Mordecai leads Carl, Princess Donut, and Mongo through the third floor’s starting settlement and explains that it is part of the Over City, a huge urban floor where crawler entry points are random. Because placement depends on each crawler’s guide, Carl learns Brandon and his group could be anywhere. Mordecai also explains that the floor is much smaller than the early ones, is still physically beneath Earth’s surface, and is built as a theatrical set for viewers.

As they walk, Carl asks about the residents. Mordecai reveals that the NPCs are real living beings engineered and owned by Borant, and that their memories are rewritten each season to fit whatever storyline the show wants. Carl is disturbed to learn that entire cultures, histories, and addictions can be manufactured for entertainment. Mordecai adds that this kind of biological manipulation is legal only inside sanctioned productions, then explains that deeper floors, especially the eighteenth, host wealthy tourists who come to gamble and indulge themselves, while no crawler has ever reached the fifteenth or eighteenth floors.

Mordecai also points out the third floor’s practical structure. Carl and Donut can use rogue guildhalls, Donut can use bard halls, and Carl can use fighter halls, though Mordecai has never seen a hall for Primals. At the village gate, Carl inspects a level 75 guard, and Mordecai warns them not to attack NPCs, steal, or cause trouble because village law is enforced by immediate execution, not jail. He explains that guards patrol only safe population centers during the day and will not pursue crawlers into the ruins, though being forced to flee would permanently cost them access to that village.

Once they reach the edge of town, Mordecai explains the floor’s volcano-based story: the Over City sits at the top of a magical world inside a volcano, and a poison catastrophe turned most of its former population into monsters that now inhabit the ruins. He says the sixth floor continues this storyline as the Hunting Grounds, where wealthy tourists can legally hunt crawlers at great risk. When Carl asks about shopping and opening loot boxes, Mordecai tells him not to waste resources in the small village. Instead, he directs them east toward a medium settlement with better stores, shows Carl how to activate hidden road signs, and explains that saferooms and restrooms are scattered through the ruins.

Before leaving, Mordecai gives final warnings for survival. The ruins always contain monsters, but nighttime makes them much more dangerous; villages are safe by day, while at night only the main roads are usually safe and alleys can become deadly. He tells Carl to train his punching and Fear spell, reminds Donut to keep leveling Magic Missile and claim her floor-club spellbook, and advises them not to stop at the first saferoom before opening boxes. After Donut complains about Mordecai’s bossiness, Carl opens the gate, and the party leaves the village and enters the ruins.