Motif · from book 4

The Gate of the Feral Gods

An artifact, celestial-tier by Carl's reckoning, in three parts — two pocket watches and a winding box — buried by legend in the Necropolis of Anser and hunted by a gnome commandant, a changeling principal, a glass mage and a dead bugbear. Dial a time on one watch and it mirrors on the other; times are places; wind the box and a one-way portal opens for twenty minutes, and when it closes the opening side stays open into the Nothing until a feral god comes through. Carl assembles it on the fifth floor and uses it to empty bubbles, and then to flood a city.

The feral gods, the Nothing and the pantheon that made them: the pantheon.

First appears: Book 4

Series arc

As of book 7. Katia's prize in book 4, kept by Orren in book 6; in book 7 returned to a mailbox, opened early by a falling winding box to birth Yarilo, taken from Elle by a war mage, traded to Paca for five hell-kissed potions and carried in her stomach, retrieved by Justice Light with the sluggalos, and made, in its broken box, the permanent portal through which the Nothing breaks.

Open threads

Status is open or resolved; the chapter after it is the last one that moved the thread.

Thread	Opened	Status
Justice Light's trap: the Nothing broken into the Ascendency, Sheol and Scolopendra's lair	B7 ch. 87	open — A bijou trap and a demon trap dropped into a permanent portal made from the Gate's winding box; four planes fold; 'Scolopendra has awakened'; the Club told to flee to an empty sixteenth floor through the seventeenth. Porthus and the Apothecary knew; the survivors will suffer for it.
The Gate, kept, and what it costs to use	B4 ch. 34	resolved · B7 ch. 1 — Returned to a mailbox by liaison action; its later fate is the Rebellion's and Justice Light's (the-nothing-broken).

All threads: Open threads.

Through book 4

Named on a boss card, called a myth, then three pieces: a watch from a dead commandant, a box from a punched mage, a watch from a dead changeling (B4 ch. 9, B4 ch. 16, B4 ch. 21, B4 ch. 26). Ghazi's note explains it (B4 ch. 23). Used to escape a shark, to empty fifteen hundred people out of their bubbles, to send the changelings home, and to flood Larracos (B4 ch. 27, B4 ch. 33, B4 ch. 34). Kept.

Through book 5

Taken, with a receipt for the ninth floor (B5 ch. 1); not sold but lent, against collateral that regenerates only on the next floor (B5 ch. 3).

Through book 6

Refused back until the floor ends (B6 ch. 51); an equaliser, not enough (B6 ch. 73).

Through book 7

Returned, taken, traded, retrieved, and made a door (B7 ch. 1, B7 ch. 61, B7 ch. 69, B7 ch. 81, B7 ch. 87).

Where they appear

Book	Chapters they are in (of the book's)	Where
4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods	14/35	9–10, 12, 15–17, 20–23, 26–27, 29, 34 · the book's own page
5 — The Butcher's Masquerade	4/78	Ch. 1, Ch. 3, Ch. 58, Ch. 69 · the book's own page
6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride	5/74	Ch. 2, Ch. 19, Ch. 32, Ch. 51, Ch. 73 · the book's own page
7 — This Inevitable Ruin	13/89	1–2, 5, 14, 39, 56–57, 59, 61, 69, 76, 81, 87 · the book's own page

By book

The Gate of the Feral Gods in book 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods

Finding it

Named on Ruckus's card as the treasure a bugbear spent twenty years under the sea for (ch. 9); 'a myth', says Juice Box, then not: two pocket watches and a winding box, one with her brother, one with Kane, one with the mad mage (ch. 10, ch. 15). A forged watch fools Leon (ch. 11); Carl decides to take the house the old way for Kane's watch (ch. 12) and loots it from a corpse with a letter (ch. 16); Ghazi's winding box comes in a scorched satchel (ch. 21); Henrik's watch is looted on a sinking bridge as a court freezes the world (ch. 26).

Using it

Ghazi's note: times are places, the box arms when the second watch catches up, a portal for twenty minutes, then a two-way hole into the Nothing until something comes through (ch. 23). First use: three crawlers and a column of seawater onto a beach, and Who Let the Gods Out? (ch. 27). Then fifteen hundred people gated out of their bubbles, one bubble at a time, a feral god left in each (ch. 32, ch. 33); a portal from Imani's bubble to the sixth floor for the changelings (ch. 33); a decoy in the sand and the real gate under the sea into Larracos (ch. 34). Kept, not sacrificed: 'This isn't going to be a one-time thing.'

The Gate of the Feral Gods in book 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade

Taken, with a receipt for the ninth floor (ch. 1); not sold but lent, against collateral that regenerates only on the next floor (ch. 3).

The Gate of the Feral Gods in book 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

They were angry at Carl for having it because he might break a level, and Prepotente broke one anyway (ch. 2); Katia got her box for opening it and flooding Larracos at the start of the sixth floor, and hid it (ch. 19); the Nothing's entrances are one-way except when the Gate is used (ch. 32); Orren refuses to give it back before the floor ends, knowing what it could circumvent (ch. 51); an equaliser, but not enough (epilogue).

The Gate of the Feral Gods in book 7 — This Inevitable Ruin

Returned to a mailbox by liaison action (ch. 1, ch. 2); dead under the suppression field (ch. 14); in Elle's hands for the raid (ch. 57, ch. 59). It opens early when the winding box falls, births Yarilo, and is taken from Elle by Akuma (ch. 61, ch. 63); traded to Paca for potions and carried in her stomach (ch. 69, ch. 76); retrieved by Justice Light (ch. 81). Its broken, blood-soaked winding box becomes a permanent portal into the Nothing (ch. 87).