Staff of Lightning
three parts you can only reach by jumping off the tank, and then three chords played on a wall.
- players
- any number
- solo
- possible alone
- difficulty
- time
- about 65 minutes
- reward
- the
Kimat's Bite, and one quarter of what Little Lost Girl asks for first
difficulty and time are an estimate made while writing, not a measurement.
before you start
- the tank runningall three parts are in places you can only reach by jumping off it mid route
- the gramophone and the dig site discthe same two for all four staffs, so this only gets done once
- the generators on the way thereeach staff's disc sits near a different generator, so this ends up being most of the map either way
not required, but it helps
- a second playerone person can drive and jump, but getting two parts on one run back to the church is close to impossible alone
the steps
two things every staff needs, and they are the same two every time.
the gramophone is on the floor inside the excavation site, to the left of the wooden table. the disc that opens the lower levels is outside, somewhere around it.
with those, the lowest level of the excavation site opens, which is where all four staffs get built.
all three parts are in places the tank passes and nothing else reaches:
- going church to tank station: a cut off wooden staircase on the right, before the trench to generator 2
- going tank station to church: cut off wooden scaffolding on the left, linked to the excavation site, leading to a small hole with the part in it
- going tank station to church: a dirt path before the church on the right, up to an upper level of the church
you only get this wrong onceThor can step on the ground where the first part is, and it will down you while you are standing there reaching for it.
tiptwo players makes this much shorter. alone you are riding the route once per part and it is barely possible to get two in a single run.
three places: inside the tunnel near the gateway to the Crazy Place; on the bandwagon to the left as you go into that tunnel; or on the table next to the
Der Wunderfizzmachine.with the purple disc and the gramophone, go into the Crazy Place through the lightning tunnel, near generator 5. a pedestal opens with a purple glow and the gem comes up out of it.
you only get this wrong oncethe gem only lifts if you came in through its own tunnel.
with the three parts and the gem, build the staff at its own coloured pedestal on the lowest level of the excavation site.
anybody can pick it up afterwards. switch to another weapon, bleed out or disconnect and it goes back to its pedestal rather than being lost.
the purple triangles on the wall by the portal are a keyboard, and the notes to play are written on the walls opposite. three chords, three notes each.
the chords never change, so they can just be learned. numbering the seven keys on the bottom row left to right, and ignoring the top row entirely, play:
- 1, 3, 6
- 3, 5, 7
- 2, 4, 6
both sources give exactly these three, which for a step this fiddly is worth saying out loud.
tipwait for the sparks to fade before starting the next chord. get one wrong and you do not start again from the beginning: shoot three random triangles on the top row, then carry on from the chord you fumbled.
eight panels exist and one is already done, so there are seven to turn.
the order below is one source's. it says they go in this order once the Crazy Place riddle is solved, and that only one sparks at a time. the second source counts the same seven, gives no order at all, and says they can be turned at any point in the game. going in order costs nothing either way.
- next to generator 5, pointing down
- the church basement, by the torch marked 3, pointing right
- upstairs in the church, by the repairable window, pointing up
- next to the wind tunnel, right of its entrance, pointing up
- the spawn room, at the bottom of the stairs, pointing left
- the tank station by generator 2, left of the back door, pointing down
- behind the excavation site, by the path to the church, pointing up
a sound plays and a beam shoots up out of the excavation site.
tipthe knobs can be turned at any point in the game, before the riddle, as long as you remember how far you turned each one. doing them as you walk past saves a whole lap.
four floating rings, and four levers that turn them: two on the normal walkway and two on the wooden scaffolding.
turn them until all four rings show your staff's colour, then shoot the orb inside them with the staff. it lights and shoots up into the air.
both sources describe this the same way, and it is the same four rings and the same four levers for every staff.
put the staff on its own pedestal in the Crazy Place and kill about twenty zombies in there. both sources say around twenty. Samantha says the power of that element is available, and the icon gets an outline.
pick the upgraded staff back up off the pedestal. lose it later and it goes back to the excavation site, still upgraded: this is done once.
arrow keys or j and k to move, d to tick this one off.
all of it, done.
what that got youthe Kimat's Bite, and one quarter of what Little Lost Girl asks for first
next on this mapStaff of Windor pick something else
where this came from
- Origins Main QuestCOD Zombies Guides, read 2026-09-07
- Elemental StaffsCall of Duty Wiki, read 2026-09-07
more on Origins
- Little Lost Girlmain questfour elemental staffs, three giant robots and a hundred templars, to get one girl out of Agartha.
- Staff of Fireside questthree parts that arrive on their own schedule: a generator, a plane and the first Panzer. then a torch puzzle in base three.
- Staff of Iceside questthree parts dug out of the ground while it snows, then six stone panels shot in an order written in two different number bases.
- Staff of Windside questthree parts inside the heads of the three robots, and then four rings of base four arithmetic.
- Archangelsongthree green meteorite fragments around the dig site, and one of them does not always answer.
- Aethersonga third song on the same map, hidden in the numbers painted on the floor. Brian Tuey put it in on the last day of development.
- Shepherd of Firesongthree red radios, one of them behind a giant robot's face. the song is the one the map opens with.
- the free Magna Colliderside questfour yellow discs, picked up by a drone rather than by you, and a pack-a-punched machine gun waiting by the machine.
- the jump scareto finda sniper scope, a burning church, and a skull that is waiting for you to look at it.