Decided to give this another shot thanks to the recent slugposting.
Made it to what so far looks like the top layer of the outskirts. My little yellow buddy tried to communicate with me not sure what he wants, but looks like he tries to tell me to go west.
Got killed by hybris though, found a new shelter, but still had a little time left and thought there's no harm to just going one area further to know what's there and walked right into a mimic pole like an idiot. Those things are fucking rough, I've always managed to avoid them in the past and figured they aren't that bad, since they're so obvious...