*THE EMPYREAN CLAN*
			       	 by
                             Nate Burns
                       Clan Handle: "Behemoth"
============================================================================
	                
	It started out as a game we couldn't get enough of.  That game
was DOOM, and it was far more realistic than that "Wolfenstein" game,
although we got a kick out of that, too.  It had stairs and windows, skies,
water, lava, and acid.  Everything was so real and 3-D.  Justin really 
scared the crap out of himself when he first played it, thanks to those 
cute little pink demons...Jeremy too!  As far as I remember, all we had was
*Knee Deep in the Dead* for awhile and Jeremy SOMEHOW got the other two
episodes.  Ethan and Webster knew about multi-playing from Doom1, but never
got it working...until THE BIGGEST BAD@$$ game ever, DOOM2 hit the stores!
                        
	Well, it was the fall of '94 when we got this awesome game, this...
Doom2.  So, leave it to good ol' Ethan and Webster to find some of this 
game's limits.  They discovered the multi-player feature by use of modem,
and once they connected, words couldn't describe it.  Ethan was in a state
of shock and amazement at the sight of Webster running around, and most
of the time Webster was running away from Ethan.  This was a new era, a new
beginning, known only as...DOOM.
	Ethan and Webster, known as the Pioneers, were the only two 
deathmatching at this time in the Fall of '94. I was hearing stories left
and right about how Ethan would waste Webster and Jeremy because he was now
into it.  Webster was constantly reminding me that I needed a modem. I told
him to go away.  I didn't realize how fun muliplaying was, and just thought
of single-player gaming to be good enough. WRONG!                          
        In early January of '95, right after xmas vacation, I went to
Jeremy's after school due to a snow cancellation.  Earlier that day, one
of our bus drivers who is also into computers, Mike, gave Jeremy a HereticSW
CD...Heretic?! What the heck was that? Matt also had Heretic at the time so
we gave him a call to try it out over modem. I didn't know what to expect.
While Jeremy was playing, I was going crazy with the chat feature, sending
all sorts of messages to Matt.  Then all of a sudden Matt jumped off a ledge
and Jeremy and I both yelled in amazement at the sight of him. A mage in a
tan robe with a staff. We began to fire arrows upon him as he turned us into
a chicken, and we didn't have a clue what was happening.  The next second
we heard the chicken: "BER-GOOOOOHCK!" and feathers flew.  As much as I hate
to admit it, I had my first deathmatch playing Heretic.  
	A few weeks later I went over to Justin's house. Jeremy and his dad
came out for a visit later on and Justin and I went over to Jeremy's...after
we helped his dad move their ski-doo on his truck.  The second we got to
Jeremy's we called up Ethan and we quickly hooked up on Level 1: Entryway
DEATHMATCH!  I heard how good Ethan was and I wanted to take him down.
Justin and I watched Jeremy make futile attempts to frag Ethan. Justin was
going crazy: "Oh $#iT! Get him! Right there! Get the shotgun! I wanna play!"
BLAM! Waaahhhh!!! Ethan Double-Barrelled our ass and he raced down the hall
right after the kill. He was FAST for some unknown reason.  We thought he 
was cheating so we taped down both shift buttons. I think duct would've been
better than scotch. Next up was Justin vs. Ethan. He did get him once or
twice, but by then we were so far behind it wasn't funny. (His fraggage was
just plain more than ours.) Before Justin knew it he was in a rage from
Ethan shooting the crap out of him. His luck was as good as Jeremy's.
Soon, like a half hour later, it was my turn. Right off, "HISS! SPLOOSH!"
The BFG9000, the feared cheese of all Marines, knocked me flat on my
dairy-air. I respawned, yelling like a gangster as Justin put it. I was
yelling out to Ethan to "BRING IT ON!" and other sayings that wouldn't be
too appropriate to mention. Next I saw Ethan hide in that little secret
door next to where you go outside. I had my double-barrel out, opened the
door, and "BLAAM!" The Green marine fell to the floor, bloodstained. By now
I was in such a hype yelling as I played, Jeremy & Justin were laughing at
me until they couldn't breathe. Then all of a sudden the game froze, we were
mad. Justin's aunt had picked up the phone. But when we got the chance to 
call Ethan back, we did.
	When we called him back, we didn't play Doom2, we decided to give
R.O.T.T. a try instead. This game didn't seem too bad really. You got to
have your own name and all. We were ready to pound on Ethan until we saw
his name. It said: "Jeremy vs. ZEUS" And we thought "OH DAMN!" I just
watched Jeremy and Justin play because ROTT didn't interest me too much.
But Justin had a good kill at one point where Ethan jumped in the air off
a spring-thing and Justin nailed him with a rocket in mid-air. Blood and
stuff everywhere! It was neat. Ethan was also confusing us with ROTT's
secret F-Key sounds. These were the last deathmatches I played until I got
my modem a few months later. But I prepared by making up lists of macros
to use during deathmatch.
	April 1st, 1995. I finally get my modem! I wanted to deathmatch
Ethan so bad, but unfortunately he and Matt were at some brain competition 
downstate for the weekend. So I played Webster instead. We played Level 1
and I thought I'd kick his butt right off. I got him quite quickly with
the Double-Barrel, but after that it was all downhill. He killed me with a
rocket, and then RIGHT as I respawned, he had launched a BFG Blast, and all
I saw was this big green ball, then a flash of red, and a yuck squishy 
sound. This went on for awhile, then we skipped Level 2, and went straight
to Level 3: Gantlet. (THIS WAS ONCE THE MOTHER OF ALL DEATHMATCH LEVELS FOR
US!) But everytime I'd go down that elevator, Webster would be waiting there
near the exit door with the Plasma Gun. Then he'd chase me down the hall
and pin me to a wall until he fragged me. That happened countless times
and I'd walk right into it everytime without even thinking about it.  Soon,
after 2 or 3 hours of what would be low-fraggage for professionals, we got
done. Ethan and I would battle it out Monday, only 48 hrs. away...
	I kept telling him how I was gonna waste him so bad in the halls
but he just laughed and shook his head. That night we'd see how it'd all
turn out. The time finally came and when I picked up the phone I heard:
"YOU SUCK!" We entered, heh-heh, SETUP. Ethan took control now...
"Hurt Me Plenty, Deathmatch, COM2, I'm calling you, you're answering, 
|F1|, No Monsters, Deathmatch 2.0, Map 1, See-ya in Hell, Nate." I was
getting rather anxious watching the dots make their way across the screen.
Next some garbage scrolled down, and we were in. I appeared in front of the
chaingun, grabbed it, and headed down the steps to get the BFG. As I did,
I heard a little "BLIP!" Up top on the screen, it said, GREEN: WEEEEEE!
Then the Green marine, fully loaded, jumped off the ledge and ran by me.
I immediately got the BFG and headed after Ethan. After a few minutes I
was wishing I hadn't talked so much. It was like 12 to 0 by the time I
killed him. And I'd constantly hide up on the ledge with the weapons while
Ethan tried to launch rockets at me. He kept sending me messages that said:
"HIDER", "WUSS", "HIDER", "HIDER", "HIDER"...and so on. That's what made
not hide anymore when I play now, or at least not as much anymore. It's 
either kill or be killed. Thanks for those insults, Ethan.
	Everyone was enjoying Deathmatching now.  Ethan, Webster, Jeremy, 
Matt, and I.  Everyone except...Justin.  He had an old modem but it was slow
and didn't work.  I'd tell him stories of Ethan and me deathmatching one
another and he'd tell me how much he wanted a modem.  So Justin kept at his
dad to buy a new modem.  A little more than a month later, he had a new 14.4
modem.  I had a tendency to waste him quite a bit, as did Ethan.  But he 
never did quit and kept right at it for one more frag.  Nowadays, Justin is
a worthwhile opponent, but he can be taken.  (Oh by the way, sCary, Justin 
wants to WASTE you at Quake.)
	Over the months and into the summer, everyone played & Deathmatched
each other.  I even played Matt a few times, which didn't happen too often
because he was enjoying himself with patch and graphic making side of Doom2.
The closest game we had was 22 to 23 in Level 5: Waste Tunnels. I barely won
and he barely lost.  
	Nearing the end of 8th grade, May and June, Ethan and Matt began
making graphics and patches for Doom2.  They were using DMGraph.  I was
quite into deathmatch and really didn't take an interest in it at first.
But over a weekend's time, and using the SW version of Paint Shop Pro, the
created their first patch.  It was actually made for Doom1, and it changed
the shotgun into a blue, black, and purple gun with a scope and bayonet.
The marine's gloves were also changed to white, and the gun's BANG was
changed to Matt saying: "BLAM!" using DMAud.  The noise got somewhat
annoying, especially with a room full of shotgun guys, but cool anyway.  
They even uploaded it to, *COUGH! YOU SUCK!* America OnLine, and it was 
accepted. (It's probably still on there now for all we know.)
	About two weeks before school got out, Ethan came over on a Friday
and we planned on making a patch.  Ethan made me do all the typing in EDIT
and all the DMGraph extracting.  We changed the fist into a mace spraycan.
It had a smiley face on it that opened its mouth when fired.  And thanks
to Paintbrush's awesome palette of colors (bs) the skin on the marine's arm
was a greenish brown, and the "FWAP!" of the fist was changed to Ethan
saying: "TSSST!".  So next we uploaded it to AOL.  They rejected it.  What
a bunch of punks.
	Once school got out, Ethan headed for a summer camp in Pennsylvania.
He reminded us to make lots of Doom patches and play lots of Deathmatch. 
I started getting into changing sounds more than I did graphics, and Justin,
Jeremy, and I (ethan forgive us and don't kick us out of the clan) played
that forbidden...game.  Heretic.  Umm...I'll end this here.  So one day I
got a letter from Ethan saying he'd be home in a week.  I put Heretic on a
BIG hold and started deathmatching Justin and Jeremy again, even though they
were a bit opposed of it.  But I needed to prcatice!  I talked up a storm
about how I'd waste him when he got back home.  So finally Ethan makes it 
home and we start going at it. (doom of course, what were you thinking?)
Deathmatch: Level 1, Nate vs. Ethan!  All I remember is that I lost by 
a few.  He won by a few.  But Ethan DID win and I remained in the #2 slot.
Oh by the way, this was the time when SiRSiTuP was made, but goto Ethan's
homepage to read it because it's long. 
(http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/9855)
	Before we knew it, our Freshmen year had begun.  Everyday in the
CAFETERIA we talked about Doom2 constantly, and science class consisted of
drawing Deathmatch pictures of previous Deathmatches.  But during that
first month, something important happened...Ethan found DEU! That's right,
DEU.  Doom Editor Utilities.  This was we could create our own Deathmatch
WADS!  It was very confusing at first, all these LINEDEFS and SECTORS and
THINGS, etc, etc.  Unfortunately, the BLOCKMAP builder in DEU was a fool and
wasn't terribly great.  Since DEU was for Doom1, I'd have to send my WADs to 
Ethan over Terminal and he'd convert them to Doom2 WADs so we could use them
for Doom2.  And while he was converting the WAD, he was also "CONVERTING" it
in many other ways, like, say, adding secret rooms and loads of BFGs, items,
and many many invulnerabilities that I was unaware of.  But I got in the 
habit of checking the map in DEU before deathmatching.
	Not too long after, DEU2 was out and was to be used with Doom2 only.
Ethan also gave me his blockmap builder, BSP, so the level would be playable
and work good.  And this time around it was me placing the secrets in, but
it was Ethan who usually won.  Both Ethan and I spent alot of time figuring
out DEU.  Hour after hour, studying the Doom2 maps to figure out how to do
this and how to do that.  It seemed like hell at first, but we got the hang
of it and soon we were producing decent deathmatch WADs that we'd play
once for 10 minutes then delete.
	(Just a small story here, it happened during our harvest '95 break.
I spent the weekend at Justin's, and while there, we played Webster, coop at
Level 32: Grosse.  It was fun to play against Webster at Doom2 because he
never could get his sounds working at all. So we played this level alot with
him.  We'd take out all of the Nazi soldiers, and Webster, for some reason.
He could not figure out where we were getting all of our weapons. (and that
megasphere!) He'd walk up the stone walls where the weapons were hid under,
but he never checked to see if they could be opened.  So we'd lure the Cyber
Demon into the area and we'd snipe at him, and run in the Plasma Gun room.
Constantly Webster bugged us how we got the weapons.  In the Plasma room we
told him to walk into the corners and a secret door would open outside.  So
he'd run merrily in the corner, wait for a second, and then we'd launch a 
rocket at him. BOOM! We told him the CyberDemon did it, and he'd run back in
the corner again. BLAM! "Sorry Web, we didn't mean to." So he'd come back in
and say: "Come on, where is it?" We'd tell him that was the wrong corner and
he tried the other one. "BOOM!" Again, he fell for it.  Justin and I were 
having a ball. So AGAIN he comes in, and we told him to stand in another
corner and wait 5 seconds. He did. Then he turned around slowly to face us.
Justin hit the Control button..."WOOOOSH! BLAM! AARRGGHH!" We were laughing
like there was no tomorrow. (we were no longer coherant.) And once, we told
Webster the CyberDemon was in the room, so we started launching rockets out 
of the Plasma Room, and Webster, rushing to our aid, began to fire plasma 
into the room. Laughing, we simply turned left, and fired a rocket at Web.
We told him the CyberDemon did it and he happily carried on. That's some
funny Dooming, but you had to be there to understand it. Especially with Web
on the end of the phone line.)  
	Through all the deathmatching and patchwork and sound-changing and
WAD constructing, some...one, SOME...THING! emerged from the shadows. It was
a beast, a locust that wanted to clean us out, a warrior that wanted us to
die.  This beast was 5 feet, 110 lbs. of blonde hair, and all brain for
computers.  His name was Kozura, and he was here to kick some ass! (our ass)
	He wasn't very good from the start, HIDING in visible corners,
falling for Level 1's "ELEVATOR TRICK", where you'd flip the switch and they
come running in on the elevator.  (Of course, we only do this with rookies.)
Besides we'd kill him anyway.  But let me tell you this my friend, Chris
played against us over the weeks, & he played ALOT!  One night I got a call
from Justin indicating that Chris beat him like 18 to 5.  Just days before
Justin was whooping Chris!  So I played him, I didn't lose, but just BARELY
won by a frag or two.  But he did definatley seem FAST and was GETTING GOOD,
REAL FAST.  I played him again after and it was a disater.  I lost by a NICE
BIG margin.  On and off we'd outdo one another.  When Ethan played him,
Chris usually lost, but on some days in school, Ethan would talk of how
Chris was beat him, and for Ethan this was a sign...a sign that Chris was
Quote: "Too phuckin' good for an amateur!" Unquote.
	It was slightly after this time that Ethan developed a true love for
an area of Doom2 that we hadn't really explored that much.  That area was a
thing called Co-operative.  Or as we put it, COOP, or Co-opurr-at-ive.  But
it shocked me that Ethan was turning into an anti-deathmatcher.  But I found
it to be quite fun, but also annoying at times when your OWN DAMN PARTNER
KILLS YOU for accidentally shooting him with a single pistol shot.  We did 
well, but there wasn't much law and order.  We developed a system to keep
track of where we were, health, armor, current weapons , ammo, and more. An
important one included the "!", indicating that a parent or grown-up was
watching, therefore, not allowing ourselves to say bad stuff.  The signal to
indicate there was nobody there was the carot "^".  And we had abbreviations
for every weapon.  Two very important ones were "A" and especially "B". "A"
stood for attention, which meant we somehow had to meet face to face.  And
"B" stood for BACKUP!!  And the person saying this was usually in quite a
jam of monsters and fire.  The person saying "B" and "A" was Ethan most of
the time.  Usually because he wanders off not knowing it and then ends up 
killing you because you weren't there to back him up.  ANYWAY, this little
phase Ethan was going through lasted until early '96.  But he still enjoys
playing that coop!
	Well, it was getting close to that special time of year, Christmas.
By now, Ethan loved deathmatching so much that he got another modem and had
a second phone line installed so we could play 3-WAY deathmatches and coop. 
The FIRST OFFICAL 3-way took place on December 24th, 1995 at about 9:30 pm.
It was a 3-way coop consisting of: Green-Ethan, Indigo-Me, and Brown-Justin.
We started in Level 1: Entryway, and Ethan and I both rushed to see the 
Brown marine, Justin.  But no sooner did we collect our BFG, RL, DB, and
CSaw and start to kill!  I hate to brag but I did have the first ever 3-way
frag.  I jumped off the ledge, the Double-Barrel in my hand.  Just as I was
about to fire at the Zombieman fool, Justin jumped in my path and "BLAM!"
THE BROWN MARINE WAS DEAD! Yee-haw! But Brown got his revenge a second later
with a Rocket Launcher.
	Now, during our 1st 3-way game, Ethan was at a slight disadvantage.
He's used to playing with his 3-Buttoned mouse, but it was broken a few 
weeks earlier and he had to use a stupid Infra-Red wireless controller,
similar to that of a Nintendo.  So here we are in Level 2: Underhalls.  We
had split up our separate ways and I took a right underground where it is
very dark.  There was an Imp there, so I shot it with my chaingun.  Little
did I know Ethan was standing behind the Imp, and I began to run forward,
shooting at him.  As soon as realized it was him, I stopped firing and I 
told him I was sorry.  BUT he blasted me into the wet floor with his Double
Barrel Shotgun.  Funny, Justin had been watching this whole thing happen. 
He was standing in a dark corner to the left of us, & I could see the fool,
Justin, through my view now.  A second after the incident, I heard the faint
"BLEEP!" and it said: BROWN:Haha! and then it read: GREEN:Shut Up! So I 
watched Ethan begin to unleash his Double-Barrel on Justin.  They remained
in one spot.  And Ethan, with his crap controller, wasn't hitting Justin, 
but the wall next to him.  Justin was like: "What the hell is this?"  But
Ethan stood there, lining up his aim while Justin stood there like a fool.
After about the fourth shot Justin was in the same position I was...on the
floor dead.  We both looked up at Ethan the big Green Marine as he gave us
a little speech.  But I can assure you that we were all laughing our heads
off during this whole incident.
	I forgot how far we got that night, but we stopped at about 11:30.
On Christmas day around noon, we played our first 3-way deathmatch, using
one of our favorite all-time WADs, the 2DIE WAD.  Ethan had got it off AOL
and it included a 4-Way Deathmatch demo by the people who made it.  We loved
it, but don't recall much about that match.  The next day on until the end
of Xmas vacation, Ethan went to Connecticut to visit his relatives, so 
Justin and I were stuck with 2-way Deathmatches.
	On January 1st, 1996, Ethan was home!  I was ill and didn't feel
very good, but I couldn't resist playing 3-way.  It was Ethan, Me, & Chris,
and we played Level 31: Wolfenstein.  I got slaughtered by them in good
shape, and twice by myself!  The final score was Ethan-26, Chris-25, Me-7.
I actually got 9, but had 2 self-frags.  Two days later on January 3rd, I
played them again on Level 3: Gantlet, and I actually won. The final score 
was Me-22, Ethan-16, Chris-12. 
	Over the months, Ethan updated his homemade multiplayer Doom2 
program, SiT!, constantly.  Version upon version came out and each one was
somehow better than the last.  They had everything from a choice of Coop, 
Old Deathmatch, Deathmatch 2.0, and Nightmare w/Respawining Monsters.  Along
with WAD usage, demo recording, demo length, how many players & what color,
dial/answer modes and more.  Yea, Ethan liked working on all that SiT! But
one day Ethan found an interesting way of playing Doom...Deathtag.
	Ethan discovered Deathtag and liked the idea of it.  We mostly
played King of the Mountain at first, which was great and I actually won a 
few times, but Justin seemed to be the best at it.  One day at school in the
CAFETERIA, Ethan came up with an idea for his own Deathtag WAD.  He had some
rough sketches of it.  It was made specifically for 3-players, which is how
it got its name, 3forts.wad.  I'll give a BRIEF description of it, but you
can find MUCH more off Ethan's homepage.  You start out in a room, grab your
key, and if you want, invis. or invuln., go out your door, get your stored
weapons, flip a certain switch, and head for outside. In the middle of the
outdoors, there is a big triangle elevator. You must go up there, and the
switch you flipped earlier opened a door that lets you flip another swicth
which opens a door in your fort that holds a ton of radiation suits.  You
grab a few of these, head back outdoors, BEING CAREFUL that nobody slips in
through your airlock, and head across a GIGANTIC field of brown acid.  Once
across, you go up another elevator and you come to a floor that shows the
current scores. Your color door should be open if you did everything right,
so you go in there, the door shuts, you flip a switch, score a point, and
warp back inside your fort, and repeat the whole process again. The first 
one to 6 wins, but they must then intrude the other two forts, hit a switch,
and head for another exit that lets them win the whole shee-bang.  It seemed
to always work out, but you'd get clowns like Chris who warps in others 
forts, steals radiation suits, ammo, etc.  Then while you're trying to get
safely out of your fort, they sometimes try to get it. That's where the 
airlocks come into play. 3forts is fun because it's set on cooperative mode
so you can use the automap and F12 to see what the other players are doing
and where they are. So if you still like Doom2 and can have 3 players go at
it, give 3forts a try.
	Sometime before our Freshman year was over iD Software launched
Q-Test, a look into Quake, the highly anticipated game.  Compared to the 
actual Quake now, Q-Test is a fool.  At that time though, we knew something
special was on the way.  After oh, say, a month or two, we were sick of it
and went back to Doom2 for the summer.  Again, during our '96 summer, Ethan
went to a summer camp...Camp Winnepisaukee in New Hampshire.  In a letter
he asked if Quake shareware was out.  I didn't bother to find out and I 
didn't tell him anything.  I'll have to say he was a little disappointed in
us for not finding out.  And when Ethan came home he realized he'd be 
getting a new Cyrix686-150MHz motherboard with 32MB RAM, a Quake Machine!
But Quake was still a distance away...
	Over the next few months into this new school year, we continued to
play Doom2. and I made my final Doom2 WAD ever-POTHOUSE.WAD.  It may sound
like a drug store or something, but it's actually the Doom2 version of
Justin's father's POTATO House.  And Justin and I made our last Doom2 demo
EVER! Sad really.  Quake was out now and Doom2 wasn't dead-for me anyway.
The disks are still here, even though Doom2 is out of my computer. As with
Justin and Ethan and Matt etc, etc. So just remember this: If it wasn't for
Commander Keen, we wouldn't have Blake Stone which wouldn't have led to
Wolfenstein and Spear of Destiny. If it wasn't for Wolfenstein, we wouldn't
have Doom, Registered Doom, Doom2, Ultimate Doom, Final Doom, and if wasn't
for DOOM we wouldn't have QUAKE!!!!!!!! Remember the past, fools!
	Hello. I'm Nate Burns and I wrote this. We here in Fort Fairfield,
Maine, that includes myself, Ethan Feller, Matt Leighton, Justin Beckwith, 
Jeremy Ouellette, Webster Reed, and Chris Kozura. Well, all Web and Chris do
is play Arcadia, and they are the fools. But the rest of us, the only 3-D
game fanatics in Aroostook County, Northern Maine, and Western New Brunswick
are members-AH-HACK! HOOCCCH!! GODS, yes, GODS, of the Empyrean Quake Clan.
We have the expierence to take anyone, anytime, but it can be just hard to
do when you're lagged as bad as we are. Most people have instant direct
and speedy connections to the Internet, but we're stuck with 28.8 lines 
and modems and we get lagged, which is usually why Ethan gets hurt on the
Internet.  We're looking to face the Impulse9 and RevCo Clans someday so
beware of ETHAN, beware of US, beware of......CLAN EMPYREAN!!
============================================================================

					       -Behemoth,
						Empyrean Clan Member
						Writer/Historian