Porthus meets virtually with a soother attorney in an outreach guild zero zone after surviving the tenth floor. With dungeon enhancements stripped away, Porthus feels physically crushed, cannot access potions or messages, and is covered in blood while obsessing over Menerva, who screamed for Porthus to run after her foot became trapped near the exit.

The attorney presents possible post-crawl deals while Porthus asks whether Menerva survived. The attorney offers no answer and warns that leaving for the eleventh floor is dangerous because outreach guilds will not reopen until shortly before that floor collapses, and future deals may be worse. Porthus recalls the tenth floor as a horrific world of sapient, predatory objects where most of Porthus's group died, including Kimu, and where Menerva may have been abandoned.

The attorney lists a low-floor undead contract and a city-attendant position in the Hunting Grounds, but Porthus rejects the latter because hunters slaughtered NPCs there. The attorney then recommends a game guide contract: one hundred seasons, comparatively safe, potentially profitable, and possibly shortened by crawler progress. Porthus thinks about the Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, the pride of contributing to it, and the possibility of helping future crawlers.

Despite wanting to know Menerva's fate, Porthus accepts the game guide deal because it offers survival and a path to later wealth and freedom. The attorney opens a door so Porthus can choose sentimental or pre-collapse items, but Porthus remains weighed down by guilt and repeats a vow to fight. The closing record identifies Porthus as a high elf rogue who exited at the start of the eleventh floor, survived the game guide indentureship, authored the second edition of the Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, and is now missing and wanted by Syndicate Security.