The Abyss

Physical Description / Layout
The area at the bottom of the elevator is, in essence, the main abyss area. The cavern is large – far larger than the player can see. There are a trail of bodies and skeletons however, leading from the bottom of the elevator and towards what appears to be a much smaller cave. This cave leads through a winding set of routes (which should be fairly long) towards a smaller hole in the ground at its end, which transitions deeper into the Abyss Level 2. Along the way there are two ‘choke’ points, each with a very strong monster that acts as a ‘guardian’ or ‘boss’ of sorts.

There is a second route here that becomes visible – either by way of torches or rays of light – should the player have the ring gained from the Silent Room. This leads to an area transition that goes into the Panopticon’s Chamber Level 1.

Mood, Lighting, Look & Feel
The mood and lighting for the Abyss is pretty similar to that of the Dungeons – dark, scary, sounds everywhere with things seemingly moving in the darkness around the player.

Important Locations
First Choke Point

The first choke point is pretty much where much of the cave leads to – it’s actually fairly large compared to the narrow bits. It’s also where a human sized creature is standing and guarding the exit. Skeletons and bones of the various guards lie around here, scattered about.

The first boss will be fairly tough for the player – but it has to be balanced to his stats. Regardless, he should be able to get through it with some challenge. Within the bodies and remains he can find several healing salves and such with which to recover.

Second Choke Point

Second choke point is exactly the same as the first, save that its probably a lot thinner. The boss here will be somewhat different – slightly tougher for one; but it has a very low detection range. So if the player is smart enough, he can probably sneak around it without forcing a fight.

Major Events

No major events apart from the above boss battles.

Physical Description / Layout
Level 2 is a bit more straightforward than Level 1. There isn’t much here but for the bloody remains of many people – some skeletons are human, others unknown. Its clear that someone tried to go into here before and didn’t succeed. There are more blocked-off caverns, though, possibly leading to somewhere else and indicating that at one point this entire tunnel network was much, much larger.

There are two main features here: a giant cliff face (or river if the cliff is not possible) that is basically impassable to the player. To get past, he’ll need to go to one of the side caves and find his way to a room with a large creature and a natural bridge. Again, he can either sneak his way through or fight it – although it’ll be a fair bit of a challenge.

At the end of the other bridge are much smaller creatures; skeletons and swarms of monsters that will slow the player’s progress towards the end. It’s only a brief segment, though, before he manages to get to the exit leading to Level 3

The mood, lighting and other aspects of this level are pretty much the same as before.

Physical Description / Layout
Level 3 of the Abyss is the last level before the machine. This level is basically the longest and most intense of all the others. It is essentially a really, really long, wide corridor, split up into four segments by specific choke points or ‘rooms’. When a player enters a room, the corridor behind can be sealed off by rolling a boulder over it. These rooms serve as ‘check points’ and there are a total of three of them, each one connected by a long, winding corridor. At the very end of the corridor, beyond the third room, lies a tunnel that leads to the Machine.

Major Events
There is something to be noted here: by and large this is a rolling crescendo area. Soon after the player enters, creatures (we can decide on specific ones later) are going to swarm in from the passageway behind him, giving chase. While not as strong as the player, their numbers give them significant amount of hitting power vs the player such that he will be overrun if he doesn’t flee towards the rooms. He can stay and try to fight – but they’ll respawn infinitely, meaning he’ll eventually die.

Each of the rooms holds bodies like in the floors above – amidst these bodies are remains the player can use to heal up and move on. There are three such crescendo events in total – one for the first three sections of corridor. The final fourth section is quiet, exiting into an area transition to the machine’s pit.

The Machine’s Pit
This is the final resting place of the machine – how it came here is somewhat questionable, but there it is. This entire area is basically one round room that is fairly gigantic. A small lake of water acts as a ‘moat’ around the small piece of land where the machine lies in a crater (not sure if this is possible with the tile sets, though). Either way, this place is surprisingly quiet and peaceful, save for the machine’s hum in the center.

There is no boss, no creatures – not even a whisper of anything. It should be so silent here that the player must question if he has his speakers turned on or not. Even the ambient sounds of his own movements is somewhat dullened, if that’s possible.

For the most part, it’s just you and the machine (and the Golem if you did the Society quest tree).

A land bridge connects you from the entrance and to the Machine. Walking upto it and interacting it will pop up a dialogue option which will indicate the type of action you wish to do – which if you’ve finished any of the quest trees is basically one of the three options – i.e. try to fix it, plant the bomb and run or have the Golem pick it up.

Doing any of these will trigger the game end and the cut scene that’ll follow. There are no other events, nothing else the player can do. He cannot go back up if he desires – the entry way is blocked until the machine is dealt with. This is the end, the finale, the conclusion, etc, etc, etc.