Place · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

The Dungeon

The eighteen-floor structure that replaces the surface of the Earth at 2:23 in the morning, into which some thirteen million people descend: a maze of quadrant-sized squares, safe rooms, tutorial guilds and boss lairs, run as a broadcast for an interstellar audience and collapsing a floor at a time on a timer.

Segment appearances

Chapter 1 — Hump Town
Chapter 2 — The Wasteland through a telescope
Chapter 3 — A goose from the sky
Chapter 4 — The Royal Chariot; Ifechi
Chapter 5 — Rapid Detox
Chapter 9 — Ruckus
Chapter 10 — Squeeze out the Juice Box
Chapter 13 — Gerbils
Chapter 18 — One
Chapter 19 — Orren
Chapter 20 — Gwendolyn Duet
Chapter 24 — Samantha
Chapter 25 — The Akula
Chapter 27 — Leatherface
Chapter 28 — Emberus
Chapter 32 — Acolyte of Emberus
Chapter 33 — Phase three
Chapter 34 — Seeding the pond
Epilogue — Epilogue: the Walk-On List

Arc

The fifth floor explained by announcement: 1,172 bubbles, four quadrants, four castles, all four to fall (ch. 1); Mordecai wonders if the bubbles average out player levels (ch. 2); a Lacuna between them (ch. 30). Elevation: the tomb's top is nine kilometres above its sea level and ninety-two below the planet's surface (ch. 8). Mordecai's map of the ninth floor (ch. 24), Priestly's of Larracos (ch. 33), and a partial map of the sixth on a ghost's corpse (ch. 33). The announcement for the sixth: class specialisation, a guild system, and a record number of hunters (ch. 33).