Shadowchasers: Conspiracy

by 0ccam's Razor

A fanfic of the Shadowchasers by Cyber Commander. Odd things are happening, and Shadowchasers all over the world are encountering criminals with strange and peculiar goals. Is a conspiracy afoot, or is some deeper plot in the works?

12. Poker Face

Now, I have to say I admired Mrs. Nyte and Mr. Luther for their actions in that situation. It was a dangerous job, and had the possibility of turning into the worst disaster ever to befall Philadelphia. Still, I must disagree with them on one point; they grossly underestimated how dangerous a fraternal organization, or "funny hat club" as they called them, can be. While it is true most are harmless and the concept has been lampooned endlessly in the media, some of these groups can turn deadly.

Case in point, one of the most notorious hate groups in America, the Ku Klux Klan.

You might think that the only similarity they have to the typical "funny hat club" would be the hats, but the truth is, the Klan started out as just another "funny hat club" started by Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee. The group was started simply because some former soldiers were bored, and at first, it was much like any other such club. Then some members started thinking it was "fun" to try to scare people, especially black people, by pretending to be ghosts. Then… Well, some more violent anti-Reconstruction types realized how much more seriously masked gangs with creepy names could terrorize people with far more effective methods. The true Klan as Americans knew it was born.

Some historians point out that if Pulaski had an Elk's Lodge, the Klan may never have existed. Their absence likely wouldn't have prevented racism and violence during the Civil Rights movement, however.

Still, they never abandoned the trappings of their origins, and this is what did them in. In the 1940s, when the Klan was on the verge of becoming more powerful than ever, a defector went public with details of all their secret rituals and meetings. Once everyone knew that these guys gave themselves titles that even wild mages would find absurd (like "Great Titan" and "Imperial Wizard"), held "Klovocations" and read from the "Kloran", they realized that they were no different than any other… funny hat club. Meaning they were a bunch of fools. Their popularity began to decline.

Since 1970 or so, the Klan has not even been a unified group; there are over thirty small groups based on the original organization, all of them with similar goals, but varied in exactly who their targets are. Some even allow Catholics to join, a taboo for the original Klan. Still, while the Klan survives, they've become, at most, a parody of what they once were. At most, a group of Klansmen is nothing more than group of criminal thugs – if that – and even other hate groups don't take them seriously.

What does this have to do with conspiracy theories? In itself, little, but I debated long and hard whether I would bring something up. It seems I must, and next chapter, an ugly side of this phenomenon must be told.

For now… Our journey continues…

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

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Poker Face

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Aside from Boston, Massachusetts wasn't known for large cities. It was a small state after all. Cape Cod certainly didn't include any towns that qualified as such, although it did have a few famous towns like Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket (both of which were on islands).

In colonial days, the small towns here had bustling industries involving their ports, not just those involving the trade routes, but also in ship building, and in some cases, whaling.

These days, Cape Cod really had only one industry: tourism.

The town of Brewster had large time-share condo complexes near golf courses, shops, theaters, and of course, restaurants, making the place the ideal summer getaway for New Englanders and New Yorkers.

Indeed, it was a place that reflected the beauty of nature in the late spring and all through the summer. The small of pine needles, chlorine, and the sound of people splashing around, children laughing…

Of course, being a Massachusetts native, Dante's memories of this place weren't all too fond. Fortunately, it was the off-season. He spent most of the ride here with a dour look on his face.

"You don't like this place much, do you?" asked Sofia.

"Maybe it's fun the first two or three times you come here when you're a kid," replied Dante. "But try every damn summer."

He looked up and down the restaurant they had arrived at, which was boarded up and deserted.

"I spent most of the time in the corner of my room, playing a Game Boy and hoping my grandmother wouldn't make me eat her god-awful health food."

Sofia chuckled, then stepped over the roped off area of the parking lot. She usually wondered why these places weren't torn down right away although the reason usually had something to do with why the place was condemned in the first place. Right now, it looked ready to fall apart by itself. The sign said the place was named Chez Rousseau.

"I'll bet this was a place you could order ratatouille," she said, with another chuckle, remembering the old animated movie. "Whatever the hell that is…"

"Maybe, maybe not," said Dante. "Restaurant owners seem to think adding 'Chez' to a French name makes the place special for some reason. I once read this book that mentioned a place called Chez Poubelle."

"Uh…"

"It's French for 'trash'," sighed Dante, rolling his eyes. He looked up and down the now run-down building. "Apparently, they thought nobody who came by knew how to speak it. And they weren't kidding, they got what they served from the dumpster behind a better restaurant next door."

"Eww…" said Sofia. "You know, personally, when I go out to eat, I like informal better, you know? Elvis could afford Russian caviar and foie gras when he was famous, but he preferred roast beef and mashed potatoes."

"Along with cheeseburgers, pizza, whole platters of bacon, and the occasional fried peanut butter and banana sandwich or two, or three," sighed Dante. "Guy was rich in dollars, rich in talent, poor in sense."

Sofia was about to make a rebuttal, but she stopped quickly. Elvis' diet was indeed very unhealthy, and it was kind of hard to defend it. Still, you couldn't help but envy him sometimes.

Anyway, there were more important issues now.

"Call me crazy," said Dante, "but I just hate having to sort through condemned, abandoned buildings. Places are always full of rats, roaches, spiders… And in this line of work, if those are the only things living in them, you're lucky."

"Yeah, that's because it's kind of hard for scary monsters to make their lairs in open, working establishments," said Sofia with a snarky grin.

"Thank you…" sighed Dante. He carefully pulled the wooden boards off the door, only for the door itself to collapse inward.

He coughed briefly, then looked inside. Sofia rummaged through the satchel at her side for a second or two and produced a pair of flashlights, and they looked around, the door leading to the main dining room of the establishment, the booths and tables covered with dusty sheets.

"So, what happened to this gibbering mouther?" she asked, as they cautiously walked inside.

"Well, they eventually got the idea of freezing the thing with some alchemy concoction," mused Dante, "sort of how they got rid of The Blob. Fortunately, it worked."

"Fortunately?" asked Sofia.

"Well, with monsters like that, it's hard to tell," explained Dante. "Most people think that slithering blobs of living snot that do nothing but eat are all the same, but you'd be amazed at how complicated they can be. And before you ask, yeah, there are people who study them?"

"What do you need for that, a degree in 'grossology'?" said Sofia with another giggle.

Dante laughed a little too, and moved his flashlight back and forth.

"Anyway," he said, "fire works on green slimes and black puddings, but it doesn't singe grey oozes. Electricity can kill grey oozes, but that makes green slime grow, and turns a pudding into two puddings. And as for intense cold…"

He was cut off as Sofia gave a small shriek. He looked down.

A body was lying on the floor. A bald-headed man was face-down on the floor, wearing a black, dirty shirt and a ragged pair of jeans, with no shoes, the jeans apparently being held up with suspenders. His flesh was discolored, his veins even more so.

Dante knelt down beside the apparent vagrant and looked over him for a minute.

"It's okay Sofia," he said. "Well, he's dead, but I think this was a case of slimy doom…"

Sofia let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding. "Good..."

Slimy doom. As ominous as it sounded, it wasn't truly a magical disease, even if it did have origins in Shadow. It was a type of foodborne illness, far rarer than salmonella, pyorrhea, or the others known by Mundane doctors. Like any sort of food poisoning, it was contracted by eating contaminated food, usually because of improper storage, poor preparation, or bad hygiene of the cooks preparing it, the usual causes. But only special food that only Shadowkind could cultivate or produce caused it.

Still, dying this way was… unpleasant, and often the stuff of nightmares. Without treatment, the glands in the victim's body would taint the vital mucous or serous they produced with a lethal toxin, until the victim was killed by a poison that his own body was producing, literally. Autopsies often showed the blood of victims turned green and viscous.

"Poor guy must have gotten in here and eaten something that was left behind," said Dante.

"Uh, Dante?" asked Sofia.

She stood up, and looked to her left and right.

"Uh… Since when does a restaurant leave food behind after it's condemned?" she asked.

Dante stood up straighter. Indeed, while the body of a vagrant who had died of slimy doom would make sense if it were found in a bad restaurant that was simply closed for the night, it made no sense here, not in one that had been abandoned for months. He looked at the corpse again. There was almost no sign of decomposition yet. The guy couldn't have died more than a day or so ago.

"Kind of like that old survival-horror game with a part in it where you have to explore the creepy bathroom in the house in the woods," said Sofia, slowly. She moved her flashlight around. "It takes a while before you realize a bathroom in the place makes no sense… No pipes or sewer access…"

"Calm down…" urged Dante.

The two Shadowchasers looked around and surveyed the large dining room. The doors and windows were boarded up, other than the one they had opened. Come to think of it, this guy couldn't have wandered in unless he boarded his entrance shut again from the inside.

"Uh, Sofia, let's try to do this fast…" he said, "then we can send this to the coroner. I'll check the kitchen, you… you check the storeroom over there."

She nodded, and shined her flashlight the other way, trying to keep her eye on the mysterious corpse as she did.

"Come back to this big room in ten minutes if everything's fine," continued Dante. "If everything isn't… Come back if you can. If you can't…"

"You'll hear me if I can't," she said.

"Gotcha," he replied.

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In the employee lounge of Copek, Emily was slouched on the couch, in front of a television. She had ditched the Bunny outfit, wearing something far less exotic, a pink sweatshirt and matching sweatpants, with sneakers. The TV was showing, of all things, professional wrestling.

It was a recording of the UWA's (Ultimate Wrestling Alliance, the organization that had eventually replaced the WWE) New Year's Eye Countdown to Chaos, an annual event with matches showcasing some of the league's biggest stars, all leading up to the Main Event right before midnight when the ball dropped.

This particular match she was watching was the one held ten New Years ago, and wasn't the Main Event of that year, but she liked it more. The two combatants were divas, lady wrestlers of the attractive sort (not the muscular sort). One of them looked like a biker chick in leather, with long, raven hair and heavy eye shadow, with tattooed arms.

The other wrestler? It was Emily. No question about it.

It was her all right, and despite the fact that this was a decade ago, she had aged well (given the longevity of moon elves). The outfit she was wearing in the match was a sexy version of a schoolgirl's outfit made into a midriff-bearing halter and plunging neckline with short-shorts, complete with faux girlish pigtails.

It was clear that Emily was the face to her opponent's heel, at least for now, given the cheers she was getting from the crowd. And the opposite effect when her opponent made a powerful move.

Ow, she thought as she watched. Just remembering that one hurts…

There didn't seem to be much out of the ordinary here – the hair pulling and trash talking from both sides was there. Finally, Emily went for the pin and made the three count. She got up and lifted her arm as the crowd cheered.

Then someone from outside the ring tossed her something – a wooden spanking paddle. Her opponent's slow crawl turned much faster, as the victor turned and ran towards her.

"Oh, not so fast, Sasha!" laughed the announcer.

The winner pounced, grabbing her. Then she knelt on one knee, and threw the defeated diva over it.

"I'll be honest, Sasha," she laughed, "this is gonna hurt me more than it will you…"

Then she used the paddle, smacking the leather girl four times on the tush. The crowd cheered again as she shoved her off and then stood up.

"Gee," she said out loud. "That didn't hurt me at all!"

Emily – the one watching the TV – sighed a little as she watched, then leaned on her arm. She hit the fast-forward on the remote.

"Talk about corny…" she muttered. "What was I on?"

"Don't sell yourself short, they loved you," said Dunstan's voice.

She giggled a little as he walked into the room, towards the vending machine.

"I have no idea why you quit," he continued.

"Dunstan," she said, with a sad smile, "do you know what the lifespan of a wrestling diva is? Twelve years, if she's lucky. Male wrestlers can last longer… Legends like the Undertaker did it for decades… But once a diva starts to get wrinkles, people lose interest."

With a thump, a Baby Ruth fell out of the machine.

"Emily, you're beautiful!" he insisted. "You could have done it until you were…"

"Ahem," she said, waving at her pointed elf-ears.

"Oh…" he said. He sat down on the couch, and unwrapped the candy, chuckling nervously. "Right… Opposite problem… Sometimes I forget you're as old as my grandmother."

"Twice as old," she grunted. "After about fifteen years in the business, people were getting suspicious. The wrestling magazines said that I must have known the best cosmetic surgeon in Hollywood, and the other divas were begging for his phone number."

She made another sad sigh, and looked at herself on the television screen. Then she put her hands to her chest, and lifted her ample bosom slightly.

"Dunstan, I'd die before I ever let some surgeon put his filthy hands on this. I don't mind being accused of lying when I am lying, but not when I'm telling the god-awful truth."

"Happens to a lot of Shadows, I guess," replied Dunstan.

"It was my life, and I loved it," she said, "But I had to retire, lay low for a few decades, then hope I could get into the business later and start over."

"Does this have anything to do with the 'final match' with Sasha that you've never let us see?" he asked.

"I'll let you see it someday," she said, nodding. "Sasha and I looked like hated enemies in the ring… But we were like sisters when it over… So… When I told her I had to retire…"

She looked at the leather girl again. "She was almost inconsolable."

Dunstan nodded.

"So, I had my manager talk to hers," she continued, "and they convinced the brass to give us the Main Event at the Countdown of Chaos…"

"A… retirement match, right?" asked Dunstan. "A wager where the loser has to quit?"

"No, silly!" laughed Emily. She playfully hit him on the side of the head. "More like 'has to get out of town'. The matches are scripted, you know, and usually, the rules say the winner can't demand the loser leave for more than three months, maximum. Believe it or not, these gimmick matches have rules."

"But…" said Dunstan, knowing there was more.

"I just gave Sasha a little present," she continued. "I had them rework the script so that it was my most humiliating defeat ever. So after the three months were up, another face-diva made the announcement that I wasn't coming back, that I was too ashamed to fight Sasha again. It started a whole new storyline; the one who made the announcement and several others swore revenge, but Sasha ruled the circuit for a while. The fans were expecting it to conclude with her hated enemy's eventual return, but... No. Seemed this would be a rivalry in wrestling where the heel would triumph over the face and banish her forever. The fans would hate Sasha for years, but it only benefitted her career."

She chuckled and looked at Sasha on the screen again.

"After all the times I spanked, hog-tied, and stripped her, I figured it was the least I could do for the skank…"

She smirked. Sasha was the only girl she had ever known who took that word as a compliment. Then again, she was the type of heel diva who tried to make the crowd hate her…

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Sofia hadn't found any food here yet, spoiled or otherwise, but the storage room seemed cluttered with a lot of junk that had been left behind when the place was boarded up. Most of it was old newspapers and other trash, along with other extra-large boxes and jars that had once stored things in bulk sizes.

She first turned to a filing cabinet and opened it, but it was empty. Shining her flashlight next to it revealed a pile of ashes. Possibly someone burned the files.

Then there was a desk, with a ragged and torn swivel chair.

Worth a look, she thought. She opened the top drawer, and was a little surprised. Not that the stuff was useful, but rather that it wasn't seen much these days.

Troll doll, she thought, picking out a small, cute gnome-like doll with crazy red hair. Then she took out a small, egg-shaped object on a chain with a small screen on it.

Tamagotchi… she said, tossing it aside. (It was broken anyway.)

Then she took out some other odd objects; a funny nose and glasses, a box of birthday candles, a set of false teeth ("Gross", she mumbled, dropping it), a Rubik's Cube, and a box of X-rated playing cards.

"Ugh," she said, dropping them back in the drawer. Then she opened the drawer underneath. There was more junk here including a hand-held video game (not a hand held system, but one of those old ones that only played one game), a rabbit's foot, and an old Dunkin yo-yo, which was actually in good condition.

"Man, twine, ceiling wax, all that fancy stuff..." she said, moving the objects aside. "No wonder they left this stuff behind, it's not like they could have done anything else with it…"

She was about to get up and go back to the main room – the fifteen minutes were almost up… But then something caught her eye.

A name on a slip of paper. It was as if Fate itself had moved the beam to that specific spot.

The name? Philip Dunbar.

She snatched it. It was a receipt. Had he eaten here? It was a store copy, but… Why had the owner kept it?

She turned it around… Something was written on the back…

She stuffed the slip of paper into her bra as she ran back into the dining room to meet up with Dante. She tried to tell herself that this was not withholding evidence, even though a tiny part of her was warning her that she'd be punished severely if it turned out Philip was up to no good.

"Sofia!" exclaimed Dante, as she ran into the room.

"What?" she gasped. "I didn't…"

"I didn't find anything either," he replied. "The kitchen was empty. But… When I came back in here, I also didn't find something that should be here."

Sofia stopped. The body was gone.

"Corpses don't just walk away," said Dante, sounding as if he was trying to reassure them both rather than believing his words. He shined his light on the floor. No footprints, even though there was a fine layer of dust.

"Hold on…" said Sofia. "Maybe this isn't a 'corpse' quote unquote."

She opened the satchel again, and after digging through again, took out what looked like a high tech pair of binoculars. As she put it to her eyes, the lens lit up green. Dante had seen Ophelia use these, a device that let you see through a special light to see certaintypes of tracks. Tracks that were beyond natural

"It's no PKE-meter," she said, as she scanned the area with it, "but…"

"A ghost?" asked Dante.

She pointed the device towards the floor, revealing previously-hidden footprints heading towards a door at the far end.

"Yup," replied Sofia. "And while he's cold as the death, his trail is still hot. Don't suppose you feel like following a ghost into a basement without the proper equipment for dealing with one?"

"We'd better take a look," he replied. "I think there's something very important down there…"

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"You mind if I ask a personal question, Emily?" asked Dunstan.

Emily leaned back on the couch as she hit the remote.

"Can't guarantee I'll answer it," she replied, "but sure."

"You ever consider being the bad girl like Sasha was back then?" he asked. "You know, the heel?"

Emily looked at him strange.

"As if one Sasha wasn't enough?" she asked. Then she giggled a little. "My stage name was 'Persephone', didn't sound all-too sinister…"

"Wasn't she…" asked Dunstan.

"Yeah, but I think that for most rabid wrestling fans, their knowledge of Greek mythology stopped with the Disney version," she giggled.

"Seriously, I tried that, once. Didn't work out. It isn't as easy as it looks to be the villain in wrestling. You have to act cruel, make the face wrestlers hate you and make the fans hate you. It's called Cheap Heat. A wrestler does it to get noticed, and for a heel, you make yourself as hated as possible."

"That's hard?" asked Dunstan.

"I guess it's easy for some of them," she replied. "When Steve Austin was a heel, he actually gave Stephanie McMahan the Stone Cold Stunner to prove how mean he was. That move was brutal when he did it on male wrestlers."

"So, does this sort of thing work?" asked Durwood, with a somewhat doubting tone.

"Only if you're very thick-skinned," Emily told him, raking a hand through her hair. "Being insulted by your opponents and other wrestlers is one thing… Having hordes of fans shouting for your head, calling you names, throwing things at you from the stands, hanging your likeness in effigy…"

"You're kidding," replied Durwood.

"Nope," she said, shaking her head. "Not everyone can do it. A few wrestlers have been designated as heels by their managers, and ended up hating it. Worst part is, you have to be a star before you have any influence on how the storyline goes. Most of them have been known to quit rather than continue on like that."

"So you can't act evil?" asked Dunstan.

"Sure I could," Emily informed him. "Just not that type of evil, if you know what I mean…"

As she said that, her voice trailed off to a seductive purr, and she nuzzled up against him.

He quickly realized what she meant.

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"I hate basements…" said Sofia.

Dante fidgeted. He wasn't so crazy about them either. Sofia shined her special binoculars again, and the spectral trail led forward.

"You know, they once made a cartoon out of the Ghostbusters…" she muttered. "Did you know they actually fought Cthulhu itself in one episode, and were able to confront it without being driven insane?"

"How?" exclaimed Dante.

"A lot of the fans wrote in asking," replied Sofia. "The writers said that when you make a living fighting horrors unlike the world has ever seen on a regular basis like they did, Cthulhu wasn't all that scarier by comparison…"

As she turned to the far wall, there was a shuffling, scraping noise from that spot. Unfortunately for Dante, that little anecdote had only made him more nervous. He drew his sword from his hip.

"Shadowchasers," grunted a hoarse voice that sounded like it had a bad case of laryngitis.

Dante lifted his flashlight to meet the voice, but there was no need. The hum of an emergency generator came on, and flickering lights illuminated the room, which seemed as much strewn with junk as the rest of the place.

As Dante had guessed, the corpse from upstairs was in front of them, and it did seem more spectral now, but the worst part was, the two Shadowchasers could see his front side. Clearly, this man had not been in very good shape even while alive.

His face was shrunken and gaunt, with very wide eyes surrounded by dark circles, and very small pupils. Combined with the fact that he was bald, it gave the appearance of a living skull. He also had several piercings, one on each ear, one nose ring, one lip ring, three near his right eye, and three on his right cheek. He was hunched over slightly, his arms dangling limply.

"Ugh…" said Sofia. Dante lifted his sword an edge higher.

"Who in the world are you?" asked Dante.

No answer from the odd phantom. He just stared at the two in stony silence.

"Uh, Dante?" said Sofia. "I remember reading about someone who looks like this guy… Ever hear of a Rare Hunter named Strings?"

Dante looked at the strange man, and then nodded slightly. He did look like Yugi's opponent in Battle City, although calling Strings a Rare Hunter might have been stretching the definition.

In the preliminary stages of the tournament Marik was unwilling to face Yugi himself, mostly because he felt a need to keep his identity hidden. Because of this, using his two Egyptian God Cards as a weapon was a problem; they didn't obey just any duelist, and an unworthy mortal who tried risked insanity, death, or worse.

Strings – aka the Killer Doll or the Silent One – was the solution. If Marik's word could be believed, Strings had once been a mime who had murdered his parents, but then, out of guilt, went mad, and fell into a comatose state. With a mind that was practically empty, Marik could use his Millennium Rod to control him like a puppet, and by giving Sky Dragon Osiris to Strings, he could use the mighty God Card and command Osiris through Strings, without being there in person. As a bonus, Strings had no mental awareness and thus could feel no pain, and could take risks that the average duelist wouldn't dare.

But he lost anyway. After speaking through his mouth once more to threaten Yugi, Marik left his pawn to rot like he had been doing years before.

That was years – decades – ago, so if this was indeed his restless spirit, why was he here?

In the meantime, Sofia was looking at her iPad. A picture of the Silent Doll appeared on it.

"Yeah, that's him all right," she said. "Uh, Dante?"

She whispered as he turned to her. "Behind him… Look…"

Indeed, there was a painting on the wall behind him, a painting of an odd, shadowy, forest path. It didn't seem to have any purpose in this disheveled basement and seemed out of place, unless…

There's a wall safe behind it, right? he thought, nodding.

"Listen, Strings, I don't know what your story is," he said, "but I'm getting what we came here for even if I have to go through you."

Still no sound from his mouth, but he lifted up both hands; Dante wasn't going to wait to see what he did. He swung his weapon…

Then came several surprises, one after another. His opponent actually tried to block the blow with his forearm, and it was severed at the elbow.

But to Dante's shock, Strings didn't seem hurt in the least, and to even greater shock, the severed limb turned to green goo as it fell to the floor.

Then came another shock. More of that goo was on his sword, and was dissolving it, fast. Dante barely managed to drop the thing before it reached his hand.

"Green slime…" he gasped. And when a Shadow or Aware said that, he wasn't just talking about slime that was green, he meant a dangerous type of slime-like plant-life that could eat through flesh, metal, wood, and pretty much anything except stone in seconds. Dark elves and other races that traditionally lived underground could usually deal with it easily enough, much like humans rooted out weeds (usually; the occasional fatality was expected), but to humans? It scared the hell out of them.

He looked at Strings. More of the slime was dripping from the stump. Then it oozed and grew, turning into another hand.

"This guy did not die from food poisoning,"he said. Then he made a slight laugh and looked at what was left of the sword. "The Ironhand Clan blacksmiths are going to kill me…"

The mime lifted up his left arm, and something strange happened. Three cogs appeared from his wristband, and spun in concordance with each other. The three cogs produced a long metal strip which grew to about three feet long as they turned, and then the three cogs flashed with metallic light, the whole turning into a streamlined Duel Disk shaped like a sword blade, made of a dull metal the color of tin.

"You want to duel?" Dante asked.

"Maybe he has to," replied Sofia. "I mean, ghosts usually have a reason… You want me to duel him? I mean, you're better with your fists, but this guy…"

"I can handle him…" he replied. "If that's what it's gonna take… I mean, he obviously doesn't have Osiris, and if he's using those Slime cards again, how much damage could he do with them?"

He opened his jacket, where a holder contained his six different decks, one for each Attribute, then picked one, the Water Deck.

Just in case he's using any Field Spells, he thought. I've never heard of any that would work for Slimes that wouldn't work for these guys.

He flipped the D-Gazer into place, and the VR system covered the walls of the basement.

"It's time to duel, as they used to say," he said.

(Dante: 8,000) - - - - - - - - - - (Strings: 8,000)

The mime jerkily lifted his hand, as if not completely in control of it, and drew a card. Then he set one on his Disk, causing a reversed monster to appear.

Dante waited for him to do anything else, but he just stood there staring.

"Don't talk much, huh?" he asked.

"Uh, Dante, he is a mime…" replied Sofia, as Dante drew.

"Uh, right…" replied Dante. "I'll summon the Warrior called Shore Knight."

There was a geyser of water, and a handsome, raven-haired youth in plate armor, a flowing scarlet cape, and dark glasses leapt from the spray, holding a shield and a rapier. (1,400 ATK)

"Let's see what you're hiding," he said, as Shore Knight pointed his weapon. "En garde."

The Knight thrust, and an odd-looking Reptile appeared on the card, one that looked like a lizard with only two legs, a knobbed tail, and a head with a lamprey-like mouth and… no eyes. The sword impaled it, and it melted into formless water. Dante recognized it, it was a Skreech.

When that card is destroyed, he gets to send two Water monsters to his Graveyard… thought Dante.

Strings held up his left hand, and two globs of slime appeared over it, which undulated, and then turned into cards. He turned them forward, then took them, then slipped them into his Disk.

Draw Slimes, thought Dante. Figures…

As he thought that, Strings drew twice. Then fit two cards into his Disk, setting them into his Spell Zone.

Seems he hasn't lost his knack for the plasma monsters that he used in Battle City. In fact, maybe that was the point… The Slime monsters represent how… mutable his mind was, how easy it was to reshape.

He nodded, and again, the mime jerkily drew. A set monster appeared, and then a Continuous Spell. Dante recognized it, Branch.

Seems he's into Fusions… he thought.

Again, Dante waited. Eventually, he sighed, and drew another card.

Hey, Flip Flop Frog, he thought.

"All right, baldy, I'm moving Shore Knight to Defense Mode."

As the reversed monster appeared, the Warrior sheathed his sword and knelt on one knee as he lifted his shield. (1,200) Dante quickly took a card as it was fed from his deck.

"When Shore Knight changes battle position I can send a Water monster to the Graveyard. I may not have a Draw Slime…"

He discarded the card – it was a T.A.D.P.O.L.E. – then set the monster he had drawn.

"…but it will do. Your move…"

When my Flip Flop Frog flips up it can flip his monster right off the field, he thought. This might just work out…

Strings drew, and then held a Spell Card in front of him.

"Tribute to the Doomed?" shouted Dante. "Aw, crap!"

The Spell appeared in larger size, and Strings discarded one his other cards, flipping it forward first to reveal a third Draw Slime. Then a swarm of mummy linens rushed from it, seizing Shore Knight. He struggled, but they quickly wrapped around him. Finally, he shattered.

"Okay, this is creepy…" muttered Dante.

Meanwhile, Sofia was scanning the room with her binocular-device.

This is unusual, she thought. Someone must have summoned him somehow… There's no other logical reason that someone who was born and died in Japan would end up haunting a restaurant in Massachusetts…

Wait a minute…

Strings was ignoring her completely. Then his set card made a 90-degree turn, then flipped over, revealing a small, pulsating protozoa. (300 ATK) Sofia lowered the device.

"Ameba…" she said. "That… That's a pretty old card… I think…"

"I know exactly what it does…" muttered Dante.

The mime used a new card, one that was far more familiar.

"Creature Swap," said Dante, "starting to sweat. "And when your Ameba comes over to my side, I take 2,000 points of damage, right?"

Strings didn't answer. As the two monsters changed sides, Dante felt a horrid feeling over his skin as his Life Points went down. It was like some sort of perspiration, but thicker, and… caustic… He looked at his arms.

What's happening to me? he thought.

"Dante!" shouted Ophelia.

"Don't come close!" shouted Dante. "This is a Shadow Duel, Sofia… A very dangerous one…"

(D: 6,000) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 8,000)

Strings kept moving, as the set Flip Flop Frog disappeared. A blob of formless plasma appeared, shifting in the air. Then, it grew two pseudopods, and a sword appeared in one, a shield on the other with a cross-like crest. Then a crown appeared on the top, along with a royal-looking robe, as a hollow face appeared under the crown. (1,700 ATK)

"I gotta thank you, fellah," said Dante, "I mean, I was frightened a minute ago, what with the Shadow Duel and all, but… Kind of hard to be scared when I'm looking at something like that."

"Uh, Dante?" said Sofia. She started to look something else up on the iPad. "That one looks a little familiar, to tell the truth… What was it called, Slime King?"

But even as she did, Strings kept going. He played a Polymerization Card, and then a vaguely man-shaped, liquid being wearing gold armor and a snake with a barbed stinger and an eye in its long jaw appeared, then swirled into a watery, fluid mass. Finally, it branched out into limbs, forming a spindly, vaguely insect-like shape, still made of slime, with scythe-like claws.

"Humanoid Worm Drake…" muttered Dante. "Guess you still have to stay with some motifs."

Strings still said nothing, but Slime King lifted its sword, and a wave of blue energy shaped like a blade cut the small single-celled organism in two. Dante cried out in pain for a moment or two… But then one of his set cards lifted, and he took some deep gasps.

"You triggered a Trap called Shock Reborn," he said. "What that means is, the damage I take is first reduced by half."

(D: 5,300) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 8,000)

"Then, if I have a monster in my Graveyard with an Attack Score even lower than the damage I took, I get to summon it."

A small, slug-like creature flipped onto the field, curling up into a ball. (0 DEF)

"So I can use T.A.D.P.O.L.E. to defend myself…"

He had hardly even said that before one of the Fusion Monster's watery scythe blades cut the small Aqua in half.

"Bad move," he continued, "because now I get to take two of them from my deck."

Two more of the small Aquas slipped from the holder.

"And now it's my turn…"

He stopped. Something was wrong there. His voice was hoarse, like it was when he had a sore throat. As he drew a card, his arm seemed a little sluggish. Slowly, he made the draw, then tipped his hat forward. Then he quickly tossed one of his cards.

"By discarding another T.A.D.P.O.L.E.," he continued, "I can Special Summon Swap Frog…"

He played a card, and a small, sinister-looking yellow frog covered with strange, orange tattoos leapt onto the field. (1,000 ATK)

"By summoning him, I get to send a low-Level Aqua from my deck to my Graveyard… I may not have any Draw Slimes, but…"

He watched as Treeborn Frog fell into his discard slot.

"You'll see him soon… For now, I'll summon my third T.A.D.P.O.L.E."

Again, the immature amphibian slithered out in front of him. (0 ATK)

"Swap Frog has yet another useful effect… By sending one of my monsters back to my hand, I can make a second Normal Summon, but only to summon a Frog."

Swap Frog made a leap, did a backflip, and turned into a card again in a twinkle. Dante caught it, and grabbed another.

"I sacrifice T.A.D.P.O.L.E. to summon Des Frog!" he shouted, as the small creature disappeared. The one that appeared… It was a frog. Big, yes, but there was hardly any need for more of a description. (1,900 ATK)

"Rrrribbit!" it croaked.

"Yes!" exclaimed Sofia. "And with those T.A.D.P.O.L.E.s…"

"Yeah, I get to summon two more of them…" said Dante. "That's the good news…"

Two more Des Frogs leapt up to either side of the first one. (1,900 ATK) Still, Strings watched stoically.

"Bad news is, I don't have Des Croaking right now," he continued. "But I have this…"

He played an Equip Spell, and the central Des Frog grew to about twice its size. (3,500 ATK)

"Chthonian Alliance gives him 800 Attack Points for every monster I have with the same name. With means he can stomp Humanoid Worm Drake on his own! Attack with Echo Blast!"

A very loud cone of sonic power came from the Frog's wide, open mouth, shaking the room. Humanoid Slime Drake splattered, the goo splashing over Strings' side of the field, some of it over Strings himself. Yet, he still didn't move a muscle.

Then the Branch card hummed and vibrated, and Humanoid Slime rose onto the field, crossing its tendrils. (2,000 DEF)

"Crud," muttered Dante. "Well, I can still attack your Slime King."

"Dante, wait!" yelled Sofia.

A second Des Frog unleashed a slightly lesser croak, and the slimy thing fell apart, its armaments and crown collapsing in a pile of goo.

(D: 5,300) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 6,500)

"What?" asked Dante.

"I managed to find Slime King on the I2 website…" said Sofia, morosely. She held up her iPad.

The mime lifted his right hand, and two slimy spheres appeared in it.

"When destroyed by battle, he can recover two Level 4 or lower Slimes from his Graveyard…"

The two orbs turned into cards – again, two Draw Slimes – as Strings picked them out of the air.

"Maybe you should have said that sooner…" sighed Dante.

"Uh, Dante?" said Sofia. "Not to worsen the situation, but… I'm not much of a magician, but there is some sort of binding circle here, meaning someone summoned him… Thing is, I'll be damned if I know what sort of magic created it."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Right now, Emily was sipping something out of a glass with a straw. It was green, sickly green. Still, she was drinking it was casually as someone drinking lemonade as she watched the television. Dunstan couldn't help but try to keep his distance from her as she did.

"Uh, Emily…" he said. "Pro wrestling… It's a career that attracts a lot of Shadows, right?"

"Oh, sure!" replied Emily. "Orcs, gnolls, bugbears, minotaurs, lots of guys with muscles. Heh, they just love the chance to sign up for a job where you literally get paid to act like a lunatic. They can make money by being themselves."

"And they never noticed you were, uh…" he said, pointing to the glass.

"Eh? This?" she said. She sipped from it again. "Maybe a few of them did. Not all of them knew what it was… Sasha did, but…"

"It never showed up on a drug test?" he asked.

Emily chuckled again.

"Wrestling isn't a real sport, my friend," he said. "Course, they did give us them occasionally, but this isn't a drug. It's as natural as orange juice."

Dunstan paused. She did have a point. Of course, someone had once told him that the phrase "all natural" had no FDA definition and could be applied to things like toadstools and manure.

He changed the subject slightly.

"Emily, wasn't anyone concerned about you, well, really hurting someone?" asked Dunstan.

Emily laughed. She laughed heartily.

"Dunstan," she said, "remember when I said wrestling divas usually retire because they start to get less attractive? They're lucky. Whenever the tough wrestlers are in the same ring with the divas, they purposely try extra-hard than usual to pull their punches against them. No-one wants a diva to have to retire early because her face got smashed up.

"Now the tough ones, mostly the males, don't have to worry about that, and they often retire for… other, more painful reasons. Let me give you a short lesson on how pro wrestling works…"

She started to fast-forward the tape.

"The story is scripted, the fight is scripted, the dialogue is scripted, and a wrestler acts out his personality as the script demands. In other words, it's fake. However…"

She hit play, and it showed a scene where a male wrestler threw his opponent out of the ring, onto the floor below. The opponent winced in pain.

"Seemed kinda realistic, huh?"

"Ouch, yeah…" replied Dunstan.

"You pick someone up and throw him, you really throw him, and it hurts," continued Emily. "Even if it's in the script.

"Remember what I said about Steve Austin? Using that Stone Cold Stunner trick didn't just hurt his opponents, it was hard on him too. Using a move where propel yourself directly onto the mat ass-first isn't very good for your spine and neck, and he used that move about a hundred times a year."

She paused to sip her drink.

"And he was lucky. He lived to retire. Wrestling is a brutal profession, Dunstan, scripted or not. The few Shadows who knew about this… They didn't care…"

She stopped for a minute.

"…and hey… Helped to make money on the side… Not all wrestlers can command big salaries unless they're big stars…"

Dunstan shivered a little, but he calmed down a little when the sweet smile came back.

Then he shivered again as he remembered how she had been nuzzling up to him with that smile on her face... and suddenly, it wasn't very sweet anymore.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

As Strings drew, Dante held his wrist. It was cold… Clammy… His skin was pale…

Something was wrong….

The phantom stood still for a moment, his expression, or rather lack of it, impossible to read. Then he used a Spell Card.

"Magical Stone Excavation?" said Dante. "That's… Uh-oh…"

Strings discarded the two Draw Slimes he had recovered, and his deck shimmered. He drew twice again, and then took Polymerization from his Graveyard pile.

Then Humanoid Slime disappeared as he switched cards.

"I summon Multiple Slime," he said, in a horse, emotionless voice.

There was a loud SLORK and a four-legged, vaguely dog-like creature made of ochre goo oozed onto the field. (1,500 ATK)

"Okay, so you can talk…" said Dante.

Strings didn't answer, but palmed a new Spell Card.

"Had to open my big mouth…" groaned Dante.

As the Spell Card – Riryoku – appeared, the Des Frog with the Equip Spell shrank (1,750 ATK), while Multiple Slime seemed to absorb its energy and grow larger. (3,250 ATK) A wave of slime gushed from its mouth, literally melting the Equipped Frog. Dante held his heart for a minute or two. It was beating – fast.

(D: 5,700) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 6,500)

Strings glanced down at the Life Points display, then at Dante with a quizzical tilt to his head.

"Fortunately, I had this," he said Dante. "It's called Option Hunter. I may have lost a Frog, but I gained Life Points equal to his Attack Points. You're not going to be ending this quickly…"

"Did I say I wanted to?" asked his opponent, still in the same hoarse monotone. "If anything, I welcome this duel. It's been… boring since I've been here."

Multiple Slime returned to its score of 1,500 ATK, indicating that his turn was over.

"Even more so since this restaurant closed, and its owners left… It's been so mind-numbingly dull it's nearly torture…"

"Wait, wait, Strings, hold on," said Sofia. "Exactly why are you here?"

The mime looked at her. Again, no answer.

"So then you were summoned here?" she asked. "Some sorcerer is forcing you to guard this place."

Still no answer.

"Okay, I guess you aren't allowed to tell us," replied Dante. "Is there anything you can tell us?"

He was mute. Dante scowled a bit. He hadn't expected Strings to be able to answer any questions, but this was still frustrating.

Who'd ever think that I'd actually want the type of opponent who humiliated himself by taunting and goading me with ridiculous threats that we both knew his ass couldn't keep, he thought.

"Well, I guess you want me to move…" he continued, drawing a card.

Unfortunately, as he did so, it took effort. He felt his arm again. He was sweating…

It's the middle of October… he thought. The temperature is fifty degrees… Am I coming down with something?

"Second Des Frog, destroy his Multiple Slime!"

There was another loud croak, and again, the thick liquid composing the creature splattered all over the side of the room.

Then three small dollops of slime with black dots for eyes appeared in front of him. (500 ATKx3)

"Tokens, huh?" asked Dante. "In Attack Mode?"

Then his last Des Frog's croak tore into one of them, and finally, Strings had to brace himself a little. Spirit of not, one can only take so much.

(D: 5,700) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 4,700)

"Think I'll end there," said Dante. "So what are you going to do with those little things?"

Strings made a draw, and as if to answer him, played the card. The monster that appeared was definitely not an Aqua, but some sort of Warrior – maybe. It looked like a sickly, gaunt human, his only articles of clothing a torn and ragged pair of trousers and a mask shaped like a wolf's head. His skin was incredibly pale and taunt, and his hair was stark white and tangled, falling long down his back. He held two long, sharp knives. (1,400 ATK)

"Okay, this is new," said Dante.

"For every Slime that I sacrifice," said Strings, "my Cursed Thrall gains 400 Attack Points."

The two Slime Token flew into the Thrall's chest, and he howled twice, as if that was really hurting him. (2,200 ATK)

Still, he recovered quickly, and didn't waste any time, ripping through a second Des Frog with his blades and cutting it apart.

(D: 5,400) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 4,700)

"Okay…" said Dante. "So now you're starting to be more talkative…"

Again, no answer. Dante waited again, then sighed. Wishful thinking. He drew a card. At the moment, his hand consisted of Unifrog, Swap Frog, and Moray of Greed.

An opportunity.

"I'm using Moray of Greed," he said.

A cracked and broken Pot of Green appeared, and a grinning moray eel slithered out, grabbing his other two cards.

"By sending two Water monsters back to my deck, I can draw three times…"

He slipped the three cards off his Disk, and nodded slightly. These were a little better. He first played a Spell Card, Foolish Burial. He took the card Ronintoadin, and then discarded it.

"I activate Shrink!" he shouted. "So your monster loses half his base Score…"

(1,500 ATK)

"And once again…"

The final Des Frog's destructive croak plowed into Cursed Thrall, knocking him over, and he shattered as he fell.

(D: 5,400) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 4,300)

"Unfortunate," droned Strings, "but because he absorbed at least two Slimes when he was summoned, I now get a Spell Card from my Graveyard…"

Again, he held out his hand, and Magical Stone Excavation formed from an orb of slime.

"…although, I can't set it and I lose 2,000 Life Points unless I use it next turn… But I assure you two… Far more is yet to come…"

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"So why is Mr. Addams paying us to just hang out in the lounge for the rest of the afternoon?" asked Dunstan. He pitched the soda can he was drinking from over his shoulder into the trash can. "Not that I'm upset, but…"

"Ah, we have to wait for the big guy to get that… thing," replied Emily, saying the designation with a tone of sarcasm. "The boss needs us out of the way while he's busy planning out what we have to do once we have it, and then what we have to do with it, probably with you-know-who he-knows-her."

"Ho-boy…" said Dunstan. He knew the general gist of that part, and a lot of it involved him.

"You act like you're the one who'll be taking the trip to Maagardium," said Emily, with another girlish chuckle. "Trust me, all you have to watch from a distance."

"No, Emily," he said, "I'm just a little wary about actually having put the damn contraption back together when you get back with it. You know how…"

"Relax, none of them will come within a hundred miles of here," replied Emily. "I think we can trust them on that. And we can't just take the Pan Dimensional Homing Device to some Joe's Fix-It Shop. You have to be the one to fix it cause you're so smart, you big handsome devil, you!"

She tickled his chin as she said that, and Dunstan blushed a little.

"Yeah, as long as Ferd gets here," he said. "Ten to one says he's stopped at some hamburger joint right about now… Guy doesn't take his job seriously."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"Still my turn, fellah," said Dante. "By banishing my Flip Flop Frog, I can Special Summon Ronintoadin from my Graveyard in Defense Mode."

In a flash of silvery light, a toad that walked upright, with oriental features and a bamboo sword by its side appeared. (2,000 DEF)

"And that's all."

Strings drew, almost as if he was waiting for this turn. Again, he played a Spell Card, and this time, it was Salvage. Again, the two copies of Draw Slime appeared in his hand. Then he followed with Magical Stone Excavation, discarding them, drawing twice, and taking a card from his Graveyard.

This time, however, Dante knew in his gut the Spell he recovered was probably something more dangerous…

He has that Creature Swap again… he thought. But then Strings started to use his cards in earnest.

"I summon the Revival Jam," continued Strings.

There was a loud SLUCK as the card was dropped on the Disk, and a vaguely oblong, tear-shaped blob of blue plasma appeared hovering in the air. (1,500 ATK)

"Then, I set a facedown card, and play Jam Breeding Machine."

There was a rumble as the room shook, and along with a set card, a large, domed machine with an indentation in the center-top and pipes to the side emerged from the floor. Steam shot from the pipes."

"With this card I can…"

"I know what it does," interrupted Dante. "The Trap is Jam Defender, right? This is the combo you used to get the sacrifices you – well, I assume it was you – needed to summon Osiris in Battle City.

"I should warn you, the game has changed since then, as has the errata for that card. You have to pay a thousand Life Points to revive Revival Jam, and you can't do it until the End Phase, so it won't work this time."

The mime tilted his head, never taking his eyes off of Dante. Still, his expression was impossible to read.

"I end my turn," he said, sullenly.

This is weird, thought Sofia, now looking directly at him. Does he even want to win?

Dante was not nearly as confident as he had just sounded, but he gained a little of it back when he drew and saw his copy of Polymerization.

And I have Dupe Frog too, he thought. I could summon D.3.S. and hit him hard… Ah, with that Creature Swap of his, I'd best save him for later…

"Attack his Jam, Des Frog!" he shouted.

As Des Frog croaked, the set card lifted up…

"That's not Jam Defender!" shouted Dante.

Revival Jam rippled a little, but it withstood the sonic assault.

(D: 5,400) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 3,900)

"True, this Trap is called Viscous Slime," he replied. "It makes Revival Jam invincible. Now it doesn't even need to revive. Contradictory, maybe, but effective. Of course, it forbids me from attacking and only lasts so long as my hand consists of no more than four cards, but that shouldn't be a problem."

Dante slowly took Dupe Frog's card and set it.

"End…" he said.

Both Dante and Sofia noticed that Strings was a little more flexible now as he drew a card. Not any more emotional or energetic, but far less stiff. Still, he seemed to decide to clam up again. As he did so, the Jam Breeding Machine chugged and shook, and one of those small Slime Tokens floated out of the top.

Without saying a word, he set a new card, then shifted Revival Jam, moving it to Defense Mode. Again, there was a long, dead pause.

Dante drew, and tried not to change his expression too much. This duel was nerve-wracking, but he had to keep as much of a poker face as this guy. He set the card, then flipped his set monster.

"I move Dupe Frog into Attack Mode, he said. As the card flipped, a much smaller, paler frog with a mortarboard on its head leapt out of it. (100 ATK)

"This little guy has a lot of neat abilities, and of them is that it has the same name as Des Frog when it's on the field. Ronintoadin has that effect too. So I can use Polymerization, and fuse Des Frog, Ronintoadin, and Dupe Frog…"

As he said the name of each, they vanished into watery orbs… Then, a humungous Frog three times the size of himself landed in front of him with a crash. An ugly creature with a long, droopy face. (2,500 ATK)

"Whoa!" said Sofia.

"You think D.3.S. Frog is big, wait until you see how much damage he can do," replied Dante. "Especially since I have one Treeborn Frog in my Graveyard to give him 500 more points."

(3,000 ATK)

"Get that Token! Hyper Sonic Echo!"

The giant Frog's bellow was so fierce, cracks started to form in the basement's cinderblock walls. But then, Revival Jam moved in front of the Token, and while it bent harshly, it survived.

Dante noticed the other Trap Card. That one was Jam Defender.

"Good lord, it's the perfect defense…" gasped Sofia. "Well, for now."

"Hey, don't worry…" said Dante. "He can't attack, remember? Your move, baldy."

Strings drew a card, and a second Slime Token appeared. (500 ATK) Then he played a Spell Card, and just as Dante feared, it was Creature Swap.

"Hate to do this, but…" said Dante, "but..."

His Trap flipped up, and over.

"Dark Bribe negates your Spell… But you draw once…"

The Spell Card shattered, as Strings made another draw. He didn't seem upset in the least and barely noticed. He nodded to Dante.

"Look, if this is some attempt to stall, I've got nowhere to go…" said Dante. "We don't get overtime pay, but then, we don't have any quota either."

He drew, then played a new monster card. Another evil-looking Frog, this one with red tattoos. (1,200 ATK)

"Since I have three T.A.D.P.O.L.E.s in my Graveyard, Beelze Frog gains 900 Attack Points."

(2,100 ATK)

"And I'll end my turn there…"

Strings drew a card, and again said nothing. He had four cards now, but that was still one less than the maximum amount he could have and still keep Viscous Slime. First, a third Slime Token appeared. (500 ATK) Then he took the card he had drawn, and set it on the final space in his Monster Zone.

"I end…" he said.

Well, that's odd… thought Dante, as he drew. The card was Poison Draw Frog, useful, but not now…

The only way he can summon any monsters other than the Tokens with that monster maker there is by setting them first, he thought. But all five spaces in his Zone are occupied, and so are four spaces in his Spell Zone. How can he…

Wait… Maybe it's a monster with a Flip Effect that can get rid of Jam Breeding Machine somehow… If that's the case, I'd better attack it first…

"Beelze Frog, attack his set monster with Pyro Splash!"

The strange Frog breathed flames, but not straight, breathing them in an arch that homed in on the reversed card. When the fire hit, Dante covered his head and Sofia shrieked as an explosion of slime burst from the card.

When they looked they saw that the goop had splattered on Strings' four non-monster cards – Jam Breeding Machine, Branch, Jam Defender, and Viscous Slime – and were dissolving them into inert puddles of liquid.

"The monster you destroyed was a Slime Vat," said Strings. "It destroys all of my Continuous Spells and Continuous Traps, and then lets me draw one card for each…"

"Hey, now hold on…" said Dante, getting a little upset.

"…and because I get to draw four, you get to draw two," continued Strings.

"Uh… Okay…" replied Dante.

I guess that's fair… he thought, sort of.

He drew twice as Strings made four draws. Fortunately, he didn't forget something.

"It's still my Battle Phase, fellah and because your Jam Defender is gone…"

D.3.S. Frog let out another earthshaking croak that tore one of the small Slime Tokens apart, this time knocking the Killer Doll over.

"Strings?" shouted Dante, worried that he had somehow been hurt.

(D: 5,400) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 1,400)

The former Rare Hunter stood up. His body had seemingly cracked from the force, leaving driblets of green slime on the floor and across his body. But as they watched, the slime gurgled and withdraw back into the body, zipping the "wounds" up.

"I'm fine…" he said, slowly. "Never better… Reminds me of the days long ago…"

He looked at his hands.

"When I had actual flesh… When the light didn't burn me…"

"Strings, what happened to you?" asked Dante.

"Terrible things that you cannot undo," he replied. "I suggest you continue this duel."

"You really want to…" started Dante.

"Whether I want to or not doesn't matter," replied Strings. "It's still your move."

"Uhm…" said Dante.

He picked Poison Draw Frog's card from his hand and played it, causing a very small Frog to appear. It made a small croak with a long tongue, which oddly enough, had a card on the end of it. (100 ATK) Then he nodded.

"A careless move," said Strings as he drew. "Now… It's time… I use the Spell Card Soul Exchange."

"You're going to sacrifice one of my monsters?" gasped Dante.

"Indeed, but not to summon one of my own," replied Strings. "I'm sacrificing your D.3.S. Frog to use Mystik Wok."

The two Spells appeared side by side, and the huge Frog disappeared in silvery motes.

(D: 5,400) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 4,400)

"Now that my Life Points are higher," continued the mime, "you may remember I used Magical Stone Excavation to take Polymerization from the Graveyard earlier."

The Fusion Card appeared next, and the two Slime Tokens disappeared.

"No… way…" said Sofia. "Fusing two Tokens?"

"The Fusion Monster in question requires one Slime monster and one Water monster. Those Tokens are both. Thus I can use them to summon Sorcerer Slime."

Another ooze appeared that seemed to be the same general idea as Slime King, but it wasn't funny at all – it was hideous. Like the King, it was vaguely humanoid, with clothing, in this case, a wizard's robe and wide-brimmed hat, holding a golden staff tipped with a jewel shaped like an inverted teardrop. But goop was dripping off of it, and where a beard might be were long, slimy tentacles that writhed slowly. (2,400 ATK)

"Ugh…" said Sofia.

"I'm not done," said Strings. "I'll next use the Spell Card Fusion Recovery. As you recall, this duel started when I Fusion Summoned Humanoid Worm Drake. It seemed like a poor monster at the time, but it had uses…"

As the Spell Card formed, he took Polymerization and Humanoid Slime from his discard pile.

"Next, by using Sorcerer Slime's effect, I can discard one Slime to recover another."

He took the Humanoid Slime and fit in his Disk, which disgorged a Draw Slime. Then he chose another card in his hand and flipped it forward, a second Multiple Slime.

"Then, Polymerization again, which I'll use to fuse this Multiple Slime with Revival Jam to summon Chimera Slime."

The two Slime beasts appeared, and then collapsed into a gelatinous mass. Then a stinking cone of slimy muck rose from the spot.

"Hey, Sofia, about that offer of yours…" said Dante.

"Her turn will come later," said Strings. "If not from me then someone else."

"What?" said Sofia. "Would you mind repeating that?"

Unfortunately, there was little time to discuss this, because a very large and very disgusting creature came out of the muck. It was an amalgamation of other unpleasant, creatures, a toad's limbs, an alligator's head, a catfish tail, and bat-like wings on a stout body, all of it made of slime that had little consistency, dripping all over the floor. (2,400 ATK)

"This is really gross…" said Sofia.

"Don't… Don't worry…" said Dante. "He can't attack this turn… He used Soul Exchange…"

"Indeed, I cannot," replied Strings.

He played two more cards, and another Humanoid Slime (800 ATK) and a set card appeared.

"So now I end my turn… Trust me… True terror begins soon…"

"Uh, Dante, remember when you asked how much damage he could do with a Slime Deck?" asked Sofia.

"If the answer you're thinking of is, 'offhand, a lot'," said Dante, looking at them with a shudder, "I'd say, yes."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Dunstan almost jumped as a door slammed in the hallway outside.

"He's back," he and Emily said at the same time.

"Hey, hey!" shouted Ferdinand, as he walked into the room. Emily sighed, and stood up.

"Always have to make a big entrance, do you?" she asked.

"Why not?" he asked. "I'm a big guy. C'mere, sweetcakes…"

"Uh, Ferd," said Emily sternly.

He was opening his arms, likely expecting a hug, and she casually nodded to the glass she had been drinking from. He quickly started acting more serious.

"Yeah… Right…" he said.

"Ahem!" said a voice from the other side of the room. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything…"

"No, no, Mr. Addams," said Dunstan, standing up as well (picking up the three candy bar wrappers he had discarded as he did and stuffing them into his pocket), "Ferdinand is just making a big deal out of everything, as usual…"

"Ah, no big deal this time," said Ferd. He held up a plain paper bag. "It was in the 'usual place' like he said, the bus station locker."

He threw it over to Addams, who fumbled a little before he caught it.

"And he left a nice note with it too," continued Ferd.

The manager opened the bag, and took the small scrap of paper out. "Dear Ferd, it's yours, stick it up your… Mmm-hmm, yes, very 'nice'…"

"Well, now you know why I left," said Ferd, as Addams crumpled the paper and tossed it in the garbage. As he looked at the more important object in the bag, the muscleman went to the vending machine himself.

"So then, Sly, when do we leave to use it?" he asked.

"Let's not be hasty," replied Addams. "You can't just go waltzing into Maagardium carelessly…"

"Aw, c'mon, Sly…" said Ferd. He took the candy from the machine and flopped down on the couch causing it to shake a little. Then he opened the wrapper of the Whatchamacallit bar with his teeth.

"You talk like nobody who's gone there has ever come back. Besides, I personally feel like kickin' some ass."

"If you break one more piece of furniture, it's coming out of your salary!" said Dunstan, with a scowl. "Was your 'need to kick ass' why you broke into Clem's place without confirming the tip?"

"Hey, at least I found out who did have the Pass!" shouted Ferd.

"Regardless," said Dunstan, "it was reckless, and that won't cut it in Maagardium. There have been eight expeditions there with thirty-five individuals that we know about, and only six survivors total, two of whom went insane, making the success rate…"

He stopped.

"Need a calculator, Dunstan?" snarked Emily.

"Regardless of the actual percentage is," replied Addams, "those four survivors had something in common as opposed to the casualties. They were experienced, clever, and well-prepared. Those who didn't make it failed either because they made mistakes that could have been avoided, or were complete fools who didn't know the nature of where they were going. One group even went there on a dare, if I recall.

"So I recommend not acting reckless – as a certain someone did in Green Bay – and start being careful. Now that we have the Pass, this should be easier…"

"Hey, relax, hon," said Emily. "Ferd and I are the only ones who are going…"

"If you mean you two are the only ones risking your lives, you're wrong," replied Addams. "Should you two fail, you-know-who may well do something worse to the rest of us."

He turned and left the room. Ferd, Dunstan, and Emily looked at each other with frightened glances.

"Heh…" said Ferd. He picked up the remote. "What else is on?"

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Okay, calm down, Dante, thought the well-dressed Shadowchaser. Sure he's got two powerful Fusions you've never seen before, sure you've lost one of your best monsters, but you have…

He lifted his hand to draw. Then he looked at it.

There was some odd… sticky film on it…

He shook his head, puzzled as he drew the card, which was Jar Turtle, not exactly what he wanted right now.

"I'm using Treeborn Frog's effect to Special Summon it in Defense Mode," he said. A small Frog with feathered wings and a bandage on its chest appeared. (100 ATK)

He quickly moved the two monsters on his Disk, and Beelze Frog and Poison Draw Frog defended. (800 DEF, 100 DEF)

He was about to defend with Jar Turtle too, but then Strings' set card flipped up and forward.

"Aquamirror Cycle?" he shouted.

"Yes," replied Strings. "By sending a Water monster back to my deck, I can take two from my Graveyard."

To be perfectly honest, Dante didn't need him to explain it this time – Ophelia had the card. Still, he had a pretty good idea which monsters Strings was taking from his Disk after Humanoid Slime melted into sludge and two more orbs of slime appeared over his hand, turning into cards. He looked at Jar Turtle again, but decided against it.

"I think I'm going to end my turn…"

"Then it's my move…" said Strings, as he drew. There was a very, very long pause, and the look on the Rare Hunter's face was darker and far more eerie this time. A sense of malice that wasn't there before had appeared on it.

"The card I'm about to use is an artifact of forbidden magic like nothing you have ever seen," he thought. "I conduit of foul energy unleashed by foolish goblins who tampered with things they couldn't hope to understand…"

"Uh, Strings?" asked Sofia, "you sure you want to use that?"

Without answering, the Silent Doll plugged it into his Spell Zone.

"I activate the malignant power of the Slime Pit of Yggar-Athal," he said.

As he said this, the whole room changed, the floor turning into a lake of rancid, churning slime, small stone slabs the only apparent things keeping the two Shadowchasers from falling to a horrible doom. Strings was standing on a larger slab, but it soon became clear why.

A pillar that looked like a thick spine with a dragon's head on top rose out of the slab – or altar, maybe, positioning itself over Strings, and then two huge, bony dragon claws grabbed hold of him.

"Dear God…" said Sofia.

"With this Spell Card in play," continued Strings, in his normal monotone, as if this was an everyday occurrence, "my hand of cards is revealed to my opponent…"

The "eyes" of the dragon flashed, and four cards, consisting of all three copies of Draw Slime and Magic Reflector, appeared above it.

"…and in return, one of my monsters, in this case, Chimera Slime, gains 300 points to both Scores for every Slime monster that's there."

Green goo dripped from the skull, falling on Chimera Slime three times, each time with an evil-sounding hiss. (3,300 ATK)

"At least my monsters are defending…" muttered Dante.

Still, just being in the presence of this thing made him feel nauseous. It wasn't because of the smell, either, even though the stench was foul. He had never felt nauseous in this way before.

"But there's more," replied Strings. "Slime Pit can grant the monster three other effects, depending on how many cards my hand consists of overall. With the four I have now, it gains the first, making it impervious to destruction by Spell and Trap Cards.

"Before I attack, however…"

He took the Magic Reflector card and played it. The Spell Card itself shattered quickly, but a mechanical spider appeared and crept up the horrid skeleton.

"This will prevent the Slime Pit itself from being destroyed once," he said. "Then, lest we forget the effect of Sorcerer Slime…"

He discarded one of the three Draw Slimes, taking Multiple Slime back. Dante and Sofia watched closely as he drew… To their dismay, the card was Acid Slime. More of the goo dripped on Chimera Slime. (3,600 ATK)

"Sorcerer Slime will attack first… Destroy Poison Draw Frog with Dissolution Wave."

The sludge wizard shifted a little, and a blue ripple churned out from his staff, melting the small Frog into a pile of goo.

"Yeah? Well I get to draw now," said Dante.

He drew a card, and then almost dropped it as a torrent of slime gushed from Chimera Slime's toothless mouth, hitting Beelze Frog. Dante landed on his knee, clutching his stomach.

"Dante, what…" shouted Sofia.

"You know that feeling when you get motion sick…" stammered Dante, "and you say something like 'my guts are turning to water'? I think I'm having that for real…"

"You are," replied Strings. "Especially due to Chimera Slime's own effect…"

He took Revival Jam from his Graveyard.

"All I must do, is banish a Slime monster in my Graveyard each time Chimera Slime destroys one of your monsters, and you take damage equal to half of Chimera's Attack Points."

The Revival Jam card melted into green ooze that dripped upon the floor.

"I will conclude my turn…"

(D: 3,600) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 4,400)

Then Sofia screamed. Dante stopped. He paused and looked over the edge of the slab he was on. The slime was surprisingly reflective, for some reason…

Then he stood up, terror slowly sinking into him…

His skin… It was starting to run… like wax…

"DANTE!" screamed Sofia.

"I'm okay, Sofia!" he shouted, his voice making a gurgling sound as he did it.

"Like hell you are!" she shouted, "you're melting!"

It was only too true. He tried to say something else, but only garbled, bubbling noises came out.

"Dante, listen to me," said Sofia. She was almost as terrified, but at least she wasn't the victim here. "Pull yourself together, you have to…"

She stopped short, realizing that now was probably the worst time for that figure of speech.

"Look, if this is anything like Shadow Duels in general, you just have to concentrate. You know that the only way you can beat something like this is to have stronger willpower than he does.

"Now ask yourself, who's got stronger nerves, a guy who fought Jalie Squarefoot, or some street performer who went crazy and killed his own parents?"

Dante looked at her. So did Strings.

The Shadowchaser's flesh stopped running. It didn't fully re-solidify, but it was a start.

"It won't work, Shadowchaser," said Strings. "Face it… Against these slime monsters, you're like a man struggling in quicksand."

Dante cleared his throat, and then spit on the ground.

"I'm not dead yet, and I'm still mostly solid," croaked Dante. He stood up straight as best he could. "And you know, it's funny you should make that comparison. You aren't supposed to struggle if you step in quicksand."

Strings didn't answer verbally, but tilted his head quizzically again.

"As any survivalist will tell you," said Dante, his voice a little clearer "quicksand isn't really dangerous. It's very hard to drown in it, but it is easy to become trapped in it. The true danger from it is that it slows you down and exhausts you, leaving you vulnerable to really dangerous things, like harsh sunlight, dehydration, hypothermia, or dangerous wildlife. And if you panic, you get stuck even worse, and you get tired faster."

His hand fumbled, but he managed to draw.

"The trick is, if you step in quicksand, you don't panic. You keep calm, move slowly, and you'll simply float to solid ground.

"And nine times out of ten… That's a pretty good strategy to keep in mind when dealing with some crazy ghost."

He played all five cards in his hand, and four set cards appeared first, then a large turtle with red scales and the Jar of Greed for a shell. (200 ATK)

"Move."

"You think simply denying that I exist will make me go away?" asked Strings, as he made a draw. "Amusing… At times, even I wish that were the case… That I could erase myself from existence by denying it…"

Dante groaned a little when he saw what the card was, a second Acid Slime. He knew what that meant. The sludge from the skull dripped on Chimera again. (3,900 ATK) Then Strings discarded another Draw Slime, and Sorcerer Slime's staff hummed again. Slime Vat appeared with the other cards.

Then Strings made another draw. Fortunately, it wasn't a monster, but it was a rather powerful Counter Trap called Jammer Slime.

Hope this works… thought Dante, because if it doesn't, not only am I dead, there likely won't even be anything for Sofia to bring back to bury...

"Enough talk, Mr. Connors," said Strings. "Time to die…"

"How'd you know my last name?" asked Dante. Then the dark spell from Sorcerer Slime blew Treeborn Frog to little pieces.

"It matters not," replied Strings, "because with six cards in my hand now, not only does the Slime Pit protect Chimera Slime from Spell and Trap Cards that destroy monsters, but from all of them, completely. Other than the Slime Pit itself. So I doubt you can stop this attack and Chimera Slime's subsequent effect once it destroys Jar Turtle."

"No…" gasped Sofia. "With Battle Damage added to the Effect Damage, it's…"

"…more than your friend has," said Strings. "Goodbye, Mr. Connors…"

"Hey Strings, know what this card is?" asked Dante.

One of his cards lifted up, showing the art of a rather familiar Quickplay Spell.

"Mystik Wok?" asked Strings.

"Yeah, I know you have one too," replied the Shadowchaser, as Jar Turtle disappeared. "I guess strange minds think alike. Any-who, Jar Turtle's Defense Score is 2,100, so…"

(D: 5,700) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 4,400)

For the first time, Strings showed a hint of emotion in what he said next, although it was a sign that he was pissed.

"Attack him directly."

"DANTE!" screamed Sofia. She could only watch as the horrid gush of slime hit him, knocking him over…

(D: 2,800) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 4,400)

But then his strategy became very clear; as disgusting as that was, he had saved himself.

Chimera Slime can only use its burn effect if it destroys a monster… she thought. Not with direct attacks.

Dante sat up, coughed twice. His skin was still running like wax on a candle…

"Dante…" said Sofia.

"I'm fine!" he shouted. "I'm fine Sofia! It looks worse than it is!

Of course, he said like he was straining, even as his other three cards lifted up in unison. Slowly, the running stopped, like the wax on a cooling down candle.

"First, I use Call of the Haunted to summon my Turtle back," he said. "Then, Inferno Reckless Summon to invite a couple of his friends."

Where there was once one Turtle, there was now a trio of them. (200 ATK x3)

"And finally, Jar of Greed. Normally, this lets me draw a card, but with a Jar Turtle on the field, I get to draw another one, so with three Turtles…"

"You get four draws!" exclaimed Strings, speaking the loudest he had thus far.

"Getting the picture?" asked Dante. He stood up as he made the four draws. "That big thing may be impervious to Spells and Traps, but mine still work."

Strings set a card in his hand, which was obviously Jammer Slime.

Seems there's a drawback to that thing after all, thought Dante. Okay, that Trap he set is a potentially powerful one called Jammer Slime, which is like Dark Bribe but with a specific cost – he has to discard a Slime monster. And he'll likely discard his last Draw Slime to do it… This will be tricky…

He drew a fifth card, and his eyebrow lifted up. This was one of his stronger monsters for this deck.

"I'll throw two more cards facedown," he said, as two set cards appeared, "then sacrifice two Jar Turtles…"

He moved two of the Monster Cards off of his Disk – carefully leaving the one being held up by Call of the Haunted. One of the odd Reptiles turned into a watery orb, then a second.

"…to summon the real king of the swamp… Froghemoth!"

There was a roar and a crest of slime in front of him as a huge creature broke surface. It looked like a huge frog – well, vaguely – on two legs, with four long tentacles in place of arms, a very long tongue, and three glaring eyes on stalks. The whole thing was covered with an odd, slimy perspiration. (2,600 ATK)

"What the hell is that?" shouted Sofia.

"Truthfully, you got me," said Dante with a shrug, "but since I Normal Summoned it, I can use its effect to destroy one of my Water monster…"

The Froghemoth flicked out its long tongue, snatching the last Jar Turtle and swallowing it in one gulp. The Trap Card shattered into pieces.

"Uh… Maybe I should have thought about this one harder," he muttered, scratching his head. Then he cleared his throat. "As I was saying, now I can Special Summon a Frog from my Graveyard. I could even bring D.3.S. back if I wanted to, but…"

Dupe Frog appeared next to Froghemoth crossing its arms. (2,000 DEF)

"…sometimes smaller ones are better, especially because with Dupe Frog on the field, you can't attack anyone except him."

"That shouldn't be difficult…" replied Strings.

"Well then…" replied Dante, "by all means, try…"

As Strings made a draw, Sofia could see that Dante was more scared than he was letting on. The fact that his flesh was alternating from solid to really thick liquid from minute to minute was a big part of it. Fortunately, the card that Strings drew this time was Re-Fusion, so the skull's jaw kept shut.

Then Strings discarded his third Draw Slime so that Sorcerer Slime could activate its Spell, but the card that was returned was another Draw Slime. Fortunately, however, the card he drew as a result was a Spell called Fruit of the Dead. It looked creepy, but wasn't a monster.

"Not having all too much luck now, huh?" asked Dante.

"Quiet!" ordered Strings. "Sorcerer Slime, obliterate his Dupe Frog!"

As the slimy magician cast his evil spell, one of Dante's two set cards lifted, and a wall of energy sprang up around the two Frogs.

"I use Froggy Forcefield!" he shouted. "This card protects my Frogs by blasting your attack back at your monsters, both of them!"

"A pity Chimera Slime is impervious to Traps so long as my hand consists of seven or more cards," said Strings.

"An even bigger pity that Sorcerer Slime isn't," replied Dante.

Strings' eyes opened wider – something Dante had doubted was possible – as he realized that was true.

"I activate Jammer Slime!" he shouted, activating his Counter Trap. Again, he discarded the Draw Slime, and a burst of muck shot from the card, hitting Froggy Forcefield and dissolving it. Then he drew… But it was Worm Drake.

"That's certainly no Slime," said Dante, as Chimera Slime fell to a Score of 3,600.

"It barely matters to your Dupe Frog," replied Strings.

Sorcerer Slime's spell hit the small Frog, quickly melting it into a small pool of gel.

"And now your attack lock is gone."

"Actually, my friend," said Dante, as his other Trap lifted, "thanks to my Broken Blocker Trap Card, you've created an even worse lock, because now I can summon two Dupe Frogs!"

Like he said, a pair of the small Frogs wearing mortarboards hopped in front of him. (2,000 DEF)

"Now with two of them, your Chimera can't attack at all. The first protects the second, the second protects the first, and they both protect Froghemoth. And, another effect of Dupe Frog makes me take another Frog from my deck."

He lifted a Level 6 monster from his deck and looked at it.

I'm safe this turn, he thought, and with this guy, I can summon the one I need to mop up this mess.

"Then make your move," said Strings. "Like I said, I'm in no hurry…"

"Yeah, well I'm getting a little antsy," replied Dante as he drew a card. "So the first thing I'll do is Special Summon the little guy one more time…"

Treeborn Frog floated onto the field making a graceful spin. (100 ATK)

"Then I'll sacrifice it, Froghemoth, and one Dupe Frog…" he said.

The huge, small, and tiny Frog disappeared. Then, a weird-looking Frog with lumpy, orange skin, sagging cheeks with a frown, and large, feathered wings appeared. (1,400 ATK)

"You used three monsters to summon that?" asked Strings.

"Don't let his good looks fool you," said Dante. "See, Amphibian Angel – Frog Hael has three effects, and because I used three monsters, I get all of them. First and foremost, I can destroy all Spell and Traps on the field, so your Slime Pit is history!"

The weird Frog's eyes glimmered, and a bolt of lightning crashed towards the bony altar.

"Did you forget about Magical Reflector?" asked Strings.

The robotic spider shattered, nut the Slime Pit still held.

Truthfully, no, replied Dante, but at least it lost its defense. I have a funny feeling that thing might have some cost he doesn't want to pay…

"I also get to summon as many Frogs as I can from my Graveyard, so time to reenact the Second Plague…"

The slime in front of him churned, and two ordinary Des Frogs leapt out along with D.3.S. Frog. (1,900 ATK x2, 3,000 ATK)

"Maybe not as dramatic…" he said. "But… D.3.S. Frog, crush his Sorcerer Slime!"

The huge croak came from the colossal Fusion Monster, hitting the slime wizard and sending globs of grunge splattering all over the walls.

"Ungh…" growled Strings.

(D: 2,800) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 3,800)

"You'll pay for that," said the mime.

"Maybe," replied Dante, as a familiar vortex appeared behind him, "but I still have one more monster to summon… Using my two Des Frogs, I build the Overlay Network!"

"An Xyz Summon!" exclaimed Sofia.

"Yeah, I got this card from Kenshin when I took that trip to Backwater," replied Dante. "She said she felt it 'didn't belong' or something… But anyway… I use my two Level 5 Des Frogs to summon King Wart!"

Two red eyes glowed in the dim room, and an ugly, obese, fiendish looking toad that was half-again the size of Dante and half as wide as it was tall, covered with warts – naturally – with a very big mouth loomed out of the haze. It wore an expensive-looking fur jacket colored royal purple, wore a small, golden crown on its oversized head, and carried a scepter. (2,200 ATK)

"Okay, that guy's… Pretty ugly…" said Sofia.

King Wart looked at her with a big smirk and made a deep, throaty chuckle, as if that was actually a compliment to him.

"It's your move, Strings," said Dante, "and this is gonna be over very soon."

"Indeed it will, because you made an error," replied the Rare Hunter as he made a draw. The card was Polymerization, but he simply put it aside. "Your Dupe Frog protects your Frogs, but not your Xyz, meaning it's easy prey for my Chimera Slime. But first, I'll pay 800 Life Points to use Re-Fusion…"

The Equip Spell appeared, and Sorcerer Slime rose in front of it again. (2,400 ATK)

"And now… Vanquish King Wart, Chimera Slime!"

Chimera Slime let out a gurgling roar…

"That's what I was hoping you'd do," replied Dante. "You see, once per turn, when you attack one of my Water monsters, I can use one of Wart's Overlay Units to reduce your monster's Attack Score by that of another Water monster I have."

"You can't!" shouted Strings.

"Can and will!" replied Dante. "My D.3.S. Frog has a Score of 3,000. Fortunately for you, you take no Battle Damage…"

King Wart opened its huge mouth and swallowed an orb of light. Then, as Chimera Slime spouted its slime stream, it weakened to a drizzle as the monster's Score fell to only 600. King Wart shot a flurry of multicolored bubbles from its maw, and finally, Chimera Slime started to melt…

But as it did, the bony claws on the Slime Pit of Yggar-Athal tightened its grip on Strings as it started to crush him. He said nothing even as the pressure caused cracks to spread across his body, slime oozing from mouth and ears and the fresh wounds. His body deflated, warping like crumpled paper.

"It's killing him!" shouted Sofia. "But… He's already dead…"

The bony altar collapsed, crashing to the floor in a pile of bones. The ex-Rare Hunter slouched over, his mutilated body staggering but remaining upright... barely.

"Yes…" gasped Strings. "And if a living human had used this card, he'd be dead now… Because if either the Slime Pit itself or the monster is destroyed, both are banished, and the user takes damage equal to its base Attack Score…"

(D: 2,800) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 600)

"But this isn't over…"

"I know…" said Dante, turning to D.3.S. Frog. "Because now that the battle has ended, well there's a side effect…"

The huge Fusion Monster shattered.

"Pity," replied Strings. "Because the Battle Phase hasn't…"

Sorcerer Slime pointed its staff, and a burning, flaming bolt crashed into King Wart, tearing it asunder. Luckily for Dante, the horrid, sickening feeling was going away; his skin was even starting to feel completely solid again. Still, that didn't help King Wart all too much.

"Next I use the Fruit of the Dead Spell Card," continued Strings, throwing the card on his Disk. "Your Xyz Monster's base Attack Points now go into my Life Points.

(D: 2,600) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 2,800)

"Then I use Polymerization," he continued. "I'll fuse Acid Slime and Multiple Slime…"

The two Slimes appeared, the congealed into a pool of liquid... Then, a twin of the first Sorcerer Slime appeared next to the other. (2,400 ATK)

"Two of them, great," said Dante.

"It's your move…" he said. "Dupe Frog shouldn't be an issue next turn."

You're telling me! thought Dante. It's been a long duel and I haven't got many monsters left… In fact, In fact, all I've got right here is Tradetoad and Monster Reincarnation…

He drew a third card.

Huh? Hey… Hey, yeah!

"I'm summoning Tradetoad to the field," he said.

He flipped the card on his Disk, and a little toad whose right side was black with a bat-like wing, its left side pink with purple stripes, with a feathered wing. (100 ATK)

"And by using its effect," he continued, "I can, once per turn, sacrifice an Aqua monster to summon a Frog from my Graveyard."

Dupe Frog disappeared, and again, Froghemoth rose with a loud roar. (2,600 ATK)

"You're giving up your lock?" asked Strings.

"Not gonna need it," replied Dante. "I use… Double Spell!"

He played the card, and discarded his copy of Monster Reincarnation. The two Spells appeared in front of him… Then, the Monster Reincarnation card changed color, turning into a copy of Creature Swap.

Strings said nothing. He closed his eyes, then nodded to the Sorcerer Slime on the left. It and Tradetoad disappeared, then reappeared on opposite sides of the field.

"This is what I was waiting for!" exclaimed Dante. "Now that I've got one of these… Things… I'm getting rid of both, by having mine attack yours."

He pointed to the one he had taken. "You heard me!"

The two Sorcerer Slimes pointed to each other, and an explosion destroyed both as slime splattered over the whole room, on both duelists, the other monsters, and even on Sofia. The two Shadowchasers gave Strings a dirty look.

"Good thing Amphibian Angel is here," he said. Attack Tradetoad with Cleansing Stream."

Again, the odd Frog's eyes glimmered, and water surged from its mouth, spritzing the whole room in clean, sweet, fresh water that washed all the four stuff clean. It was a relief after all the filth. Tradetoad simply evaporated.

"And once my Froghemoth is done, we'll finally be on solid ground again… Attack directly with Drenching Cannon."

The Frog mutate let out what was best described as a mighty belch, and water rocketed towards Strings, knocking the Rare Hunter over, knocking him to the floor and on his face…

(D: 2,600) - - - - - - - - - - (S: 0)

Dante felt his stomach. He wasn't sick anymore. Then he checked his arm and felt his face. The clamminess was gone, his blood flowing smoothly, and his skin was back to its normal pink color. It seemed the spell – whatever it was – had been broken. But… Strings was still there.

"Strings, answer me!" shouted Sofia. "Who summoned you here? Who made you guard this place?"

The mime looked at her for a few minutes. Then, with a tired voice, he answered.

"A very, very dangerous man," he replied. "That motto you Shadowchasers live by… He wholeheartedly agrees."

Dante quickly took Jalal's card out of his Extra Deck and looked at the phrase on the back.

"But…" continued Strings. "He also knows that knowledge can be used to make people ignorant. And keep them ignorant.

"There's something that keeps the world at a state of peace, without which there's be chaos, anarchy, and ruin. It's a fragile thing that could be easily destroyed… And some people want to do so…"

Philip said something like that! thought Sofia.

"My advice to you Shadowchaser is to run from here as fast as you can and leave me to my fate," said Strings. "You're better off not knowing."

"You do realize that this alone tells us too much," said Dante. "We're opening that safe if it takes all night, and you can't stop us."

"Indeed I cannot…" said Strings, with a voice even more tired. Then the Revival Jam card appeared in his hand.

"The being who summoned me and ordered me to guard that safe was cruel and sadistic. He said I would be bound here until it was opened, and told me that the digital combination was the same as the Card Number of Revival Jam, a card I was sure to have. But the spell that bound me has prevented me from reaching it all this time."

He threw it to Dante.

"Don't say I didn't warn you…"

Dante caught the card, looked at his foe again, but didn't waste time. As Sofia watched Strings, he lifted the painting up, and sure enough, there was a safe with an eight-digit digital combination lock. He looked at Revival Jam's card, and punched in the number, 31709826.

The door swung open, and the Rare Hunter faded away. Sofia looked through the special binoculars again.

"Not even a flicker," she said.

"And we may have hit gold," said Dante.

He pulled out the contents of the safe, what looked like a laptop computer in a carrying bag. He unzipped it briefly, and sure enough, there was a laptop inside.

The two of them ran up the stairs and out the building, Dante using the communicator on his Disk as they did.

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Night fell, and it did so in England faster.

Jabels tapped the communicator on his console while looking over the laptop that Dante had sent him. Now this was interesting.

"Hey, Martin!" laughed Karl's voice. "Long time no see!"

"Sorry I haven't been able to be more social, Mr. Hudson," replied Jabels. "First off, I wanted to thank you for developing this system…"

"He didn't do it alone, you know!" blurted out SAL's voice.

"Yes, and I'm glad you're back too," said Jabels, with a smirk. "I have the microchip you requested, and I think I speak for Mr. Stormbringer too when I say I look forward to…"

"Hold on, hold on," said Karl. "Don't jump the gun. Not exactly sure yet if I want to stay on full time again, you know. I've gotten a lot of offers, from places like Industrial Light and Magic, Sony Computers, Pixar…"

"Oh…" said Jabels, sadly.

"I'm just joking with you, pal, I could never leave!" laughed Karl. "Seriously, I had to help Nichole deal with a bad problem with some trolls under Carroll Avenue Bridge. And to be honest, that type of troll is easier to deal with than the type that bothers you on the internet."

"Glad you're in a good mood," said Jabels. "Listen, I was wondering if you could meet me tomorrow in Crystal Lake, seeing as you're in the general area. I could deliver the microchip I promised then, and I may need help with something that might require a… computer whiz, so to speak…"

"I'm listening," said Karl.

"Well, here's the thing," continued Jabels. "Dante and Sofia just had to fight a crazy ghost at some condemned restaurant, which I believe may have driven more than one Shadowkind insane. They recovered a laptop computer, and it works… Problem is, I can't open most of the folders yet – they need passwords."

"Well, I know some Technomage divination spells that could reveal them," replied Karl. "So long as they weren't programmed by a stronger one."

"Yes, that was a thought," replied Jabels. "But one file I could open simply by clicking on it. It seems to be a collection of short stories and rough drafts of them written by a Ms. Ghislane Fion. I assume these were either rejected by an editor or never even submitted to one, because searching the internet shows know matches, at least the ones with titles.

"I've read a couple of them… Rather ghastly and macabre. This woman seems to fancy herself a horror writer."

"Wait, wait, Jabels, hold it," said Karl. "Those files you can't open. Are they labeled in any way?"

"Why, yes they are…" replied Jabels. He looked at the screen. "They don't make much sense, but let's see here… Marble Hornets, Happy Appy, Zalgo, Everyman Hybrid…"

"Is the word 'hybrid' there in all caps?" asked Karl.

"Okay, now you're scaring me," replied Jabels.

"No, no, I recognize those," said Karl. "Those are famous collections of Creepypasta stories."

"Creepypasta?" said Jabels, in surprise. "Uh… scary spaghetti?"

"Heh, heh, no Jabels," replied Karl. "Let me put it this way. Ever see The Blair Witch Project at the movies?"

"Yes…" replied Jabels.

"Well, that's a classic example of a 'legitimate' Creepypasta, as in one that was published by an actual studio, but most of it was fanfiction," replied Karl. "It was a genre of internet horror stories that used to be popular. The name was derived from the words 'copy-paste', referring to the tendency of these stories to be copied and pasted on chat rooms, and, well, 'creepy'.

"They were varied, of course, but they all had a few things in common, guidelines which made a story a 'proper' Creepypasta. First, they almost always lacked any disclaimer from the authors saying that they were works of fiction, often causing the lines of fantasy and reality to blend. They would take the forms of alternate reality games, seeing as audience participation was suggested, even encouraged. It made them scarier. Kind of like an internet chain novel, but one where anyone could be an author."

"Keep going, this is interesting," said Jabels, as he took down notes.

"Well, they almost alwayshad a first-person perspective and narrative," continued Karl. "Usually they were told by a doomed victim or the 'final girl'. They tended to have creepy and surreal images, combined with a fear of the unknown. Most Creepypasta stories started with something wholesome and pure, but then degenerated into something horrifying. Like say, oh, start with kindergarten children playing in the backyard…"

"Before the vampire starts stalking them?" asked Jabels.

"Actually, no," replied Karl, "no vampires. These stories broke the mold, and were more, uhm, uh, 'Lovecraftian', that's a good word for it. They usually had supernatural entities involved, but never something simple like vampires or werewolves. It was always an 'it'… Something alien, something beyond human understanding.

"And they rarely had happy endings…"

Jabels thought for a minute.

"So then, if a Technomage cast some sort enchantment spell using dark magic on a computer with a story like this and someone read it, the reader might say, go mad and become violent?"

"I'd say it would be a likely candidate," replied Karl. "Better have that computer tested before you tinker with it some more."

"I will," replied Jabels. He carefully closed the recovered laptop. "In the meantime, I have an address on this woman… She actually put it on a cover letter in the folder I could read, and I found it in a telephone directory. She's an eladrin living in Crystal Lake, with some odd events in her recent history…"

"Such as?" asked Karl.

"It's… odd," replied Jabels. "Up until five years ago, she was a happily married program designer, with two young children… Then she started to become unstable and have fits."

"Alcoholism?" asked Karl.

"No proof of that," replied Jabels. "But her husband divorced her and gained custody of the children… And then she became even more unstable. Started crying and saying things about… Uhm… Let's see here…

"The Slenderman."

"Oh boy…" said Karl.

"What?" asked Jabels.

"Let me put it this way," replied Karl. "Stories about him would be to Creepypastas what Ozzy Osborne is to Heavy Metal.

"This Ghislane woman may well be writing cured stories… Or she may have done so, and made the mistake of reading one herself… I'll meet you in the park tomorrow… Ten AM, local time…"

"I'll be there," said Jabels, and the image turned off.

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SLIME KING (Monster Card)

Aqua/Water/Effect/Level5/1,700ATK/1,2000DEF

Effect: If this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, select 2 Level 4 or lower "Slime" or "Jam" monsters from your Graveyard; add the selected monsters to your hand. You may not Summon or set the selected monsters the turn this effect is activated.

Note: This card is inspired by a card seen in Strings' hand – but not used – in the manga version of the Battle City duel between him and Yami, of which nothing was known except its name, Level, and general appearance.

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ACID SLIME (Monster Card)

Aqua/Water/Effect/Level4/800ATK/1,000DEF

Effect: If this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, your opponent takes 800 points of damage.

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DRAW SLIME (Monster Card)

Aqua/Water/Effect/Level2/300ATK/400DEF

Effect: If this card is sent to the Graveyard, draw 1 card.

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MULTIPLE SLIME (Monster Card)

Aqua/Water/Effect/Level5/1,500ATK/2,000DEF

Effect: If this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, Special Summon 3 "Slime Tokens" (Aqua/Water/Lvl1/500ATK/500DEF) to your side of the field in Attack Position.

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JAMMER SLIME (Trap Card)

Counter Trap

Image: A spherical, purple glob shaped vaguely like a mace-head.

Effect: Activate this card by discarding a "Slime" or "Jam" monster from your hand when your opponent activates a Spell or Trap Card. Negate the activation of your opponent's card and destroy it.

Note: The preceding four cards were first used by Inukai in the Yu-Gi-Oh GX episode "No Pain, No Game".

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AMPHIBIAN ANGEL – FROG HAEL (Monster Card)

Aqua/Water/Effect/Level5/1,400ATK/800DEF

Effect: You can Tribute Summon this card using 1, 2, or 3 "Frog" monsters except "Frog the Jam". This card gains the following cumulative effects depending on the number of Tributes used for its Tribute Summon. 1 or more: This card cannot be target for an attack if you control at least 1 other monster. 2 or more: When this card is Tribute Summoned, destroy all Spell and Trap Cards on the field. 3: When this card is Tribute Summoned, Special Summon as many "Frog" monsters from your Graveyard as possible except for "Frog the Jam".

Note: "Amphibian Angel – Frog-Hael" was first used by Princess Rose in the Yu-Gi-Oh GX episode "Happily Never After". (The effect listed above is the most agreed upon version given how it was used, as the text on the card was never seen.)

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SHOCK REBORN (Trap Card)

Normal Trap

Image: A man behind an orange wave of energy, with a green, four-winged dragon behind him. (The man resembles Yusei Fudo in general outline.)

Effect: Activate when you would take Battle Damage. Reduce the damage you take by half. Then, select a monster in your Graveyard with an ATK equal to or less than the (reduced) damage you took and Special Summon it.

Note: "Shock Reborn" was first used by Yusei in the Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds episode "A New Threat (Part 2)".

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FRUIT OF THE DEAD (Spell Card)

Quickplay Spell

Image: A creepy grim reaper holding a fig-like fruit.

Effect: Activate when a monster you control destroys an opponent's monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard. Increase your Life Points by the base ATK of the destroyed monster.

Note: "Fruit of the Dead" was first used by Sect in the Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds manga.

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CURSED THRALL (Monster Card)

Warrior/Water/Effect/Level4/1,400ATK/500DEF

Effect: Once per turn, you may Tribute up to 2 "Slime" or "Jam" monsters you control; for each Tributed monster, place 1 Thrall counter on a monster you control. A monster gains 400 Attack Points per Thrall Counter. If a monster has six Thrall Counters, it is destroyed during the End Phase, and its controller takes 3,000 points of damage. If a monster 2 two or more Thrall Counters when it is destroyed by your opponent's attack, you may add 1 Spell Card from your Graveyard to your hand. You may not set nor activate it during the same turn.

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SLIME VAT (Monster Card)

Rock/Water/Effect/Level4/800ATK/1,500DEF

Effect: FLIP: Destroy all Continuous Spell Cards and Continuous Trap Cards you control. Draw 1 card for each card destroyed this way, and if this card remains on the field after the activation of this effect, destroy it. Your opponent draws cards equal to half the number you drew via this effect, rounded down.

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VISCOUS SLIME (Trap Card)

Continuous Trap

Image: A Des Kangaroo sparring with a Humanoid Slime which is not fighting back, its fists not making so much as a dent on the Aqua.

Card Description: Select 1 "Slime" or "Jam" monster you control when this card is activated. The selected monster cannot be destroyed by battle. You cannot declare an attack. When the selected monster leaves the field and your hand consists of more than 4 cards, destroy this card.

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FROGHEMOTH (Monster Card)

Aqua/Water/Effect/Level8/2,600ATK/2,000DEF

Effect: When this card is Normal Summoned, you may destroy 1 Water Monster you control to Special Summon a Level 5 or lower "Frog" monster (except for "Frog the Jam") from your hand, deck, or Graveyard.

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KING WART (Monster Card)

Aqua/Water/Xyz/Effect/Rank5/2,200ATK/1,300DEF

2 Level 5 WATER monsters

Effect: Once per turn, when your opponent declares an attack against a WATER monster you control, you can activate this card's effect by detaching one of its Xyz Materials. Select 1 WATER monster you control other than the attack target; the attacking monster loses Attack Points equal to the selected monster's ATK. Your opponent takes no Battle Damage during Damage Calculation, and after resolution of such, destroy the selected monster.

Note: This card was inspired by the villain in Nintendo's Super Mario Bros 2.

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SLIME PIT OF YGGAR-ATHAL (Spell Card)

Continuous Spell

Image: A hideous-looking altar made of a dragon's skeleton, its head above and its claws to the side, its spine forming the back. A moat of green slime surrounds it, and slime drips from the dragon's jaws.

Effect: You can only control 1 "Slime Pit of Yggar-Athal", and when this card is face-up, play with your hand revealed. When activated, select 1 face-up monster you control. If this card or the selected monster leaves the field, banish both cards, and you take damage equal to the selected monster's base ATK. The selected monster gains 300 ATK for every "Slime" and "Jam" monster in your hand, and the following cumulative effects depending on the number of cards in your hand: 3 or more: Selected monster cannot be destroyed by Spell or Trap Cards that target a specific monster. 4 to 6: Selected monster cannot be destroyed by Spell or Trap Cards. 7 or more: Selected monster is not affected by Spell or Trap Cards except for "Slime Pit of Yggar-Athal".

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SORCERER SLIME (Monster Card)

Aqua/Water/Fusion/Effect/Level6/2,400ATK/1,000DEF

1 "Slime" or "Jam" Monster + 1 WATER Monster

Effect: Once per turn, you may discard 1 monster from your hand to add 1 "Slime" or "Jam" monster from your Graveyard to your hand.

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CHIMERA SLIME (Monster Card)

Aqua/Water/Fusion/Effect/Level8/2,400ATK/1,000DEF

Multiple Slime + Revival Jam

Effect: If this card is destroys an opponent's monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard, you may banish 1 "Slime" or "Jam' monster from your Graveyard to inflict damage to your opponent equal to this card's current ATK.

Note: The preceding two cards were created by Lux-Nero.

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Jemorille: It had taken a dangerous fight with an undead spirit, but it seemed a valuable clue might have been uncovered, and Karl was about to reestablish his position as a full-fledged Shadowchaser. Still, they weren't the only ones making progress. More groups were involved than they knew about…

And Sofia? With the receipt still tucked close to her heart, she hoped it would make finding Philip again easier.

But that would come later.

"Every Breath You Take" is next.

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Shadowchaser Files

Sites of Power: The Slime Pits of Yggar-Athal

Humans like to think they're special. They look at their DVRs and computers, and telecommunications networks, technology increasing every day, taking pride in how advanced they are. They don't seem to realize how young a race they are compared to most Shadowkind. Some dwarves alive today who live in Massachusetts remember the days when Benjamin Franklin lived there, while some elves even remember Miles Standish from their youth. There are older Shadowkind still…

Vampires and Incantifers can live practically forever unless they're killed. It's even rumored that some incredibly old dragons compete with each other for their hordes in something called the Great Game, using the Earth itself as a game board and mortals as game pieces, each move shaping the world in some way. People who study ancient races suggest that World War I may have been a powerful move in this Game made by one of these dragons, with World War II a clever counter-move by another one. Why do they do it? Boredom. When creatures of such advanced age that they view humans the same way humans view mayflies, things like this happen…

…and there are older things yet that may be older than Earth… The eldritch abominations fought by the gods eons ago may be locked away or destroyed, but sometimes, small shards of their wicked influence still seep to the surface, scarring the land like a festering wound. Such is the legend of the Slime Pits of Yggar-Athal, a threat that came from a race most look down upon.

Indeed, goblins are normally thought of by most races as little more than pests. Orcs and even hobgoblins and bugbears tend to bully them while dark elves and mind flayers have a habit of enslaving them (at best). To say nothing of what dwarves and elves think of them. Still, humanoid races who know the legend of Yggar-Athal think twice about underestimating them – or any race believed to be weak.

About three-hundred years ago in the Semien Mountains of Ethiopia, the goblin tribe of Yggar-Athal (a name that means, loosely translated, "bloody hand lying on the ground") had fallen on hard times. They had been having some rather serious setbacks (meaning half of them had been slaughtered on botched raids) and the chieftain told their shamans to think of something.

After failing to come up with a thing, the tribe elder remembered something from when he was an apprentice to the previous elder. His mentor – who was one of the few members of the tribe who could read – gave him an old book and told him to travel as far from the tribe as half the supplies he could carry would take him, and bury it, ordering him not to read it.

Now, normally, a goblin does not question the tribal elder, but the young apprentice was curious and asked if it was dangerous. The old shaman sighed, and said, "If you believe that someday you will be brave enough to glance at the dark knowledge within this book, skilled enough to understand it, and wise enough not to misuse it, then take note of where you bury it. If you must know, unearth it then. But please don't. At least not until I'm gone."

The apprentice did what he had told, and that had been decades ago. He hadn't been brave enough to ever unearth that book, but he would do so now.

Reading the tome, he found that it combined alchemical notes with a map of the labyrinthine tunnels under the mountains near the tribe's home, which had always been off limits. Following the map, he wandered into the deepest depths of the earth, where he found three reservoirs of strange liquids; a thin yellow one, a thin purple one, and a thick, black, tarry one.

The notes in the book told of a special formula that could be developed using the green and purple liquids with some common alchemical substances. It also had a formula for one using all three, but it was incomplete. The final part of the formula was missing, as was what it actually did.

So, with some goblins who had crude carpentry skills, he fashioned a primitive piping system to mix the yellow and purple liquids on the surface in large vats, and used his own skills to create… a well, a chemical. That was the best way to describe the foul-smelling green goo they started to make, although the few actual wizards who got near the gunk felt an aura that made them describe it as "like concentrated evil".

In any case, with some makeshift block-and-tackles, the shamans had the goblin warriors dunked in the vats of the stuff for as long as they could stand it. The goo caused mutations in them, roughly half of which caused the goblins to die horrible, agonizing, screaming deaths. The other half became huge, hulking, super-strong brutes. Having a small army of brutes that were as strong as ogres but somewhat smarter was an advantage for a while, and the Yggar-Athal goblins actually gained some respect and profit mercenaries.

Eventually, the mutations started to get better. Fewer goblins died, and the ones who survived became even stronger, some of them acquiring scythe-like claws or well-developed legs that made them capable of powerful sprints and leaps.

The witch doctor had studied the book some more, and decided he had made the best educated guess as to what the missing part of the second formula, the one involving the third reservoir was. He started work on developing it.

What happened next isn't known, because they're newly-made allies didn't hear from them for a week. When a band of merchants finally came to their village, it was a charnel house. It was as if every last member of the Yggar-Athal had melted, their liquefied flesh covering the ground. A larger than average grey ooze was rummaging around the wrecked buildings, but the armed escort was able to destroy it quickly. They found enough valuables among the wreckage to make their journey worthwhile, but didn't find the book the witch doctor had used; all they found was his personal journal, the only reason any secrets about the Yggar-Athal are known.

Still, one grey ooze, even a big one, couldn't have killed them all. And the destroyed village stank, not just from a bad odor, but of horrible vile magic. Thinking the place was cursed, the merchants left as quickly as they could, somewhat richer in wealth, but with curiosity that they doubted they would ever be brave enough to slake.

To this day, the aura lingers, and few go back there. Some explore occasionally to try to find the book and the odd reservoirs of slime, but they never find any trace. More scholars try to deduce just what created those pits.

Some believe that a cult of Jubilex, the Faceless Lord used to make their home here; those scholars are optimists. Pessimists say that this might be a site where Zargon, the abomination that ruled the slime-beings that inhabited Hell before Lucifer took the place over, has a remnant of power.

Even worse, deadly slime and dark magic can sometimes be a sign that it is a place where a minute shard of power from Ghaunadaur, That Which Lurks, might remain. An Elder Evil with power said to rival Tharizdun, it usually sleeps in some hidden demiplane, but legends say that if brought to full awareness, it would bring about the apocalypse by flooding all of creation in its rancid rivers of slime. Fortunately, places where its power still leaks are few and hard to find.

If this was one of them, it is perhaps a good thing that the book was likely destroyed, and that the witch doctor's plan failed. While the specifics of the disaster that befell the Yggar-Athal may never be known, most agree that he was brave enough to read the forbidden knowledge, he was skilled enough to use it, but he was clearly not wise enough not to misuse it. He may even have become drunk with power.

It should be noted the art on the card used by Strings is not what the Slime Pits actually looked like. (The goblins of Yggar-Athal were nowhere near strong enough to slay a dragon, and didn't have the skills in wizardry to build such a thing.) Still, given the card's nasty side effect, which seems to mirror the side effect of the real thing, such artistic license is appropriate.