Laki'ahn (fourth to final pedestal)
Now walk out to the beach. To the left you will be able to see a short pier, a wrecked boat, and a beacon of some kind (perhaps a totem pole?), which should be familiar from one of the paintings you saw earlier. As you walk towards the pier, Esher will appear. Somewhat more calm than he has recently been, he will congratulate you once more, and tell you came via “the way of the Kresh… the natives who travelled here to subdue the creatures for us.” He wonders if, since the Fall of D’ni, they have returned to their barbaric ways. Then he becomes a more shrill, pouring scorn on the idea that the outsiders who destroyed D’ni can rebuild it (read more).
There is nothing else at the pier, so head right along the beach. Shortly you will come to a wooden hut, presumably made by the Kresh. To the right of the hut there is some kind of balancing mechanism, composed of rocks of different sizes.
Walk past the hut and on to the beach, then around the furthest of the large rocks. At the back of the largest rock, clearly attached to the balancing mechanism, is a wooden door, weighted down by three boulders, two medium sized, and one small. Returning to the hut, you’ll be able to see that the door at the other end is similarly weighted.
The boulders attached to the mechanism are in three sizes: at either end is a large boulder, followed by a small boulder, and in the middle are three medium sized boulders. It would be difficult to create a 50-50 balance with that setup, but luckily you don’t have to: the doors are suspended different lengths from the scale arm, and so you will need slightly more weight on the left—the door with the shorter distance—than on the right. All that you can do now is experiment a little.
Pulling the handle next to each boulder will lift it; the best place to start would be to lift one large boulder, one medium boulder, and one small boulder, leaving one large, two medium and one small on the ground. The right hand door will also stay on the ground. Notice that it doesn’t actually matter which of the large boulders you lift from the ground, since the mechanism is set to register how many boulders are elevated, and how many not, rather than on which side they are.
So having lifted three boulders of different sizes, experiment with the remaining ones. If you lift one of the other medium boulders, the door on the right will rise, but the one on the left will fall; if you go back behind the rocks you will find the tunnel that was previously hidden by the door, but the other end is now blocked!
Return to the boulders and lower one of the medium-sized ones; the right door falls back to the ground. If you now lift the second small boulder, the right door will lift again, but not as far, meaning that the left door also does not fall as far, and will not block the exit of the tunnel. To summarise, the correct solution is to raise one large boulder, one medium boulder, and two small ones; it doesn’t matter which.
When you climb the tunnel you will find yourself on a wooden platform; to your right you will see a window which looks out to sea. You should recognise the shape of the window: it is the same as the glyph for the Slate of this Age. The only thing you can see through the window is a flag pole and a small island in the distance; you can just about make out some kind of a symbol on the flag, but it isn’t clear enough.
That’s easy to solve: just go back to the pedestal and write the wind glyph again, leaving the Slate for the Bahro. The return to the window, remembering to pick up the Slate on the way; now that the wind has been summoned, you are able to see what is written on the flag, although the sand which has been whipped up still makes it difficult to see. Notice that the glyph seems to represent a Laki, and that there are two ‘fins’ or ‘flippers’ on the right of the glyph. Check in the Slate Guide if you’re not sure whether you’ve drawn it correctly.
Go back down to the beach and write the glyph on the pedestal, linking back to the first pedestal, and from there on to the Keep. Esher will be waiting for you. He tells you that very soon you will hold great power in you hands. He also reminds you to not to give the tablet to Yeesha, even though she may beckon for it, but instead to take it to Myst Island, where Yeesha will not follow; he will wait for you there (read more).
When he leaves, you should enter the sphere and touch the final Slate; as before, it will become corporeal, and you will immediately link back to K’veer.
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