Anam

[Luetwo]

You wake up in a tent. There is a cot, a desk and chair, a locked file cabinet, a small fire pit in the center of the tent. There are books on the desk and all but one of the drawers in the desk are opened. The books cover everything from desert living, to power sources, to uses of sand. There is a cabinet in the back containing food supplies and equipment that might be needed to explore this area. After you figure the way to open the locked desk drawer, you find the explorers journal about this place. It gives the measurements of the buildings and the distances between the cone-shaped building and the four towers. It also mentions that one of the towers has a fissure wide enough to crawl through. You peek outside the tent and see a most interesting desert. The sand is of varied hues. Some of the sand appears to be blue, red, a little white and some yellow. It makes this place appear cooler than it is. Before you go look for the way into the structure, you take a few supplies and ensure you have enough water to sustain you during your exploration. You return the explorers journal and leave the protection of the tent.

Fortunately the tent is situated in the edge of an oasis, so water is no longer the concern while exploring this area. It is also a good thing that it is still early enough in the day that the temperature is not unbearable. You stand at the edge of the oasis and gaze at a previously unknown conic shaped structure. You have no idea how tall it is because the vast majority of it is covered by the sand. At the present approximately twenty feet stick out of the sand. Off in the distance you can make out towers. They appear situated at the four corners surrounding the first building. The top of the towers is the same height as the top of the pyramid. You decide to investigate the towers first and hopefully find the fissure the explorer described.

You move toward the closest tower. The tower has some cracks running up and down, but none are wide enough to enter. There are a few tool marks to indicate that someone had tried to enlarge this crack.The stone must be thicker or stronger than it appears. No entrance here, so you move on to the next tower.
This being called tower 1. Tower 2 seems to be in worse shape than tower 1. There are spots on this tower that give the impression that is has been repaired (remortared) at some point. Tower 3 has a fissure large enough to squeeze through. Tower 4 resembles tower 2. You take your supplies and squeeze through the fissure in tower 3.

You are now standing on a platform of a set of stairs. It is far too dark to descend very far in the tower. I am unsure as to the safety of the stairs, and besides I couldn't see anything anyway. You need to get some light so you can safely negotiate the stairs down to the base of the pyramid structure.

You climb the story and a half to reach the top of the stairs. The roof has an asterick shaped cutout in the very top, although it looks as if at one time there was glass in that opening. That explains the amount of sand in the stairway. It also allows enough light to examine the machinery on the top floor of the tower. There is a large yellow crystal held in place with eight metal fingers attached at eight points around the tower. Below the crystal is a large pipe with a funnel like attachment on top. If you look down into the pipe, you notice flecks of the yellow crystal. They appear to be stuck to the pipe for a long way down. You decide to go play with the control panel and see what effect that has on everything. The control panel consists of cranks, wheels and pulleys. The crystal can be raised and lowered, shifted right or left, and moved forward or back. I first focused the light on the walls of the stairway. You can now make out some of the symbols. ( However without the ability to draw in this book and without the ability to scan what I have designed, this will have to remain a secret for now.) There are also several sayings about or involving the sun. I will assume that the symbol ( o ) is either for the sun or the color yellow,or both. After I have finished looking at the stairway, I move the light coming through the yellow crystal so that it travels down the pipe. Let's go downstairs and see if there are any differences.

The stairway now has a little more light than it did when I walked up. Doesn't feel nearly as dangerous. When I get to the bottom of the tower, I can faintly make out another structure across a small rivelet of water. I can see the light beaming across the water into a hole in this corner of the pyramid. The light is above my head, high enough I cannot jump to reach it. The bottom outer side of the pyramid wall appears to be cabinets.

Cautiously, you make your way to the next tower. You carefully climb the stairs. It is dark but fortunately the stairs layout is the same as the first tower. The only concern is whether these stairs are all present or not. When you reach the top, bad news. You can see with the light coming through the hole in the roof. The fingers (that were holding the crystal in the first tower) are hanging empty. You search, but do not find a crystal for this tower. As you climb down the stairs you wonder if maybe there are some crystals in the cabinets along the bottom walk. You will have to check when or if you can get a little more light there. You proceed to the next tower.

You make your way to the next tower and carefully ascend the stairs. When you reach the top, you can barely make out a crystal leaning against the wall. You must find the eight fingered apparatus and connect it to the crystal. Then lift the crystal and position it to provide light. This crystal is blue. If you shine the light down the tower wall you see signs which must have some thing to do with the color blue. One of the signs resembles water. (vvvvv). You move this crystal to provide light to the rest of the building and carefully make your way back down the stairs.

[Luetwo]

All four towers have to be started in a similar fashion. Granted the crystal is in a different location for each of the towers, ie. the first it was already in the holders but needed to be aligned, the second was on the floor but already connected. Each gets a little more that has to be done in order to position it correctly. Each tower also has a different sign and color. Take note of this as it will soon be very important.

When all four towers are providing light into the base of the pyramid, you find the bridge that crosses the deep ravine between the outer pyramid and the inner one. The door has what looks like a chess board on it, but there are differences. This board has four L-shaped blocks scattered across the board. Within the L-shaped blocks are the four pictures from the towers. There is also four square shaped blocks on this board. The blocks have to be moved into the correct L-shaped space. These blocks, once touched, travel the width or heigth of the board. They only stop when the bump into the edge, another block, or a solid side of the L-shaped blocks. Once the blocks are in the correct spot , the board opens off the wall like a cabinet door and reveals a button. This button opens the door into the inner pyramid.
The color of the button, once lit, will give a clue as to the location of the door. Find the door, really just a narrow opening, and ...

[pappou]

Love this Anam puzzle, Leutwo.
What do you plan to do with it?

[Luetwo]

I believe here , one of the aligned crystals should shatter. This would close the opening created when the last puzzle was solved. You must now find a replacement crystal and go through the hanging and alignment of that crystal again. The crystal was found in a storage area on one side of the inner pyramid. However, there is only one green crystal now left in the storage area. More crystals need to be on hand in case of another breakage. You return to the puzzle on the wall of the inner pyramid. While the concept is the same, the squares you have to get the blocks into has changed. Fine, you go through this again and can finally enter the inner pyramid.

You cautiously enter the inner pyramid. It is a steep and very narrow stairway

[Luetwo]

I believe here you should have the option of climbing the stairs up or down. Down is one large room used to seperate the sand by color. This has to be done very precisely to get the correct colored crystals. Right now I am giving each color of crystal a different shape, this way we could use some sort of microscope to differentiate the the colors of sand into piles. The sand comes in primary colors, yellow, blue, red, white. As green is a combination color, there is no green sand. That will have to be mixed. as will purple and orange.

[Luetwo]

You also find in this lab, recipes(?) for the crystals. Unfortunately, all you can decipher are the four images you encountered in the towers, and your understanding of those is still just a guess. The numbers slightly resemble Roman numerals, at least the first several numbers do: l, ll , lll. Four looks like an h and five looks like a capital H. It would take too long to put the entire number system here. Now does the numbers stand for particles of sand, weight of sand, or something else. I really am thinking of the numbers standing for portions, whether those portions are weight or actual amount of sand, I have not figured yet. I could use some suggestions on this. (My thinking on their counting system: it goes l, ll =l+l,lll= l+ll,h=l+ll+lll,H=l+ll+lll+h)

[Luetwo]

I mentioned earlier that each color of sand is a different shape. Should the shape of the actual particles be similar to the designs on the wall: red particles are tear shaped, blue is shaped like ribbon candy, yellow is a round ball.

Also I was thinking about how to make the crystals. I believe somewhere there should be recipes or something, similar to the pellet recipe in Ercana.

[Luetwo]

In the center of the room is an elevator. I am thinking a round disc surrounded by a chain mesh. ( This is the only way into the very top of the pyramid structure.) You have the option of taking the elevator to the top or returning to the stairs to check the other levels. I imagine you would normally take the elevator first, but that only goes between the top and the sorting room. most of the pyramid would still be undiscovered.

[Luetwo]

The top of the pyramid is some sort of altar. I have not sone the puzzle for this yet, but when the esplorer solves the puzzle, the altar should open. I believe the history of this place should be part of what is in the altar. Along with some of the beliefs of the people who created this structure.

[Luetwo]

I would like the history to be that of a native people to this place.... an anciient history. This , I believe , should be close to an actual tribe's history of their beginnings. Obviously, this was covered by the sands long before the white man came and there should be no mention of him. What do you think of having perhaps a D'ni visitor in the history of this people. This could explain why it was not recreated after the storm that covered it in sand and why there is only one around.