You start out by meeting Catherine. After she tells you where Atrus is, go to the study through the door straight ahead. Look around until Atrus comes in and starts talking to you. Link to J'nanin to go after Saavedro.
Follow Saavedro as he runs off into his retreat which is locked when you try to open the door. Go back down the ladders to the beach and turn right. Keep walking forward until you go up some rocks. Go down the rocks until you see some winding steps. Go down these steps and cross the walkway to a small cottage. Enter and find controls that will open a couple of gates so you can get to the room inside.
Go to the hammock on the right and get Saavedro's journal. Then go towards the brown cylindrical elevator. Go around to the right of it and hit a switch that sends the elevator up. Look down and step into the well below it. In Saavedro's journal find drawings that look like the machinery behind the broken panels. Set the three weights as he has drawn them, move the upper gear with the missing tooth as shown in the sketch, and move the lever in the direction of the arrow. Step back out of the well, call the elevator by hitting the switch on the right, step in it, and go up.
After watching Saavedro use a linking book, open the door and enter the room. Go to a large blue disk on the left and a smaller one on the right. Click on the smaller one. A projection of Atrus appears on the ceiling, but is taken over by Saavedro.
Go to one of the wall projectors and get a closeup. On each of the lenses is etched an icon. You must drag on this lens, moving the field of view until you locate a plaque matching the icon and bring the two together. There are horizontal and vertical wooden handles left and right of the lens; the horizontal one zooms the image in and out, and the vertical one adjusts the focus. One of the icons is an oval, one is a bird, and one looks like a curled leaf. Make a note of each icon and the positions of the four marbles around the lens where the icon appeared.
Using the handle to the right of the elevator door, call the elevator and go back down. Go through the cottage room to the entrance and turn to the exit on the right.
Go out the door, cross the bridge to the shore of the pond, and turn left, where you can see a small teepee. Go to the teepee and click on the top to signal a light gray chipmunk called a squee. Click on the plant in the water and click on top of the teepee again and the squee goes to the flowers across the water, squeaking and chirping causing the bulbous flowers to expand. Leave the squee to its meal and go back to the bridge from the cottage. On the rock face ahead is a ladder for you to climb. Stop part way up where you will find a drooping flower. Zoom onto this plant and move it towards the squee below. Click when you hear him chirping to see the flowers at the top of the meadow expand.
Now you can climb the ladder to the top and cross the expanded flowers to the door in the tusk. Go to the brown cylinder and get a closeup to four marbles in concentric races. Place the marbles in the compass setting of the bird icon and press the center button. A latticework descends to display the Edanna linking book.
Go down a long passage that will take you to a plant with a spiral around the stalk. Step on the leaf and it begins to undulate, taking you upward to a level near its top. Look up and to the right to a red lens flower. Click on it and a bird comes circling in from over the water and lands on its nest.
Go towards a hole in the rock wall and up the yellow path. Continue along the path and around the cliff on a ledge to an area of vegetation. Turn right where there is a plant with long stalks on the ends of which are leaves. Click on the center of this plant and the stalks straighten with the leaves closeing. Another J'nanin linking book is revealed. Now look left again to see another llens flower. Zoom in on the flower to see that the lens acts as a burning glass. Move the bright spot on the melon plant causing it to burst and fill the dry basin for the spiral leaf to reform.
Return down the path to where you can step onto the newly revived leaf and you will get a long ride down to the lowest level of Edanna. Head toward leaves that you can see a short distance away, then turn left to see a pink squid swimming in a small pool. Go to the left of the squid down a rock path to a lavender valley. Keep going through the valley and to the right you will see sunlight shining on another thirsty melon. Click on the small yellow cap between the tentacles.
Turn right to see a yellow patch; go to it and you will find more pages of Saavedro's journal. Go through the opening on the right. Step down on a shiny tan root and turn right to see a log. This log bridges a gap, and has growing on it the black and rose colored flowers similar to the ones on J'nanin.
Cross the log and follow the pink root to where you see a round blue patch. Go up to the patch and to a hanging lantern. Pull on the vine dangling from it. A large rolled up leaf unrolls. Look up and you will see a blue vine. Click on it and it extends downward. Point towards the ledge and click to swing over there. On the far side of the clearing is a squee trap. Shake the plant with the pink nuts on it. One falls and rolls under the trap. Click on it to roll it farther. Go into the recess behind the tiny winch. Follow the path that you took before back to the lantern.
Start down the unrolled leaf and you will see a squee coming out of the shrubbery and getting the pink nut. Pull on the handle on the bank and the trap falls next to the squee, who runs across the log bridge, stopping to chirp while on it. The flowers expand, breaking the bridge and it falls below. Click again on the blue vine overhead, and this time use it to swing through the gap left by the fallen log bridge. Turn left to find another of the brown lanterns. Turn it on but don't go down the unrolled leaf. Instead, head for the hole down a pink path. Turn left and toward some plants in the distance. On the left is a giant Venus flytrap. When you get close to it you find that it has captured the mother bird.
Turn right and proceed towards the ocean in the distance. Turn left and follow the curvy path until you see a painting of Atrus' sons done by Saavedro. At the foot of it is another of those thirsty melons. Click on it. Now go down the path to the left of the roots, passing around a large basin full of plants, and starting upward again. Watch on the right for one more of those thirsty melons and click on it. Continue along the path past the melon, turn right and jump down on another root. Move forward and look to the right to see a viewer where you can get a message from Saavedro.
Go back up the path and go down the path to the right of the roots. Soon you will see on the right a white orchid, and on the left another one a little smaller a lens flowers. Click on the center to look through the lens and move the view on the rolled up leaf. Get back on the path and go farther downward until you see one more lens flower. Click on the lens and move the bright spot on the left orchid. Return again up the path to the flytrap roots and down the left hand path to the now unrolled leaf.
Cross on the leaf, then go up the long steep path of mushrooms where you will find one of the sunflower lens flowers. Go past it up to another purple lens orchid. Click on the lens, then pan around until the sunflower below is in the center of the field of view. Return down the path past the sunflower and and go back to the unrolled leaf. Go up the path to the flytrap roots, then down the right hand path to the end where the light from below is falling on the purple lens orchid. Click on the orchid lens and move the bright spot to the one on the right of the branch. The melon holding the squid bursts and releases the squid and water into the basin below. The electrical discharges from the squid to the flytrap roots causes it to open and release the bird.
Before you go, click back on the lens orchid and move the bright spot back to the orchid on the left of the branch so the leaf will unroll again and go back to it. Once there, go up the mushroom path and look right to an opening. Click on the darker log and turn left. Go around the corner, then look to the right for more pages from Saavedro's journal. Turn around and advance all the way to the opening to the sea. Just to the right of the opening is a brown cone that looks like a wasp's nest with a vine similar to the one that you used before hanging there. Click it to swing to a new area.
Go down the path just to the left of the stairs and turn left into the dark swamp. You will immediately notice a large blue plant on the water. Advance down the path until you will find another spotted purple lens orchid in a patch of light. Click on the lens and move the bright spot to the stems on top of the sphere and they will rise. Return down the path to the small white flowers and take the path to the left a few steps to find another of the spheres. The sphere is open because of the sunlight in which it is sitting.
Return along the path continuing past the place where you entered. You will eventually find in the path another of those plants with the long stems and palm leaves. This one has the leaves closed; click on the orange part at the base and they open, shading the open blue plant with the insect cloud. Go back along the path and keep going until you come to a hollow blue root. Go towards the big blue plant to examine the brown ones; click on the largest of these and it emits a cloud of spores that drive the insects away. Now go back to the blue root and through the hole. Travel the length of the root to the first blue plant, picking up more pages of Saavedro's journal on the way. The passageway ends at a pedestal. Click on the pedestal, then go up as far as you can. Pan right to a stem and click on it.
The plant contracts and sends out spores. The bird appears and grabs enough of the plant that you are in it, and carries it back to her nest. Look a little to the left to see a spiral plant and click to slide down. You will see Saavedro's symbol for this Age which is copied to a sheet of paper that you hold on to. Look up and to the left to find the J'nanin linking book.
Go between the two blue disks and put the newly acquired symbol on the larger disk to the left. The latticework rises and a holographic Saavedro appears with a message for Atrus, telling him what Sirrus and Achenar did to Narayan. He then tells Atrus to keep looking for symbols.
If the elevator is at the top of the shaft, use the handle on the right to send it down, then open the door and go over to the outer door. Go down the ladder and over to the nearby tusk next to the sea. There is no door here to enter the tusk, but not far away is an opening in the rock. Near the opening, on the other side of the cliff is a ladder. Go down the ladder.
When you climb down you will find a pillar that has two levers that will raise and lower sections of the walkway and cause a barrel to roll back and forth. Play with them to see how the barrel moves, and shortly you will be able to move it out of the way to the right end of the walkway, so that with the ladder vertical. Now go back up and into the opening and get to the door. Inside you will see across a room the brown pillar with the marbles on it, but you can't get to it because Saavedro has broken out most of the floor.
Return to the walkway control pillar at the cave opening, and with the door left open manipulate the levers so that the barrel rolls into the room and fills the hole in the floor. Now you can get to the brown pillar, and from the plaque icon outside place the marbles in their positions and get the linking book to Amateria.
As you will see, there are elevated tracks all over this Age. Observing on both sides as you go, proceed along the walkway to find a J'nanin linking book on the right. Continue ahead to a rocky entrance to a rocky island. Make your way through the rocks and past a series of square pillars with lanterns. You will come a dividing point, go to the right towards an elevator and take it up.
Here you see some kind of chute and a large moveable gear that is one of a pair whose axle provides a fulcrum for tilting the chute. There is also an orange balance ball. Return to the elevator and on the other side opening are some pages of Saavedro's journal for you to pick up. Take the elevator down and go past the lantern out on the wooden walkway, moving along until you get to a control panel.
Continue past the control panel along the shore toward a small building. Go inside the building where you will find pieces of wood, metal and crystal. Place two pieces of wood and one piece of metal on the halfshere nearby. Go back to the control panel, raise it up and move the three levels so the large gear is to the far left. Hit the switch on the right and a pattern will be revealed. Make a note of it and the color of the hexagonal border.
Now go back to the dividing area near the elevator and go to the left. Go through the cave until you come to another of Saavedro's paintings. Near the paintings is a ladder carved in the rock. Take the ladder up to get to another puzzle, consisting of a series of hairpin track turns carrying the iceball through sonic rings, several of which you can see.
Go back down and to the track and follow it through to the center and out to the first hairpin loop, at the end of which is a sonic ring that you can see and hear. There is also a short pier from which by turning right you can get a closeup of the first control. Place the control in the right position and return to the track where you will be right in the sonic ring. Continue left along the track, through the tunnel, and out to the next hairpin. Go through the sonic ring and set the control. Follow the track and keep setting the remaining three controls to their right positions.
Now go to the puzzle center and to the control panel. On the right you will find more of Saavedro's journal pages. On the left is a long handle to pull, whereupon you and the panel will rise to where you get a good view of the puzzle, and the display will light up. Pull the handle on the left to see what happens. Another pattern will be revealed. Note this pattern and the color of the hexagonal border.
Pull the long handle to lower the control platform and go back down the ladder and to the track with the sonic rings. When the supports between the track rails end you can jump off to the left and move along on the stone pillars, then continue on the stone path beside the wall on your left. Eventually coming to a gate in the wall. Open the gate and as you go through it, look back to find more pages from Saavedro's journal.
Go to the control panel and pull the long handle on the left to get a view of the puzzle. On each side of a four crossover track array is a set of six revolving iceball-sized rings, three with bottoms and three without. The iceball comes down from the cupola, goes through the first crossover track, and lands in a cup in the left set of rings, which then starts to rotate. On the control panel are a pair of disks with holes in them. At the bottom of the panel is a well containing three red pegs. Place the pegs in the holes in the disks. After the iceball rolls back to the central building, a third and final pattern will be revealed. Note the pattern and the color of the hexagonal border.
Use the long handle to bring the control panel down. Outside the gate turn left and continue walking beside the wall, then along the rickety water level boardwalk to and up the ladder to your arrival platform. Go to the hexagonal box and try click the tiles in the patterns you have found. When you back off each one, supports snap between the tracks. Do the same for all three boxes and you will be able to enter the main building. Click on the oval door in the building and enter to see a stairway swing around and unfold. Go up to the cupola where there is a red chair that turns to you when you click on it. Click on the chair again to sit in it, and and watch another video from Saavedro. Look up to see a handle and pull it to be moved up. A display board turns over and you are presented with the final puzzle of this Age.
Over the top of the puzzle you can see that the iceball track approaches this bridge from the right, so you want to raise the segments the right order. From the colors of the associated hexagon puzzle borders, that is color sequence blue, yellow, and green. Around the borders of the puzzle are four colored lines representing the puzzles; each line has a hexagon on one end with a triangle pointing into it, which means that is the entry, and a point on the other end signifying the puzzle exit. Rotate the disks so that you have a complete path starting from the blue exit through the yellow and green lines to the red hexagon. Then look up at the roof and click on the blue light to form and drop an iceball.
When the iceball forms you are in it looking through the transparent shell as it goes through the puzzles. When it finally stops on the offshore terminus, the ice breaks and you will be looking at another of Saavedro's symbols for the Age, which is copied on a sheet of paper. Look down for the linking book back to J'nanin.
Again you link back to Saavedro's retreat. As before, move between the two blue disks, then place the just acquired sheet with the symbol on the larger disk. A copy is made to the screen below, and the lattice-work football opens, but you cannot yet get to the book in the center of it. A holographic Saavedro appears above to taunt Atrus again. "One more symbol," he says.
Should the elevator be at the top of the shaft, send it down. Open the elevator door and cross over and exit the outer door. Go down the ladders to the beach and follow the sand path past the blue fire marble lantern and on to the one with the yellow marble. From here you can get to two objects. One of these is a turnstile that you can turn, so naturally that is what you do. On a pillar in the sea below the cliff is a large paneled sphere with a smaller one on its top. When you turn the turnstile the larger sphere rotates. After four turns, you can see sunlight shine into the sphere where the panel is absent, and a light beam appears from the top sphere to shine on the device to the left of the turnstile. This device some-how amplifies or concentrates the light, emitting a beam that is aimed at the lantern with the yellow fire marble. Return to this lantern and rotate it once. As it rotates, you can see a light beam emerging from one of the lenses.
Now go to the blue marble reflector and rotate it once to send the beam to another reflector. Then keep going to the green reflector and rotate it once, then the red rotating it once, then another yellow and rotate it once, a purple rotating once, and finally a red which you rotate once. The last beam is shining on a set of five buttons in a door which is in one of the stone tusks. Go to the door and push the buttons within the colors in the order of the marble colors as you came upon them (yellow, blue, green, red, yellow, purple, red). The door opens.
Inside the small room there is the familiar brown cylinder that has four marbles in concentric races on its top. Place the marbles in correct pattern to bring down the Voltaic linking book.
You arrive in the Voltaic Age on a walkway facing a short stone tower on a very small island next to a very much larger one. Moving ahead and around the tower you find a round portal in it - locked, of course. There is a sphere in which is a linking book back to J'nanin, so you are not stuck here. There is a water channel into the large island. The walkway also leads into the large island; with nowhere else to go, follow it in, passing a tunnel to the right as you go. It takes you to a large cavern open to the sky, which you should take time to examine.
Part way along the walkway is a circular one to the right; this leads to an elevator that does not work because there is no power. Back again on the main walkway, go to the end of it, passing a very large hemisphere. To the right is boat-shaped object that is a hot air balloon—-an airship. Turn right to a ladder that leads down to another walkway past the back side of the large hemisphere, at the end of which is a small platform with a three colored gauge, this in front of four wheel valves. Only three of the wheels turn, the fourth having been broken by Saavedro. However, nothing happens when you turn them. Turn left and step off the platform toward a pathway to the airship, but you can't use it because it too has been sabotaged by Saavedro. On the right is another wheel valve that does nothing. There is a ladder, however, that takes you up near the top of the cavern.
Go right to a round grate on which are some pages of Saavedro's journal. Click on them to read them and put them in his book. Next to you is a large hemisphere; click on it and it will rotate so that you can go through it to another platform. Ahead is a pipe that leads all the way to the other end of the cavern. It seems to be well supported, so walk on it to the other end and step off to the right to a short walkway that will give you a good view from this perspective of the cavern and its contents, much of which is support beams and cables for equipment and walkways.
Next to you is yet another hemisphere, part of a ventilation system. It may be opened by clicking on it. Go through the dark passage keeping an eye out for a grate in the floor. If you miss it and come the end, turn around and move one step forward and it will be at your feet. Open the grate and drop down into the lava pit control room. Not much to do here with no power, but you can unlock the door. Step out into the junction of two tunnels. It may occur to you that there must be some sort of standby power sufficient to provide illumination where needed.
Proceed along the passageway with the blue lights, the sound of running water getting louder as you go. On the way there is a short section which is depressed a little and where there is a ladder on the left and a diagram on the right.
Go up the ladder. Here you can see the motionless water wheel, and that the vertical wooden member is the end of a gate that is blocking the water from going to the water wheel. Turn the red wheel to move the gate and allow the water to get to it. But the wheel is not turning; there are no paddles on it for the water to push. Next to the red wheel is an opening that used to contain a control to raise the paddles, but Saavedro has sabotaged that also. Go back down and one step past this area on the left is a broken observation window.
Go to the end of the passage where the gate is now in place and the water diverted. Go down the shaft with the ladder. Open the wall panel where you can see the mechanism to engage the water wheel to the generator. Click on the crank to do that. Now go back up and raise the paddles through the broken window. The water wheel begins to turn and power is generated.
Return again to the passage end, and with power now established there is green light on the portal latch. Get across the turning axle and click on the latch so that the portal drops away and you can go down a ladder to another room. Here there is a viewer in which you can get another message from Saavedro. There is a tunnel with offset circular stepping stones that you should now follow to its end. Here is a very large cylindrical device of some sort in a large chamber; heavy cables around the walls suggest that it might be electrical in nature. Perhaps a giant coil.
Go down the ladder to the cylinder and you will see a symbol on a part of it, below which your cursor indicates that you can zoom in; do this and a panel opens showing a matrix of heavy electrical conductors. This a simple exercise in which you are to click on the blue buttons to move sections of the matrix until you have a complete electrical path from the terminals at the top to those at the bottom. There are five of these panels to be found as you move around the cylinder, and when you have successfully completed the circuits in all five, this success is signaled by the last panel closing by itself. Be sure to find more of Saavedro's pages as you go around the device. Go back up the ladder to the tunnel and turn to observe that there are electrical discharges jumping from the top of the cylinder, or coil, to the grid above it, presumably transferring energy upward.
Now find your way back through the tunnel, up the ladder, and through the entrance tunnel to the diagram by the ladder. All the symbols and connectors are lit except the top one, which indicates the little island where you arrived. Continue along to the metal door that you unlocked from the other side. Now that there is power you can take care of the lava pit problem.
What you need to do is to get into the lava pit and turn on the fan so that air heated by the lava can fill the balloon/airship in the cavern. Enter the control room, where from an observation window overlooking the pit there can be seen in it a large gear that opens a gate to allow molten lava to enter the pit, the motionless fan that needs to be turned on, and below it the vertical member of a platform that is used to raise and lower the platform by a barely seen gear on the right. You can hear the bubbling lava and see its rosy glow through the obser-vation window. Should you go down the ladder that is in the hole in the floor you would find the pit access hatch, and looking through the viewing window in it you would see the glowing lava; can't very well go in there with that in front of the entry. Go back up to the control room.
In front of the observation window is a control unit, in the circular face of which is a red knob used to rotate a lever around the edge of the face, and also through the horizontal slot had it not been sabotaged by having a pin driven into it as you can see. However, there is no impediment in the perimeter, so you can grasp the red knob and drag it up, then let it go and it will complete the travel around the circumference. As this happens you can see through the window the gear on the right lower the platform, whereupon the bubbling ceases and the rosy glow is replaced by ordinary illumination, signifying that the lava has drained away.
Now you can go down to the pit access hatch, click on the latch to open it, and enter the pit. Turn left and go along the platform to another control identical to one above in the control room except that it has not been sabotaged. The platform moves up and down to one of three levels: top, middle, or bottom; it is at the bottom level as you enter. Above the vertical section you can see the indicator light of the fan switch, just below the fan. You can now see better than from the control room observation window the overhead gear on the right that raises and lowers the platform by engaging the pegs on the vertical section. Note that there are pegs on each side of this section. The overhead gear assembly can be noisily moved from one side to the other by sliding the red knob from one side to the other through the slot in the control unit face.
The gate that controls the lava may be seen on the left wall. When the overhead gear unit is moved to the left, in addition to raising and lowering the platform it turns the large gear that controls the lava gate. Notice another of Saavedro's paintings on the wall.
The platform cannot be raised or lowered more than one level without moving the overhead gear from one side to the other by sliding the control unit red knob lever through the slot. The overhead gear is made to turn by rotating the red knob around the control periphery, and the gear turns in the same direction as the knob is rotated. If the gear cannot turn because of the limitation of platform movement, then the red knob cannot be made to go around, but it can always be moved back and forth through the slot.
You will have noticed the round aperture in the platform vertical section. When the platform is in its highest position, through it you can reach the fan switch to turn it on. Then lower the platform so you can leave the pit, and in the control room move the platform to allow the lava back in so that the air blown by the fan is hot. To do the latter, the overhead gear must be in the left hand position when you exit the pit.
With hot air available to inflate the airship, that's the thing to do. Leave the lava control room through the metal door and take the passage to the right, which leads to the main walkway you took into the cavern. Be on the lookout for more pages to Saavedro's journal along the way. Go down the main walkway, and along it to the end. Climb down the ladder and move across to the platform with the tri-colored gauge in front of the four wheel valves.
Hot air that looks like steam is now coming from the valves above the three working wheels. Moving the floor lever to the right uses air pressure to raise the platform and gauge up one level, repeat to go up one level more. Move the lever to the left to go down. Note the dotted red line in the blue part of the gauge at about 10 o'clock; your task is by opening and closing valves to bring the gauge needle to that line.
Since air pressure is needed to raise the platform, you have to close some valves to do this, all three to get to the top level. The gauge is no help in indicating sufficient pressure to lift the platform. One approach is to move to the top level, closing all the valves on the first two levels, then work your way back down, opening and closing valves and watching the gauge, but this gets old pretty fast. When you get tired of trying, here is a spoiler: top level, close right valve; middle level, open the two left valves; bottom level, all three valves open. The gauge needle should be close enough the dotted line.
Go around the partition to the red wheel. Turn this valve and hot air flows to the airship, which inflates and rises to free itself from its tether, then moves along its guide cable until audibly stopped by the large hemisphere. You know what to do about that: up to the main walkway, along the circular one to the elevator, down to the lower walkway to the lever that opens the hemisphere. The airship sails out, moves a section of the lower walkway aside, and stops.
Go to the airship and get in the gondola. Pull down the bar and the airship follows its guide cable through the chasm, motive power undisclosed, and over the waterwheel until stopped next to another walkway outside. Go to the end of this walkway, pull on another lever there, and the walkway and airship swing forward, making a connection between the power cable from the waterwheel generator system and the stone tower power cable. The tower and top of the island rise and become levitated, with what appear to be many rocks suspended below. Speculation is that the energy for this comes from big sparking coil you connected.
Get back in the airship gondola and pull the bar again, whereupon the ship moves ahead to the small dock leading to the tower portal, the lock for which is now glowing green. Click on the lock, the portal falls away and you can enter the tower. At the center is a shaft with rings in it that serve as a ladder. Climb down the ladder and open the latch at the bottom. Gates swing aside, and from this perspective the floating rocks form a pattern, which is copied to a sheet that goes into inventory. You have found another of Saavedro's symbols.
Pan upward to compartment doors in a panel above the gate latch. Click on the doors, and they open to present the J'nanin linking book.
This will be your last return to Saavedro's retreat. Put the last symbol sheet on the blue disk and after a copy is made a walkway extends to the Narayan linking book on the open latticework football. Atrus appears on the ceiling congratulating his sons and tells them to go to Narayan. A bridge is released in front of you. Cross the bridge to the Narayan linking book.
You start in a more or less circular room with panels of symbols along one side. On a raised area of this arrival room opposite the panels are a couple of spheres on short pedestals, and between them on another pedestal is a lever switch with a large handle. Conduits run between the switch and the sphere pedestals. If you click on the spheres you get a noise as though they want to open but cannot. The most likely reason is that there is no power. Behind the switch is an impenetrable force bubble covering an exit from this room, and to the right of this another opening covered by a lattice of roots or branches. Outside is a gondola hanging from a rope or cable. Finally, to the right is a stairway.
Go up the stairway and onto a large circular grid with illumination beneath. Immediately Saavedro comes out of a tower carrying the Releeshahn linking book and his ever present mallet. He was expecting to see Atrus, not you. He talks to you briefly, then rants to himself for a while, threatens you again, and retreats back into the tower. After he's left, turn around to find a switch. Hit the switch and you hear the slowly rising hum of a generator, and power is established. Now that you have a good chance to observe it, that fog surrounding the place appears in reality to be a translucent barrier resembling plastic, with patches of bubbles and other irregularities in it. This must be the shield that Saavedro claims Atrus has established, and which keeps him confined away from the rest of Narayan.
Return down the stairs and turn your attention to the symbols on the wall. There are thirty of them, each with a word under it indicating the significance of the symbol. Perhaps some of the symbols might make you think that you have seen them before. In your inventory look at the symbols you have gathered at the end of linking to the Amateria, Edanna, and Voltaic Ages. From Amateria you can recognize the force and change symbols, from Edanna those for nature and encourage, and in that from the Voltaic Age there are future and motion. Now, though there is no hint that you should do so, examine Atrus' interminable journal, you will find boldfaced expressions of his philosophy containing exactly those words. Here they are: (page 12) Energy powers future motion (Voltaic), (page 17) Nature encourages mutual dependence (Edanna), (page 23) Dynamic forces spur change (Amateria), (page 27) Balanced systems stimulate civilization.
Note that each of these phrases consists of four words. With regard to the first three phrases, in addition to the words mentioned above, symbols for the remaining ones may also be found in the panels. Go to the switch between the two spheres and be sure the handle points to the sphere on the left, then go to that sphere. Click on it; now that there is power the pedestal rises. Click on the sphere for a closeup, and again to open it, and you will see three circles, one for each of the Ages to which you have linked. Get a closeup of one of the circles to see in it four circles, and in each of those four more, symmetrically arranged so that there are twenty circle segments. Consider any of the sentences, say the first one: Voltaic. In the top circle form the symbol for energy; moving to the next segmented circle form the symbol for power, and on around for the remaining two word symbols. When you have successfully formed the four symbols they all turn a brilliant white, then recede so that you can get a closeup of another circle and repeat the symbol forming for another sentence, then once more for the third sentence.
After doing the same to the other two circles of symbols glowing white, the scene shifts right and the force bubble over the room exit dissolves. Go out the exit where you can see that the gondola is not going anywhere because its cable disappears into the shield. There is another set of stairs leading to a room below which looks much like the one you just left, and there is another set of panels in which you can find the three missing symbols for those words in the last sentence. With this information return up the stairs, but first be sure and get the Tomahna linking book next to the stairway and put it in your inventory.
Go again to the switch and turn the handle to point toward the sphere on the right, whereupon you will see that the force bubble returns. Open this second sphere as before and it you will find only one segmented circle set. Well, of course--you have only one sentence left. Build its symbols as you did for the others, and when the red segment patterns turn white, the shield disappears. Saavedro comes running from above in wonderment. Realizing that there might be life out in the pink mist, he makes some statements, plays with the switch alternating the appearance of either the shield or force bubble, then says that he will return the Releeshahn book if you will turn the switch and remove the shield when he is out next to the gondola. He goes out to it, turns to you and says, "Do it!"
At this point save your game. There are quite a few endings to this game, and you may enjoy trying them all; remember, Saavedro still has his lethal mallet. Also remember he still has the Releeshahn book, and he still has his well earned hatred for Atrus and Atrus' boys.
One thing that you can do is as he demands, turn the switch to dissolve the shield and trust him to leave the book behind as he departs in the gondola, then turn the switch and get it before linking back to Tomahna. Or you can walk out to confront him to get the book and do nothing until he gives it to you. What you really should do is scoot up the stairway and turn off the power. Without power to support the patterns you established in the spheres the force bubble and the shield return, trapping Saavedro between them. Now you are in control. Go back down and make him give you the book, whereupon you have a decision to make: you can link back to Tomahna and leave him trapped forever, or you can decide he has suffered enough and you can turn the power back on and let him sail off into the pinkness where perhaps his wife and daughters await. Before you do that, however, be sure that the switch handle is turned to the right, or you will regret your decision. Briefly.
Link back to Tomahna to receive the grateful thanks of Atrus and Catherine. Catherine says that the fire from the fire marble destroyed the J'nanin linking book and they could not follow to help.
Edited from original by Soren Andersen
Related: Official Prima strategy guide (PDF), via Internet Archive
