A Deal With Mephistopheles was not part of the original draft of From The Lake. It was added after I had decided to make it an instrumental album. I had previously composed parts of this song a few years earlier and felt the aggressiveness fit what I was looking for here. I ended up adding a lot to this piece until it became the longest (other than Finale if you don't count the drone at the end).

Other than in Pinkerton Overture, this is the first time the chord progression from The Fat Man's Theme is heard, with Satan's Theme played on the bass beneath it.

As far as the narrative goes, A Deal With Mephistopheles is a little bit out of place. It mostly deals with what was intended to be backstory - The Fat Man making a deal with Satan to become more powerful and to rule over his very own portion of Hell. He was greedy and could never satiate that greed. He always wanted more of everything. His plan was to use his own plot in Hell as a way to get in and overthrow Satan and become the ruler of Hell himself.

Satan agrees, without telling The Fat Man that he was being offered what was essentially worthless and not part of Hell proper. It was actually the Lake in Pinkerton. This Lake was special due to the fact that it was basically Hell's septic tank, where all the garbage and sludge of Hell flow. In exchange, The Fat Man had to gather souls for Satan, and he had to do this by getting people to drink from the Lake. Doing this allowed him to claim their soul. In this manner, The Fat Man and his "client" were bound by a contract. Their soul would be his upon death, and he could not be the one who kills that person.

It turns out that when you make a deal with the devil, you also lose your name. This is why we only know him as The Fat Man (and Defiance and Catastrophe). The Fat Man was furious, but he knew he had to keep up his end of the deal. He did this for years and years, all the while plotting a way to take over Hell. After decades of gathering souls, he was at his lowest and was beginning to resign himself to the increasingly obvious fact that he could not get out of this deal when suddenly a knock at the door... a young man we know as Catastrophe.

Catastrophe heard what The Fat Man was capable of. Everyone in Pinkerton had. It was all just an urban legend, but Catastrophe was desperate. He asked The Fat Man if he could bring Defiance back to life. The Fat Man knew he could do this, but that would mean giving up a soul. He knew if he were to ever take over Hell he would need all the souls he could get. Worse yet, he knew what would happen if Satan found out he was hoarding souls for himself or returning them. He decided he could just revive Defiance and leave out her soul. Catastrophe drinks from the cup, assured that Defiance will come back to him soon. At that, he tuns and leaves The Fat Man's shack.

So of course, as far as the story is concerned, this track could be placed first. But with an instrumental album story has to be second to musical flow. I placed it here in the tracklist because it didn't seem right to open with it. It also fits narratively well at this point in the story, too, so this is really the best place for it.