With about an hour before Team Retribution takes the Dream castle, Edgar organizes the group to solve Louis’s crisis. Juice Box confirms Tagg is bound into Louis’s heart and lungs like a symbiote, so removing Tagg by force would kill Louis. Victory and Fopsy return from a Syndicate Council meeting and explain that Glory faces a no-confidence vote while chaos spreads outside, but Carl keeps the group focused on saving Louis.

Victory confirms the rules leave almost no legal escape for Tagg. If Tagg leaves the floor, Tagg forfeits but survives; however, Louis cannot leave the floor, and Tagg is the last Dream warlord. When Carl contacts Tagg, Tagg demands transport to the 18th Floor, claiming a new body can be grown for Tagg and replacement organs for Louis. Tagg also reveals a plan to use the Reaver castle and the Zerzura spell to escape with the NPC team, unaware that the Reaver castle has already been destroyed.

Carl tries to stall Tagg by pretending to consider cooperation, but Tagg demands that Team Retribution soldiers leave the throne room as a show of good faith. Meanwhile, the group searches for another solution. Mordecai warns that if Tagg is knocked out or killed by the system, Louis’s organs may stop, and Tagg will likely take Louis with him when the castle falls.

Samantha interrupts with grief over sensing the apparent death of her daughter in the acid, blaming herself for failing as a mother. Despite her distress and her alarming admission that she stole a nuke from Buster, Samantha proposes a workable solution: use Princess Lunette’s incomplete flesh-golem body from Carl’s inventory as a donor for a heart and lungs transplant.

Mordecai and Edgar recognize Samantha’s idea as viable, and Juice Box shifts into a Fleshmancer form to prepare for the procedure. Donut offers a powerful healing potion, while Victory warns that the transplant may not sustain Louis outside the dungeon without a costly deal. Carl acknowledges that using the flesh-golem organs means Samantha gives up her own chance to reclaim that body, and Samantha accepts because Louis needs it more.

After Carl and Donut praise Samantha for helping, Samantha reflects on her failures and desire for forgiveness. She then mentions having had an indirect or possibly direct role in Geyrun’s death. Carl reacts with alarm, and immediately afterward a system message announces that Emberus has entered the realm.