Carl uses scavenged wood, wheels, and chains to build a crude trailer so Team Free Love can keep racing after their crash. While Carl works, Donut guards the area with Mongo nearby, Rend accidentally collects Avernus Creeper thorns, and Carl reflects that the floor is designed to make crawlers temporarily cooperate with awakened NPCs they may later have to kill.

Team Sparkles then arrives: Dwight, an abrasive sparkling unicorn, rides an Avernus Creeper while Lucienne, a hostile mandagot, insults Donut. Donut nearly starts a fight, but Carl tells her to let them pass. Mongo's horn startles the Creeper into charging forward, and Team Sparkles runs over Carl's unfinished setup before disappearing down the road. Carl recovers invasive thorns from Rend, and Mordecai excitedly tells Carl to save them for later use.

After slow work, Carl, Donut, Jasha, and Radoslav finally secure the damaged van onto the trailer and continue toward the finish. Along the way, Carl finds manatee corpses torn apart by Old Shuck of the Jugglers, showing how dangerous the other racers are. Donut talks with Radoslav about the bugbears' assigned musician roles, then receives a strange notice saying Otto the slime has been voted a manatee stand-in in the arena. Other crawlers report similar arena-transfer messages, while Elle complains over chat about an awkward one-person fan meet-and-greet with a disturbing superfan.

The group eventually exits the cave and reaches the converging roads near Hungry Eyes Village and the finish line. Carl sends Radoslav back into his own van so Team Free Love can legally cross in their proper vehicle. Radoslav sincerely thanks Carl and Donut for helping them, which forces Carl and Donut to confront the cruelty of knowing they will probably have to kill these same bugbears in later heats. They cross the finish line in seventh place, Team Free Love takes eighth, and the Trauco Triplets are officially eliminated from the competition.