Esteban wakes up and has some things explained to him. Gavin adds a little bit to the explanation illuminating the great doll/puppet conspiracy. Esteban then calls his sister. Over breakfast they discuss having to rescue Sam, and speculate that Sam German and Sam the old black guy are one and the same. There is a bunch more speculation about what to do about the building - get people out? Blow it up? Damien calls Gavin to ask the team's opinion on whether the building should be burned and whether the inhabitants should be inside or outside... the general consensus is burn it, but get the people out.
"That's what they do. They tie little strings to you and pull you into their plots." - Gavin
Esteban goes out for the morning to hang around normal people (specifically normal female people) and has a quiet morning until three packages fall out of a UPS truck onto his feet as it goes around a corner. Looking at them, he finds a probability textbook, an old Greek urn with a letter in bad English commending this archaeological find to the Museum of Natural History, and a scarf. He delivers the scarf to the address it's for, throws away the book, and keeps the urn (thus balancing his karma?).
In the afternoon, Esteban returns and the urn is found to contain a lot of dirt and inside that a bronze ring (very corroded) with a strange brown aura to Thielo-vision. No one is willing to try it. They find out that Dr. Atsui will be arriving at 8, and decide to go out for an early Italian dinner.
After dinner Dr. Atsui does arrive and runs a quick group therapy session which makes people feel a little (but not much) better. Gavin continues to go on about the dolls, which make several of the others admit to being worried about his stability. Dr. Atsui then remarks on them going back in unprepared, which leads to some discussions of archetypes, coincidence, and Esteban finally revealing how he got the urn that morning. They decide that the Invisible Clergy may have sent the ring to help get Sam out, and Gavin puts it on.
He is immediately transformed into a big Irish wolf-hound. Everyone else remembers their adventures with Gavin the wonder-dog - confusingly, Gavin seems to have turned into a dog not only now but also in the past. They do remember the other reality where he was a person as well, though. Gavin the wonder-dog remembers how Sam smelled, and barks excitedly until they take him to the McCalistair building.
Once in the night floors, Gavin's nose leads them unerringly through the Gallery of Oppressive Thoughts, the Rare Bark Room, and several other spots before they end up in the whisper labyrinth. Amusingly, they become quite paranoid about looking at anything even slightly interesting after Esteban and Alexandra are hypnotized by a statue. In the labyrinth they find Sam (the old black one, who has the same strange sign to the ruby glasses as did Sam German). He tells them to go away until he realizes that he's been inside for two days without realizing it. They decide to get out.
Unfortunately, Gavin doesn't know the way out, and Thielo's memorized route doesn't actually work any more. They pause, and Sam takes the moment to recognize the ring (now a collar) and tell them that some woman should take it off him (a man can't remove it). Gavin returns to his normal self. They decide that someone with more resonance with the night floors might have better luck getting out, and put the ring on Esteban (after Sam notes that it won't work on any of the women or Thielo). Esteban turns into a small terrier and yaps off into the labyrinth. Everyone else follows, and he indeed leads them out. SILVER and Sam adjourn to a nearby coffee shop, although Angelina takes a moment to snap photos of Esteban as a dog before removing the collar.
Sam thanks them and offer them a boon for rescuing him. He offers them rituals, or information... after some thinking, they ask what he would ask for, were he them, and he offers them some explanation of cosmology. It's similar to what they know about ascension and the 333 archetypes... but what they didn't know is that when the clergy fills up, the world might not end. Or rather, the clergy could end the world and start over, or it could merely change he rules and history some and keep going. Sam tells them that this last happened in 327, when the clergy changed things to end the eternal Roman empire (which had discovered and colonized America).
He also tells them that Alex Abel almost ascended, but was interrupted by an avatar of the messenger who believes that the message ought to change the recipient. He basically told Alex a truth in such a way that Alex strayed from his path and didn't ascend. The man's name is Dermott Arkane. Sam thinks Abel was approaching some sort of self-made-man archetype.
After that they head back to their hotel where Thielo types madly through the night producing a report. In the morning they head back to the Ranch, leaving the arson to TNI teams better equipped for such things.