Rusty Lake: Roots

Food

Raise the bucket. By the flowerpots, take the WORM and put it in the trap. Zoom out, zoom back in on the trap and take the FISH. By the hearth, pick up the AXE. Chop a BRANCH from the tree and chop it into firewood. Take the MATCHES from the left flowerpot. Put the FIREWOOD in the hearth and light it with the MATCHES.

Take the STICK from Rose and lay it on the supports. Skewer the FISH on the improvised spit, take the FRIED FISH and lower the food down the well.

The stick, and hauling Frank up

Take the STICK off the supports and lower it down the well. Then click the well winch and haul Frank to the surface.

Act twenty-seven: Chess

Autumn 1926. Frank and Albert sit down at the chess table.

Zoom in on the wall cabinet. By experiment you find that the lower button draws the line downwards and the upper button upwards. One horizontal segment, or one vertical segment of the same size, is one click; a segment twice as long is two clicks. Press: down, up, down, down, up, up, down, down, up, down, up.

Take the chess KNIGHT from the cabinet. Turn to the painting on the right and take the KNIFE. Note the inscription written in blood and the drawing of a chess king. Put the KNIGHT on the board and zoom out. A horse mask appears on Albert.

Zoom in on the potato Frank is holding. Use the KNIFE on it to carve a chess KING and put it on the table. A crown appears on Frank’s head.

Zoom in on the board. Note that you cannot put the knight on a square marked with a cross. Move along the available path and checkmate the white king. Zoom out, and the crown moves to Albert’s head.

Zoom in on the board again. Letters have appeared on the squares. From the hint in the painting, the keyword is CEREBRUM, so you must move the black knight across exactly the squares carrying those letters. Solve it and checkmate the white king. Zoom out.

Frank stands behind Albert with his hands on his brother’s throat. Zoom in and click Frank. He strangles Albert and runs off.

Go to the dead Albert, remove the crown and extract the BRAIN. Put it in the glass jar: the brain of Albert Vanderboom.

Act twenty-eight: The bathroom

Winter 1928. Frank sits in the bath, freezing.

Zoom in on the thermometer: the room temperature is heading for zero. Turn to the windows. Close the left window and cover the holes in the right one with the boards, and the temperature rises.

Look at the mirror and click it; a ghost appears in the frame. Click three more times, take the mirror apart and take the KEY.

Move to the cabinet under the window. Unlock the middle drawer with the KEY and take the COAL. From the top drawer, take the MATCHES. Turn to the boiler, open the door, put the COAL in and light it with the MATCHES. Close the door and push the levers up. The temperature rises considerably.

Take the BUCKET from the boiler and fill it from the tap in the basin. Stand the BUCKET OF WATER on the boiler and zoom out. Zoom back in and take the BUCKET OF HOT WATER, then pour it into the bath. The temperature is now where it needs to be.

Click Frank and take the KEY. Unlock the bottom drawer of the cabinet and take the SCISSORS. Cut Frank’s hair with them to get HAIR, and put it in the glass jar: the hair of Frank Vanderboom.

Act twenty-nine: The treasure

Autumn 1929. Leonard is trying to find an old chronometer. Click the sheet in his hand: it shows the scheme for locating it.

Take the SPADE standing by the fence. Move to the tree trunk, click the hollow and take the BEETLE. Move to the table where the grasshoppers are.

Puzzle: the grasshoppers

You have to move the green grasshoppers left and the grey ones right. Writing G for grey and g for green, the starting position is GGG__ggg.

Move the third green from the right, then the third grey from the left, giving GG__gGgg. Then the second grey from the left and the green in the centre, giving GgG__Ggg. Then the second green from the right and the first green from the right: GgGgGg__. Then the second grey from the right and the third grey from the left: Gg__gGgG. Then the first grey from the left: __gGgGgG. Then the first green from the left, the central green and the second green from the right: ggGgG__G. Finally click the second grey from the right, the third grey from the left, and the central green.

Thanks to LuMar for working this sequence out; the credit is the original author’s.

Take the GRASSHOPPER. Turn to the frog and release the BEETLE and the GRASSHOPPER.

Finding the chronometer

• Put the frog on the grey pebble and make it jump three times right. Mark where it lands with a yellow counter.
• Put the beetle on that counter and move it three times up. Mark where it stops.
• Put the grasshopper on that counter and move it three times left. Mark where it stops.

Then move: the beetle two up; the frog two right; the beetle one up; the grasshopper three left.

Use the SPADE where the grasshopper stopped and dig up the chronometer. Give it to Leonard.

Act thirty: The stars

Winter 1930. Frank does not know what to do next.

Zoom in on the table at the left and take the BIRD FOOD and a CARD. Open the window on the right and pour the food into the feeder. Zoom out.

A bird lands at the feeder. Zoom in and take the LETTER from Frank’s mother out of the case tied round its neck. Give it to Frank. It is Emma’s letter, asking her son to look for her among the stars.

Zoom in on the portrait of Emma and the young Frank. Take the CARD from behind the frame and note the constellation drawn over the portrait. Turn to the portrait of Aldous Vanderboom, note that constellation too, and take the CARD tucked behind the frame. Slide the portrait aside and zoom in on the puzzle.

Rotate the discs so the lines on them line up. A ladder comes down from above. Go up to the first floor.

Zoom in on the telescope eyepiece and add your CARDS to the CARD 4 lying there. Join the stars with a line to recreate the constellations shown on the cards, using the slider to turn the disc:

• TREE
• CUBE
• DEER
• CROW

Then recreate the constellations you saw on the portraits of Emma with Frank and of Aldous Vanderboom. When you complete the one from Aldous’s portrait, Mr. Crow appears and asks you to make sure the great-grandchildren have found all three chronometers and to gather all the branches together again.

Take the LENS and go down to the ground floor. Look at Emma’s letter in Frank’s hands and lay the LENS over it. Line up the letter v on the lens with the v in the text and you get the word LOVE. Enter it on the casket and take the CHRONOMETER. Give it to Frank.

Act thirty-one: The last dance

Spring 1933. Frank and Rose need music to dance to.

Zoom in on the cabinet at the right and take the RECORD. Note the arrows at the top and memorise them. Put the record on the gramophone and turn the handle. Music plays and the pair are ready to dance.

Steer them by clicking Frank to move the pair left and Rose to move them right. The dance must follow the arrows:

right, right, left, left, right, right, right, left, left, left, right, right

Take the KEY from Rose’s hand and unlock the hanging cabinet. Take a new RECORD and a DRESS, and note the new arrows. Change Rose’s dress and put the new record on the gramophone.

Steer them through:

right, right, right, left, right, left, right, left, left, right, right, right

The gramophone breaks. Take the broken NEEDLE and prick Rose’s finger with it. Take the last sacrifice, the blood of Rose Vanderboom. All ten sacrifices are now collected.

Act thirty-two: The graveyard

Autumn 1932. Rose is at the graveyard.

Move right and zoom in on the dog. Take its BONE and turn your view into the grave. Add the BONE to the other bones lying beside the skeleton. Take the SPADE.

Join the parts of the skeleton and you find bones are missing. Zoom out from the grave and turn to the left half of the graveyard.

Open the graves with the SPADE. From the graves of Emma, Ida, Samuel and James take BONES. From Mary’s grave take a casket closed with a combination lock. Albert’s grave has a slab that the spade will not move.

Puzzle: the casket code

The code is made up of:

• the sum of the months of death of Emma and Ida;
• the sum of the days of death of Samuel and Albert.

Read the dates on those graves and add them up. The result is 2233.

Take the AWL. Use it on the slab on Albert’s grave and extract the BONE. Carry all the BONES to the grave with the skeleton, assemble it, then click the skull and take the CHRONOMETER. Give it to Rose.

Act thirty-three: Roots

Spring 1935.

Take the CHRONOMETERS from Rose, Frank and Leonard. Go through the arch and zoom in on each of the three paintings in turn.

Lay the CHRONOMETERS out in the correct order, following the inscriptions, and open them immediately. They all now show the same time, 2:45.

Return to the first room and zoom in on the grandfather clock’s dial. Set the hands to 2:45. Rose, the only member of the family not entwined in the strange branches, appears inside the clock. Click her, and the branches wrap around her. Click her again and the clock doors close, hiding her.

Go into the arch. The grating in front of the jars holding the organs of the ten sacrifices rises. Zoom in on them: the jars stand on pans marked with numbers.

Return to the room and study the portraits on the right-hand walls, noting the symbols and numbers:

• James, sacrifice tongue (J, 1)
• Rose, sacrifice blood (R)
• Leonard, sacrifice leg (L)
• Frank, sacrifice hair (F, 3)

Then the group photograph:

• Mary, sacrifice teeth (M)
• Samuel, sacrifice eye (S)
• Ida, sacrifice eye (I)
• Emma, sacrifice tear (E)
• Albert, sacrifice brain (A)

Look at the code panel of the cabinet below, then go back to the arch and zoom in on the jars.

Puzzle: balancing the jars

Rearrange the jars so that every vessel stands on a pan at the same level. That gives you these readings:

• Albert’s brain: 3
• Samuel’s eye: 1
• Leonard’s leg: 2
• Emma’s tear: 4
• Mary’s teeth: 3
• James’s tongue: 5
• Rose’s blood: 2
• Ida’s eye: 1
• Frank’s hair: 3

To open the cabinet you need six values: Samuel, Mary, Ida, Emma, Albert and Rose. Entering the readings as they stand does nothing.

Go back to the two photographs. James’s photograph gives the weight of his tongue as 1, and Frank’s gives the weight of his hair as 3. The scales currently read 5 for James’s tongue and 3 for Frank’s hair, and they are balanced. So:

3 (hair) + 3 (scale reading) + n (pan weight) = 1 (tongue) + 5 (scale reading) + n (pan weight)

which gives the pan weight n = 6. From that:

• S = 6 − 1 = 5
• M = 6 − 3 = 3
• I = 6 − 1 = 5
• E = 6 − 4 = 2
• A = 6 − 3 = 3
• R = 6 − 2 = 4

Zoom in on the cabinet and set those values. Take WILLIAM’S HEART, then read the inscription about the balance of the essence above the diagram.

Go into the arch and put the jar with the heart on the right-hand pan of the scales. Roots descend into the jars. Click the jars of organs and they disappear. Move forward along the roots, assemble the organs into the body and click.

The game is complete. To learn “all the family secrets”, choose More Roots from the menu.

More Roots: the nine signs

You are asked to collect nine more signs, and given the first hint: the number 666.

Note: the signs are numbered by their position in the list, not the order you find them. You can only enter the acts through the large paintings, which is itself a hint about what you are looking for.

Sign one

Three-digit numbers came up when you needed the code for James’s case in the first act. Go down to the bottom of the family tree and enter act one by clicking James’s portrait. Zoom in on the case lock and enter 666. Turn to the inside of the case lid, pull the corner and tear the lining away. Take the sign.

Examine the tarot cards revealed: Wheel of Fortune, Death, Queen of Pentacles, The Hermit and The Devil. These are the hints for the rest.

Sign three

The Wheel of Fortune card shows a clock dial with a time on it. Go out to the tree and into the Samuel branch. Zoom in on the grandfather clock dial and set the time shown on the card, 10:35. Take the sign.

Sign nine

The Death card shows the familiar pigeon-direction symbols. Go to the Leonard branch. Set the pigeons’ flight directions according to the card, ring the bell, zoom out, zoom in on the dovecote again and ring the bell. Take the sign.

Sign four

The Queen of Pentacles card carries Roman numerals, which you met in Emma’s flower bed. Go to the Emma branch. Zoom in on the pot of flowers and press the flowers above the numerals shown on the card: III, IV, II, IV, I. Take the sign.

Sign seven

The Hermit card. Go to the Frank branch. Press the letters on the rock to spell CROW, as written on the card. Take the sign.

Sign two

Back at the location, look at the tarot card The Lovers. That is the hand you took the ring from for James’s proposal. Go to the Mary branch. Press the fingers on the hand in the order shown on the card to get the second sign.

Sign five

The Devil card shows the symbols you used to open the cabinet. Go to the Albert branch, set the symbols shown on the card, and take the fifth sign.

Sign eight

Back at the location, look at the reverse of the Empress card. Go to the Rose branch. Zoom in on the spirit board and spell RUSTYLAKE to get the eighth sign.

Sign six

Study the tarot cards in James’s case once more. Go to the Ida branch, enter the tent and lay the marked cards on the matching symbols on the table. Take the last sign.

With all nine signs collected, another frame appears at the roots of the family tree.

The elixir

Speak to Aldous Vanderboom. He asks you to bring him an elixir. Move to the family crest: you need an egg and a glass bottle. Turn to the laboratory equipment.

Making the egg

Mix the ingredients by clicking a component and dragging it into the vessel:

• Water + Earth = Clay (1)
• Clay + Water = Plant (2)
• Plant + Water = Algae (3)
• Algae + Air = Small eggs (4)

That is the first component. Then:

• Earth + Fire = Lava (5)
• Lava + Air = Stone (6)

That is the second. Then:

• Water + Earth = Clay
• Clay + Water = Plant
• Plant + Water = Algae
• Algae + Water = Shell (7)

That is the third. Finally:

• Stone + Shell = Chalk (8)
• Small eggs + Chalk = Egg (9)

Making the glass

• Fire + Earth = Lava
• Lava + Air = Stone
• Stone + Air = Sand (10)
• Sand + Fire = Glass (11)

Mix the Egg and the Glass to get the ELIXIR (12).

Pour the ELIXIR into Aldous’s glass. He suggests you taste it first. Click to drink it, move forward along the vessels and pick up the SEED. Climb out and click Aldous. He drinks the elixir and turns into Mr. Crow. Give the Crow the seed to finish the game.