Edanna Solution

The Edanna Age, unlike the Ages of Amateria and Voltaic, is an Age of plants and natural forces that you must learn to control in order to complete this age. It is basically a rather large tree trunk that stands quite tall in the ocean, filled with assorted vegetation, plants, roots, vines, flowers, bulbs and pods, spores, mosses and mushrooms, etc. You also have the basic forces of nature at hand, such as, sound, wind, sunlight and darkness, dry areas and swamps. Essentially, this is a top-to-bottom puzzle, with various layers in-between. You arrive at the topmost layer to find a gigantic bird who swoops in to feed its offspring blue worms contained in an organic sack of some sort. The bird appears to be maternal and friendly, and exudes no apprehension to your presence while feeding its young. However, the bird's magnificent entrance might cause you to overlook a hint at the nature of the puzzle, and likewise, its solution. If you have solved the Ages of Amateria and Voltaic before arriving at Edanna, you may have already concluded that there were "lessons" and clues on J'nanin that related to those two ages. So what else on J'nanin (or those other two ages) resembles what you have just seen while the bird delivers her "catch of the day"? Perhaps it is the pod carried to the nest which holds the living food. On J'nanin, we saw a mechanical model of this with each linking book that is raised and lowered before us, which is transported in a cradle like a birds egg in a nest. Another clue (to be found later on) is the "Venus fly trap" we saw in Saavedro's study at the base of the main tower. When power was applied to it, the trap opened and freed a fly which was trapped inside. The other part of this electrical experiment was the cylinder which suspended crystalline particles when power was applied. This is similar to the rocks that were suspended in air by the electromagnetic forces of the chamber at the final phase of the Voltaic Age. Perhaps there is a flytrap somewhere in this age that needs electrical current to cause it to open. In fact, there is.

The general idea is to locate ways to move down into the lower levels of the tree that is divided as follows:

Upper Layer

The Layer of Vines

The Forest Layer

The Swamp Layer

(Photo of concept art for Edanna) We quickly discover that we can activate certain chain reactions by directing sunlight through a large "sunflower" which has a gel-like lens at its center. The sunlight is focused as if through a magnifying glass to a specific point, thus causing it to heat up. When we aim it at a large pod below us, it heats up and bursts causing a floral shell to fill with liquid. And, when we heat the collected liquid, it expands through a vine and pumps upwards to expand the leaves of a floral stairway or elevator which we can use to descend into the lower layers below. We can also move upward through this device as well.

We also discover that before we can focus light through the sunflower, we must also cause some other vegetation to move out of the way in order to allow the light to reach the flower. By pressing on the base of the green plant (similar to a palm tree) it becomes erect and the leaves close up to allow the sunlight to pass. Later on, we must use this same process in reverse. The first puzzle we encounter on the vine layer involves the trapping of a squee (like the one we saw on J'nanin). Again, we must use light to extend a large leave of a plant in order to access the lever that controls the squee trap. There is also a vine swing above us that must be lowered in order to swing over to where the trap is. If we select a piece of fruit or cherry to temp the squee, if falls directly beneath the suspended trap. By trapping the squee, nothing happens in our favor. However, if we move the cherry just a bit after it falls, the trap will drop and not catch the squee while it is eating the fruit, and the squee will then cause a bridge that is blocking our way to disintegrate. We can then swing over in that direction and continue down to the next level.

As we move downward through each level, there is an electric manta ray which gives off a reddish glow as it swims from pod to pod. By pulling on the end of each pod, we release air and allow the liquid and the ray to swim down into each pod on a lower level. When we get to the forest level, we find that our friendly bird has somehow become trapped in a large Venus fly trap plant. In order to set the bird free, we must get the ray down below to stimulate the roots of the plant with electric current, in order to open the trap, as in Saavedro's model. Setting this up also requires that we, again, align floral reflectors to bounce light onto certain plants and other reflectors. Navigation through the vegetation is a little more difficult then it was on Amateria or Voltaic, and we often feel "lost in the forest" without a clear sense of direction. After freeing the bird, we must descend by means of another vine to the lowest level (The Swamp) and divert bugs away from the stamen of a large bulb-like plant in the center of the swamp. Expanding the leaves of a green plant will accomplish this. We then must release some spores in the air to get the bugs away from this bulb, and then, by means of a hole in a submersed tree trunk, we can climb through the trunk into the bulb, tug at the inside of it and release its spores into the air. The bird discovers this process, and swoops down to pick us up (inside the bulb) and carry us up to the top layer again where we escape to find the nature image to bring back to J'nanin and the linking book, as well. The lesson we learn here is that perhaps by setting one free, that deed will be remembered and returned. This thought comes into mind when deciding Saavedro's fate in the end game. Do we keep him trapped and blocked from returning to his wife and family, or, do we show him some kindness after the torture that Sirrus and Achenar have put him through? Thus ends the Age of Edanna