How to Open the MxS Gold Room in Order of the Sinking Star (Mirrors × Stones)

MxS cannot be rushed from a fresh save, because the route spends capabilities from both of its parent worlds. Check these off first:

Context for that checklist: Skipping Stones is the hardest of the four initial campaigns — in that same Exophase sample, only 33.09% of players have finished it, against 86.56% for Heroes. MxS inherits that filter before its own logistics even begin, which is most of why its open rate sits at the bottom of the six.

On screen 2 of Skipping Stones, ride the lily pad across to the gold skipping stone on the right of the screen. Push it down, then right. That second push sends the stone off the screen's edge and onto a path that leads into The Mirror Isles.

Understand what you just did, because the rest of the route follows from it: you have not opened anything, and nothing in Skipping Stones has changed for the better. You have mailed the key to the other world. The stone now rests somewhere on the Mirror Isles side, and the door it belongs to is over there too. Leave the south and head east.

In The Mirror Isles, go to the gold mirror in the southwest. Use it to teleport to the landmass below it, then follow the path from there to where your gold stone came to rest after Stage 1.

The problem now inverts. In Skipping Stones, the stone was a vehicle — something that skips, sinks, and ferries. In the Mirror Isles it is cargo: an object that has to be escorted across a chain of water screens it was never designed for, back toward the gold mirror's screen. Stage 3 is that escort, and it is the heart of the whole opener.

From the stone's resting place, route it back toward the gold mirror's screen in four stages:

The logic holding the four stages together: a submerged stone is a stepping tile in open water. Every crossing exists to place that tile where the next crossing needs it, and the final sinking places it where you need to stand. Read each screen as "where must the tile be for the next move?" and the chain stops looking arbitrary.

With the stone submerged left of the grey rock, the door is built — now you have to walk through it:

That position — standing on your own delivered stone, reached through the mirror — is the access point to the MxS gold room. The Gold MxS achievement marks the moment. Notice the shape of the trick, because it is the room's whole thesis in miniature: the Mirror Isles gave you the teleport, Skipping Stones gave you the floor, and neither world alone could have put you where you are standing.

Through the door lies Mirrors and Stones, one of the game's large fused areas: 37 chambers holding 49 puzzles in the wikitactics community map's count — a full second campaign in which the Trader's reflections work across the Sailor's water, currents and stones. It is, by puzzle count, one of the substantial fusion zones, which is part of the payoff for the least-opened door in the game.

And the gold room itself still has its own work waiting: like every gold room, MxS holds a 10-star meter whose white line (between the 7th and 8th stars) powers its teleporter to the Antipode once crossed. For scale, in the same mid-October sample only 6.94% of players had activated the MxS teleporter — opening this door is merely the first of its two filters. Opening MxS late is no handicap for the ending, either — the first ending needs any four of six teleporters, so MxS is just as valid a fourth as HxM was a first. Our gold rooms overview covers the meter, the 4-of-6 rule and the recommended order across all six rooms.

Why is MxS the least-opened gold room? Two filters stack. Its parents include Skipping Stones, the hardest initial campaign (33.09% completion), and unlike every other room it demands a physical delivery — one object carried between two worlds through a four-stage chain — before the door exists at all. 13.73% is what survives both.

Does MxS depend on opening HxM — or any other gold room — first? No. The six rooms are independent pairings; each one's prerequisites live entirely inside its own two parent worlds. HxM is simply the easier first door for most players (54.91% opened), which is why our gold rooms overview recommends it first — recommendation, not requirement.

Do I need to finish the Mirror Isles and Skipping Stones campaigns first? The documented route does not ask for either campaign's finish. It asks for two specific capabilities: reach the gold stone on Skipping Stones' second screen, and use the gold mirror in the southwest of the Mirror Isles. How much campaign progress those represent in your save will vary — but treat both worlds as mid-game commitments, not warm-ups.

I pushed the stone to the wrong place. Is my run bricked? No. Nothing in this game bricks: rewind is unlimited, works back through resets and even deaths, and a puzzle's state and move history are preserved when you leave. Rewind the stone to a known position and re-drive the stage.

What do I get for opening MxS? The Gold MxS achievement, access to Mirrors and Stones (37 chambers, 49 puzzles per wikitactics), and the room's own star-meter-and-teleporter work toward the 4-of-6 first ending.

Is there a push-by-push walkthrough for the stone carry? In text, the route is documented at the stage level given here; the exact push sequence is single-sourced, so we have not inflated it into false precision. A complete video playthrough of the route exists (the [PuzzleGame] series, episodes #20–21) if you want to watch the chain driven start to finish.