Carl, Donut, and Katia return to the devastated station bar and question the drunken gnoll bartender, Growler Gary, who insists the Iron Tangle trapped him inside the doorway while ghouls killed everyone outside. Gary also says a woman tore out his throat and stole his alcohol, yet he revived. Remembering a note from the cookbook about unkillable NPCs being tied to important quest functions, Carl realizes Gary may be necessary for something at the station. After Carl reassures him that he is not a coward, Gary explains that interdiction team carts can travel any line on battery power and that the lead cars carry a front portal that clears the tracks.

The group searches the station and finds the repair station and armory already looted, though Carl takes abandoned furniture, shelves, and a repair bench. In the rail yard, Carl studies the portal system and the parked carts. He identifies auxiliary repair carts powered by dwarven batteries and rapid-response interdiction carts with a portal-like debris scoop that can send whatever is on the tracks either to a trainyard or to the Abyss. The key limitation is severe: the rapid-response carts can only be started by two gnolls at once.

From the controls, Carl understands why Gary matters. He speaks with Bautista and learns that stranded crawlers are split into three isolated groups around the Abyss on different colored lines. Carl and the others form a rescue plan: send one rapid-response cart down each line with its scoop tuned to the Abyss to clear wrecks, trains, and monsters from the tracks, then send a second cart fifteen minutes later with its scoop tuned to the trainyard so waiting crawlers can be teleported to safety. Katia raises risks such as broken track, unknown survivors, and timing, but the group decides it is still their best option. Meanwhile, they move lesser carts, harvest batteries, and begin dismantling an engine under Katia’s guidance in case they need parts later.

To activate the first rapid-response cart, Carl uses Mongo to kill the sleeping Gary and harvest both arms, since Gary appears to resurrect. The plan partly works, but the console rejects one arm because the cart specifically requires a left hand on one key. Gary revives sober, forcing Carl, Donut, and Mongo to return to the bar and kill him again. They then discover a second problem: removing either hand shuts the cart off, so every active cart needs two severed left hands left in place on the controls.

In the end, Carl repeatedly kills and harvests Growler Gary until he has fourteen left hands, enough to start multiple rescue carts with a spare pair. Gary resists at first, terrified and increasingly aware of what is happening, and the blood-filled back room makes the cruelty impossible to ignore. Finally Carl stops and tells Gary the truth: the hands are needed to launch the carts that may rescue trapped crawlers and strike back at the forces that killed Gary’s friends. Once Gary understands, he accepts the remaining deaths and only asks for alcohol when it is over, turning Carl’s brutal improvisation into a grim, willing sacrifice.