Atrus fills you in on the situation: Catherine is trapped in Riven, and you are to rescue her. Next thing you know, you’re in a cage on Riven. A man spots you, comes over, and steals your Prison Book, your only hope for trapping Gehn. While examining the book, he’s hit in the neck by a poison blowdart, and he crumples to the ground. The book is taken from his grasp, he’s dragged away, and another man pulls a lever, opening the cage you’re held in. He drives a metal spike into the lever so the cage can’t be closed again. He disappears, and you are free to wander Riven, but without your book.

The large metal structure ahead is a telescope. The manhole cover opens, with a combination you will find later, to reveal something very interesting that you can look at with the telescope. You can play with it, but its use comes later.

Over a cliff to your right is the soldier who stole your book. Good riddance.

Take the staircase to the top, where you can see a view of the ocean, a bridge, and a door to a dimly-lit room. Enter the dimly-lit room, noting the button on the right-hand wall just before you enter.

The room consists of five columns with a beetle on each, and a large penpoint and stars above. There are two doors to the five-sided room; one to your left is locked, and one you entered the room through. If you pull the ring at the tail of a beetle, you will reveal a peephole, through which you can view images of the history of Riven. There is Rivenese writing on the wall, and a symbol on the floor that is Gehn's "coat-of-arms". The "H-between-two-bars" in the middle of the star is a Rivenese number that holds special significance to Gehn. You'll learn more about it later, but keep your eyes peeled for the symbol.

How to find your way through that door? The key lies in understanding that this room rotates. Leave the room, and press the button just outside. The room spins as if on a record player, and suddenly your door is replaced by a peephole. Look in the peephole, and note that the locked door that was forward-and-left before is now forward-and-right. Press the button again, and the room spins another one-fifth turn. Now, the door that you entered the room from has spun two notches, and is now forward-and-left. The door that was forward-and-right just a moment ago has, presumably, spun further right out of your view through the peephole. Let's go find it.

Back out of the peephole, exit the doorway, and head down the set of stairs to your LEFT. You should find a locked wooden door down the stairs. Check out the mini-dagger, and realize that it's a sign from the Moiety rebels to PAY ATTENTION! You can crawl under this doorway! Hey, thanks, rebel-guys!

Make your way into the rotating room again. Notice that the other doorway is still blocked by a gate. You need to spin the room a few more times to find another way out. Head back to the button and rotate the room two more times, come back under the rickety locked door, and you'll find that the new exit ahead-and-left has no gate in front of it! You can check out that room now!

You will find a lever with a symbol by it--a symbol that looks like the telescope by the start of the game! Look up, and note that steam's coming out of the top of this pipe, presumably from a source underground. Push the lever to the sideways position and note that steam is no longer coming from the pipe. You've diverted it through the right-exiting pipe to the telescope! Sometime later, that may come in handy...

Head back towards the rotating room, and note the lever just before the entrance. Pulling that lever upwards will open the gate that was blocking the other exits from the rotating room. Then, look to the right to see another button. Press it twice to rotate the room, and go to the other exit. There's a gate you can't get through there, but there IS another lever by the door. Pull that lever up, and then look to the right. ANOTHER button. Aargh. You're almost done spinning... rotate the room twice until you can head back out through the rotating room to the main entrance. Then, spin the room twice from the main entrance, and you've exposed a new doorway to a bridge!

[Beginning] [Golden Dome] [The Forest] [The Village] [Boiler Island] [Lagoon] [Rebel Age] [Survay Island] [Fire Marbles] [Endgame]