In Memoriam: Tai'lahr
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Rest in Peace, friend.
Cleft
The New Greeters
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This article contains tips, hints, walkthroughs or details of game content in preparation that may spoil your future enjoyment of the game: Read on at your own risk!
The Cleft, also known in as "D'ni-Riltagamin", is located on the surface of Earth, in New Mexico, United States. It is the birthplace and childhood home of Atrus, where his grandmother Ti'ana raised him until Gehn arrived to reclaim his son and take him to D'ni. It is located next to a dormant volcano that acts as the entrance to the path down to D'ni and is several miles away from Tomahna.
To reach the cleft at the beginning of the game, use the large pillar in the middle of your Relto. A linking book will eventually be added to your shelf.
History
After the Fall of D'ni, Ti'ana (aka Anna) brought her son Gehn with her to the surface (thanks to Aitrus' efforts to map the tunnels), somewhere near the point where she had started her journey to D'ni long ago. Years passed living there, then after Atrus was born and his wife Keta died, Gehn immediately left for D'ni, leaving his son in his mother's care. When Atrus was about 14, Gehn returned to bring his son to D'ni to assist in his work. After some disagreement, Atrus did indeed go with his father, with Anna secretly following along, leaving their home in the cleft vacated.
In or around 1987, Elias Zandi purchased all the land surrounding the cleft. When he died, his son Jeff inherited this land, even staking out a spot to point explorers who felt called to this place in the right direction towards entering the cavern. This was done much to the annoyance of the DRC, who wanted to keep the cavern closed to the general public until things were more ready. To this day, it's considered the start and end of Yeesha's first journey for "the called".
Walkthrough
First Visit
When you first link in, turn around immediately and look behind the metal gate to find Journey Cloth #1. Click on it. Run around and explore the sights. You will eventually see a camper sitting next to the volcano with a man sitting out front. This is Jeff Zandi. He will speak with you about what you're doing there, then mention a message in the cleft. You can come back to Zandi for hints on where you should go or what to do next. Look behind his camper for Journey Cloth #2. There is also a Relto Page (Calendar Spark Island) in the nearby fire pit.
Circling around the volcano, you will find the cleft. For now, leave it be, but take a look at the wind catcher next to the cleft, which you can't move right now. Keep running around, noting the large scope buried in the sand. Next to that is another Relto Page (Birds). You'll eventually find some bones from a large creature (a Whark). On some of the bones is Journey Cloth #3
Return to the cleft and climb down the ladder. When you try to cross the bridge, it will collapse. Don't worry, you can use it as a ladder instead. Turn and move to your right until you find another collapsed bridge to climb. At the top, there are two rooms. One has Journey Cloth #4, while the other has a note from Atrus to Yeesha. Looking across the cleft, you'll see the other half of the collapse ladder that leads up to the rooms on the other side. If you look to the edge of the cleft, you'll see a path you can take around to that ladder.
After making your way over and up the ladder, you will see a room with a few strange devices. However none of them have power. Make your way into the connecting room and you'll see another machine with a lever next to it. This is the lower part of the wind catcher from earlier, and it's locked in place. Pull the lever to unlock it. With that done, make your way back up top and activate power by turning the wind catcher.
You can now activate some of the mechanisms in the cleft, including the doors to make rooms easier to access. In the room with the door already open, you can use the blue button next to it to close that door. Journey Cloth #5 is located on the outside of it. In that same room, if you move the wooden plank to the left of the door out of the way, you will notice a pattern etched on the wall. Across from that is a machine that has similar symbols on it. Enter the code from the wall into that machine to see a holographic message from Yeesha herself.
During her message, she will gesture at a wall in the room, and Journey Cloth #6 will appear. You'll notice a green button blinking on another mechanism, but it doesn't work. If you go into the connected room, then cross the bridge just outside, you will see a room with a water pail that has Journey Cloth #7 attached to it. If you use the pedal next to the pail, it will lower it to ground level so you can press the cloth. With that done, you will see a door inside a tree nearby. Press the hand symbol on it to open it now.
Take the ladder down and walk into this small cave to find a Relto Page (Four Pillars) waiting for you. You'll immediately link back to Relto, with four pillars now replacing the large single pillar.
Return Trip
When you've gathered all four pillars on your Relto, each pillar you return to the Bahro cave above the cavern will slowly open a fissure on your Relto. Jumping into this fissure will bring you back to the cleft, near the scope. You should have the four symbol code from the Bahro cave, so take that and enter it into the holographic projector in the cleft. Yeesha will appear again with a new message, at the end of which she will present a Linking Book (even though it's holographic, it still works). This will link you to another version of the cleft.
Yeesha will speak once more and cause it to rain in the desert. If you climb out of the cleft, you will see Bahro running into the caldera of the volcano and down to D'ni. There are a few items to get here. In the projector room, you can now press the green button to get a Relto Page (Rain). There are D'ni goggles in the room with the Journey Cloth, on the table next to the bed. Zandi's shirt is hanging from his camper (for some reason, he has disappeared). If you didn't get the Calendar Spark Island Relto page, you can do so now as well.
When you get back to Relto, a new cleft book, to both the sunny and rainy versions, will be waiting for you. Note that it cannot be shared with others. You'll also have a Journey Symbol Shirt waiting for you in your closet.
Collectable Checklist
Relto Pages
- Calendar Spark Island
- Birds
- Four Pillars
- Rain
Clothing Items
- D'ni Goggles
- Zandi's Shirt
- Journey Symbol Shirt (you get this automatically when you get to the rainy cleft)
Trivia
- The cleft was originally thought to be located somewhere in the Middle East. This was implied in the Myst novels. However, this was retconned to New Mexico with URU: Ages Beyond Myst.
- The scope and Whark bones are remnants from Riven, after its destruction. The fissure there brought The Stranger to the same place.
- Drawings on the wall of the projector room were also seen in the Book Of Atrus. They are some of Atrus' schematics from when he lived there.
- Originally, this is where you started the game instead of Relto. This was changed for Myst Online: URU Live and the Gametap era and has carried over to Myst Online: URU Live Again.
See Also
Return To: The New Greeters
A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".