Despot's Apartment

**Despot's Apartment** is an "apartment" owned by PlanetDeusEx admin, Despot.

It can be reached via his office on PDX HQ Floor 2 and exits into the Corporate Sector.

## Overview

Despot's apartment is a required visit during a WorldCorp playthrough, where Trestkon must talk to Despot to offer to trade the DXO News Script for his admin password.

Despot's apartment was attacked by WorldCorp troops on August 3rd, 2004. Knifeworld and RECLAIMER later visited the apartment on August 19th, resulting in RECLAIMER's death.

## Layout

The player teleports into the location, making going back to the PDX HQ unavailable.

Continue forward to the main chamber, where the floor breaks after contact, dropping the player into the water. The player must then continue forward to where a wall explodes open, revealing a teleporter. A lever in the room must be pulled to open the teleporter, activating a spike trap above them if they don't move out of the way in time. Using the teleporter brings them up a level in the main chamber.

Exiting left of the teleporter brings the player to the lava lake, using a lever in the area to activate the bridge. Knifeworld's Log can be found here. Going to the other side of the bridge presents another lever that locks down the room, opening chambers containing karkians. The chambers contain two more levers, one allowing the room to be exited and one opening a door back at the teleporter.

Returning back to the teleporter reveals an opened door with a staircase to the next level, the next level contains a bridge with swinging axes that must be crossed. If the player continues forward without stopping they should be able to dodge all axes. At the other side of the bridge there is a staircase up and a dead body with an Augmentation Upgrade Canister. Going to the augmentation upgrade teleports the player into a cage, where they drop down into lava. Before the player touches the lava they are teleported back, allowing access to the upgrade.

Going up the stairs again leads to more axes that must be dodged, the same strategy for the previous axes allows them to be dodged. The room ahead locks you in when entered, with karkians appearing over time. The exit doors open after 24 seconds, revealing a room with a hatch and lever. The lever opens the hatch and drops you into water. Defeating the four karkians removes the barriers, allowing backtracking if desired.

Approaching Despot's room teleports the player to the doppelgangers. The player must reach the end to pull another lever and move the overhead bridge into place to reach the teleporter back to Despot. The doppelgangers can be ran past, avoided by hiding in the vents, or killed by using the levers attached to the crushers. The "weird-ass skulls" each trigger a forcefield at the bridge. Activating the red one last provides a safe area to wait for the bridge. The bridge may be skipped if the player has the Speed Enhancement augmentation at a high enough level to jump over the gap.

Despot's room allows you to talk to Despot, a book can be found behind him detailing the passcode for the container in front of him, 2496, giving access to a Cloak/Radar Transparency Augmentation Canister. Destroying Despot's TV makes him hostile.

The pipes behind Despot lead to a ladder back to the Corporate District, near the old PDX HQ.

## Trivia

This level is also meant to be accessed on a WorldCorp playthrough, where That Guy talks to the player. If the player enters without being allied to WorldCorp The Narcissus Entity will talk to them instead, stating that the player's presence is obvious due to Trestkon having knowledge he shouldn't.

Near the start of the level a body can be seen behind a grate before getting dragged away. If the player noclips into the area they will see a device with a button on it, if pressed it tells the player to go away and stop cheating.

Right before the main chamber a hand can be seen in the lava giving a thumbs up, a reference to the ending of Terminator 2.

The swinging axes at the beginning of the tower section are directly inspired by Sen's Fortress from Dark Souls. In both Dark Souls and The Nameless Mod, confidence is key, meaning if you sprint forward without stopping the axes can be easily avoided. The second section of axes require careful pausing along the lines of the axes found in TNM 2009.

## Gallery

Terminator 2 reference.Main chamber.Teleporter.The lava lake.The swinging axes.The booby trapped augmentation upgrade canister.The drop chamber.Axes, again.The karkian showdown.The doppelgangers.Despot himself.The exit.