The Lava Reef Zone

Lava Reef (the fourth level of the game "Sonic and Knuckles") is another area of the Floating Island, but in this case it's more of a natural phenomenon for the most part. First of all, its location--it spreads underneath a good portion of the Island, but one of its direct entrances can be found by going straight DOWN--quite a distance--from the interior of the ruins of Sandopolis. (Another entrance is found by going down to the very very bottom floor of the Hidden Palace and then simply travelling outwards through one of its corridors until you notice that the blue marble has turned into blue crystal rock; then you're there.)
What is the Lava Reef? Well, as you might expect by the name, it's full of lava. It's a DEADLY dangerous place, a system of tunnels and caverns inside a--for NOW--dormant volcano, with rivers, lakes and pools of molten magma lying everywhere. The bridges that lead across them and platforms that allow you to walk above them are all made of weak, crumbling rock that could send you plummeting to your death at any moment. The walls are studded with huge, razor-sharp spikes and the ceilings often drop deadly stalactites on your head. The air is stiflingly hot and often poisonous--not enough to kill you right away but if you don't KEEP MOVING you'll regret it. And random balls or plumes of fire can shoot from almost anywhere at any time. This is NOT a place you stay in and look around; this is a place that you travel through only on absolute necessity, and try to get out of as soon as possible.
Lava Reef is made of rough brown rock at first, and then gorgeous, delicate blue crystal further in (i.e., the further towards the palace.) Considering WHERE the blue crystal is, it almost makes you wonder if the echidnas were planning to somehow beautify and use even THIS desolate, horribly inhospitable stretch of their island, but it seems doubtful. Whatever they were planning, they obviously didn't get very far--the only examples of their technology in this area are a few elevators, a giant jackhammer or two that operates automatically, and some levers and spring-catapults, presumably for transportation from level to level (Great Maker, it's Mount Nevermind! Wait, you wouldn't get that unless you're a Dragonlance fan...never mind...)
In the comic book version, this place is the home of the Fire-Ant colony, who also helped get the Island into the air in the first place by gnawing at the rock and such--and are rather disgruntled at the echidnas' off-hand (off-paw?) dismissal of their important help. I don't go by this in my own fanfics, simply because I think Archimedes is ANNOYING and I don't want anything to do with him, but I thought it only fair to include it here...
Oh, one last thing about Lava Reef--the music is quite beautiful, and especially on Act Two when you're travelling through the blue crystal--it's absolutely haunting. This tends to be one of the fans' favourite levels. In this case, I sorta wonder if they're insane 'cos it's so darn HARD, but at least the music IS nice...





Click HERE to return to the Floating Island Tour Route.

Click HERE to return to the Chaotix Clubhouse.

Click HERE to return to Sandopolis.



curious tourists have explored the Lava Reef Zone since June 27, 1999. Of course, they were all either poisoned, scorched to death by a lava-fall, or crushed by a huge heavy rock, but hey...