“Once chewed, but not spit out” — 3^rd race clue

Deep within the mesa at the eastern edge of the erg, the crew of the Kingfisher find a trio of slain AARC race officials. Near them, the contents of 6 crates are missing. Delving deeper, the find that fishmen have carried off their contents: ornate puzzle-box hourglasses.

Each hourglass is the same, one meant for each team. They stand roughly a foot and a half tall, though the usual glass ampule is contained within irregularly large top and bottom casings.

Top

The top casing is unadorned wood, and contains a clear latch-door on its top surface. It opens freely, and within contains a note:

Unlocking this puzzle ends the first third of the race. It shall reveal the next destination and goal. If this is your first clue, the others will aid in your solution.

— A.A.R.C.

Removing the note reveals a small shifter console:

The knob is centered in a series of tracks. Attempting to move it demonstrates that it is locked to the center until some other mechanism is triggered.

Ampule

The ampule, as in most hourglasses, spreads across two conjoined halves of glass. The upper half is almost entirely filled with sand. At the bridge between the halves, a gated aperture has been carefully inserted in the glass, blocking the sand from falling. This gate connects laterally across a wooden arm to one of the support columns of between top and base. The lower half of the ampule is empty, showing an AARC logo embossed into the top of the base under the glass.

Base

The base’s 4 sides are all different:

On the front, a small ornate mechanical display sits next to an unadorned button.

On the left side, 4 buttons are set into the wood. They carry the following symbols:

𓇯   𓈞   𓊮   𓂈

On the right side, 4 more buttons are set into the wood. They carry these symbols:

𓊡   𓈜   𓈋   𓈏

The back side appears at first to be smooth wood, but on closer inspection reveals a set of near-invisible seams around a hidden compartment. When opened (perhaps by Hend’s magical hand), a small compartment opens, containing a note:

Now that you have revealed the sand and determined your destination, the next stage of the race begins! The first team to recover a jewel from the towers and return it to Hafat Alrimal wins the race. But beware, the routes may be treacherous. Make sure you understand what the sand reveals…

— A.A.R.C.

Eqyptian religious numerals

In religious uses, the ancient Egyptian civilization had a specialized base-8 symbolic/numeric/elemental system within their hieroglyphs:

Activation

“At any water’s edge, look to the dawn” — 1^st race clue

On the first dawn of the race, the crew of the Kingfisher stopped at the rise of a dune and kept a close eye on a large bucket of water hoisted onto the deck. As the sun crossed the horizon, a line of distinctive marks appeared across the water:

··-· ·· ··-· - ···· ··· - · ·–·

Translating from code, they discover the phrase:

FIFTHSTEP

On the next morning, they try again and find a new combination:

·– — ·-·· ··-· ··· ·–· ·-· — –· ·-· · ··· ··· ·· — -·

WOLFSPROGRESSION

Lyra and Ruana, familiar with esoteric cosmological phenomena, recall that the Wolf’s Progression or Wolf’s Hunt is a local name for a particular cycle of the Wolf constellation. Once every 40ish years, the Wolf appears to “chase” Jupiter across the night sky. Along the path, there are a set of notable “steps” along the way:

1. Rise
2. Circle
3. Scent
4. Chase
5. Catch
6. Feast
7. Feast II / Gorge
8. Rest / Set

At the 5th step, the altitude×azimuth¹ of the constellation aligns to 22,417º×169,055º. The group tried a few transformations, eventually trying multiplying them together, before converting into the base 8 numerals:

𓊡𓂈𓈋𓇯𓈏𓂈𓊮𓈋𓊡𓈋𓇯

Entering this combination on the hourglass partially unlocks the sand gate (a small amount starts to pour through), while the front display changes to show the words “See the Unseen”. The group thinks to try the shifter, and finds it newly mobile.

“Where there is smoke, make fire” — 2^nd race clue

The group ties the clue back to the constellations writ-in-smoke from the cursed oasis, and draws the eye star pattern using the shifter. Upon completing the pattern, the sand-gate opens completely, greatly increasing the flow of sand. Additionally, the “secret” back compartment that Hend had tricked open earlier re-opens.

With the faster flow of sand, two things happen: a model city, in blown glass connected to the upper half of the ampule, begins to be revealed. Below, the sand pouring through the gate has some of its energy taken by a newly engaged arcane circuit. After some time, the built up energy suddenly dissipates (like an arcane capacitor) and a new symbol burns into the bottom-center wood under the ampule: a crescent moon with a pair of bird outlines standing on its lower side.

The City in Glass

Revealed by the draining sand, the top half of the ampule contains an ornate glass cityscape. The city is formed out of the inner wall of the ampule, such that a crack in the container would inevitably spread through the model. Around the upper outer edge, a stylized form of the Erg’s western and northern rockwalls. The city itself emerges, held up by thin spars of glass:

• 5 tall towers, in a similar style to the obelisks seen in the cursed oasis.
• Sky bridges between them, part way down.
• A large domed building, unfamiliar architecture for the region.
• Many large, but shorter buildings, forming an “upper city” layer at the base of the towers. These include smaller pyramids, temple structures, and plazas.
• A major bridge connecting to a plaza of the upper city, matching the Empyrean Highway in design.
• A dense “under city” of support structures.
• A disk of glass upon which the whole city sits.
• Tunneling paths spiraling downward and away under the disk.
• A hanging sphere far under the city.