Terra Realms Walkthrough (Parts 1 and 2)

(SpecularArts, 2001)

By Alexander Tait

06 December 2003

Last night I had the strangest dream. Inspired by screenshots of Uru I had seen, no doubt, I went to sleep and promptly dreamed of a land known as the Terra Realms.

I started in a forest, deep and dark and heavily wooded, tall trees obscuring the sky. I wandered around in a circle, strangely I could not escape the bounds set by the trees. I found a room hewn into the rock. On a wooden bench top inside there were two 2x2 squares, one containing mystic triangles and the other empty. Below the larger 2x2 square was a red button, useless for now.  It was clear that I had to move the triangles into the adjacent squares but how many I did not know.

I wandered around the wooded area again and found a hollow tree trunk large enough to allow me entry into a small cave. At first I thought there was nothing of interest beyond an ancient bison painted on the wall but then I was drawn to a diagram on the roof of the cave: a 2x2 square with the curious triangles I had seen earlier. In less primitive strokes, someone had drawn hands with fingers extended in each square. Each hand told how many triangles needed to be placed in the 2x2 square I had seen.

I returned to the 2x2 squares and placed the triangles like so:

The larger 2x2 square lowered and I could hear a distant mechanical noise of something opening. I left the room and noticed at my right, a huge cavern had been revealed complete with ceiling to floor limestone formations.

I went in and followed the cavern to a door. Unfortunately, the door was locked and there was no sign of a key or even a handle! I retraced my steps, carefully checking for other passages. I found a boarded up door with a handle. Fiddling with the handle, I eventually coaxed it out of the socket. Returning to the first door, I inserted the handle and opened the door.

I found myself in a corridor flanked by locked doors at either end. The only way I could go was in to a storeroom of some kind. My eyes were drawn to a clock and a calendar on the entry wall. Was there some clue hidden in the seemingly innocent numbers indicated? I made a mental note of the numbers: 2 and 3 on the clock and a 4 circled on the March calendar perhaps suggesting 3.

Edging closer to the water cooler I noticed a power box on the left wall. Pulling the switch down to auxiliary power I heard a distant click.

I turned left when I exited the room, pushed the button on the wall, half expecting my efforts to have been in vain. Instead the door slid up with a mechanical whine, allowing me entry into what I took to be a plant laboratory. I was fascinated by the turquoise plants in varying degrees of health resting silently in flowerpots on three shelves. Immediately opposite the shelves was a mixing machine. How would I know what combination of chemicals to use and more importantly, why was I doing this?

Three spigots of chemicals were labeled LuM, H₂O and MeG. Something about the pots on the top shelf suggested a degree of order. A group of two plants and then a group of three. A group of four and then a group of three. The groups matched exactly the numbers I had memorized from the other room.

I used the buttons to make LuM register 2 and H₂O register 3:

Then, I pushed the second button on the left to make it drain into the left holding tank. I made H₂O read 4 and MeG read 3:

The third switch allowed the green chemical to drain into the right holding tank. So, now I had made the chemicals required but I wasn’t sure about the ratio of one to the other required. I returned to the shelves of plants and noticed the second shelf again had a pattern to the arrangement of pots. This time there were only two groups: one of four and one of five. I drained four parts of the left chemical and five parts of the right chemical into the mixing tank:

Now, all I needed to do was use the switch between the mixture tank and the turquoise flower. Eureka, it stayed lit with an electrical crackle. Electrical crackle… This was a power source. I had just restored the main power.

I returned to the room with the electrical box and pushed the switch up to Main power. Again, I heard a noise. I returned to the corridor and pushed the switch on the door opposite the mixing room. It slid open with the same mechanical whine. I went in.

I found myself in a cavernous maze. Fortunately, there was only one way to go. Following it to its end, I arrived at an elevator. I got in the wooden contraption and pulled the control arm. The door slide shut and I gritted my teeth as I fell, almost literally, at a stomach-churning rate to the floor before. Moments before my doom, the elevator stopped at a doorway to another chamber. I pushed on the doors and went in.

An eerie orange eye on a door immediately opposite seemed to watch my every move. There was no way through the door. At my right, I found another arm switch. I pulled it and with a click, spotlights turned on and I found myself in front of a control panel. Ten symbols were engraved into the surface of the control panel. Four colored markers red, yellow, green, and blue had symbols written on them. Unfortunately, not one corresponded with the engraved symbols. I placed the marker symbols over symbols that looked similar but no effect.

It was only when I closed the entry doors that I realized there were passages on either side of the entryway. Both passages led to a decoder of sorts. Pushing the button on the silvery part of the machine, it opened. I pulled the arm at left up and it showed me which engraved symbol matched which colored token:

                                      

With such an important gateway, I knew that the lock would be randomized. The next time I tried this door I would need to check again to find out the correct symbols for each token. I placed the tokens on their corresponding symbols. The doors with the eye slid across opening to the outside.

I was in a valley with red rock cliffs rising into low hills on either side of me. I followed the path out to a dam. At left a locked gate prevented me from getting into the dam controls. I instead turned around and walked down some stairs to the bottom of the dam.

A rowboat looked very out of place in the desert-like bottom of the dam. It had obviously been many years since water flowed here. The boat was empty, forcing me to forego the craft in favor of retracing my steps. Just before returning to the room with the control panel, I noticed an alcove at my right. On the wall of the cliff was a circular man-made ring with eight colors around it. I touched a white circular button in the center of the ring and various colors lit up in succession. I realized that this was a test. I had to copy all eight colors in sequence each time generated randomly.

It took me several attempts before I got all eight correct in sequence. A grating noise accompanied a panel of stone sliding across revealing an ancient cavern. I walked in up to an altar-like table. A pair of glasses sat on the table. Amazingly, when I put them on, the once alien text on the screen before me became as easy to read as my mother tongue. A key appeared on the altar. The message on the screen was for me-they were expecting me! But who were they and why did they want to help me? The message advised that I go downstream-more answers would be available there. I left the cave in a wondrous stupor and went back to the locked gate.

The key turned the lock as though it were freshly oiled. With a clank, the gate opened and I walked across the top of the dam to a castle-like turret. A pipeline wheel was locked securely with four locks. Another puzzle was the key unlocking all four. Over a period of time, I came to realize that the written clue next to a 3x3 square was cryptic. I noted them down as some were repeated in my attempts:

“bright as diamonds…”                                      WATERFALL

“when young I am sweet in the sun…”               WINE BOTTLE

“lovely and round…”                                         PEARL

“I am always hungry…”                                                FIRE

“who makes it has no need of it…”                    COFFIN

“my life can be measured in hours…”                 CANDLE

“if you break me…”                                          HEART

“until I am measured…”                                    HOURGLASS

“I’m a distant cyclist…”                                                MOON

“whilst I was engaged in sitting…”                     SHIP

“if a man carried my burden…”                         SNAIL

“they may toast the host…”                               COOKING POT

“their rustling sound…”                                      FEATHER

“sublime in beauty…”                                        LIGHTNING

“I go around in circles…”                                  WHEEL

“if by chance I develop…”                                 FOG

The wheel was freed. I turned to it and then rotated it several times. The sound of rushing water filled my ears. There below I could see the water level had risen, the rowboat now floating gently on soft ripples and waves. I returned to the boat.

I was a simple matter to row down river for some distance. Without even raising a sweat, I soon came to the most exquisite cottage I had ever seen with Eastern and Western influences. I docked, disembarked, and made my way up to the front of the cottage.

At the front door, it was no surprise to discover that the door was locked. I was crestfallen, however, when I heard the clink of the key dropping to the floor. Fortunately, I heard some rapid footsteps on the other side of the door arrive, return the key to the keyhole, and scarper away. A plan developed in my mind.

I pushed the doormat under the door and tried it again. The key fell to the floor and before anyone could return it to the keyhole I dragged the doormat back under the door. I collected the treasured key from the mat and used it to enter the foyer of the cottage.

I turned immediately around. Ignoring a coat rack and umbrella stand, instead I took careful note of a plaque on the wall at the right. It was obviously a clue to solve another puzzle:

Walking into the room, I noted that each wall was flanked by two vases, both the same color on each wall. The four colors coincided with the colors on the diagram: red, blue, green, and yellow. When I touched the right sided vase it changed color. Very strange! The color of the vases matched the bottom diagram. The “south” on the diagram referred to which wall would open with this configuration! I concluded that the wall directly opposite the front door, the one with a fireplace, was the north wall. I changed the colors of the four vases so that the north one was green, the east one was red, the south one was blue, and the west one was yellow. Voila! The west wall opened.

I entered a study of sorts and found a diary lying on the desktop. It belonged to Podo Grubb of Little Delving. His words leapt out from the page to congratulate me on my diligence and explain that I was in the Terra Realms. The people of the Terra Realms were in some king of struggle with the Dragoths and one particular one, Ragor, was especially troublesome. A Dragoth called Gomak appeared to be their leader. In order to restore the land to its rightful owners, Podo begged that I take the Elvish Egg to the other side of the boathouse (this place). Using the egg, I would be transported to Gromak’s castle.

After collecting the intricately created Faberge-like egg from the shelf above the desk, I returned to the main room and reconfigured the vases so that the north one was blue, the east one yellow, the south one red, and the west one green. The east wall slid aside and a room with what can only be described as a throne was opened.

I walked up and sat on the throne. Holding my breath, preparing myself for anything, I placed, ever so gently, the egg in the outstretched claw on the right arm of the throne. Little bolts of electricity shot out of the claws as they enclosed around the egg. An electronic whine came from a distance and the crystal ball on the left arm of the throne lit up. An image of a castle spinning inside appeared.

At this point, I woke up. This was one of the most exciting and vivid dreams I have ever experienced. I tried desperately to return to this dreamland but to no avail. Still primed from the experience, I decided to read. I reached to my bedside table and placed my glasses on my nose. I grabbed a book from the shelf, one I had been struggling with for some time: Lost Alphabets of the Ancients. The strange thing was, no matter which transcript of unknown ancient writings I looked at, I failed to understand why no linguist had discovered a translation. How could I, a layman and non-linguist, read each tablet plainly and without effort? Perhaps the publisher had sent the wrong pictures to be published. Whatever the reason, the book made for some very enlightening reading about our forefathers, the Dragoths…

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