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Meanwhile Skitterybones, undaunted by virtue of his illiteracy of the menacing message in the labyrinth passage, pauses to pet a kitty.

He is so absorbed in his new friend that he fails to notice the notorious witch Beelzebufa Snark hidden in an alcove nearby!

Beelzebufa Snark’s first instinct is to open a smoldering crack in the earth to swallow the skeletal pirate whole, but watching him pet and caress her cat Fumarole momentarily melts her icy heart. This, plus her displeasure with the management of the Savage Arena for drafting her into their testosterone-fueled farce, sparks a wicked idea in her mind . . .

“Boy!” she cries to the skeleton. “Come here!” As Skitterybones draws near, Beelzebufa Snark looks deeply into his eyes. Satisfied that there is nothing inside his skull but a tarnished £2 coin and a wad of dried chewing gum, she smiles to herself. “How would you like to be the champion of the Savage Arena?” she asks.

Skitterybones shrugs. “Okay.”

Without another word, she passes him her magical flying broom and whispers instructions in his ear . . .

As Skitterybones flies away on the magic broom, Beelzebufa Snark turns to her cat. “Fumarole, call my bookie!” she cries. “I want £1000 on the skeleton!”

Meanwhile, Hans and Ivan get bogged down in a debate with the ghost of famed economist John Maynard Keynes over economic interventionism and the finer points of the aggregate supply and demand model.

Backdrop: A passage from “Selfish Genes and Selfish Memes” by Richard Dawkins, collected in The Mind’s I by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett (page 140).

When Skitterybones rounds the corner on Beelzebufa Snark’s magic broomstick, he flies smack into the same trap that conquered the Dirt Cheap Suicide Squad. Professor Geryon’s Marvelous Engine of Misfortune bathes the chamber in unwholesome radiation which should, at the very least, negatively impact Skittery’s diversified bond fund and/or sperm count. However, the witch’s broom is a creation of pure magic, and as a consequence unusually resistant to the machinations of Science. Within seconds of entering the chamber Skitterybones has already bitch-slapped the first of the man-flies with the bristle end of the broom and turned to engage the second.

The second man-fly proves no more resilient than the first, crumpling under a stout blow to whatever passes for junk on a man-fly. What do fly balls look like anyway? Are they compound like the eyes?

Now Skitterybones is on a roll! While the man-flies are busy groaning over their dented churchbells, Skittery plants a solid blow right in Geryon’s wedding tackle and snatches his potion. The skeletal pirate pauses briefly to rearrange the floor tiles in a more aesthetically pleasing configuration, and then saunters off into the labyrinth having kicked hella ass.

A reader has recently written in with the insinuation that Skitterybones is not a ‘proper’ skeleton; that he is in fact just wearing a skeleton costume. At this point it seems fruitless to remind our readership that this is a work of fiction, and that ALL the actors are wearing costumes. Instead, we asked Skitterybones to take his mask off. The result is frankly horrifying. We are sorry our reader ever asked, and sincerely hope he is too.