Tipid sits in a zero zone, shaking and disoriented, still half-trapped in memories of the dungeon. Tipid believes his hands are covered in blood and asks if Tipid can keep the key, while reliving the deaths of Cassio and Horatio after illusionists drove the group into panic.

Damien corrects Tipid and explains that Damien is not Tipid's attorney. Tipid has fulfilled Tipid's contract as a game guide, Poisoners Guild instructor, and occasional city guard, but lasting brain injuries remain outside the dungeon environment. Damien has arranged transport to a Viceroy system for treatment, though the cost will consume Tipid's pension.

Tipid's fear sharpens when Damien mentions the Viceroys because Tipid remembers them as masked faction-war monsters called the Madness, whose surgeon used a spell that horrifically destroyed victims' brains and bodies. Tipid then notices that the key is on a chain around Tipid's neck and asks about it.

Damien says Tipid negotiated an extra season in order to keep the key. The memory behind it returns fully: the key only allowed one person to escape, and Tipid chose to save Tipid rather than Horatio, who had a wife and child waiting and had stayed in hopes of winning a better future for them.

Overcome by guilt and loneliness, Tipid rejects the justification that selfishness is acceptable when saving oneself. Tipid rips the key from Tipid's neck and throws it away, saying Tipid no longer wants it.

The chapter closes with a dossier-style account of Tipid's history: Tipid is a Crest poisoner who reached level 96, exited at the start of the twelfth floor, wrote the Fourth Edition of the Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, spent everything repairing brain damage, later worked in waste management, and is now a colonel in the Princess Posse Faction Wars team.