Indiana Jones Khmer vault and rotating rings solution

Indiana Jones Khmer vault puzzle — (Image credit: Bethesda)

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How to unlock the symbol pedestal with the circle key
How to unlock the second pedestal
Burial Chamber puzzle solutions

The Indiana Jones Khmer vault uses keys to access a burial chamber via rotating pedestals. Specifically circle, cross and circle, and cross and diamond keys that control these rotating pillars to open doors and progress you through the vault.

Accessed as part of the A Study In Fear mission to 'Investigate the Explosion' that you get from Pailin, this is a lengthy quest to complete with some of the more complicated puzzles to work out in the game. They use a concept that isn't really repeated anywhere else, unlike the Indiana Jones game room puzzle or the Great Circle cog wheel puzzle, both of which establish mechanics you'll see again.

Unlock the symbol pedestal with the circle key in Indiana Jones

Once you have the mission from Pailin to Investigate the Explosion you'll discover an explosion site at the marker you're directed to. That leads to the Khmer Secret Vault and, one booby trap later, you'll meet Annika Lund, a former student now archeologist who'll give you the first Circle key.

How to unlock the second Khmer Vault pedestal in Indiana Jones

Once inside the temple, you'll have to explore for a while and stop some cogs to proceed. Eventually you'll find a second pedestal and a new Cross and Circle key.

Use your whip yank to start the water flowing from the recessed nook the pipe in the floor leads to, and you'll start the second pedestal turning. You'll now need to use both the circle key and the Cross and Circle key to align the symbols. Here's how to do that:

Use the Circle/Cross key first to stop those symbols and leave the diamond spinning. Remove it when the cross and diamond line up.
With those two symbols aligned use the Circle key to lock that layer in place and wait until it lines up with the now aligned Cross and Diamond. Yank the key out the moment all three symbols align and you'll open the door.

Indiana Jones Burial Chamber puzzle solutions

With the second pedestal solved, you'll open the way to find the Demon's Tomb. After dealing with some spike and water traps you'll discover the first tomb was a decoy designed to kill intruders and set out to find the 'real' Demon's Tomb. After some more exploring and climbing you'll eventually reach the Burial Chamber.

Here you'll need to do two things before you can solve the third pedestal puzzle. Firstly, you'll need to whip yank the closed water pipe on the right of the large stone Demon's Head to get the water flowing. You'll also need to climb up to the bird's nest Annika points out to get the final key, a Cross and Diamond key.

Indiana Jones Khmer vault birds nest — (Image credit: Bethesda)

You'll now have a Circle key, a Circle and Cross key, and the new Cross and Diamond key. As before, each one will stop the corresponding symbols from rotating

The Cross and Diamond key will stop the inner two rings
The Cross and Circle key will stop the first and third rings
The Circle key will only stop the third ring

That leaves the forth ring, a line, rotating whatever key you use.

These last three pedestals can be solved using a similar pattern with all three keys to line up all the symbols. To solve each pedestal in Indiana Jones do the following:

Use the Circle and Cross key to line up the first and second ring
Use the Diamond and Cross key to line up the aligned first and second rings with the forth ring
Use the Circle key to line the third ring up with the aligned first, second and forth rings.

You'll start with water flowing to one pedestal and it's redirected by solving each pedestal in turn. So it's simply a matter now of finding the moving puzzle, solving it with the above method, and then moving on to the next one that starts moving.

Each time you solve a pedestal, one of the head carvings will move away from the central column. When they're all gone you can place each key in turn into its respective slot, exposed by the head carvings, which will then reveal a lever you can pull. This will open up the giant stone demon head and complete the puzzle.

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