Part 8: The Mechanical Age
Entry 31
The Common Code
I woke up slumped over on the stand where the book had been inside the giant gear. It felt like I had been between Myst and here for a month... almost as if something had delayed my... linking... to this age.
I realized after stretching a bit that the book was gone.
I took a step back, and found that I certainly wasn't on Myst, and after a quick turn, I found the fortress.
It was significantly sized.
Before I went in, I checked out the little control panel right next to the gear.
It had about 9 different symbols I could switch through in four different spots. Including repeating, that's... 6561 combinations, if I remember my probability correctly. I think I'll solve the puzzle...
...odd.
Anyway...
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Entry 32
Rich References
When I got into the fortress, I turned left. Down the hall there was a room full of really fancy stuff,
including...
Those, except the painting, look like the ship and rocket on Myst.
There's a telescope too!
But through it, just another reminder of loneliness.
Looks kind of like the tower in Myst... is this Atrus' room?
I also found these three gems that lit up when I put my hand on the glass they were in.
Along with some kind of bird thing...
In the center of the room, there was a throne... Atrus doesn't seem like a throne guy.
A chess board? Why? It's not even regulation size...
I accidentally dropped the chess board and it bounced off of the platform into the wall. I went to pick it up, and...
A secret passage behind the rug!
Inside, there was no passage, just a room with many treasure chests.
There was also a wine rack, with a note:
So this is either Sirrus' room or Achenar's room... Judging from where I found the Stoneship pages, it's Sirrus', since he's in the red book and the red page was in the fancy room there.
Oh, and there's the red page in here.
I climbed out of the hidden room and continued down the hall in the same direction as I had been going.
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Entry 33
Big Basement Button and a Rotating Rising Ride
Around the corner I found only a button in front of a hallway leading to a cylinder that looks to be in the middle of the fortress.
So I pushed the button.
Another hidden room... this one got hazy when I got near the switch...
A lever and two "c" shapes one inside of the other.
After some playing around, I got the c's to line up, and they turned red. The first few times I skipped over them, so I slowly stepped it around so they finally lined up.
Seeing no difference in the chamber in front of me, I decided to leave. When I got back up the ramp, I found the elevator open.
Down must be for the basement... this must be middle... so...
Up I go!
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Entry 34
Second Floor: Confusion, Keys to Anti-Death Ray Fortresses, and Light Fixtures
...there was nowhere to go up there... it was just the elevator surrounded by lights...
I headed back into the elevator and pressed the button.
...
...this isn't the middle I thought it was going to be.
I wondered why that would be there for a minute.
I tried pressing the button and exiting the elevator, and after it finished beeping again...
Levers! This must be the controls Atrus talked about in the journal...
The left control doesn't move the gears... and the right control needs the left control up to move the gears...
Tink.
Tink?
I need to experiment more with this...
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Entry 35
Finishing the Tour
I gave up on the levers above, I could only get four sounds out of it.
Tink...
Sproing...
Dink..
and something that sounds like... I'll call it a "shuffle"
But I couldn't tell that anything was happening, so I stopped back at the Tink. It turned out that if I moved the left lever back down, it would make one of those four noises.
The button, however...
So I went back downstairs and continued down the hall until I found another room.
This room is significantly more disturbing than the other one. For every toy in the first room, there is a weapon or way to be killed in this room.
Strange mask...
Maces and...
...that scared me... who puts their snake in a box?
Some kind of covered chair between the swords and the maces...
The one similarity in the room was a throne. This one was simple, but it had an axe right by it, as well as a chain, but I believe the chain is stuck where
it is. It seems this person also did not care about riches, or despised those who did...
An empty chest with a helmet and sword on it. Perhaps as an insult to greed?
Something else that caught my attention in here, however, was the yellow line on the wall...
Inside this room was a plain cage, a crate, and a few shelves with something that caught my eye as soon as I crawled in...
Well, found the other page, I guess I can... oops.
That was close! I almost fried myself! This cage is wired for electricity to flow through it and zap anybody touching the cage! What the hell?
Makes me wonder what's in this crate...
I'm just going to calmly leave this room now.
Now I'll just leave this room.
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Entry 36
Holography At Last
Upon exiting the hidden room, I found myself bumping into a pedestal I hadn't investigated yet...
So there it was!
It appeared that the left switch was the "lock" and the right switch was the "rotate".
Down was a dull "tink"
Right was a "sproing"
Up was a "dink"
and finally, left was a "shuffle"
So... that must be what the sounds upstairs meant...
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Entry 37
Moving big things with little things
I used the lever on top of the elevator upstairs so that I heard a "sproing" when I locked it.
Nothing changed up there, so I went outside...
Two symbols! This pedestal matches the first one I found when I got here!
So the code is: ____ ____ Spikes Half-Moon. I bet the first two are on another orientation!
I hurried back inside of the fortress and went to "dink" on the controls.
Downward-C | Up-and-Down | Spikes | Half-moon
I have the code, but what is the last orientation for? Perhaps there's something I need to know...
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Entry 38
The Mechanical Jesus Shuffle
I shuffled the fortress over to the western orientation, and found that there was nothing there.
Nothing at all. Again, ocean as far as the eye can see.
I went back inside and oriented the island south, or so I thought. I got my sounds confused. I had oriented the island north again, taking way to long to
stop the rotation, and decided to check the telescope on my way back up, just for fun.
That wasn't fun. I hope entering this code doesn't lead to that, but what else can I do?
After orienting the fortress south again and for the last time, I ran out to the original island and entered the code.
Oh, almost forgot...
I'll get Achenar first, since I got Sirrus first last time.
Back I go...
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Entry 39
Lies and Deceit
I added the blue page to the blue book, and...
He's very honest soundingOh, I won't get the red pages, believe me. Why would I?
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Entry 40
Deceit and Lies
Journeying back to the red page in the Mechanical age, I brought it back and added it to the red book.
He's honestly very sound...oops, already got the blue page. Sorry!
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Entry 41
Interest
Their stories may be incomplete and distorted... and I have confirmed from them that this island is Myst.
So far the only thing I know is that the library was destroyed.
Sirrus promises me something if I let him go... so does Achenar... but he seems crazy... to Sirrus' evil.
Looks like I still can't tell anything for sure really, so I guess it's off to another age...
I feel a little spacey... I think I'll go read a book...