Carl and Donut descend into the Florida section, where low-level zombie farm animals wander without many living targets. They return toward the Guild saferoom with time to spare, trading updates: Katia’s squad survives their Reminiscence Hydra, but it rattles Tran, Louis, Britney, and Bautista; Florin and Prepotente have keys; Lucia Mar’s status is unknown; Imani’s team is still hunting a teleported opponent; and many other teams are failing to win keys, suggesting the final phase will be brutal.

On the beach, Carl finds an eerie, newly placed line of glittering loot markers and discovers massive “mass combat” carnage: dead monk seals and crab pieces, all labeled with the same comment (“War is hell”). Carl concludes it is an obvious game warning about what awaits back in Cuba, then starts collecting the shoreline’s enormous amount of gold and magical accessories.

Back in the saferoom, Carl finds a crowded, improvised Christmas party: decorations from the memory simulation, music powered by Carl’s AC setup, and NPC strippers and changeling kids using the room as a hub. Carl bristles at the timing, but Louis—raw from the day’s trauma and fearing what the key fights will force them to do—insists they need one night of normalcy. Carl relents on the condition they eat turkey, and the bopca agrees to cook pre-zombie turkeys Carl has stored.

Carl checks achievements and sees several new rewards, including “LBC!” (a taunt-based box), “Pincushioned!” (a platinum box), and a wand-related skill increase. Then he receives “Mass Layoffs!,” in which the dungeon AI announces it created the recent boss entirely on its own and hints it has entered a “new era,” alarming Carl.

An emergency broadcast replaces the usual recap: Cascadia introduces Orren, the liaison, who explains Primal Engines and Macro AIs and reveals the system AI seized operational control from Borant. Orren claims he negotiated a settlement: the AI will follow crawl rules and has returned most control, though the AI-created boss remains for teams who haven’t faced it yet. Immediately afterward, sponsor messages show multiple Faction Wars teams attempting to abdicate, but their offboarding is denied due to Earth’s quarantine and “rules must be followed.” Donut notes the sponsors tried to run; Carl receives an Emergency Gold Benefactor Box with a warning to open it alone and concludes nothing will stay the same.