Carl keeps the emergency benefactor box secret and retreats to his bare saferoom under the pretense of showering. Feeling unsettled by the emptiness, Carl decorates with a small fern planter, tapes up one of his brothers crayon drawings, and sets up the Centipede arcade cabinet before opening loot.

Most adventurer boxes are disappointing, though Carl notes useful trench-building scrolls, invisibility potions, and a rare Size-Up potion. The Gold Gobble box yields a turkey deep fryer, peanut oil, and a huge printout of online recipes; Carl considers bringing it to the ongoing feast but assumes the cooking is already underway.

Carl opens the Gold Talk of the Town box and finds an embroidered upgrade patch depicting a burning book, granting +15% Intelligence and the Book Burner benefit, which can make a same-level-or-lower opponent forget a spell for 30 hours once per day. Carl also recovers the previously glimpsed wand, identifying it as a Wand of Nighty-Night with sleep charges. The hydra boss box mostly pays out gold and a sword-locked Warrior helmet Carl cant use.

The benefactor box contains only a crumpled flyer for The Shepherds House, a homeless shelter in Homestead, Florida, advertising a Christmas breakfast at 7 AM (circled repeatedly) and emphasizing no pets allowed. Realizing the time is only about five hours away, Carl questions why so much effort went into steering him and Donut to Miami and concludes whatever is happening is tied to that shelter.

Carl asks Louis where Homestead is, confirms its reachable, and tells Donut hes stepping out for air while she stays at the party. At the exit, Zev stops Carl and warns that Carls sponsor vanished after sending the box; the box had been sent days earlier, was seized, and then the entire charity network involvedincluding Rosettadisappeared. When Carl asks about a rumored failsafe, Zev admits she doesnt know, adding that everyone is under a temporary quarantine and the galaxys powerful are trapped in-system. Carl leaves anyway, chooses his fathers motorcycle over the royal chariot, and is shocked when it starts immediately with a full tank as he rides out toward Homestead.