Chapter 44

Carl and his party arrive in Monroe County, Florida (the Keys) after a glitch attempts to send them to Iowa. They discover the exit key location has been physically moved from Iowa to the top of a massive, unstable pile of earth. With only 46 hours to collect the key, they must defeat nine token-holding monsters, starting with an easy fight against a level 45 Babababoon in a parking lot.

Carl appears in an old Victorian house in the Florida Keys on December 24th. Donut reports the location system malfunctioned, offering four destination choices instead of three and briefly showing Iowa before correcting to Florida. After a system glitch and earthquake, the map updates to show the key location a few miles west. Carl learns from Zev that the glitch affected multiple crawlers with inconsistent location options. The key for this floor requires collecting nine tokens from defeated monsters. Huanxin (through Eileithyia) confirms Carl completed the spider quest, though notes Odette failed to comply as expected and threatens harm to Carl's allies if he warned her. Carl receives a message from Katia indicating she experienced similar location glitches and is now in Vietnam (specifically Da Nang, Tran's hometown) with the key in an apartment building where Tran's ex-wife and estranged mother live. Other party members scattered globally report similar anomalies—Imani in Detroit (her hometown), Florin separated from Lucia Mar in Nigeria, Elle in Belgium, and others. Elle warns that these may involve memory ghosts of loved ones. When Donut activates her Torch spell to maximum brightness, Carl sees an enormous pile of crumbling earth extending into the clouds, located partially in the ocean. Zev admits the key location was physically moved from Iowa to Florida to avoid breaking the game further. Carl and party encounter their first token-holding enemy: a level 45 Babababoon wearing a Santa hat in a parking lot. Carl kills it instantly with a sticky hob-lobber, obtaining a token marked with the number two. Donut spots multiple red dots (enemy markers) leading toward the earth mound.