Part 2: The underground lake
After a brief cut-scene where we fall in the cave, Ariane is found lying on the beach with this creepy jerk standing over her. We are greeted with this:
"So, you finally woke up?" How skeevy is that? This weirdo is just standing over her, watching her sleep and actually waiting for her to wake up. And he's got a deep, evil voice. I'd be kind of (actually really) freaked out. Not only that, but now we're at a lake, how did that happen? A quick logical explanation would be thing guy kidnapped us and took us there. But Ariane, the stupid woman she is, trusts him from the beginning.
Alright, so after a brief conversation (where she is oblivious about the fact that she is still underground) Adam, the creep, asks us to get a crystal for him for his magic wand. Ariane -who can't grasp being underground- doesn't even blink at the strangeness of a magic wand crystal quest. I just think Adam's just crazy.
But after that you're free to roam around and collect stuff. Typical PAC game, right? But the things you have to grab tend to be not obvious and very small. Here's two examples. Can you pick out the things that are important from each screen? Rollover the images to find out!
The lower right thing is cloth (what, you can't tell it's cloth?), which is used to clean the graves for boring and unnecessary plot points. The arrow is there because behind there is a crystal mine. Now, normally for this game when there's an area you can walk to, little footprints appear on the cursor. But for some reason they didn't do that with this crystal mine, so it took me a long time to realize it was actually there. Lazy programmers, did they test this thing? Annoying.
Yeah, you need the chisel (combined with the log as a hammer) to chip off a crystal from the crystal mine and the puzzle pieces for a puzzle later on. I'll talk about the machine to the left in a bit.
So go back to the diamond mine and get the crystal. But you can't get it. Why the hell not? Because you're not wearing gloves. That's right, for nearly ¼ of the stuff you're supposed to do in this game you have to wear gloves. It's flippin annoying. And it appears as if you only wear one glove when they're "on".
Gloves off: 
Gloves on: 
There's a commonly known glitch that the gloves come off immediately after you use them. So you have to keep putting them back on. The most annoying part is that the game doesn't signal to you that you need to wear gloves. You just can't do the obviously correct action. What the hell?
Alright, so after you get the crystal you have to polish it. Since this is the only thing around, you figure this is used to polish the crystal. Then you get this message:
Uh, I thought that's what this device was for? But you have to fill that bulb at the bottom. With what?
Sand! And of course, that's what sand looks like when you grab it and put it in your inventory, right? Actually that looks more like a sand-colored rock. It would have looked better to make a sand pile image instead of a perfect oval.
It's kind of strange that blowing sand from the bellows polishes the rock. Generally you'd think that would take a lot more sand and power; aren't crystals really tough? Like, maybe if I had a sand blaster, but not 5 gentle blows from bellows. And how do you get the sand into that little bulb? It doesn't screw off. Whatever, though.
So now we've got Adam's crystal, so let's go find Adam. He said he'll meet me on the way to the underground city. Go back to the mine, but you can't get through. Ariane says, "It's too dark in there" (so how did Adam get through?). What. The. Hell. Why oh why didn’t we get the flashlight when we had the chance?? Now, you have to fix the lighting system so examine the machine. It appears the wires are broken, see:
So what you need to do is use those random wires. Attach the wires… like this. But it still doesn't work. Why not? You have to tape the stupid wires together. But be sure to put your gloves on first, or else you can't do anything. (Rollover to see the adhesive plastered wires.)
Notice anything? As soon as you tape together the wires, the place lights up. Which is stupid. Shouldn't there be light as soon as the circuit has been restored? Not as soon as you've taped the thing together: the action that just helps keep the circuit complete. Lame.
Alright, go further down and find the puzzle door. Ariane has this insightful comment for us:
"Be brave Ariane, this door may be guarding a secret!"
It's already been established that the underground city is down this path, so what "secret" could it be guarding? Ariane is just an idiot. Anyway, here is the most unhelpful verbal riddle I've ever heard.
You have to arrange tiles in order around the door, but even knowing the order, very little makes sense. When I first read it, I figured there would be like, a sun first, then a mine at the end, with technology on one side and nature stuff on the other. Here's what the door looks like:
Interestingly, the inventory only shows four tiles, while there are many more of them on the door. But here are some examples of the "reasoning" behind the riddles. Mother = where we came from, flying/bird = famed energy, drama masks = the ones who lead us. I had no idea what that tall thing was, but I guess it was supposed to be a lighthouse. Anyway, the Occident opposite the Orient thing makes sense (East is counter-balanced by West) but it's a comment easily taken the wrong way.
Alright, so open the stupid door thing and you're in a mushroom forest.