Along the northeastern edge of Hernand you’ll find the Root’s End Ruins, which, at a glance, seems to consist of some strange vent built into the top of a mountain. Figuring out how to get this device working again will allow you to propel yourself into the sky and reach some Abyss ruins floating far above, and this guide will help you manage exactly that in Crimson Desert!
Page Breakdown¶
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| Root’s End Ruins Location |
| Root’s End Puzzle Solution |
Root’s End Ruins Location¶
To find these ruins you’ll need to trek north of Hernand city, past “Three Saints’ Falls” and beyond them the “Hook Rapids”. You’re looking for “The Sage’s Peak” text on your map - these ruins are located north of said text. Even better than looking for the ruins directly, however, keep an eye out for an Abyss Nexus nearby - this Abyss Nexus will be north of the ruins you’re looking for, on a lower part of the mountain… but at least you’ll find a “mysterious energy’ question mark on your map when you’re close!
Once you’ve found the aforementioned Abyss Nexus just head south and climb a cliff to find a large fan built into the mountain top. This presently isn’t much use to us, but note a large wire running off the edge of the cliff to the west. Follow it down and it’ll lead you into a cave, which is full of all sorts of mechanical devices. The interior of this cave are the ruins you seek!
Press a button to activate a lift,
then use Axiom Force on the circular object on the lift.
Root’s End Puzzle Solution¶
Enter the cave and head downstairs to reach a watery chamber. Turn right, head past a pillar and search the northern wall to find a button. Before you press it, grab two Palmar Pills to the right - just some free loot you might want - and when the button is pressed a lift will take you up a short distance and you’ll be staring at a glowing orb. Several of these are littered throughout the cave, most of them in small chutes near the ground. All of them are red herrings that do nothing to solve the puzzle here. Instead, turn around and look at the lift and you’ll find another circular glowing device - aim at the sphere and use your Axiom Force ability. Don’t worry, you don’t have to manipulate anything - a moment after grappling this circular object your POV will shift and you’ll be looking up at the ceiling in the middle of the chamber.
You’ll take a POV where you’re looking at the ceiling of the cave - move a pillar to some gears and rotate them, using sound cues to know when you’re in the right spot.
Some light will flood in through holes in the roof as you progress, but you’ll only know you’re done when the gear in the middle glows blue.
This is the real meat of the puzzle! That pillar you walked past earlier? It’s actually something of a drive spinner, and the three glowing gears are what it sockets into and turns. Of course, this wouldn’t be a Crimson Desert puzzle if it wasn’t obtuse, the feedback wasn’t insufficient and the controls sensible, so here’s how this works:
You need to move the pillar you control with the 
, but you can only move the pillar in one direction at a time, and no diagonals. It’s also pretty slow, just to add insult to injury. Move this drive spinner to one of the glowing gears on the ceiling and press 
to socket the gear, after which it can be turned with 
or 
.
That’s the substance of the puzzle, you need to turn each gear until it’s in the right spot. How do you know it’s in the right spot? Purely audio cues. No, not the grinding and clanking of moving the stone. Also don’t be fooled when the gear stops rotating. It just does that sometimes. Because reasons. It doesn’t mean you’ve hit a milestone, or you’re close. It doesn’t mean anything, really. You just need to rotate each gear until you hear a sort of chiming sound and stop, assume you’re in the right spot, and move onto the next gear and repeat the process. As you progress - assuming you actually make any progress, that is, two openings will appear in the ceiling and let daylight in, your only visual cue that you’re on the right track. It’s… better than nothing.
Once all three gears have been rotated - again, almost entirely by sound, so turn up the volume if you need to - the gear in the center of the three you’ve been manipulating will glow. We solved the puzzle once while not recording, and then when we set about to record (and write) this up it still took us a few minutes of messing around, not just because the entire process is needlessly slow, but even knowing how to solve the puzzle, the puzzle’s feedback is poor, at best. Anywho, look for the middle gear to descend and start to glow, then move the pillar to it and repeat the process above. Mostly, anyways, this last gear is merciful - once you’ve latched on and started turning it, your POV will change again and you’ll see some of the plates on the fan move around.
You’re all but done now! Leave the cave and head back up to the fan atop the mountain and stand on the middle to activate it. Now all you need to do is glide and you’ll float all the way up to the Twisted Thicketway Abyss Ruins. If you need to get some height, just jump and use Force Palm - that’s always good for a bit of a vertical boost!
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