Where Has Sloth Gone?

(For those who are unacquainted with Sloth and his last appearance in Neopia, there are several Neopedia articles on the subject; see ‘space faerie’ and ‘Dr. Frank Sloth’ as well as bits of the plot in older issues of the news – try dates from Year 2. But basically Sloth enslaved the Grundos of Neopia and mutated them into those giant green monsters. He was planning to fire the ray gun he used to mutate the Grundos at Neopia, turning every pet into a mutant! He even held the space faerie prisoner, but she was able to gain strength from people adopting enslaved Grundos. She then fired Sloth’s own ray gun at his ship and destroyed it and Sloth hasn’t been seen since.)

Which brings me to what I believe Sloth is doing this very moment: planning for what he wants to do most, enslave Neopia and cause misery for all neopets. There have been several suspicious happenings that have his evil stench around them and possibly hint at an invasion in the future. Well, I am certainly not brave enough to try and find Sloth’s lair and ask him myself, so I can only guess what he is currently doing through clues and common sense.

Clue 1.

The Kreludan Mining Corp (if you squint real hard, that building looks kinda like his Sloth’s head). What better place to raise neopoints for an invasion than digging valuable minerals out of the Kreludor soil? Invasions don’t pay for themselves, you know. Not only that, but Kreludor is home to a colony of orange Grundos, Sloth’s favorite kind of slave. He can enslave the Grundos of Kreludor and make neopoints at the same time (he’s not called an evil genius for nothing)!

Clue 2

The newly-released game: The RETURN of Dr. Sloth. How obvious can you get? It says ‘return’ right in the game title. Foreshadowing? Anyway, I think TNT is dropping a few hints here, possibly trying to warn us ignorant Neopians of the looming Sloth threat (they can’t come right out and say it, since he has them all under watch O_o). Plus it reinforces my Kreludor theory, since the landscape of the game of the game looks an awful lot like the surface of Kreludor.

Clue 3

The TCG deck, also called Return of Dr. Sloth. Yes, some may say this is based off of the last Sloth plot, but I think TNT is trying yet again to warn us. Some of the characters in the deck certainly weren’t in the last plot.

Clue 4

The lever of DOOM. Who else would bother putting a diabolical hand in the space station (which was built by Sloth anyway) that steals people’s neopoints? Again, I think it’s another device, meant to get neopoints for Sloth’s invasion. Not to mention it makes thousands of users very frustrated every day, something I’m sure Sloth delights in causing.

Clue 5

I don’t know if the link exists anymore, but older Neopians surely remember NPv2 (neopet version 2), a mysterious computer program that was meant to entertain neopets, but ended up trapping four children in an elevator and forcing them to play dangerous games. Luckily the children were saved, but the last animation of the plot showed a dark mysterious form saying “so you managed to escape my NPv2, but next time you won’t be so lucky!” It was quite obvious that that scary figure was Sloth, which makes me believe that even now he has been plotting to terrorize the poor pets of the space station (his latest attempt obviously being the Lever of DOOM).

Clue 6

The Freaky Factory. Just check the Neopedia article and you’ll immediately see what I mean. It’s run by Sloth, and those adorable plushies created by the factory are obviously more than they seem. My advice, watch those Kreludan-made toys veeeeeerrry carefully, you never know when they might turn on you.

Clue 7

A certain random event I’m sure we’re all familiar with: “Something has happened! Sloth orders his men to take xxxx NP from you to support his invasion tax.” It pretty much speaks for itself. Sloth is out there steali- uhh kindly collecting neopoints to fund his invasion. I'd be worried if I were you.

Clue 8

The Happiness Faerie. This faerie appeared in the Gallery of Heroes for a couple months and had cardboard wings and wore a mask. While it was never proven, she did bear an uncanny resemblance to Sloth, and she wasn’t much of a faerie really (I mean cardboard wings- honestly!), I can’t really offer an explanation to why Sloth would want to dress up as a faerie dedicated to happiness. Maybe he was hoping to gain Fyora’s trust (which probably failed since the Happiness Faerie disappeared from the Gallery of Heroes after a couple of months). Or maybe he wanted to get information from other heroes, and then abandoned the act once he got what he wanted.

Clue 9

Caption Contest 665. It shows Sloth and some of his followers, looking at a map of Neopia and looking very happy about something. While people came up with cute and funny ideas about what they were saying (it is the Caption Contest after all), we can’t ignore the facts: when Sloth is happy, Neopians tend to not be so happy. This picture seems to be a rather ominous look at what I already believe to be true; Sloth is planning an invasion.

So those are all of the obvious happenings out there that hint at a Sloth invasion in the future. Of course there may be some strange coincidences out there that are going unnoticed; Sloth haters disappearing, frightened looking Grundos running through the streets on “errands” for their “owner” and many more instances. Hopefully this article has informed you about the very real Sloth threat looming over Neopia, and will help you be prepared for the invasion that will undoubtedly happen someday.