art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

Return of Puzzlemaster Week 2 Recap

This week, Puzzlemaster responded to Anonymous AST asking about how he’d doing with a purple eye. No Puzzlemaster sign-off. Purple is the color of the Them, the Puppetmasters. So not good.

The tag on that response had a new letter, C! So in conjunction to the string that’s H (or н in Cyrillic, possibly, as @get-your-fuckin-star-bitch has noted), S, and C. Maybe 2 H. I dunno.

Also, @styrofoamdoor has joined us and brute-force SHA-256'ed his way through the string and ended up with something coherent: AZERTY, which is the French QWERTY.

Puzzlemaster has now been quiet for a whole week, so I wonder if we’ll see anything new. @art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet, @cr0w-z, and everyone else, as always let me know if I’ve missed something or got something wrong! Don’t want to let anything fall through the cracks!

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

,,,,oh.

Oh dear.

Mate. You alright.

- AST

𓁹

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

My GOD, I would never have identified that. Well done!!!

Only the letters a through f are being used in the string of numbers and letters given in the December 4th post, but the numbers 0 through 9 are all used.

Unsure what this…means. At all.

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

Update:

It means it’s hexadecimal. The letters A through F represent numbers 10 through 16.

Therefore, @seismologically-silly ‘s initial attempt at converting it from hexadecimal into text was genuinely a good idea.

Unfortunately, as they also found, it does not convert into anything that even remotely resembles actual words.

…

…I’m… unsure where to go from here.

Only the letters a through f are being used in the string of numbers and letters given in the December 4th post, but the numbers 0 through 9 are all used.

Unsure what this…means. At all.

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

Only the letters a through f are being used in the string of numbers and letters given in the December 4th post, but the numbers 0 through 9 are all used.

Unsure what this…means. At all.

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

Statement, I. Guess. Of Aster…

…no, fuck that, I won’t put that on record.

…Statement of aster. No last name being given… regarding… the last few months.

I can’t say I’ve been doing well.

Naturally.

That’s what comes of self-isolation, so it’s not that much of a surprise that I’ve… sort of decayed, a bit.

Not in the literal sense, of course. That… that would be… that would probably mean something…

…something worse.

But.

Regardless, I’ve, um. I haven’t exactly been… outside, much. Been to get a few groceries, but that’s pretty much it, and I never, ever use the front door unless it’s absolutely necessary and even then it is a mad dash for that exit so that I don’t have to meet whatever thing it is that lives in this building face to… whatever it calls a face.

I cannot stay in here anymore.

I don’t want to stay in here anymore.

This is hell.

But the thing inside this building is making it so that I can’t… really leave.

I still don’t know what it is, because I haven’t bothered sticking around long enough near it to find out.

But it knows me.

And I know this… because it… speaks to me, sometimes.

Not in my head, not the way that that thing- the web, whatever - does, it’s just. It just talks like a person. Which it is not. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

It is a monster.

And it knows my name.

I don’t know why I’m saying all of this. You don’t need to know all of this. I only wanted to say something simple about how I’ve been stuck in the flat and can’t really get out.

Why does it want me here.

Why am I here.

Did it take everyone else? Am I the last one alive in this flat? Has every other tenant gone and been skewered or eaten or just… I don’t know, had something else done to them by it, leaving me as the last man holding out in a very seemingly futile effort to get ahold of the situation and keep my stupid life from being taken from me as well.

I want to leave.

…I think it wants me to stay.

…

I need to get out.

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

The Return of Puzzlemaster

Going to be honest, I did not have the return of my favorite ARG on my 2025 bingo, but I am here for it. Announcing the return is the main update I know of, @cr0w-z @art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet, let me know if you've come across anything else!

Puzzlewise, we've gotten three messages. The first is from 4 December and is a string of characters: 7bf5aecdf488c5970c0b2b7a65bbfc4ff0fcd10dcc436b7a665798cdeb8482df

These have a Google hit, which is a Reddit post in a subreddit which is just a person writing strings like this. Fun! Not ominous at all! There is also a few spaces before a sign-off:

:

-Puzzlemaster

If we remember from the summer, red colors mean Puzzlemaster, so it's interesting that the colon is colored but not Puzzlemaster's name. Black indicated our puzzle, and Puzzlemaster was being threatened before radio silence so I hope he's okay.

On 7 December, we got our second message.

H .

:

-Puzzlemaster

Why is the H in a different font? Why is the colon red? Why is the "a" in Puzzlemaster green (the Involvements aka puzzle-solver color)? Who knows! That's our job to find out!

The last message came in only 30 minutes ago.

S .

:

-Puzzlemaster

The tags read #puzzlemaster #H .

And now we're all caught up! I'm excited to get back to code-breaking with everyone still here! Good luck!

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

(Are you…

…alright…?)

H .

:

-Puzzlemaster

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

H .

:

-Puzzlemaster

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

hello-? everything ok?

i know the weird message a few days ago was... scary... i brought macarons- even though shaky hands make it hard to bake hah-

-Crow

Oh. Oh dear. I… seem to have… completely- ah.

I… hope… my refusal to respond didn’t… bother you, I got…

….things were…

….

:(

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

…oh-? Oh- oh, I… misread.

…FOUR legs-

…four…?

What… kind of shapeshifting creature is….? …hm….

What has four legs in the morning, two in the day, and three in the evening? - @the-1t

YOU!!!! YOU????? that. That…Is not my answer. BUT HELLO???????

A MAN!!!! Or, more specifically, a human- That’s, from the sphinx- Greek/roman mythology-

….

Is this… the cue to stop hiding in my flat and ordering food to be delivered to the door.

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

……….ah….

@seismologically-silly man of rocks, woman of bone, silver is the heart of stones.

@potato-lord-but-not gold weeps, starlit steel, seal the door.

@puzz1e-master They wait.

@cr0w-z The little bird laughed to see such a sight, and the nit ran away with the dune!

@get-your-fuckin-star-bitch ad astra, lex.

@ichorandseafoam do you not hear the call? The song?

Terrific.

Words.

Dance.

Words.

Dance.

Words.

Dance.

Words.

Dance.

Words.

Dance.

Fallow fall, merry meadow-spring!

Come, join the dance!

The trumpet sings your demise, laugh while time is ample!

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

Mhm. Aster is, indeed, Latin for star… I sometimes use a star to “sign off”… but aside from that, I’m unsure why the choice was made to incorporate Latin into it…

…mind you, this… entire exclamation… scares me. It’s telling us something’s happening with the hunters. The… dancers, I’m not so sure about. But hunters are not to be messed with. If there’s something- if a hunt is-

…there’s not a good ending to this, I know it-

“Dancers hunt, my friends. And hunters dance. Listen for the screams in the night!” Is… ominous… to say the very least…

@seismologically-silly man of rocks, woman of bone, silver is the heart of stones.

@potato-lord-but-not gold weeps, starlit steel, seal the door.

@puzz1e-master They wait.

@cr0w-z The little bird laughed to see such a sight, and the nit ran away with the dune!

@get-your-fuckin-star-bitch ad astra, lex.

@ichorandseafoam do you not hear the call? The song?

Terrific.

Words.

Dance.

Words.

Dance.

Words.

Dance.

Words.

Dance.

Words.

Dance.

Fallow fall, merry meadow-spring!

Come, join the dance!

The trumpet sings your demise, laugh while time is ample!

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

[ OOC: they’re not posting about it, but by god are they definitely panicking super bad. ]

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

…. Schleiße.

@seismologically-silly man of rocks, woman of bone, silver is the heart of stones.

@potato-lord-but-not gold weeps, starlit steel, seal the door.

@puzz1e-master They wait.

@cr0w-z The little bird laughed to see such a sight, and the nit ran away with the dune!

@get-your-fuckin-star-bitch ad astra, lex.

@ichorandseafoam do you not hear the call? The song?

Terrific.

Words.

Dance.

Words.

Dance.

Words.

Dance.

Words.

Dance.

Words.

Dance.

Fallow fall, merry meadow-spring!

Come, join the dance!

The trumpet sings your demise, laugh while time is ample!

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

…

[ * Hm. They’ve nodded off in the middle of the ramble… finally. :] ]

are you alright??

ive been quite worried for you lately--

...i brought some raspberry muffins, oh, and a cheesecake-! ^^

-Crowz

Wh-?? …oh-

[ * Standing in the middle of the living room, looking… slightly like a deer in headlights. They’d definitely jumped when they heard the knock. ]

…Um…

[ * Pausing. ]

…no, hold on a minute! Tell me what your name is, and how I met you.

[ * Another pause. ]

…so I can tell you’re not a…. fake.

It’s… for my own defense.

[art-thou-a-man-or-a-muppet]

[ * Can’t even formulate a proper sentence. Just nods. ]

are you alright??

ive been quite worried for you lately--

...i brought some raspberry muffins, oh, and a cheesecake-! ^^

-Crowz

Wh-?? …oh-

[ * Standing in the middle of the living room, looking… slightly like a deer in headlights. They’d definitely jumped when they heard the knock. ]

…Um…

[ * Pausing. ]

…no, hold on a minute! Tell me what your name is, and how I met you.

[ * Another pause. ]

…so I can tell you’re not a…. fake.

It’s… for my own defense.