Bautista urgently tells Carl that a Terminus station has revealed itself as a city-sized boss and has swallowed the first wave of survivors trying to climb the stairs. Carl immediately questions Madison about the Kravyad at station 435, and Madison explains that the Kravyad are blue, six-armed naga-like HR creatures who hypnotize and hold workers between shifts, sometimes eating them and using gold armbands to mark “troublemakers” for death. Most importantly, Madison reveals that the employee portal exit is lifebound to the Kravyad, so the portal closes if the creature dies. Carl passes the warning to Bautista and realizes that station 435 is another trap, because escape requires keeping the enemy alive.

Carl then checks in with Elle and Imani, who have found that the ghoul-disposal system is not a train but a fast conveyor or roller-coaster track fed by robot carts. They report that many more ghouls are coming through now, including stronger wrath ghouls, and debate whether to risk riding the conveyor themselves. After that conversation, Carl returns to the cab and finds Brandy and Madison arguing over authority and contracts while Brandy labors inside the furnace. Carl shuts the argument down, leaves Donut to guard Madison, and takes Katia up a ladder to scout station 24.

Above the trapdoor, Carl and Katia find a large hidden chamber with five glowing stairwells in the center and multiple platform exits around the perimeter, including one labeled Escape Velocity III. The place is empty, but the delayed opening of the stairwells and the lack of mobs make Carl think it is a trap waiting to spring later. While they are alone, Katia confides that she has learned to grow a third eye and is training herself to see behind her, though the transformation makes her feel less human. She then reveals the real reason she wanted privacy: while practicing with that extra eye, Katia saw Donut secretly hide a black PVP coupon under the track and recovered it.

The coupon names Carl as the target and promises large rewards if another crawler kills him. Katia says Hekla told her that a player-killer receives one coupon for every party member, which makes Katia fear Donut may still be carrying another coupon for her. Carl checks this by messaging Imani, who confirms that when she received her skull, she got a coupon book containing one coupon per party member and discarded it because she could not stand having it. Imani also says she had already spoken with Donut when Donut received her own coupons after killing a crawler, and she advised Donut to get rid of them. Carl concludes that the system is designed to create distrust inside parties, but he postpones confronting Donut until they can speak privately and begins thinking more seriously about Katia’s unease and her eventual return to Hekla.

Carl and Katia continue scouting. Stations 36 and 48 match station 24, and at one platform Carl sees festering ghouls from the trainyard moving upward through the system rather than staying in place, suggesting the infestation is spreading. Zev messages Carl that he must reach a saferoom soon for a mandatory show appearance, but Carl keeps working. Stations 50 and 58 are strangely empty, station 59 is a normal but massive transfer station, and station 60 should be a major employee settlement. Instead, station 60 is a decrepit, empty shell, proving that the workers’ homes, families, and “Homeward Bound” life were fabricated lies. Madison refuses to leave because she believes Rod or transit security will come for her, so Carl abandons her there and takes the Nightmare onward.