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                             A Secret Passage (12%)   
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                                                                           S12%

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Sand Fields        1
Fountain of Life   0
Description        Solve a puzzle to activate the Palace's defense systems.


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 Right, you're still in the room with the bed in the center. There are two
cupboards in this room: one to the left of the fountain, and one to the right.
Grab the left cupboard by pressing [R1] and shove it to the left to reveal a
hidden passage. Head down the stairs. At the big gap, run over the left wall
and then jump off to the right. Collect the Sand Field here, and step on the
glowing tile to open the door. In this next room, the ceiling will come down,
destroying the bridge. Run over the back wall (the one with the streams of
water), and jump off and land on the other end of the bridge. There's a big
block here, shove it onto the glowing tile to open the door. You're in a big
circular room. There's a puzzle coming up, but before you can start puzzling,
you first need to get onto the platform in the center. There's a lever on one
wall. Grab it with [R1], and then walk back to pull it out of the wall.
A bridge leading to the platform will appear. As soon as you let go of the
lever, the bridge will start disappearing again, so you need to be fast. Let
go of the lever, and quickly run onto the bridge. Jump to the platform in the
center. You should make it. You can enter Slow-Motion mode ([L1]) to make the
timing easier. A friendly soldier is on a ledge above you. He orders you to
help him to activate the Palace's Defense Systems. To do so, you need to solve
a puzzle involving 4 axles. He resets the axles for you.

 Right, so what do you need to do here? Those blue glowing poles are the
axles. Each of them has a sign on it. These four sign are: Full Moon (white
circle), New Moon (black circle), Half Moon (semi-circle), and Crescent Moon
(crescent circle). At the start, each axle is placed in a slot. These slots
have the same four signs on them. Only the axle with the same sign fits in a
slot. So, for example, you can only place the New Moon axle in the New Moon
slot. Now, for the platform you're on. It has two levers. The first one
lowers and raises the platform, the other one turns it. There are four sides,
and each side has one of the four moons on it. You can only pick up an axle
with the side of the platform that has the same sign as the axle. Still
follow me? Your objective is to get all four axles in their gears. These
gears are those big circles at the top of the puzzle. The puzzle itself
consists of various grooves. If you don't have any axles attached to the
platform, you can move around freely with the platform, but if you have one
or more axles, your movement is limited by these grooves. If you look at one
side of the room, you'll see a drawing of the puzzle, it looks like this:

     _____        _____        _____        _____
    /     \      /     \      /     \      /     \
   |   1   |    |   2   |    |   3   |    |   4   |
    \_   _/      \_   _/      \_   _/      \_   _/
      | |          | |          | |          | |
 _____| |__________| |__________| |__________| |_____

      | |          | |          | |__________| |
      |_|          |C|          |  __________  |
       _________________________| |__________| |
      |  __________   _______________________  |
      | |          | |           ____________| |
      |_|          |N|          |F_____________|


Legend:

1. Crescent Moon Gear      C. Crescent Moon Slot
2. Half Moon Gear          H. Half Moon Slot
3. Full Moon               N. New Moon Slot
4. New Moon                F. Full Moon Slot

 Remember, since it's a circular room the two ends indicated with ''
connect. At the starting position, the Platform will be at the bottom, and
aligned in such a way that you can already 'pick up' the Full Moon axle. To
pick up an axle, first rotate the platform so that the side with the axle's
sign faces the axle. The tile at that end will start glowing. Step on it to
attach the axle to the platform. If you wish to detach an axle, first get it
back to its slot, and then step on the tile. Alright, those are the basics.
Up next comes the solution, so don't read on if you still want to solve the
puzzle yourself.

 1. Pick up the Full Moon Axle.
 2. Rotate clockwise once. The Full Moon Axle is now in the bottom right
    corner of my corny ASCII map.
 3. Move the platform up one step.
 4. Turn counter-clockwise three times.
 5. Move the platform down, and attach the New Moon Axle to the platform.
 6. Move back up once, and then turn clockwise twice.
 7. Move up twice.
 8. Now you can pick up the Half Moon Axle.
 9. Turn clockwise once, and lower the platform one step.
10. Pick up the last Axle, the Crescent Moon.
11. Move one up, and turn the platform counter-clockwise. If you've done it
    right, all Axles should now be under their gears.
12. Move up to put the axles in their gears.

 Now a new bridge appears. Cross it, and climb up the ladder to the left.
There's a bar hanging from the ceiling. Jump up and grab it to activate the
Palace's defense systems. The poor soldier gets turned into a Sand Monster
before you can save him. Get back down the ladder, and fight two Sand Monsters
with lances. They're very easy, a couple of hits do the trick. You should get
a new power tank at the end of this fight. Enter the door that is now opened,
and use the Vortex to save your game.


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1) Just before the room with the broken bridge, in your path.