Motif · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

The clock

The countdown in the corner of every crawler's vision: 'Time to Level Collapse', five days on the first floor, read out by the system at the head of chapters and by Carl whenever he has to choose. On the second floor a second timer appears beneath it, counting down to the closing of the safe rooms an hour before collapse, and Carl waits for the level timer to reach six hours before he takes the stairs.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 1 — Hump Town
• Chapter 8 — A yam from the pacifists
• Chapter 17 — Jennifer and Dale's house
• Chapter 20 — Gwendolyn Duet
• Chapter 23 — The winding box explained
• Chapter 28 — Emberus
• Chapter 32 — Acolyte of Emberus
• Chapter 33 — Phase three
• Chapter 34 — Seeding the pond

Progression

Fifteen days (ch. 1); 13 days, 13 hours (ch. 8); 10 Days and 4 Hours (ch. 17); then 4 Days and 22 Hours when the interface comes back after Loita (ch. 20) and 'just over four and a half days' when Carl checks it (ch. 23). The last day is read to the minute: 7 hours, and 'Two seconds after it hit six hours until level collapse, phase three would be implemented' (ch. 33); five hours, 30 minutes; 1 hour; 21 minutes (ch. 34).