She shakes her head again and lapses into a sullen silence.

"What's with the 'Swatter' bit, Guido?" Massha asks.

"It's an old Army nick-name," I sez wavin' her off. My attention is focused on my cousin. "Nunzio, I thought you explained things to the squad back when we was hangin' together at Abdul's."

"You said to explain about Abdul being a Deveel," he sez with a shrug. "I told them that our work with the Boss had involved traveling to other worlds and dealing with strange creatures, and occasionally some of those creatures popped up here in our world. I also said that they could be tricky or nasty or both, and if any showed up, like Frumple, to let us handle them."

"That's it?" I sez. "You didn't tell 'em anything about dimension or dimension travelers?"

"At the time, that seemed more information than was necessary," he sez. "They accepted it."

I am findin' this hard to believe, especially as Nunzio is usually one who loves to go on endlessly about anything at the drop of a straight line.

"Well," I sez. "That was then and this is now. Perhaps you could elaborate a bit for Spyder's benefit, with particular attention to the players currently in the room."

"No problem," he sez, and turns to Spyder. "You see, those worlds I mentioned before are actually called dimensions. There are thousands of them out there, and the beings that live in them do so, for the most part, without any knowledge or awareness of the other dimensions' existence ... except, perhaps, for occasional legends or folk tales. A few, however, are not only aware of other dimensions, but often travel back and forth between them either as part of their work or simply adventuring. These dimension travelers are generally referred to as 'demons' when they're in a dimension other than their own."