I've been able to play all of K'veer, the Great Shaft, Direbo (such as it is), and Taghira, entirely completing the age. My system is Win2K, if that matters.

When I link into Noloben, all is well unless/until I go near Esher, who gives me most of his lecture, tells me that this age is different... and we instantly crash to the desktop without an error message of any kind, including any in Event Viewer.

If I attempt to link into Todelmer or Laki'ahn (from Direbo), this causes a crash to black screen/windows and illegal operation error message. Any/all of these crashes mean that I can't continue, as trying it produces the same results as soon as the save loads, so have to start over. (I think I could do the Great Shaft in my sleep, by now.) For the crashes, it doesn't matter whether I've done (or even visited) Taghira or not, this time.

Since I can play the rest of the game including all of Tahgira and much of Noloben, it doesn't seem that a system error is likely. Nonetheless, I've taken the steps of removing troublesome running programs, but without any difference. I've checked my video, sound and MB drivers and Java version anyway and they are up to date, but if any of them were the problem, you'd think it would manifest quite a while before I got to these particular areas. Reinstalling, including a clean reinstall, also makes no difference. The game doesn't crash anywhere else that I can get to.

Any ideas about what might be causing this, and why only those places?

Please also post a DxDiag report in this topic, so that we can take a look at your system. See Posting Guidelines and Myst V System Requirements under POSTING GUIDELINES, To post a DxDiag report for a how-to. Run all of the graphics and sound tests you can before saving the report to a file, and post *all* of the file. If the manufacturer and exact model number of your PC aren't shown under 'System Information' (System Manufacturer and System Model) at the top of the report, also include that information in your post.