What Lies Below-The Crusade for the Old Quater


What Lies Below – NewDark Update, v1.0
by Yandros
Release Date: Oct 29, 2014

Changes
A few original bugs fixed
Most textures and objects upgraded to newer, hi res versions
Darkened ambient light and added fog
Changed ambients
Added Hammer voices from T1 and T3 for variety
Modded and upgraded AI skins
Cutscene reworked a little

Additional (new) Credits for NewDark Version –

Textures
Bitmaps from NewDark demo mission
Nameless Voice - Objects and Textures from EP2
PinkDot - Book
Purgator - Hammer/undead textures
R Soul - Pipes
Vigil - Hi res textures, ripple
Yandros - Everything else new

Sounds
Ambients: Bascule Bridge and Cella by Cities Last Broadcast

Testing
Tannar, Nightwalker and Random Taffer


Original Credits Follow –

All Required scripts are included in the mission ZIP

Setting: Post-T3, in the Old Quarter

Briefing:
It’s been several months since I destroyed Gamall, and life’s been pretty good – I’ve finally been able to semi-retire to a decent apartment in a nicer part of the City. Those tumultuous events apparently drove people throughout the city to religion – or maybe just to service – and as a result, the Hammers having been growing their numbers by leaps and bounds. I have several anonymous benefactors who leave sums of money on my doorstep regularly, I guess a kind of ‘thank you’ for saving the city three times now. I can only guess who they might be, but I suspect at least one of them to be amongst the Hammerite leadership – so when I got a message from the Hammers asking to meet with me, I felt at least minimally obliged to go and hear them out.

“Welcome Garrett, thank thee for coming. I am Brother Palus.”
“What’s this about?”
“With our brotherhood growing in the wake of thy courageous efforts, we have endeavored to reclaim the Old Quarter from the undead hordes, after all these long years.”
“The Old Quarter? So you’re looking to take back the old cathedral, eh?”
“Indeed, it will no doubt need a bit of polishing after years of neglect, but there are many among us who art anxious to return and restore it to its former splendour, Builder be praised.”
“Sounds great, have fun and let me know how it goes.”
“Garrett, in all seriousness, we art in need of thy help to accomplish this goal – in fact we are unlikely to succeed without thy assistance.”
“Boy, this sounds familiar. Well, at least I know the area – but from what I’ve heard lately, the undead are as numerous and nasty as ever over there.”
“Indeed, over the years their numbers and power hath grown – and that be another reason to embark on this quest. Our leaders fear if they continue gaining strength unabated, they couldst one day escape the Old Quarter and overrun the City.”
“OK… so how is it I can help where no one else can?”
“For that, I’ll turn it over to Brother Theten, our historical expert.”
“Thank thee, Brother. Garrett, we’ve done a great deal of studying of historical documents of late, and believe we hath finally uncovered the cause of the so-called ‘Cataclysm’ which led to the fall of the Old Quarter so many years ago. We hath found references to a large tablet covered with strange runic inscriptions, which was brought to the Cathedral shortly before the Cataclysm by Brother Cooper. Apparently, he didst lead an exploratory party which recovered it from some ancient underground tomb.”
“A runic tablet?”
“Indeed, and now we doth believe this tablet to be The Necronymus, and the ancient tomb in which it was found was of an ancient pagan civilization which worshipped death – in fact, the highest ranking members of its society were the accursed necromancers. Filthy heathens! At any rate, unfortunately it doth seem that the Cathedral leader at the time, Brother Tybalt, unwisely - yet unknowingly - chose to store the Necronymus down in the crypts below the Cathedral.”
“And that was bad because…”
“…because the Necronymus hath the power to raise the dead in close proximity. Surely thou dost see the outcome?”
“Yeah, all your old dead Hammer brothers came to life and ran Tybalt and his crew out of the Cathedral. I still fail to see how any of this involves me.”
“I be getting there, Garrett. Even with our new numbers, a frontal assault on the Cathedral wouldst surely cost many lives, and we might not even accomplish our goal. So we seeketh a way to reach the Necronymus from below – reaching the Cathedral crypts through the sewers. Unfortunately, it seems your Keeper friends took it upon themselves to close off access to many parts of that area with their ways – as we understand it, there are runic glyphs to those who know how to see and invoke them.”
“Hmmmm… yes, I know of the glyphs, at least some of them. Now I see what you’re getting at – you need me to open the way for you to sneak in from below and destroy the Necronymus.”
“Precisely. We will have an attack party enter the sewers through Sector 09, and wait for thee near the crypt entrance, which is in Sector 15. We hath scouted ahead, and there be a large swirling glyph seal of some kind blocking our way. Knowing the Keepers, the means of removing that seal is certainly further inside Sector 15, so thou wilt have to enter the sewers in Sector 12 and make thy way to the seal, then open it if thou canst to allow us to storm through and reclaim our heritage. We wilt send small parties near the cathedral in the streets above, to try and draw as many undead out of the cathedral and crypts as we can – but it’s merely a diversion to help the underground plan succeed.”
“Do you at least have some maps or plans of the sewers to help me find my way?”
“Aye. Formal City plans wouldst be better, but we’ve been unable to uncover any. The maps we do have are hand-drawn by my mentor, Brother Irdin, Builder rest his soul. I’ve marked for thee important notes on them. Good luck, old… friend.”
“Yeah. You have any new weapons to help an old thief out?”
“Brother Targa hath been developing some, go and seek him out.”
“Right, I’ll do that. See ya on the other side…”


Thanks to:

Primary Advisor – Freddy Fox

Creative Consultants – FreddyFox, Moghedian

Technical Consultants – NamelessVoice, Telliamed, FreddyFox

Testing
Nightwalker, FreddyFox, Sluggs, Eshaktaar, Moghedian, Peter Smith, Dafydd, The Night Terror, Ottoj55, SlyFoxx

Special thanks to:
Telliamed for building a custom script module to work around a bug
FreddyFox for finding and fixing the glyph puzzle bug
Eshaktaar for brand new objects and help with texturing


Tools
Telliamed – Custom Scripts and ParchEd (an invaluable resource)

Textures
Vigil (http://www.washboardabs.net/thief/news/)
David Guerrea
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Flare bitmap: http://tim.fxhome.com/tutorials/optic01/cobalt_crash.jpg
Star bitmaps: Yandros
Water texture: I found it somewhere a long time ago... don't know where, sorry...

Objects
Dave Guerrea – New bloodstains, object-ified by Yandros
Eshaktaar – Lamps, new levers, new Keeper medallion
NamelessVoice – New water system is based on his fog from Hazelshade Cemetery
Ottoj55 – Pipe groups, machinery
RSoul – Pipes
Targa – Hammer scroll, chains, rope crate, desk and chair
The one true thief – New bloodstains
The Watcher – Lamps, turbines
Vigil – Light shafts, Keeper glyphs, railings, crates and barrels
Vigil & Yandros – Iron gates
Yandros – Hammer banner

Voice acting by SlyFoxx

AI meshes and skins mostly from the HMDK, some are new work by Yandros

Sounds
Ambients: Thief Deadly Shadows
Incidental Music: Wojciech Kilar - Agnus Dei