So lost. What exactly am I supposed to do/what is the goal? I read somewhere that it's a timed puzzle and that I die if I don't do it fast enough... but no hints as to what is supposed to happen.

Any quick run downs?

Edit: I figured it out, and am now stuck in the Radiant Citadel because I can't find the mysterious drainage tunnels.
But credit for the answer/s still goes to whomever can say something about it. I can imagine other people getting stuck on this stuff.

Double Edit: So I finished the game, there definitely needs to be more helpful stuff about Thunderscape.

If you search online for the phrase James Meloy thunderscape, you'll find that a website called "the spoiler" is hosting his walkthrough for the game. Plenty of helpful stuff in there.

Woops, I should have added that I saw that walkthrough and didn't find it very helpful. Thanks though!

You may know this but there are two versions of that faq/walkthrough. The one hosted on "the spoiler" is more detailed than the one hosted on gamefaqs...

I find the information in the two of them to be fairly complementary. The one at the-spoiler has more actual walkthrough-like information (i.e. how to pass levels, locations of significant items, etc.), while the one at gamefaqs has more info on what various weapons and items do.

They're helpful, but not specifically helpful for those puzzles. I had to trial and error to figure out which buttons got me through the sewer area, which wasn't gamestopping or anything but just kind of annoying.