Island of Iron pt 1: FORTRESS OF STEEL
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January 2003
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Author : John D. Head (John D.)
Contact Info : mmafreak@att.net
Homepage : None
Date of Release : Final Release (English version) January 25, 2003
Description : My 4th T2 FM!

Story: (sequel to A Brawl in the Tombs)

Damn! What a wild night! Passing through
the Thieves Hideout, and making my exit
by way of the river valley, I soon snuck
back into town and met with my contact
in the area. The thieves whose base their
Chief, a man named Willy, allowed me
support and safe passage through were
there too. To put it mildly, they were
pissed off. When they had raided
the tombs, they found that I already cleaned
the place out! All their growling about
having taken so many risks for nothing
quickly faded when I gave the their cut
of the profits that I had promised Willy
in order to work with them.
(Actually I let them
have a bigger percentage than I originally
planned, but I have enough enemies
already so I wanted to keep those guys
happy for safety's sake) I gave
the Dark Sword I had found in the
tomb of Lysander to Willy as well as the
Gold Skull I found in the Hammer tombs,
to thank him for his support.
After that, everyone was satisfied and
I make a quick exit with my health intact.
(and still enough gold to make a nice
contribution to my retirement fund.)
Making my way back to the city, I
thought about the terrifying
things I had witnessed.

I knew the tomb job was going to be risky,
but my little trip into the underground
tombs of Lithscon
made getting the eye out of the Haunted
Cathedral seem like an easy task.
Sneaking past the undead, I had found
a secret way into the Hammer controlled
area of the tombs. The Hammers and
their hired thugs had gathered quite
a bit of treasure from the disturbed
tombs and locked them away in a secured
room, but with most of their men manning
the 'front lines' it was a simple matter
to sneak in and fill my loot bag
(it was a bit more than I needed to
carry, but after moving all of those f***ing
steel plates I hauled to the machines
of Soulforge to manufacture the tools
of Karras's destruction, I found my
burden to be rather light in comparison!)

Despite the frightening experience
of dodging bands of undead in the rooms
and tunnels, my most unnerving discoveries
had to do with the living....
After finding a group of Mech Watchers
and turrets guarding a well lit tunnel
which had been dug there from the basement
of one of the local nobles, I snuck
around until I discovered a secret
entrance to the basement, which the local
thieves had discovered not long before
the crap hit the fan. Entering, I found
the body of Ken, one of the local thieves,
who had decided to make his own little
treasure hunt into the tombs before his
buddies from the Thieves hideout made
their own loot grab. Entering the
basement through the secret way, I discovered
it to be crawling with Mechanists.
And then I found it....A small room in the
basement, locked away even from other
Mechanists, that had been converted into
a macabre laboratory of horrors.....undead
kept in cages or bolted to tables for
all kinds of ungodly experiments!
Opening a wall safe in there, I found out
who was behind it all, a Mechanist
called Friend Arbez....

I was all too familiar with the man;
not long before, in another one of my
rather adventuresome forays, this time
in an underwater base the Mechs were using
as a staging point in their current
operations on the Island of Iron, I found
references to him in several notes.
Apparently our 'Friend' is a rather psycho
character, responsible for the murders
of several servants and even fellow Mechanists
who had stepped out of line. From what
I found in his notes, our "friend" used
to be one of the mages of the Hand Brotherhood.
Looks like he was too crazy and ruthless
in his experiments even for the Hand
(sick bastard has even used children!),
so they kicked him out. Now he is in the ranks
of the Mechanists, helping to advance their
technology while pursuing his own sinister
agenda......When I left the whole mess,
I had a sick feeling in my gut that I
would be dealing with this character soon...

And here I am, standing on the shoreline
a few miles from the seaside village, just
outside the City. It's been nearly two
months since my little trip to Lithscon.
After laying low in the City for a while,
while the Wardens fought each other.
Sheriff Mosely had finally
been able to restore a semblance of order.
With things calm again in the City, I could
finally come out from under a rock and
get down to business. Journeying
to the seaside village I began preparations.
After my last trip to the Island of Iron
seeming ages ago, I always knew in my
heart I would have to back there....
after seeing the great castle and
factory there, I knew that untold riches
just had to be lying somewhere inside...
(if you could just get around the resident
undead horrors!) But this time it's not
for the money.... it's for blood!
I've seen to much terror, too much tragedy,
too much horror in my lifetime
to sit back and do nothing
while 'friend' Arbez is doing Builder-knows-
what in his terrible experiments he is now
undoubtedly doing on the Island of Iron.
The Keepers have been showing me things
in their books as of late...never
telling me everything of course...
but from what I can gather, there's
some big, bad events happening real soon!

When I first met Constantine, I just thought
he was an eccentric art collector. When
I met Karras when he a Hammer
Priest, I just thought he was an eccentric
but inventive engineer. In both cases
I ended up nearly dying at their hands
of their henchmen. I've just heard
and read about Arbez, and I KNOW he's
trouble looming up ahead for myself and
a lot of innocent people.........

He's going down.......Tonight!

From information I have stolen
from the Hammers and Mechanists,
and various clues
from the Keepers,
(who have been unusually active
in helping me) I know that the
center of Mechanist activity on the
Island of Iron is located in
what is called the Fortress of Steel.

The Fortress lies on the very tip
of the narrow southeastern peninsula of
the Island of Iron with its back almost
to the jagged edge of the sea-cliffs.
Although the location
is at the opposite end of the Island
from the old hammer facilities,
the Mechanists chose it because of it's
natural defensibility, plus it's easy to
reach with men and supplies from Markham's
Isle. Reconnaissance of the area revealed
none of the large graveyards and underground
tombs that honeycombed the rest of the
Island (explains the large numbers of undead
there, apparently the place was used as
some kind of secure burial ground for
centuries before the Hammers and others
began living and working in the area.)

From a intelligence dossier I lifted
from Thoren's headquarters on my nocturnal
visit, the Mechanists had initially
planned to sweep through the Island
in a matter of days, destroying the
undead and securing it's mineral
resources for themselves. (yeah
that's just what we all need, Mechanists
getting more ore to create new killer
toys in the titanic factories
of New Soulforge.) Doubly bad with
Brother Cavador back in the mix as
a member of good standing in the 'Mechanist
Council'-Karras's successors which
consisted of the best and brightest of
that crazy bunch. So Victoria didn't
kill him after all........I just
hope he didn't get a good look at
my face when I snatched his ass
back in the Lost City....

The Mechanists found out the hard
way, that dark forces are not
so easily overthrown, especially
in large numbers! After a series
of titanic battles and heavy losses,
the Mechs have only gained so far
the possession of the area surrounding
the Fortress and some besieged
outposts in the southern half of
the Island.

I'm sure Friend Arbez is there,
in the heart of the Fortress,
safely tucked away doing Builder-knows-what
.....getting to him wont be easy.
The Fortress is a fairly big place,
and the outside is supposed to
be lit up like the sun, with
a batteries of watchers, turrets,
bots and fanatics to keep away
unwanted guests.

But there's another way in....
The Keepers tell me that underneath
the fortress lies a small sea-cave
that is connected to the Fortress
by an elevator shaft drilled through
the rock. The Mechanists channel
supplies from Markham's Isle and
their aquatic facilities through
the tunnel. Because the cave's
only entrance is by way of the sea,
the Mech's haven't placed as many
defenses there since zombies
aren't known for their ability
to swim. That's where I'll
make my entry. Since I'll
be in deep in Mech territory
with pure stealth being the only
way to survive, I'm leaving
the sword behind....If I can
catch Arbez alone and unaware..
seven inches of double-edged
steel in the form of my
trusty dagger should be enough
to express my feelings about his
diabolical activities!

It's time.....TO KILL!

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*Playing Information*

Game : Thief 2 TMA
Mission Title : Island of Iron pt 1
File name : miss20
Difficulty Settings : Yes
Equipment Store : No
Map : No
Auto Map : No
New Graphics : HELL YES! From Dromed Deluxe!
New Sounds : A little voice work of my own..
Multiple Languages : Not in this version
Briefing : No
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*Construction*

Base : From Scratch (from my evil
thoughts hehe)
Build Time : Just over 3 months
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*Loading Info*

Copy into FM folder and run Darkloader
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*Special Thanks*

To EVERYONE who has given me support and encouragement
by TTLG forum or E-mail! Especially with the
terrible framerate problems of the first
beta (thanks to amievil and Domarius for ideas
on how to fix it).

To the guys at the TTLG editing forum
a BIG THANK YOU! There have been literally
dozens of people who have given me helpful
tips there! Without your help
THIS LEVEL WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE!

Here's a few of them:

Avalon-creator of the Thief Objective Wizard
Thorin Oakenshield- T2 Object List
Hit Diety-FX list, various tips
raestel-showing me what the monolog was (VERY HELPFUL TOOL!)
d'Spair and Mopgoblin-info on Quest Var traps-now I have my
FIRST INVISIBLE OBJECTIVE!
GayleSaver, YcatX, Domarius amievil
and many, many others!
THANK YOU!

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Before I forget! This mission was created with the
Help of Rob Hicks Dromed Deluxe!

I used many textures and objects from DEDx in this mission,
Since I didnt really keep track of what all I used,
I'm just going to put the full credit list right here!

Antonio Salazar - Web Master and Goad
AWang - Sounds
BlackRuin - Sculptor
Clich?man - Unknown Contribution
Daemonite - Sculptor and Artist
DarkArrow - Sculptor and Artist
DemonReaver - Artist
Dhin - Texture Converter
Epithumia - Web Host
Ernie - Sculptor and Artist
Gaylesaver - Script Guru
Nameless Voice - Sculptor and Artist
Phantom - Sculptor and Artist
Schwaa - Sculptor Guru and Artist
ShadowTemplar - Sculptor and Artist
Von Eins - Sculptor and Artist
YcatX - Sculptor, Artist and Inspirational Madman

Thanks Guys!

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*Tips and Bugs*

Best to be quiet....making a lot of noise is a quick way to
die!

I set up a simple track for the bots to follow,
they dont seen to listen to me too well, so they
tend to wander around! watch your back!

You should have a couple of new items in your inventory,
dagger, flash arrows, to access them you have to use
the weapon select keys. (mine are set to - and + keys)

I was told that the voice work is a little loud,
unfortunatley I had already deleted my original wavs I
had before I turned up the volume, so I left the
sounds as they were. Think I got the spelling
errors corrected though.

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Special thanks to all of my betatesters!
Big round of applause for...

Nightwalker
Hawkette
Glenn Italiano
Jericho
LJT
Sexypat
Dinksmallwood

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*Copyright Information*

Distribution of this level is allowed as long as it is free
and the package kept intact. You may not include this level
to any map pack without my permission (Komag is free to
put it on his FM CD's though) No one may edit and re-distribute
this mission without my express permission. If permission
is given, full credit must be given to the people who produced
the artwork and models used from DEDx as well as the author.

This level was not made and is not suported by Looking Glass
Studios or Edios Interactive

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!....If you start babbaling 'The Words
of Karras, The Words of Karras' uncontrollably IT'S NOT
MY FAULT!