Carl figures out how to reverse the Nightmare Express on a special switching track and persuades Zev to delay their pageant show obligation for six hours so the group can rest, train, clean up, and visit the Desperado Club. Carl, Donut, and Katia park at station 41, where Carl notices red-tagged ghouls climbing steadily upward through the hidden station shafts instead of stopping. In the saferoom, Carl receives updates: Imani’s group survives a brutal fight after reaching Trainyard D and shelters in the Iron Tangle administrative building, while Bautista confirms Madison told the truth about the Kravyad being a vulnerable snake-woman NPC rather than a boss.

Bautista also reports a new problem. After Bautista uses a purple Voca Nye to stop the Kravyad’s hypnosis, the terrified NPC threatens suicide if the crawlers approach. Because many crawlers have already lost the souvenir hats needed to use the abyss portals, the employee portal guarded by the Kravyad may be their last realistic route to the stairwells, so her death could strand them with less than five days remaining. Carl trains briefly, gains no progress with Powerful Strike, and then sleeps.

With limited free time left, Carl and Donut visit the Desperado Club to collect more crawler contact information for Carl’s network. Bomo and The Sledge protect them with magical and physical shielding, and Carl gathers ten more names. Then Carl spots Frank Q. alone at the bar, drunken, missing a hand, and far weaker than expected. Carl learns Frank has not seen Maggie since the end of the second floor, that his allies abandoned him after later floors, and that he has effectively given up and hidden in station 101 ever since.

Frank says he wants revenge for his daughter Yvette, but instead of attacking Carl, he offers Carl a powerful legendary ring. The ring grants a stat bonus and the Marked for Death skill, which permanently rewards the wearer when a marked crawler dies but prevents healing until that marked target is dead. Frank explains that he and Maggie received the ring early and that it ruined them. He wanted to sell it, but Maggie wanted vengeance, and now Frank forces Carl to take it as a bitter inheritance.

As Carl pieces together Frank’s story, he realizes the horrifying truth about Yvette’s death. Frank had made Yvette wear the ring and mark Carl before Frank and Maggie attacked him; when Carl’s dynamite injured Yvette, the ring’s curse meant she could not heal while Carl remained alive. Maggie then killed her own daughter to end Yvette’s suffering. Frank, a former customs officer, recounts how he, Maggie, Yvette, and Maggie’s brother were fighting in a parking lot when the apocalypse began, and how that chaos carried them into the dungeon together.

Donut returns from scouting the club’s other rooms, and Carl asks one final question about the legendary potion that could strengthen Maggie’s crawler-tracking skill. Frank says Maggie still had the potion when they split, confirming she may be even more dangerous than Carl assumed. Carl tells Frank he is sorry Yvette died but leaves with no sympathy for Frank himself, taking the ring and recognizing that Maggie remains an active threat even if Frank is finished.