Carl and Donut arrive on the eighth floor, titled The Ghosts of Earth, with twenty-one days until level collapse. They appear inside El Capitolio Nacional de Cuba in Havana, an empty, locked replica of the capitol building. Donut explains that she chose Cuba instead of the Bahamas because she suspected the Bahamas was a trap connected to Miss Beatrice, but Carl notices the floor date is December 10th and begins questioning that choice.

As Carl explores and finds locked exits and inaccessible windows, the wider crawler group checks in through chat. Other squads have started in locations such as the western United States, Iceland, Beijing, and Ecuador, and everyone seems confined to starting structures. Mordecai reconnects after the skipped floor and helps Donut choose a new class; Donut rejects Agony Urchin because it would alter her appearance and selects Master Telephone Psychic instead.

Donut’s new class expands her mapping ability and grants psychic spells such as Brain Freeze, Bad Attitude, and Why Are You Hitting Yourself?, while preserving some prior abilities. Mordecai explains how these spells can complement Carl’s Fear spell, and Carl is relieved that Donut’s choice has practical combat value. A timer then appears for Phase Two, counting down fourteen days.

Cascadia delivers the eighth-floor rules in an unusually irritated announcement. Crawlers are divided into fixed squads of no more than five, each with six empty slots that must be filled before Phase Two. For Phase One, crawlers can explore a limited replica of Earth as it existed on the indicated date, where people and animals are intangible ghosts but physical objects, vehicles, buildings, and environmental items remain interactive.

Cascadia explains that each region contains folklore-based monsters and bosses, and squads must use twenty special flags to capture weakened living entities or noncorporeal monsters as T’Ghee totems. These totems become squad members and can be summoned as minions, traded, stolen, dismissed, or potentially kept as a single card after the floor collapses. Carl recognizes the term from the cookbook and understands that squad-building will be central to survival.

After the announcement, Carl considers the emotional trap built into the floor: because Phase Two will move squads elsewhere, the dungeon may still force him and Donut toward the Bahamas to witness scenes involving Bea. Donut contacts Prepotente and learns that he is in the Bahamas and wants Carl to read the lore book to him. When a door to their personal space appears, Carl tells Donut he will trade the reading for half of Prepotente’s Size-Up potions and heads for the saferoom.