Carl contacts Miriam Dom and learns that she is trapped in the forest east of town. Pony killed the elite tied to her situation, but the fight left Pony paralyzed for fifteen more hours, with Bianca locked in a pet carrier inside Pony’s inventory and Miriam physically pinned by Pony’s frozen grip. Miriam has survived two days by repeatedly using Revive and blood potions to endure daylight, but with night bringing more monsters and daylight certain to kill her soon, Carl decides they must go rescue her immediately.

As Carl lays out a fast route through two nearby towns to collect ingredients for the animal-control potions, Mordecai argues that Carl should let Miriam die and loot her in the morning. Mordecai suspects a trap because sponsors just spent heavily to shield Carl from vampirism, and now a vampire is suddenly asking for help. Carl rejects that logic because Miriam previously saved his life, quickly sews on his new patch despite Donut’s complaints, and prepares to leave. Before they go, Mordecai improvises two "Holy Goopers" by combining Emberus-blessed water, healing potion, and coagulant, giving Carl anti-vampire grenade weapons.

Carl, Donut, and Mongo move through the darkened, corpse-filled pub connected to the guildhall and nearly walk into danger when an ursine woman whispers for Donut to extinguish her light. Outside, Big Tina is stalking the street and eating survivors. Behind the bar, the party finds Prudence, a terrified barmaid, hiding with her two cubs, Todd and Randy. As Tina rampages outside, Carl and Donut question Prudence to understand why Big Tina is specifically hunting ursine.

Prudence explains that before the cataclysm, ursine clerics harshly enforced religious rules, including a ban on dancing. A secret group of mothers taught children ballet anyway and planned a recital, but the town’s head cleric discovered it and publicly beat his wife onstage when she tried to stop him, humiliating their daughter Tina just before her solo. Then Scolopendra’s nine-tier attack struck: most people died, most female ursine transformed into dinosaurs, and only Tina was changed as a child. Tina’s mother, Kiwi, survived as one of the transformed dinosaurs and once restrained Tina, but Tina has recently become stronger and more uncontrollable. The quest updates to say Tina must be stopped either by killing her or by giving her what she wants, leading Donut to conclude that Tina wants to finally perform her dance recital.

A final revelation changes the situation again. A severed bear claw in the pub animates and crawls outside, and Carl identifies it as a glamoured body fragment: evidence that Big Tina is also a vampire whose victims can reassemble into far worse undead forms. Carl realizes this is why the system has been handing them anti-vampire tools. The chapter ends with a second quest update underscoring that the crisis is even more dangerous than it first appeared.