The Phoenix's Nest
Rumours
They say an old grey bird sits on the tallest date palm of an oasis. He coughs up ash, sighs, and keeps saying five hundred years have passed...
Who: Phoenix
Hints
Open them one at a time — from a gentle nudge to plain advice. "Good to know" is about what might trip you up.
Hint 1
The old phoenix needs a new nest made of fragrant twigs and a drop of glue. It all grows in the desert, and you cut it with a sword.
Hint 2
Tamarisk is a fluffy pink bush by water and in dry riverbeds, saxaul is a gnarled little bush on the dunes, and acacia is the tree with an umbrella crown.
Hint 3
Fire for the nest comes from the sun, if you catch it with a lens. Quartz for the lens hides in geodes underground, and it's polished with salt at the workbench.
Hint 4
The lens only lights things at noon, with a clear sky and out in the open, and you must keep still until the nest catches.
Hint 5
After that, someone will be very thirsty. A jug is made of clay, and clay lies on the takyr.
Good to know
- The lens won't light the nest in the morning or evening, in clouds or rain, under a roof or underground: only a clear noon under the open sky.
- A tamarisk gives up to three twigs a day, a saxaul and an acacia one each. Not enough? Find other bushes or come back tomorrow.
- In a world with other players, only one of you helps the phoenix at a time: if another player is already on it, or someone already helped him today, come back tomorrow.
Full solution
Show the whole solution
This is the whole story of the quest, to the very end.
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Find the tallest date palm in an oasis: an old grey bird sits on it. Stand at the foot of the palm and press E (on a phone, the glowing action button). The phoenix asks for three tamarisk twigs, two saxaul branches and a drop of acacia gum for his nest.
From Cubby's diary
Met a phoenix - a firebird. A former firebird: grey, coughing ash, his fire gone out. Every 500 years a phoenix burns in its nest and is born again, but his nest is worn out. He wants three tamarisk twigs, two of saxaul and a drop of acacia gum.
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Tamarisk Twig: find a tamarisk, a fluffy pink bush by water and in dry riverbeds. Hold a sword and strike the trunk (click, or the action button on a phone): each strike gives a twig, but no more than three per bush a day.
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Saxaul Branch: strike the trunk of a saxaul (a gnarled little bush on the dunes) with a sword. A branch flies off and lands on the sand: walk over it to pick it up. One branch per saxaul a day; the wind has also strewn a few dry branches over the dunes.
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Acacia Gum: strike an acacia's trunk with a sword. A golden drop oozes out of the cut, runs down and falls: walk over it to pick it up. Each acacia gives one drop a day.
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Go back to the palm and press E (the action button on a phone): the phoenix takes everything you brought and weaves it into the nest. You can bring things in parts. Once the nest is done, he asks for fire: the noon sun caught in a quartz lens.
From Cubby's diary
Brought it all, and the phoenix wove a new nest - fragrant, smelling of honey and salt! Now it needs fire, and his is gone. He told me to catch the noon sun in a quartz lens for the nest.
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Quartz grows inside geodes, little stone "nuts" underground; their shell and the quartz need at least a Steel Drill. You can also buy quartz at the shop. For salt, take Rock Salt from deep underground or Salt Flat from the salt pans. At the workbench put the quartz above the salt to make a Quartz Lens.
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Come to the palm at noon, when the sun is highest and the sky is clear. Stand under the open sky, take the lens and hold the right mouse button or E with the sunspot aimed at the nest (on a phone, press a finger on the nest and hold). Keep still for a few seconds: the nest blazes up, the phoenix burns, and a chick hatches from an egg of fire, thirsty.
From Cubby's diary
At noon I aimed the lens at the nest - it blazed up! The phoenix sang and burned, and from the ashes rolled an egg of fire. Crack, crack - out hatched a chick: "Peep! I'm thirsty!"
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At the workbench make a Jug from five clay blocks in a U: two at the edges of the top row and three across the bottom. Clay comes from the takyr, the cracked ground you can dig with the drill. Hold the jug, and by the oasis water press the right mouse button or E (the action button on a phone) to get a Jug of Water.
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Go to the foot of the palm with the jug of water and press E (the action button on a phone). The chick drinks, grows a size and gives you the Phoenix Shell, and the empty jug comes back to you. While the shell is warm, lava doesn't burn you, even if it just lies in your rucksack; it cools in lava and warms up in the sun.
From Cubby's diary
Gave the chick a drink from the jug - glug-glug! He grew at once and gave me the shell he hatched from. Warm! While it's warm, lava can't hurt me.
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Drop by in the days that follow: the chick keeps growing, and in six game days he's a fiery grown-up phoenix again.
From Cubby's diary
The chick grew day by day - and now he's a phoenix again: red, fiery, with a tail of flame! He says he'll remember my kindness for 500 years.
Reward
Phoenix shell: while it's warm, lava doesn't burn - even if the shell just lies in your rucksack. It cools in lava and warms up in the sun, under the open sky.