THE KEEPER

THE FACE

Kai's world is a terrarium, and the keeper is whatever is outside it. In any world but the last, a great pale face can rise out of the dark beyond the island. It has no expression, only two small lights far back in two empty sockets, and it turns to follow Kai around the loop. The face never touches the road and never hurts you. It is there to remind you that someone is watching.

THE OMEN

When the keeper decides to reach in, it warns you first. The face rises, the walls on the road come apart, and the sky empties. No walls are dealt onto the road while the omen lasts, so the omen is safe ground: use it to line up, fill your line, and get ready to watch the marks.

THE HAND

Then the hand comes down. It is a vast hand of crazed porcelain, and it hovers over the island while it thinks. You can watch it choose: it moves between lanes, considers, and settles. When it has chosen, an X appears over every lane the finger is about to block, and a ring appears on the lane that will stay open. Then the finger comes down across the road and stays there for a moment.

The answer is the same as for a drifter. Do not watch the finger; watch the ring, and be in that lane when the finger lands. The hand never strikes without showing you both marks first, and the moment between the marks appearing and the finger landing is the whole of the challenge: it is long enough to change lane once, calmly, if you start as soon as you see them.

HOW OFTEN IT COMES

The hand keeps its own clock. It first reaches in about half a minute into a run, and after that roughly once every minute or so, in every world, though never during a gate, a gold rush or the fall between worlds. Sometimes a single finger comes down and blocks one lane; sometimes two fingers block two. The face comes more often the deeper the run goes, and in the Tear it no longer rises at all: only the hand comes. Keeping your eyes on the marks instead of the hand is the single most useful habit for the last two worlds.