Temple of Vandora

Temple of Vandora is the thirteenth map in Unreal's single player game.
 * Author : Shane Caudle
 * Description
 * The player's second visit to a Nali temple brings him to the Temple of Vandora, Goddess of Lightning. After spending some time in Mercenary territory, the player finds himself in Skaarj occupied lands once more, and the torchlit hallways of the Temple of Vandora don't offer the player a warm welcome.

Walkthrough
''This walkthrough was completed on Medium difficulty. Creature and item placements may differ on other difficulty settings.''

Beyond Terraniux and Noork's Elbow lies the once stately Temple of Vandora, the Nali goddess of lightning. This temple, though evidently still used up to the point at which it was overrun by the Skaarj, seems damaged, almost ruined. Somehow that just doesn't follow.

You start in whichever staircase you left Noork's Elbow by. The staircases sweep up round in a curve. If you follow your staircase, you will reach a crossroads.

At this crossroads, go first down the steps towards the locked main front doors. Niches here contain an Eightball Gun and a can of 12 Eightballs. Collect what you require, then back up the steps, across the crossroads and through a doorway to an outside area.

As you go into the damaged outdoor area, which has three exits (including your entrance) and a similar number of Nali Healing Fruit, you will be barred into this area as you are attacked by three small but fast CaveMantas and a SkaarjScout from above. Kill 'em all.

When the SkaarjScout is dead, the two end exits will be opened, leaving the side exit locked. Go first back through the doorway you came through and shine a light into the shadowy corner on the left; you will see a ramp that you can climb to get up on to the SkaarjScout's balcony, where there is a can of 12 Eightballs.

Return to the floor of outdoor area and take the other open exit now. You will be in a junction with a Stinger by a human corpse and a LesserBrute who attacks from the right. Kill the LesserBrute, then go up his corridor. You will see a barred exit to a small outdoor valley, but the bars won't budge, so you'll have to take the other route.

Stairs will spiral down to a pool at the bottom. A Nali here will summon you - unless the Nali in Noork's Elbow was killed that is, in which event he may be fearful and bowing.

You have to clear the area before following the Nali, so descend the stairs partly and hop across to the corridor at the bottom without getting close enough to start him on his run. Follow the corridor into an area where a SkaarjScout whom you should kill is on patrol. Then, make a left and follow the corridors into a room with an altar and huge, cyan blue torches at the top of a flight of stairs. Go up the steps and kill the huge, angry SkaarjBerserker who jumps down from a balcony above.

Return to the Nali and follow him now. He will lead you to a secret door which he opens to reveal a Super Health Pack (don't collect it yet as you are about to get another and this one is more accessible), then he will lead you up to the altar with the two cyan blue torches. Go behind the altar to get a can of 12 Eightballs and two Nali Healing Fruit.

Go back to the room where you met the SkaarjScout, via Tarydium Shards in the connecting corridor, and shoot open the chest in this area to reveal a 25kg can of Tarydium Sludge. Then, since you are now relatively free to roam at your leisure, return to the staircase where you first encountered that Nali.

Alcoves around the staircase contain a Nali Healing Fruit and two Flares. By the pool at ground level are a Nali Healing Fruit and a can of 12 Eightballs. Collect what you need, then dive into the pool.

Kill any Devilfish you find swimming here and descend until you see a tunnel off to the side. Enter this natural earth tunnel and follow it. You will soon see bars blocking the tunnel ahead, but look carefully and you will see an opening in the earth to the right. Go through and surface in a small cave where there is a Super Health Pack and a Dispersion Pistol Powerup. Collect, then return to the main pool and climb out. Follow the corridor once more, coming again to the junction room where you killed the SkaarjScout.

Make a right this time and follow the next area, until you come to a flight of steps down to the left and doors to a sleeping chamber on the right. Enter the sleeping chamber but watch out for the SkaarjTrooper who grabs a GES Biorifle and starts hurling goop at you. Your Dispersion Pistol is quite powerful now (mine was power 4) so try it out...

Kill the Trooper and collect the GES Biorifle as he drops it. Then, raid the bunks for other goodies including 12 Eightballs and two clusters of 40 Tarydium Shards. A chest here contains a useful box of 10 Flak Shells. Now, leave and descend the sweeping steps opposite; soon, as you pass a Nali Healing Fruit in the corridor, you can enter another sleeping chamber on the left with an Assault Vest plus chests containing a Flare and 25 Kilos of Tarydium Sludge. Collect and leave the chamber.

Take a left and go through into a room lit by a red torch on the wall. You will probably be spotted by a SkaarjScout patrolling the balcony here, so dispose of it with a suitable implement of destruction. Nothing else of interest in this area, so go down the steps ahead into the next one. You will see water ahead and steps to the right. If you go straight on at this point you will be ambushed, so instead climb the steps and kill the SkaarjWarrior lurking on the balcony. Whilst on the balcony, collect the Tarydium Shards here and look at the barred entrance here. Read the nearby sign [1].

Well, nowhere to go up here, so go back down the steps and along towards the water.

You will be in a kind of indoor dock; there is a boat tethered to a jetty, which you will use in due course, but first go towards the far end of the dock (there is a Nali Healing Fruit on the way if you need it) and through the short dark corridor at the far end to deal with an ambush lurking over the water. There are two airborne Gasbags here. They have a powerful attack and can dodge projectiles, but on Medium skill are still succeptible to a single well-placed ASMD Combo. Kill these Gasbags and return to the boat, then climb aboard and enjoy the ride...

After a short trip round the pool you will land at another small jetty on which there are empty barrels. Climb onto the main stone floor via the Nali Healing Fruit here. Collect from this immediate area a can of 12 Eightballs and a box of Razor Blades (Razorjack ammo).

On this stone platform there is a door into a large pillared room, and a stone bridge across the water. Cross the bridge and you will see closed gates ahead with a sign above [2].

Locked. So, cross the bridge again and enter the large room. At the far end of this room is a button and two clusters of 40 Tarydium Shards; collect the shards but don't press the button yet. A SkaarjWarrior is on patrol on a walkway above you at this end of the room. Kill the Skaarj then collect the ASMD that he drops. Then, climb either of the ramps behind the pillars up on to the walkway. There is a sleeping chamber on either side of the room here; go first to the one on the right and open the doors.

Inside, a SkaarjTrooper wields a Stinger. Kill the Skaarj and collect the Stinger that he drops, then raid containers to get a Nali Fruit Seed. If you investigate the bunks you will find a Flashlight and an ASMD Core. Go along to the other sleeping chamber and kill the SkaarjTrooper here who has nothing more than a Dispersion Pistol. Collect Bandages from a table and a Health Pack from a bunk.

Return to the large room with pillars and now press the button. Gates open from in front of the Torch of Tranquility over the bridge. Leave the room and cross the bridge, but watch out for the badass SkaarjBerserker who has spawned here.

Approach the now revealed but dead torch and press the floor plate. A bolt of purple comes down and strikes the torch, which erupts in a huge purple flame, to the accompaniment of an earth tremor.

You are ready to move on now, but first collect the Health Pack and Force Field from behind the Torch of Tranquility. Make your own way back to the dock, either by the water or by following the stone walkway clockwise round the pool (anticlockwise is a dead end). If you enter the water, watch out for Devilfish; note that for each one killed another is spawned.

Back at the dock, go underwater. An underwater tunnel beneath the jetty leads to a cubby-hole where you can surface to collect a Flak Cannon from a dead Nali. Return to the dock, then climb out and go back up the steps to the entrance that was barred before.

It is open now. Go in and collect the box of 50 Bullets from behind a pillar to the right, then descend the steps on the left and go round and into one last sleeping chamber. From this chamber you can get a Nali Healing Fruit and a very useful Shield Belt.

Go back up the steps and through to the left, into a hall where a SkaarjBerserker shuts you in then attacks. Flak it, and collect the Eightballs it drops. If you go to the foot of a staircase through an opening to one side, the staircase is blocked by bars, but you can get a Nali Healing Fruit. Go up the other staircase, i.e. the one that curves round to the right. You will cross the balcony in the red torch room, then you will follow some more steps into another room.

Collect Flares from the tables in this room, then investigate an entrance that doubles back on the way you came in. Follow this short corridor round to the left into a small area where you will be met by a SkaarjInfantry (visually indistinguishable from a SkaarjTrooper) armed with a Stinger. Kill him and take his gun, then have a look around.

Ahead is a fountain. To the right is an inscription [3].

Very mysterious. Well, do as the inscription says, and kiss the fountain with fire, i.e. toss a Flare into the water. Doors nearby slide open to reveal a powerful Invisibility inventory item. Use the Invisibility item with care, as it is valuable and its power limited.

Return to the main room and climb the steps upward. Double back at the top along a ledge if you need a Nali Healing Fruit. From the top of the steps, follow a short corridor to the left to emerge on the balcony above the shrine with the cyan blue torches.

A huge image of a four-armed winged goddess dominating the end wall carries a message [4].

Ahead, beyond an Energy Amplifier and a Nali Healing Fruit, is the barred exit to the open area where you were ambushed by a SkaarjScout earlier. Walk up to the bars and they will open now - avoid the amplifier and use up your old one before collecting the new if you still have it. Go outside, where a Brute attacks you. Kill it, then go back towards the temple via the door on the left from the entrance you just came through. In the junction within, turn right to the previously barred off hill valley.

Kill the LesserBrute guarding this exit then venture outside, where a SkaarjTrooper with a Dispersion Pistol is on patrol. As you go along the valley, you can turn down a pass to the right to find two Nali Healing Fruit and a natural pool. The pool itself contains nothing useful, just a virtually endless supply of Devilfish that it's not worth wasting your ammo on. Return to the main valley.

Continuing round the valley, you will pass an irrelevant Nali Cow with its equally irrelevant Nali Calf. These livestock animals can safely be ignored. What you can do however is collect a Nali Healing Fruit from near where they are standing. At the end of the valley, you will find a distinctive blue-clad SkaarjGunner, but consider yourself lucky; this one only has a Dispersion Pistol. The Skaarj was guarding another entrance in the rock, so when it has been killed, collect the Eightballs here then go in.

The lift on the right here is blocked at the top until the final battle, and even then it is only an alternative route into the final room (its purpose is for Coop games), so ignore it. Go left instead, and kill the Brute on guard round the corner. Save your game now...

As you step out of the corridor, you will be barred off into a large outdoor amphitheatre... with a Titan on stage! The amphitheatre is littered with Nali Healing Fruit, but collecting health is a dangerous distraction in Titan fights, so simply use your strafing to avoid its boulders - watch out for rebounding rocks - and pelt it with Eightballs in clusters, staying on the top level of the amphitheatre if possible.

When the Titan is finally dead, doors open at the back of the arena. Collect any health you need, then go through the corridor beyond. The ground will start to shake but keep going so that you don't get trapped as the ceiling falls in.In the corridor beyond the rock fall, go along to the right to exit the level.

Translator Messages

 * 1) "The Way is filled with darkness. The Torch of Tranquility must light the path of the worthy. Spiritual progression is achieved by those who set the Torch of Tranquility aflame."
 * 2) "Torch of Tranquility"
 * 3) "And Vandora came forth, with the fire from the Sky upon her lips, and sanctified the sacred fountain with her kiss. Thus, she said, he who follows me shall cast off the bonds of flesh and become as elusive as the mist."
 * 4) "Vandora, Goddess of Lightning"

Trivia

 * In the Unreal Tournament mod Seven Bullets, the player character Jones revisits the Temple. It is now a Human Outpost, and there are new and unseen sections of it.

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