Odette, a game guide, attempts to help her crawler Mordecai and his party escape the collapsing 10th floor. They have summoned two storm gods, Dodola and Adad, hoping one will strike a puzzle and open the exit stairwell. However, Huanxin, the wealthy sponsor controlling Dodola, tries to extort Odette for an increasingly large share of her completion bonus.

Tired of being manipulated, Odette refuses the deal. Mordecai prepares to sacrifice himself to complete the puzzle, but Odette devises a different plan. She instructs a party member, Chaco, to use a rare artifact, the Dart of Ophiotaurus, on their teammate Uzzi. The dart sacrifices Uzzi to forcibly summon Dodola inside a containment field along with the puzzle. When Dodola unleashes a lightning spell, the containment field traps it, killing her instantly. The stairwell key forms, and Chaco receives the Godkiller achievement.

Mordecai, enraged and devastated by Uzzi’s death, attacks Chaco, and both tumble through the portal to the 11th floor. Though Odette has finally earned her freedom from the dungeon, she receives a final message from Mordecai vowing to find and kill her.

Carl and Donut arrive on the eighth floor, “The Ghosts of Earth,” finding themselves in the El Capitolio building in Havana, Cuba, on December 10, in a simulation of a pre-Collapse world (the Collapse took place on January 3). With Mordecai’s guidance, Donut selects her new class, Master Telephone Psychic, over the alternative Agony Urchin, which grants her psionic (mind-control) spells and an enhanced mapping ability; she also retains her Venom Spitter skill from her brief prior Viper Queen class. A system announcement from dungeon administrator Cascadia explains the floor’s rules. For the next 14 days, crawlers are confined to their starting regions and must fill their squad rosters.

The environment is a perfect recreation of the pre-apocalyptic earth, with one difference: While all physical objects are real and interactive, people and animals are intangible “ghosts.” Crawlers must hunt mobs—swarms of mobile creatures—based on regional folklore, weakening them to below 5% health before using one of 20 special flags to capture them as “T’Ghee totems”—monster-summoning cards. Their manager Mordecai contacts Carl’s group, confirming the new mechanics and asking if they know anything about Cuban mythology. Carl realizes that Donut’s impulsive choice of Cuba (the crawlers were given a few destination options) means the lore book he acquired will be of limited use.

In the guild’s safe room, Carl and Donut reunite with Mordecai, who has transformed into a large, pink, one-eyed Hills Cyclops (Mordecai, a former crawler, is now an NPC who is assigned different forms by the game). Samantha, the disembodied doll head who is an ally to Carl and his friends, reappears and demands they find a Pulpmancer mage (wizard) to animate the flesh golem body she received from Signet. She hopes she can join the animated golem and thus have a body again. 

Carl and Donut begin opening the numerous prize boxes and achievements they earned on the sixth floor. Both receive a large number of high-tier rewards. Carl is stunned to discover he has earned a Celestial Predator Box for killing the last hunter, while Donut has received several legendary boxes for her performance at the Butcher’s Masquerade (the main task on the previous floor).

Donut and Carl sort through their loot. Donut acquires several powerful items, including a Cosmic Buff potion, a fire-resistant nipple ring that grants a berserking spell called “Bitch, What?” and a legendary spellbook, the “Tome of Legionnaires of the Damned” (38), which allows her to animate discarded armor and weapons into temporary minions.

Carl’s rewards include an enchanted prison tattoo kit, an automaton-building kit, and a right-arm bracer called the Right Back Atcha Personal Shield, which catches physical and magical bolt attacks and has a 75% chance to reflect them back—with a 25% chance to double the reflected power—replacing his existing left-arm buckler. His most important item comes from the Celestial Predator Box: A divine back patch called “The Scavenger’s Daughter.” 

After sewing it to his jacket, he discovers it doubles the stat bonuses from all his other patches and grants three new abilities. These include Soul Reaper, which allows him to store the essence of creatures he kills in melee to empower a destructive attack, and Mysterious Bone Key, a last-resort ability that creates a key for any lock but destroys his jacket and one of his own bones in the process. The squad’s automatically generated flag is then revealed to be a pair of heart-covered boxers, to Donut’s disgust.

Carl sends Samantha on a recon mission to map the area, while he and Donut venture into Havana to find the area’s second stairwell—stairwells function as portals and exit points on this floor—and check for other crawlers. They quickly discover that physical contact with the ghost-like humans causes their tangible clothing and carried items to be ripped away, becoming real objects in the world, though the humans themselves dissolve away. As reports from other crawlers confirm that mob activity is causing massive car pile-ups across the globe, Carl realizes navigating the city without creating chaos is impossible.

They head toward the coast and encounter their first mob, a creature from Taino folklore called The Experience, which has a four-legged body with long straight legs that do not bend at the knees and a head that looks suspiciously like Che Guevara. Donut easily defeats it with a combination of her new psionic abilities and her existing magic.

After killing The Experience, Carl loots a Very Rare T’Ghee utility card. Shortly after, they meet the only other squad in their region. The group consists of Paz Lo, a human Santero; Anton Lopez, a tattooed human Fugitive with player-killer skulls; and their leader, Sister Ines Quiteria, a cat girl Poet Laureate.

The initial meeting is extremely tense. Anton is hostile, as he is friends with a crawler named Osvaldo whose pet hawk Gimli was eaten by Bianca, Prepotente’s hellspawn familiar. The group is also afraid of Donut because they saw a television clip in which she threatened to kill any cat girls she encountered. Donut, in turn, is openly disgusted by the existence of a “cat girl,” especially a Havana brown, a breed she deems untrustworthy.

The awkwardness abates a little as Sister Ines reassures Donut they mean her no harm. Sister Ines reveals she is a nun, and Anton and Paz are former convicts from a prison where she worked. The two squads agree to a truce and decide to cooperate, starting by hunting powerful Monk Seal mobs on the beach together.

The two squads head to the beach to hunt Monk Seals. Upon examining a seal, Carl receives a new quest, “The Chowder War,” which details a bizarre conflict between the martial artist seals and migrating land crab. The land crabs have sex in the ocean, their ejaculate polluting the waters and endangering the seals. Carl’s group plans their attack: The ranged fighters will weaken a seal while Paz, the armored cleric, will tank its attacks, allowing an invisible Carl to plant a flag when its health is low.

The target, a level 70 Monk Seal named Yago, proves to be a formidable opponent. It moves with incredible speed, unleashing powerful, kung fu-style body slams that nearly overwhelm Paz’s defensive shield. The seal then casts a spell that makes it immune to all ranged attacks, forcing Carl to engage it in melee (brutal group combat). After a chaotic fight, Paz manages to land a heavy blow, and Carl successfully uses Sister Ines’s flag—given to him beforehand—to capture the weakened seal. The resulting card belongs to Team Sister Ines, and Carl hands it off to her to activate.

After capturing a second Monk Seal for their own squad, the group finds a safe room. Zev informs Carl and Donut that their scheduled press interview has been changed to a program called Shadow Boxer, which will focus on their pasts. While fighting a swarm of weak “duende” mobs, Carl’s Soul Reaper ability fully charges for the first time. He unleashes the stored power in a single stomp, which completely vaporizes a duende and shatters the concrete beneath his foot.

Samantha contacts Carl to report that she has found a powerful boss, a demigod spider she believes is a Pulpmancer capable of animating her new body—but the boss has eaten her and is holding her captive in its stomach at the far southern edge of their zone. Using his lore book, Carl identifies the unique monster as Shi Maria, also known as the Bedlam Bride, and decides she would be a powerful addition to their squad.

A system announcement explains the rules for the new T’Ghee card combat system. In phase two, mobs will have their own decks, and deck-to-deck combat will be mandatory. During these battles, the Squad Leader will lose access to their regular spells and inventory, relying on their squadmates for protection while they summon and manage their totem monsters.

To test the new system, Carl and Donut enter the safe room’s mock-battle arena. After Donut customizes the environment to be a cheering Colosseum, their first opponent on “easy” mode is a purple squealing creature that Donut identifies as a Teletubby. Before they can use their cards, Mongo—who is present in the arena—immediately attacks and graphically kills the creature.

Trying the practice arena again without Mongo, Carl and Donut learn more about the card system. They successfully summon their Monk Seal totem, Geraldo, who now wears a heart-patterned headband matching their squad flag and is accompanied by cheesy kung-fu sound effects. They learn that an uncommon totem can only be enhanced by two utility cards at a time. Their next opponent, a creature called a Squonk, is so miserable that it dissolves into a puddle of water before the fight begins.

The group leaves the safe room and heads to the nearby Colón Cemetery, a large, fog-shrouded area now surrounded by an imposing fence and filled with undead mobs. Sister Ines seems particularly angered by the dungeon’s appropriation of cultural myths. Anton reveals his Tito (uncle) is buried in the cemetery, and the group prepares to enter the dangerous area.

Upon entering the cemetery, the gate slams shut, trapping the group inside a corrupted Ghommid (spirit creature) settlement. They receive a compulsory quest: find and eliminate the source of the rot to escape. Paz’s Santero class immediately aggravates the undead spirits, drawing their aggro (aggression) but also granting him and Sister Ines a strength buff for each kill.

The area is filled with grotesque, non-corporeal ghommids and littered with spirit traps. The ghommids have a dangerous freezing touch, which nearly shatters Carl’s arm before he is saved. Overwhelmed by the sheer number of spirits, Donut uses her Puddle Jump spell to teleport the entire group to the local safe room. As they enter, Carl spots the area’s boss: A level 130 spirit wearing a straw headdress, who begins to walk toward them.

The boss, a level 130 Orisha named Asojano, follows them into the safe room, an act which is not supposed to be possible and earns Carl an “Interloper!” achievement. Asojano’s health begins to slowly drain on its own inside the room. He explains that his mere presence has unintentionally driven the local ghommids mad and asks Paz for help. Asojano instructs them to go to the central temple and repair his shrine, which will allow him to leave and cure the town.

Sister Ines has a severe emotional breakdown, horrified by the presence of a “false god.” She begs her teammates not to attempt to capture Asojano for their squad. Before anyone can act, Asojano’s health drops low, but he steps back outside, where his health begins to recover. He tells the crawlers to meet him at nightfall.

Before their interview, Carl and Donut open their fan boxes. Donut gets an auto-tuning microphone headset, and Carl receives a coupon for a massage at the “strip club” Penis Palace (the novel uses the term for an exotic dancing establishment). The Penis Palace is distinct from the Penis Parade—the male strip club Donut frequents on the first floor of Club Desperado. Carl’s allies, the crawlers Katia, Bautista, and Louis visit their safe room to check in. Louis reports that another friend, Britney, though still recovering from her burns and the grief of losing Firas, has become a much more aggressive fighter.

Carl and Donut are transported to the production facility for their interview on Shadow Boxer. They are met by Zev, their lawyer Quasar, and a terrifying caprid (goat-like) liaison named Harbinger, who previously conspired to have Carl killed. The show’s host is Rosetta Thagra, a former crawler whom Carl suspects is the author of the ninth edition of his prized cookbook, based on her background and matching details, though he has not confirmed it.

During a break in Donut’s segment, Quasar provides Carl with a quick Faction Wars update from the ninth floor. When the interview resumes, Rosetta turns her attention to Carl. Displaying a wedding photo of his parents, she prepares to question him about his dead mother.