Motif · Book 8, A Parade of Horribles
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 — Chandra; the garage
- Chapter 88 — Interlude: Quasar; the eleventh floor — twenty-three crawlers; Chaco's parade
- Chapter 93 — The arena: 'I choose Scolopendra'
- Chapter 94 — Dungeon Boss; the pig in the harness
- Chapter 98 — W-W-W-Winner; Mark of the Damned; the wrong biscuit
Progression
'Level timer has been temporarily suspended for this floor. Please wait for the announcement from that inebriated fish' (ch. 1) — the floor runs on heat limits instead: 6 hours (ch. 3), 3 hours, halved (ch. 6, ch. 17), 20 minutes (ch. 22), 20 hours (ch. 33), 30 minutes (ch. 51), 2 hours (ch. 67), and Cascadia's word that the eleventh has 'a time limit of three hours for the whole thing' (ch. 68). The eleventh opens on 3 hours, 15 minutes (ch. 88); 'Warning: Time to Level Collapse: 45 minutes' as the arena door opens (ch. 93); the AI's rules for a Scolopendra kill — 'Level timers will cease to exist, and floors after this one will no longer collapse on their own' (ch. 94) — and at 30 minutes the announcement: 'all level collapse timers past the 11th floor are suspended until a winner is declared in the Ascendency battles. When this happens, dungeon-closure procedures will commence' (ch. 98).