THE CRAWLER'S COMPANIONpatch notes for the apocalypse

The Gate of the Feral Gods

First seen: Book 4, Chapter 9

A legendary-or-celestial-tier artifact said to be buried somewhere in the Necropolis of Anser, first named on the page in Ruckus's own boss card, object of a decades-long hunt by the treasure hunter Shamus Chaindrive. Per Mordecai, artifacts of that class don't normally start appearing until the eighth or ninth floor, which he reads as the AI adjusting the story on the fly rather than a scheduled drop.

ArtifactIn Three PiecesMechanics ConfirmedOrigin of Ghazi's PieceThird Piece RecoveredAll Three Pieces RecoveredUsedMass ExtractionAccess RequirementPhase Three: PortalPhase Two CompleteSanctionedSecondary Summon OddsPublicly Announced TargetReal TargetAdministrative Hold

Where

Said to be buried somewhere inside the Necropolis of AnserB4C9

Connections

Carl:

Gets a new quest bearing the artifact's own name: collect all three pieces from Henrik, Kane, and the Mad Dune MageB4C15

Commandant Kane:

Holds the second matching pocket watchB4C15

Henrik:

Holds one of the two matching pocket watches, stolen from the DromedariansB4C15

Ghazi:

Claims to hold the winding box alone and to have already learned how to open a portal with it by itself, contradicting the three-piece accountB4C16

Mysterious Winding Box:

The third piece; a wooden case with a glass window and two cutouts for the matching watches, not yet testedB4C21

Katia Grim:

Secretly builds the facsimile winding box and swaps it, along with Carl's own facsimile watches, in during their chapter-33 farewell hug, then personally operates the real gate from the Water QuadrantB4C34

History by chapter
Book 4
Chapter 9
  • TAG Artifact: A celestial-tier artifact, per Mordecai, not normally expected before floor eight or nine
  • LOCATION Location: Said to be buried somewhere inside the Necropolis of Anser
Chapter 12
  • TAG In Three Pieces: Per Crixus the gnome sniper, the Mad Dune Mage currently holds only a third of it; the other two-thirds are unaccounted for
Chapter 15
  • TAG Mechanics Confirmed: Two matching pocket watches (Henrik's and Commandant Kane's) plus a winding box (the Mad Dune Mage's); assembled, opens a portal, but closing it releases a feral god into the world on the side where it was opened, per Juice Box
  • RELATIONSHIP Henrik: Holds one of the two matching pocket watches, stolen from the Dromedarians
  • RELATIONSHIP Commandant Kane: Holds the second matching pocket watch
  • RELATIONSHIP Carl: Gets a new quest bearing the artifact's own name: collect all three pieces from Henrik, Kane, and the Mad Dune Mage
Chapter 16
  • RELATIONSHIP Ghazi: Claims to hold the winding box alone and to have already learned how to open a portal with it by itself, contradicting the three-piece account
Chapter 20
  • TAG Origin of Ghazi's Piece: Per Katia Grim's own drunk NPC source, Ghazi turned himself into a sand elemental while searching for the artifact and is now mixed into the sandcastle itself; that search is apparently how he obtained the winding box
Chapter 21
  • TAG Third Piece Recovered: Carl steals the winding box from Ghazi's own bag; two of the three pieces, the box and Kane's watch, are now in Carl's inventory, with only Henrik's own matching watch still unrecovered
  • RELATIONSHIP Mysterious Winding Box: The third piece; a wooden case with a glass window and two cutouts for the matching watches, not yet tested
Chapter 26
  • TAG All Three Pieces Recovered: Henrik's own matching watch, the last piece, is looted off his corpse in the Akula's bridge; Carl now holds both watches and the winding box
Chapter 27
  • TAG Used: Assembled and activated for the first time to escape Lusca: opens a twenty-foot portal from the ocean floor to a spot outside Pandinus, pulling Carl, Katia, and Tran through before closing; the quest fires as complete the moment it activates, and per its own established mechanics, the origin side is left open into the Nothing until a feral god crosses through
Chapter 32
  • TAG Mass Extraction: Deployed repeatedly for a coordinated phase-one rescue: each qualifying bubble's own survivors gather at their Desperado Club, dial in on Katia's coordinates, cross to Hump Town, and the gatekeeper crosses last, sealing a feral god into their now-empty bubble behind them before the gate is relayed to the next group
Chapter 33
  • TAG Phase Three: Portal: Used for the first time to summon a feral god outside a bubble entirely: a portal opens on Imani and Elle's own bubble to send the changelings and the Twister back to the sixth floor before that bubble's own timer expires
  • TAG Access Requirement: Bubbles where the Desperado Club's entry pub, or Club Vanquisher's entry church, was destroyed lose access to their own club entirely, and with it any way to use the gate; those crawlers can only be offered sympathy and advice
  • TAG Phase Two Complete: Roughly 1,500 crawlers saved in total across both main phases, with a few extra bubbles added at the last minute; a distressing number of other bubbles go dark or pop on their own before the gate can reach them
  • TAG Secondary Summon Odds: Per the AI's own service notice, each feral god that escapes has a 66% chance of also summoning a corresponding active deity; one near miss, Ysalte the Vinegar Bitch, would have been extinction-level for the fifth floor and the sixth. With the floor at only 33% of its projected sixth-floor population capacity, Borant is now blocking most secondary summons to keep that number from dropping further
  • TAG Sanctioned: After litigation and input from the Syndicate, Borant officially allows the bubble-escape method to continue, but starts blocking some, not all, of the secondary god summons it can trigger
Chapter 34
  • TAG Publicly Announced Target: Staked out atop the bowl all chapter as bait for a ninth-floor plan: the box and first watch taken through a portal to summon a feral god onto a known faction encampment, with Carl keeping the second watch behind on the opening side
  • TAG Real Target: Kept whole and never spent, the genuine box and watches, held by Katia the entire chapter behind a facsimile swap, instead open a portal from the Water Quadrant straight into Larracos's own faction market, flooding it rather than releasing a god to the ninth floor
  • RELATIONSHIP Katia Grim: Secretly builds the facsimile winding box and swaps it, along with Carl's own facsimile watches, in during their chapter-33 farewell hug, then personally operates the real gate from the Water Quadrant
Book 5
Chapter 1
  • TAG Administrative Hold: Taken into a Syndicate meeting after floor 5; Orren says it must stay out of Carl's hands on floor 6 and offers its return on floor 9 if Carl turns in the winding box