Hollowmere Puzzle Guide: The Chapel Organ, the Pump House Valves, and the Clock Garden

Most of Hollowmere’s puzzles are fair, and the hand-drawn map and the survey team’s notes contain everything you need to solve them. Three of them, though, have stopped a lot of players in their tracks. This guide covers each one with a set of escalating hints, followed by the full solution in a clearly marked box, so you can stop reading as soon as something clicks.

General tips before you start

• Read every note twice. The survey team’s journals often contain the exact clue a puzzle needs, sometimes in an aside.
• Mark your map. Ada can add pins to the hand-drawn map, and pinning puzzle clues saves a lot of backtracking.
• Budget your lantern oil. Puzzles take time, and oil also fuels the flare gun. Refill at a ranger cabin before starting each of the three below.
• Listen. Two of these puzzles have audio cues that tell you when you are close.

The Chapel Organ (Chapter 2)

The Reedmoor Chapel sits on the eastern boardwalk, and its pipe organ blocks the way to the bell loft. The organ has five keys, each painted with a marsh bird: heron, bittern, curlew, snipe, and grebe. Playing a wrong sequence makes a loud discordant note, which draws attention from the water.

Hints

• The survey team’s ornithologist logged the birds she heard on her walk to the chapel.
• Her log is on the lectern of the cabin at Heron Bend, not in the chapel itself.
• Read the last line of that log entry carefully. Where was she going when she wrote it?

The Pump House Valves (Chapter 4)

The Pump House controls water levels in three tanks feeding the southern marsh, and you need to drain the middle tank to reach the lower door. There are three valves, painted red, yellow, and blue, and each affects more than one tank. A chase begins as soon as the middle tank is drained, so the puzzle and the escape are connected.

Hints

• The diagram chalked on the wall by the stairs shows which pipes connect to which tanks.
• Only one valve affects the middle tank on its own; the other two affect it alongside a neighbor.
• The valves do not have to be fully open or fully closed. Listen to the pipes as you turn them.

The Clock Garden (Chapter 6)

The Clock Garden is a walled hedge maze behind the warden’s house, built around a stopped clock face set into the ground. Stepping on stones around its rim moves the hands. The garden gate locks behind you, and the fog thickens the longer you stay.

Hints

• The clock should show a time that matters to the survey team.
• Every ranger cabin’s save ledger has an entry from the team. Compare the last one.
• The hour hand moves one hour per step, and the minute hand five minutes per step. Each has its own ring of stones.

With these three solved, the rest of Hollowmere’s puzzles are gentler. If you are stuck elsewhere, the general rule holds: the answer is almost always in a note you have already read, and the marsh is quieter when you are on the right track.