Faisal tells the group that Anorak found a way to influence the OASIS’s NPCs. All across the virtual environment, NPCs are murdering users, taking their virtual belongings, and delivering it to Anorak. Those same NPCs form an army that is amassing outside Anorak’s Castle. Faisal also reveals that users no longer respawn after dying, and because they cannot wake up either, nobody knows what happens to their consciousness.

Wade tries to piece together the clues Og left on the Shard worlds. He figures out that the Ninja Princess high score and the appearance of the Babbitt brothers form an address in Columbus: 750 Babbitt Road. This, he believes, is where Og is being held prisoner.

At that moment, L0hengrin arrives with her gunter friends. On the Middletown planet, she found a Dungeons & Dragons adventure module Kira created called The Quest for the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul. The plot of the adventure involves an evil wizard who abducts the siren Leucosia—Kira's D&D character—and scatters the seven shards of her soul. Only when the shards are recovered is Leucosia restored. Wade theorizes that Anorak believes by gathering the shards, Kira herself—or at least a virtual version of her—will be resurrected.