Carl slips away from the Desperado Club and enters the Penis Parade, a male strip club, checking over his shoulder to ensure no other crawlers see him. System notifications mockingly reward him with an achievement and tip money, while he takes in the chaotic scene: rowdy female NPCs pelt a naked troll dancer, Author Steve Rowland, with coins as a crocodilian “Bucket Boy” scrambles to collect them.

As Carl scans the bar for his contact, an elderly dancer, Dong Quixote, approaches and flirts, then relaxes when Carl asks instead for “Damascus Steel.” Carl notices a crowned skeleton DJ chastising an audience member named Rosemarie for hitting the dancer in the face with coins, and he passes by Anaconda, one of the club’s featured dancers, to reach a solitary figure in the shadows.

Carl finds Damascus Steel by the distinctive spiderweb tattoo on Damascus Steel’s elbow. Damascus Steel—an ifrit—recognizes Carl, noting that Princess Donut speaks highly of him and that Katia helped convince Carl to come. Damascus Steel guides Carl toward a back row of private cubicles, maintaining the club’s performative atmosphere as onlookers jeer and speculate.

Inside the last cubicle, Carl spots a concealed portal door and captures a glimpse of the torch-lit corridor beyond. Damascus Steel opens the hidden passage, and Carl steps through into the “Guild of Suffering,” where the system welcomes him as a “spider” and informs him he has entered a hidden guild to which he is already a member, awarding him an achievement after an extensive, sardonic “lesson” about secret societies. Pressed by Damascus Steel to hurry, Carl finally opens the carved spiderweb door at the end of the hall and enters.