Carl questions Juice Box about Henrik and learns the changelings’ real goal. Henrik belongs to the Principals, who are searching for Quetzalcoatlus because her plant-altering magic might let them create food that prevents the worsening birth defects caused by compression sickness among changelings. Juice Box admits she helped Henrik try to reach Wynne because Wynne could make the ghost temporarily physical, but she says Henrik turned desperate after that plan failed.

Juice Box then reveals that the Gate of the Feral Gods is real, not a myth. The artifact consists of three parts: one piece with Henrik, one with Commandant Kane, and one with the mad dune mage on the surface. She explains that assembling the gate could open a path home, but the price is catastrophic: when the gate closes, it tears into the Nothing and releases a feral god into the world on the opening side. The System immediately turns this revelation into a new quest for Carl to collect all three pieces.

A sandstorm interrupts everything and forces Hump Town’s people and crawlers into shelter when the town’s unfinished shield fails. Carl hands off a bronze quest to gather collapsed shelter balloons to Louis, Firas, and Langley, while other groups report their own stalled progress: Gwen’s team has breached the outer defenses but cannot open the magically sealed castle entrance, and the tomb raiders are trapped because the catacombs are flooded. Chris, still possessed by Maggie My, remains buried alive in the dark, half-flooded chamber, and Mordecai keeps searching for a substitute ingredient so he can attempt a cure, which leaves Carl feeling guilty about not ending Chris’s suffering earlier.

Once the storm passes, Carl focuses on the last surviving piece of the gnome stronghold: a suburban house still floating at the top of the bubble beneath an enormous magical balloon. Carl and Katia debate whether to shoot it down, but Carl wants Kane’s pocket watch intact and does not want to kill Kane’s child unless absolutely forced. Their conversation shifts into a painful talk about children, with Katia admitting that before the dungeon she had wanted to adopt and was later disqualified, a loss that still haunts her. Before departing, Carl deals with yet another defective Donut robot toy when Mongo breaks it and triggers its self-destruct, prompting an irritated exchange with Loita and Zev about the sponsor’s sabotaged prototypes.

Carl and Donut prepare an abandoned gnomish Drop Bear biplane, fuel it, and rename it Nightmare II. Using the aircraft’s emergency recovery balloons, they lift themselves to the ceiling of the bubble, then use the engines to drag the suspended plane across the top toward the floating house. They climb down the giant balloon’s net to the small lot, approach the damaged home, and prepare a coordinated breach with Mongo. Before they can force entry, the front door opens and Kane’s young daughter, wearing a blood-smeared Cowboys jersey, calmly tells them they are too late to kill her father because he is already dead, then invites them inside for lemonade.