Chiasmata: Who is this very handsome stranger?

> Are those windows?

>I mean, insofar as it's a place with gray walls whose architectural intent is a total mystery, it's exactly the same as before.

> Zap that weird black thing. It looks suspicious enough.

>Look upwards at the ceiling hole

>Are those windows?

Yes.
It seems you're in a big set of rooms arranged in a grid. There's no-one in the next room over, and you can't see past three rooms away.
Also that weird eye symbol off of the robots is back.









>Look up the hole in the ceiling.

DANIEL: "Oh, hey Sam."
SAM: "Hi?"
DANIEL: "Gimme a sec, I'll just come down."
SAM: "What?"









=>

SAM: "Since when can you fly?"
DANIEL: "Well, I'm not sure."









-=>

SAM: "That's so cool! What's up there?"
DANIEL: "More rooms - but you see, there's something weird going on-"
ASH: "Um, hi guys. D'you know what's happening here?"









>Can you hear or see anyone else?

You were fairly sure that room was empty. And now Ash is there. Something strange is indeed going on.

SAM: "Where were you hiding earlier?"
ASH: "I... don't know. I only just woke up."
DANIEL: "Is it weird down here, too?"
SAM: "Weird?"
DANIEL: "Confusing. Strange. Something's wrong with how everything's arranged."
ASH: "Yes."
SAM: "Really? How?"
ASH: "Take a couple of steps forwards."









==>

ASH: "See?"
SAM: "What the hell?"
DANIEl: "This is what I was trying to say!"
SAM: "What shape is your room, Ash?"
ASH: "Square."
SAM: "... Huh. That makes no sense."
DANIEL: "You're telling me. Telekinetically, this place is strange."
SAM: "What do you mean?"
DANIEl: "I can kinda... feel where things are, even when I'm not looking, and all the corners are wrong, here."
ASH: "So, Dan, did you wake up in the third room?"
DANIEL: "I, Daniel, woke up in the room above Sam's, and- oh."
ASH: "What?"
DANIEL: "Someone just appeared in the third room. I'll go see if they're okay."









>???

You can hear Daniel talking to... Jacqueline, you think. She's the third person on this floor, which apparently bends the rules of space and geometry into pretzels.

Each room borders the other two on two sides? Maybe?

Your head hurts.

Footnote:

SpoilerShow

I managed to get this done before the end of February. Yay!
Also, I am now publishing a webnovel called Quiet and Antagonism, available via this here link. It's Weird Cosmic Horror-Comedy. Take a look, if you wanna.

THE TIME LOCATION CUBE

>Hop through windows until you get to the room above, because rope climbing is tiresome

Well... try to see how many rooms there even are. If there's any logic to this place's structure, then it must start with the number of rooms.

>Hop through some windows!

Ash does so, only for the window to slam shut behind her, along with all of the windows in the room, leaving you and her stuck in your room.

ASH: “Eep!”
SAM: “What the heck? That could have taken someone’s head off!”









=>

Lines on the floor blaze to life, accompanied by a blaring tone and two familiar symbols.









=>

And then a table sublimates into existence - a way you haven't seen things here do for a while.









=>

With a faint hiss, panels open on the surface of the table, and a series of objects fold out, clicking into place.

SAM: "Is this a puzzle?"
ASH: "I don't know. Is whether or not this is a puzzle the true puzzle?"

You can't help but snort with laughter.

Footnote:

SpoilerShow

A return to our puzzle-solving roots.

Also, check out https://quietandantagonism.com/ for my webnovel.

> Ash: Fill the depression with your trademark ooze.

> Sam: Create a current through the handprint thingy.

>Check out that table

>Sit on the table

>DANCE ON THE TABLE

>Admire very pretty light bulb

>Ash: Fill the depression with your trademark ooze

Right. Puzzles.

ASH: "So, if I fill this, I think you should be able to-"









> Sam: Zap the thingie, admire lightbulb

SAM: "Simple."
ASH: "I guess there could be more puzzles, that are harder."
SAM: "Don't tempt fate."









~=>

The puzzle, and then the whole table, fold up, twisting dizzyingly into something that doesn't make full sense.
It's hovering above the ground, but contains a hole that seems to disappear far further downwards than makes sense.

You are about to lean over it to take a better look, when Ash stops you, pulls you backwards.

ASH: "Don't you hear that?"
SAM: "Hear what?"
ASH: "That!"

You strain your ears for a moment, and then you hear it.

Scraping noises from the impossible hole. Drawing closer.









~=>

SAM: "A robot?"

(huh)
(i didnt expect this to come out here)

ASH: "What's it doing here, do you think? Here to attack us?"

(um)
(i still have access to the printer so i can make more of these)
(but id appreciate you not destroying this)

SAM: "It's not moving, but be on your guard."

(oh wait youre not telepathic)
(im an idiot)
(gimme a sec)

~=>

The robot... thing clambers slowly out of the hole in the table.
It straightens up, the eye glyph on its head closing, then extending, neatly dividing its face in two.

(this may be a bit alarming)
(i think)

SAM: "Uh. Hello?"









~=>

And then its eye/mouth opens.

You may, upon later reflection, remember shrieking a little.

SAM: "What the hell?"
ASH: "Ew."
???: "C. Chhhh."
ASH: "Uh."
???: "Chharming. Last time a hhhuman saw this. They. Screamed and. Tthhrew their lunch at it."

It speaks slowly, haltingly, speeding up as if it's barely got the hang of speech. It sounds like its speaking through a mouthful of soggy marbles, but it's intelligible.

???: "So. I call myself Archivist. This issn't my usual face, but you briefly saw the Archive wearing it. I... I think you could call me one of the builders of this place. The Location. If my wordsss held any weight, these days, I'd apologise for the inconvenience."

Footnote:

SpoilerShow

Well, it's been a while.
I'm still writing a weird webnovel. Check it out!

Glad to be back.

>Are you the reward for the puzzle?

> Are you having trouble trying to bargle nawdle zouss???

>Are you the reward for the puzzle?

ASH: "Wait, I worded that wrong. What would be the reward for this puzzle?"
ARCHIVIST: "I'm unsure. This having a purpose other than timewasting would indicate that there was some kind of plan."
SAM: "Didn't you build this place, though? Surely you'd know what things were for."
ARCHIVIST: "Well, I thought I understood this place. But now I'm fully awake again, after a subjective... several thousand years in bits, with various bits of my mind in various places, after that I find that this place has completely gone to Hell in a handbasket."









~=>

ARCHIVIST: "Everything's broken! Just... everything! The power's not working, the inevitability deferrers - which should only be used in emergencies, they're bad for the temporal health of this entire timespace - have been running flat-out for decades! The Archives themselves are starting to gain sentience, which is a whole can of worms in and of itself, and someone's disabled all the safeguards on it, before putting large chunks of my mind in it! Something dreadful is going to happen, and my idiot siblings were too busy bickering and getting themselves killed to do anything about it! My dear brother, even, I'm pretty sure he kludged most of this stuff into failing so spectacularly! I'd call it suicidal, but he clearly had no idea what was going on when he awoke."

As the robot-with-Archivist-in rants, the shell of its head creaks and the fleshy substance inside bubbles.

ARCHIVIST: "And, not to mention the worst-case, which draws ever closer!"
SAM: "Uh, what's that?"
ARCHIVIST: "The shadow of the Location, where we currently are, will burst like a soap bubble, and all nearby Earths will be sterilised."
SAM: "Wait, Earths plural? That sounds weird, although I don't remember why."
ASH: "I'm more concerned about 'sterilised'."
ARCHIVIST: "Well, comparing Earths isn't relevant here. More importantly to you, however, is that if the shadow of the Location breaks, you die, and everyone on the Earth you came from dies, too. Additionally, myself and my siblings will have wasted millions of years of work."
ASH: "Like I said, more concerned about 'sterilised'."









~=>

SAM: "Which Earth are we from, then? Are we even from the same Earth?"
ARCHIVIST: "Ah, you are. Earth-Crimson, I believe you call it."

Your brain twinges with mild recognition at that phrase.

ARCHIVIST: "The Location's shadow itself hangs between two Earths, dangling from the 'true' Location like a... well, like a parachute, maybe? Or a shadow, or a dragline, or a surface layer extending in a direction kata, and honestly analogies in your language kinda break down. Took me ages to explain to... haha, well, you don't want me to prattle on about digressions."
SAM: "Are you going to save the Earth...s?"
ARCHIVIST: "I certainly hope so! We won't be able to continue our work if the Location ceases to be, and I won't be able to talk sense into my siblings!"
ASH: "Question: why were you killed before the rest of your siblings?"
ARCHIVIST: "Ah. Well, we had a vote, and it was two to one against me. Brother Dearest was still fuming about, er, certain past events, so he voted to kill me forever. Sister Dearest said no, and also that that was pretty much impossible, and Sibling Dearest tiebroke by saying that it'd be most harmonious if I was put away for a million years, or until another sibling woke me up. I think something went wrong, though, because I certainly wasn't in exile, as I expected from that."
ASH: "That's... an unusual approach to conflict resolution, by my experience here."
ARCHIVIST: "Well, I guess that's a human perspective. And I did, er, take some liberties with the retelling, to make it easier to comprehend. And also because my memory is flaky. I think I lost some somewhere."

Footnote:

SpoilerShow

Fortnightly updates? In my Chiasmata?

>Maybe we could help find it?

Apologies if you wanted to read a Chiasmata update, but Photobucket (where I hosted my images) is now demanding 400-odd of your American Dollar per year to host them.

I am migrating to imgur, and am also considering making a website to host them.
It is, as you would expect, highly irksome and fiddly. Bear with me

And all fixed!
Phew.

>Who're those mysterious relatives?

ASH: "So, you mentioned... siblings? Who are they? What're they doing?"
ARCHIVIST: "Well, I don't exactly know what they're doing right now, but I have known them for a long time, so I should be able to hazard a guess."
SAM: "Your face... it's a bit..."
ARCHIVIST: "I'm not sure what you mean."
SAM: "Er..."
ARCHIVIST: "Anyway, theories about what my dear siblings are doing!"












~>

ARCHIVIST: "My dear brother calls himself Architect, and given what interaction I had with him when we were fighting a short while ago, I think it's a fair guess that he's furious at the moment."
SAM: "That... doesn't sound good."
ARCHIVIST: "I can only hope that he's able to put aside the pettier of his grudges to help stabilise the Location. His physical form, along with my sister's and sibling's will likely be in a partition of the boundary spaces, like my own."









~>

ARCHIVIST: "Artificer is my dear sister. She's probably working on something important at the moment - she'll have read the damage report the Archive made and will be acting on the recommendations."
ASH: "Is that good?"
ARCHIVIST: "Difficult to say."
SAM: "If it's not impolite to ask, what are you and your siblings?"
ARCHIVIST: "Erm. We're sentient beings? I think I'm missing some memories specific to exactly what we are."
SAM: "Can we help you get your memories back?"
ARCHIVIST: "Thanks for offering! I'll have to get back to you on that."









~~=>

SAM: "And the other one? Your sibling?"
ARCHIVIST: "Ah, my dear sibling Arbiter is a bit trickier to predict. Were I to hazard a guess, they're keeping an eye on the development of the situation."
ASH: "Are they going to do anything?"
ARCHIVIST: "Difficult to say. They don't tend to act unless something's going to go very south."

---

Footnote:

SpoilerShow

Gosh, it's been a while. Once more, I'm going to be aiming for another update in a month's time.

Also, Minty and I have added some Very Cool Things to the mirror as part of the ARG. Technically, it leads to stuff that was revealed before, but hopefully it's a fun puzzle. We'll add more puzzles to the mirror in the future, watch this space!

>"So then, what do we do now? What goals can we strive for?"

>Is this not a situation where "something's going to go very south"? Is this like, a run-of-the-mill no-big-deal apocalypse, which they can't be bothered to get up for?

>Do you have any idea where the rest of our group is? It'd be great if we could all stick together for longer than five minutes at a time.

>How is this situation not 'South'?

Archivist pauses a moment at Sam's question, seemingly finishing their strange transformation into a grey-faced weird thing.
They pause for so long that you think about asking if they understood the question before speaking.

ARCHIVIST: "Er. Good question. My dear sibling isn't really all too concerned with anything besides the continued existence of our family. Humanity, the Location and the Earths in general are somewhat more secondary concerns."
SAM: "..."
ASH: "..."
ARCHIVIST: "Upon reflection, my dear sibling isn't really a moral paragon. Rest assured, as long as you aren't directly threatening us, they won't actually act against you. Usually. They're kind of... opaque."
SAM: "Well, what do we do now, then?"
ASH: "Find everyone else, I guess?"
ARCHIVIST: "Oh! I know where they are. They're in the other rooms."
ASH: "But there's the... black indestructible glass stuff in the way. I think the Archive person called it a 'void wall'."
ARCHIVIST: "Well, I can definitely help with that. Give me a second."









>So, where are they?

ARCHIVIST: "Well, if I just..."

They reach upwards, and then everything goes wrong.

SAM: "Wh... what? WHAT? What are you doing?"
ARCHIVIST: "Er, well... Don't think about it too hard."
ASH: "My eyes won't focus!"
ARCHIVIST: "Probably for the best."

Space itself seems to warp and ripple nauseously as they do... something? It's honestly hard to tell.









<Θ>

Yeah, okay, your brain has just about given up trying to make sense of this now.
They kinda... stretched upwards past the ceiling?
Now, they're towering over the two of you, but they still seem to be exactly the same height they were before. It's starting to give you a headache.

ARCHIVIST: "So, as you see, they're in the room next to yours. The dimensionality is somewhat unorthodox, but they're here."
SAM: "T-thanks?"
JACQUELINE: "WHAT THE HELL?"









==~>

It seems the other guys can see what's going on too.

DANIEL: "Sam? Ash? What's going on up there? Um, besides there?"
JACQUELINE: "What's that thing next to them? How is this even possible?"
DANIEL: "Can't you stop time with your mind?"
JACQUELINE: "That's different! Probably different."
ARCHIVIST: "My name is Archivist. Pleasure to meet you two."
SAM: "Daniel! You sound a bit quiet."
ARCHIVIST: "Oh, I must have miscalibrated the sound transmission."

There's a piercing sound, reminiscent of microphone feedback.

ARCHIVIST: "Can we hear each other now?"

---

Footnote:

SpoilerShow

Once more, I return, and the gang starts to get further back together.
I'll see about making these a bit faster in future. Hopefully, it isn't an empty promise.

>"Testing, 123 testing"

>So- what's going on is, uh... we met this alien, who helped make this insanity zone, except the insanity zone is broken, and it just sort of decided to help us find you, by doing... this. Whatever it is. And it wants to stop the... Earth... -s, from being destroyed? And we might be able to help it out somehow? By...

>...Actually, Archivist, how about you explain what's going on and what we need to do?

>"Testing, 123 testing"

>Testing, 12What the fuck
>Someone: Try climbing over