E3M6: Mt. Erebus (Doom)

E3M6: Mt. Erebus (MAP20 in PSX/Saturn/Jaguar/3DO/GBA, E3M5 in SNES) is the sixth map of Inferno in Doom. It features a secret exit to E3M9: Warrens. It is apparently named after a region of the Underworld in Greek mythology. There is also a real Mt. Erebus, Earth's southernmost volcano, in Antarctica, named after the exploration vessel HMS Erebus, which was in turn named after the mythological Erebus. It uses the music track "On the Hunt" and has a par time of 1:30.

The level apparently takes place in the volcanic crater of what may be presumed to be Hell's eponymous Mt. Erebus. Several small buildings and structures are found on and around an island in the middle of the lava in the volcanic crater.

This level contains a secret exit leading to E3M9: Warrens.

Walkthrough


From the start point, find the marble building. If you play on the easy skill levels, the blue key is in front of the entrance door. Otherwise, continue reading. Open the door and then open the secret door (it's not a secret because it's required) next to the left torch. Take the teleporter. You will be on a ledge. Straferun to the teleporter (if you fall off there is a teleporter you can take to get back on), you will be inside one of the buildings. Follow the path southeast to the blue key. Now continue forward, then harshly right, and take the teleporter. To the midwest of this map, somewhere the lava turns into blood. Follow the path to the blue door. Open it, turn left and open the exit door, and step through the exit teleporter.

At this point you can exit, though most of this map remains unexplored (and is completely optional). Read more at other points of interest.

Other points of interest
You start off in front of a lion-faced door. Open it to access a room with some enemies, and additional health and ammo.

The mideast of the map has a skull building. The only way to enter is to press the lion switch to the east.

To the southwest are stairs. Go up them into a room with imps and demons, including a rocket launcher, chaingun, and an invulnerability.

Certain sections of this level map trigger traps of hellspawn in the huge lava pool.

Secrets

 * 1) Near the building you start off at, there is a vine building to the north. Open the door and inside are some teleporters. The one on the right will take you to a ledge with a plasma rifle.
 * 2) The right torch in the marble room is also a secret door that however is a secret. Open it to access a bulk cell.
 * 3) There is another platform besides the teleporter one. The platform has a chainsaw. Straferun to get it. Note that if you get the blue key BEFORE getting the chainsaw, you are not allowed to get the chainsaw and the secret anymore because getting the blue key causes the chainsaw platform to raise too high for you to reach it.
 * 4) To access the secret map E3M9: Warrens, take the teleporter to a ledge overlooking the water. Find the blue building with a skull switch. Fire a rocket at the wall to rocket jump to the room. Be careful, once you enter it you cannot do anything else other than press the secret exit switch. Also there is another invulnerability that is strongly recommended to avoid low health from the splash damage. You must be quick, because you may completely miss your chance to be invulnerable to the splash damage! There is an easier way to exit this map to E3M9. Do NOT jump into the box, just get near it, and then face the position of the switch correctly, and press the use key repeatedly until you get to the intermission screen. Note that this will NOT credit you for the secret, and therefore NOT get 100% secrets just by doing this trick. In the Super NES port of Doom, rockets do not push you back, therefore you must straferun into the blue box.

Bugs

 * Five "floating skull rock" obstacles (Things 209, 214, 220, 221 and 223) and a "burnt tree" obstacle (Thing 229) have no flags set for any of the difficulty classes, so they do not actually appear in the level.
 * The switch to exit to the secret level can be reached outside of the box, but at the expense of credit for 100% secrets.
 * On Ultra-Violence difficulty, in the building where you get the blue key there is a spectre that cannot move.
 * From the ledges of the vine-covered building on the east (with the spectres inside) you can see a graphical glitch on the buildings in the lava.

Records
The Compet-N records for the map are:

Trivia

 * This is the first entirely opened map in Doom franchise.
 * According to John Romero, "The only way you are supposed to reach the secret switch [inside the blue box at the north end of the map] was by (1) getting the invincibility, (2) blasting a rocket into the wall so you would fly backwards into the box. We found out early on that it was possible to flip the switch from outside, so Sandy made the walls thicker." (See Doom Level History.) In fact, it is still possible to activate the switch from just outside of the walls, and also to straferun-jump into the box. See Access the secret exit on level E3M6 for details. Also, in the SNES port the player can just simply jump inside the box with the secret exit switch, as it is not possible to be pushed back from a rocket explosion.


 * The mythological place Erebus is originally a deep place of utter darkness and the personification of shadow, but the level takes place in a bright lava-filled open area. This seems to be a reference to Mount Erebus, the volcano in Antarctica. The volcano is incidentally located where one of H. P. Lovecraft's most celebrated tales, At the Mountains of Madness, takes place. In the tale the volcano is described and associated with Edgar Allan Poe's Mount Yaanek (in his poem Ulalume), taking a special and ominous significance. It is noteworthy that the author of the level, Sandy Petersen, had been the writer of a role-playing game based of Lovecraft's mythos, and was later instrumental in introducing many Lovecraft-inspired elements in Quake, the game id Software released after the Doom games.


 * The Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil single player campaign starts at Site 1 (Main Excavation) beneath an installation named Erebus and has five of twelve maps feature Erebus in the map title: Erebus Dig Site, Erebus Labs, Erebus Control, Erebus Research and Erebus Station.


 * Unusually, the blue skull key is in a different place depending on the skill level. On ITYTD and HNTR it's easily accessible, just outside the front door of one of the main buildings; in higher skill levels it is harder to reach.

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level: