes : 1369 Entities : 428 Models : 59 Average leafs visible : 78 * How to Use * Create a directory into your quake\id1 directory called maps, and put haunt.bsp into it. Start Quake with the following parameters: Quake +map haunt If you run into any problems, contact me via e-mail at the address above. This map has been compiled to support transparent water under GlQuake. To enable this option, type "r_wateralpha 0.3" at the console (without quotes). * Other Info * I've not much to say about this level, other than I hope you enjoy playing this level as much as I enjoyed making it. It is a hard level, but I meant it to be that way, so keep trying until you succeed. Deathmatch would have taken a long time to implement, and I wanted to get this level out of the way as quickly as possible (although never at the expense of gameplay), so I did not include this option. However, if you would would really like to Deathmatch on this level, contact me and I'll produce a deathmatch version. Please read the story, as you will understand and enjoy the level more if you do. If you enjoyed this level, tell me! I would really like to hear from people who have played my level, feedback will help me improve this and other levels that I produce. E-Mail me at: JBreffni@dial.pipex.com * Other maps from author * Frg01 - Blood on the walls, a Deathmatch only level. At the present moment, the above level is only available at Compuserve's Action forum. However, I hope to have it available at ftp.cdrom.com soon. * Copyright / Permissions * Authors may NOT use this level as a base to build additional levels. You are NOT allowed to commercially exploit this level, i.e. put it on a CD or any other electronic format that is sold for money without my explicit written permission! This includes magazine cover CDs. You MAY distribute this file through any electronic network (internet, FIDO, local BBS, etc.), provided that you include this file and leave archive intact. * Where to get this map * ftp.cdrom.com Compuserve's Action forum (Go action) * Story * The soft sand crumbled away beneath the leathered boot of Dan, as he reached the top of the dune he had been climbing for what seemed like hours, but was no more than ten minutes. The desert liked to do that, and was good at it too, bending time, doubling it, tripling it. Dan wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm, then looked beneath him at the view below. At first he could not see much, for the sun was staring him straight in his eyes. But he tilted his head forward, and the sun vanished behind the rim of his peaked hat. Now he could see the site. As he had guessed, the site has much smaller than it seemed from ground level. On the ground, the alleyways and archways seemed to go on forever. But from this height, Dan observed that the site looked little more than a large sand castle. But large sand castle it may look like, but this was one of the most important archaelogical sites. Perhaps the most important. By a long shot. And well it might be. Dan had spent nearly ten years looking for this site. He had visited hundreds of libarys across the world, read thousands of books for information. All because of a story his Dad read to him when he was a kid. A story about an ancient city, a city which existed thousands of years ago, but the exact location of it was unknown. Ever since he was read this story, he had been fascinated by the thought of an ancient city, lying beneath the ground, somewhere around the world, waiting for someone to find it. And now he had. The ancient city stretched out before him. He estimated that they had dug up only a small section of the city, and there was still alot to go. He reveled in the thought of all the history they were about to dig up. 'They' were a team of the best archaeologists money could buy. Not that they wanted money, or needed it, for that matter. A find of this significance brought hundreds of people wanting to help out. Dan hand picked a dozen people who were going to accompany him to the newly found site. And one of them, Steve Richards, was calling out to him from where he had been working for the last couple of days. He was working in area were not alot had been found, and several times Dan asked him to join the others on other, richer, sites. But Steve refused, telling Dan that he would eventually stumble upon something. And it looked like he was right. Steve was shouting and waving his arms furiously, trying to catch Dan's attention. And he had succeeded. Dan hurried down the slope of the Dune, curious as to what Steve could be so excited about. When Dan finally arrived, Steve was crouched down, examining something on the ground in front of him. Dan peered over Steve's shoulder to try and see what it was, but Steve's shadow overcast whatever lay on the ground. Finally, Steve noticed the presence of Dan. "You're here at last! What did you do, crawl here?" asked Steve, glancing up at Dan. "No, but I felt like crawling. So what have you got there?" asked Dan, once again peering over Steve's shoulder. "Ah, I have here something rather special, something I think you'll find quite interesting..." Steve shuffled out of the way of Dan's gaze, and revealed the object. It was a book. Small, almost certainly made of leather, with a gold spine. It was old as well. But it wasn't the appearance of the book that made it old to Dan, it radiated oldness from inside. Dan's heart was thumping like crazy inside his chest as he imagined what might be inside. The temptation to pick it up there and then and start reading it nearly overpowered him, but the professional within him withheld this urge, and Dan shouted over to one of the people working nearby. "John!" Dan shouted. "What?" shouted John, looking up from were he was digging. "Go get me one of them plastic containers for me!" "Sure." replied John, getting up and dusting his hands. "How big?" "Big enough to hold a good sized book." replied Dan. "No problem." John walked away. "Quite a find eh?" said Steve. "Sure is. Maybe the biggest." replied Dan. "Who knows what we'll learn from it..." "Hopefully we will, in a few days" Those days turned out to be weeks. Dan sent the book back to his lab in Texas, and he should have joined it soon after, only for some strange discoveries on the site. The first discovery was a gun. A shotgun, to be more precise. It was very old, covered with rust and nearly falling to pieces, but a gun it was. During the daily get together in the food tent, there was fierce debate as to how it got there. One man, Gerry, thought that perhaps it had been left there by an army patrol, who were perhaps training in that area. This was contradicted by a woman called Laura, who claimed she was an expert on modern weapons. She claimed that she had never before seen a shotgun remotely like it before, certainly the army didn't use one. This prompted a conspiracy debate to flare up. Perhaps the army had hidden the existence of this shotgun. Perhaps there were hundreds of new weapons the army has hiding, and so on and so on. Half way through the debate, Dan retired to his tent, suffering from a headache. The appearance of the gun had baffled him, like it had the others, and the only rational explanation he could think for it was maybe one of the team had planted it, in a practical joke. This seemed hardly likely, as everyone of the members of the team were as professional as he was, and there was no way he would ever plant a gun on a site this important. Ever. Oh it's hopeless, he thought. Hopefully, as he rested his head against his pillow, thinks can't get much worse... As a matter of fact, they did. The very next day. Laura unearthed a clawed hand. A massive hand. With massive claws. When Dan saw it he groaned. What next?, he thought. Luckily for Dan, there wasn't anything else, and the entire team agreed that not a word would be said about the gun or the clawed hand. Dan reckoned their secret would stay safe for a day. Maybe two. But Dan didn't care, for right know he was sitting on a black leather chair. Directly in front of him was a sheet of glass. Dan stared through the glass into a sealed room. In the middle of the room was a table and upon the table was the book. Suspended above the book was a robotic arm. Around Dan, an assortment of computers hummed, as well as the lights above him. But Dan couldn't hear any of this. He couldn't hear anything. He could just see the book and imagine the history inside. But he wasn't going to be imagining for much longer, for in a few seconds, he would be reading. "You ready?" came a voice from behind Dan. Dan spun around and looked at the person. At first he didn't recognise him, his brain was still thinking about the book. Eventually he clicked. "Yeah, I'm ready. The only question is, are you? You've been fiddling around on them computers for hours. How much longer?" asked Dan. Ken sat down on a leather chair beside Dan, and placed his hands on a set of controls in front of him. "Hey, it was only ten minutes. Anyway, do you want to get this wrong?" replied Ken. "Of course not. Come on, let's do it." replied Dan. They both stared in at the book. It had been soaked into a special formula which would strengthen the pages. When Ken had told Dan about this, he had suddenly been sure that the book had been destroyed, that somehow, things had gone wrong, and his dreams were dashed. All this was nonsense, he concluded a second later, when the feeling had past. Now both men were concentrating hard on the book. After what seemed like an age, Ken began moving the robotic arm suspended above the book. Slowly, too slowly for Dan, it creeped towards the book. Above Dan's head was a monitor, which showed the view from the arm. He quickly glanced up, and he saw the black leather cover of the book draw closer. Dan returned his gaze to the room. The robotic arm has now very close to the book, and as Dan watched, two fingers appeared at the end of the arm. They reached down and slowly prised open the cover of the book. Dan shot a look at the monitor above him, and found out what lay on the first page. Nothing. There was nothing. The page was blank. And the next. And next one after that. As the fingers slowly turned each page, Dan slowly sank into a pit of depression. He had never felt this disappointed in all his life. Slowly Ken worked his way through the book, but Dan didn't pay any attention. A numbness had seized his mind, and all trains of thought stopped. Dan remained like this for the next couple of hours, until finally, Ken reached the last two pages. "Hey, look at this!" exclaimed Ken. Dan was not slow to respond. He whipped his head to look at the monitor. What he saw there nearly made his heart explode. It was writing. Two full pages of it. And it was english. "I can't make it out" said Dan. "Could you magnify it?" "Sure." replied Ken. He got up from his chair and went over to one of the computers. He fiddled around a bit, and the image on the monitor slowly got bigger. After a few seconds Dan was able to start reading. Diary, Ever since I was given this diary by my parents, I have not bothered to write anything into it. I know I did it because I was lazy, always was. I never tryed to help my father out on on the farm, or my mother in the house. Even though I was an only child, it still never occured to me to anything to help them. I feel ashamed thinking about it now. But now my mother and father don't need any help no more. They are dead, lying in pools of their own blood, a look of terror written forever on their faces. And a part of me, a part of me deep inside, shouts out, you killed them! You didn't help! If you had of helped, maybe your father would have been able to pay the Kaydors! The Kaydors. I shouldn't give them the honour of writing their name. They have done nothing but kill us, and suck us dry of all resources. I feel a burning rage well up inside me, and I feel I will surely explode if do not find some way of venting it. Sitting on the table beside me is my father's gun. As far as I know, he is the only member of our tribe to own one. He never told me were he got it from. The only people I know who have a gun remotely like it are the Kaydors. And know I shall soon go, go and vent my raging revenge upon the Kaydor's. Their King has left his castle with his main army, off to terrorise and murder more people no doubt. He has left only a light guard behind at the castle. And as I sit here, writing this, I can surely feel the presence of my father and mother. And I also know that it is they that make the revenge burn inside me. My revenge is haunted by the spirits of my mother and father. I must go now, I can no longer delay the inevitable. I must and vent my haunted revenge. The beginning... Haunted Revenge - The story (c) Tiarnan Breffni 1997. Thanx for reading, now go play the level!!