Vis crawls out of the tunnel into Qabr burned, poisoned, naked, and barely able to stand after surviving the drainage system and the Infernis. He hides from Gleaners on the way, then makes for the hidden garden because he urgently needs water. Moving through the empty ruins, Vis feels the weight of being alone again and briefly grieves Ahmose, realizing that their hard-won friendship still matters to him.

When Vis opens the garden, he finds it withered rather than destroyed. He eats what dying plants and fruit he can salvage, then discovers that the real problem is a failing water supply. Remembering that the garden water tasted like the supposedly clean water in Duat, Vis grows alarmed. At the well he finds almost nothing left, drinks the last moisture from the bucket, and decides to climb down the chain into the darkness below in search of more.

At the bottom, Vis finds only a shallow pool, but it is enough to drink from and wash the acid from his skin. Relieved, he explores the widened chamber and discovers a narrow upward tunnel. He crawls through it despite the smell of rot growing stronger, until he reaches a bronze grate and sees a dimly lit chamber beyond.

There Vis discovers a slaughterhouse filled with mutilated, decomposing bodies laid on stone slabs with pipes driven into their ruined stomachs. The setup matches what he saw beneath Duat, and closer inspection reveals that the corpses are Gleaners whose lower arms were deliberately cut off. Vis realizes that Qabr’s remaining water, like Duat’s, is being drawn through this system, though he cannot tell whether the Qabrans knew of it or who originally created it.

Horrified but desperate, Vis forces himself to drink from the pooled liquid in the gutters because it is the only safe water available outside Duat. He keeps it down, regains some clarity, and fills his waterskin for the return journey. With the immediate need for water solved but the revelation deepening his disgust at this world, Vis heads back into the dark tunnel to attempt the real task that brought him there.