The Castle Crawlers

Chapter 2

It would have been too cumbersome to bring along everything. Samer had magically shrunk all of the possessions they had entered the keep with, but, for instance, their clothes were yet tailored for human forms and did not fit their newly-proportioned bodies. Samer could still have worn his robe, but it was not conducive to running around on all fours. As a result, nimble tailoring was required of Nestor, and while the crude garments he created from parts of their existing clothes provided nowhere near the protection of their armor, they at least served the purposes of giving them places to secure their weapons and of covering their furry bottoms.

The usefulness of their miniaturized weapons was briefly pondered. Nestor swung his chain lock, took note of how flimsy the tiny weapon felt in his tiny paws, and wondered aloud whether it was still capable of inflicting any damage at all to anything larger than a rabbit. Dion advised him to try it out on the nearest wall, and when the warrior succeeded in putting a small but nevertheless vicious hole in the block he aimed at, it was roundly agreed on that Nestor lead the way ahead of everyone else, like he always had. Thus, the party was off, with much of their usual gusto.

…Though without their usual efficiency. Even as children, Nestor and Dion would have been capable of running the volume of the entire castle within a quarter-hour, and Honesty and Samer had not been much slower. Now, the party tore down the entryway and into the receiving hall with the same level of energy as always, but it was clear to all in their group that four mice did not run nearly as fast as four men could. By the time they had crawled by the many chairs that lined the room and reached the heavy wooden door beyond, it was plain that they had exerted the amount of energy for a distance of fifty human-sized steps that they would typically have done for over a league.

There were unexpected benefits of their new state, though. Most noticeably, it bothered none of them that none of the torches hanging in brackets on the wall were lit, because seeing in the near-darkness had become natural. The shadows were still there, but invisible light illuminated the room with surprising detail. Additionally, nobody was tired: while sleep had been the furthest thing from all of their minds, it would become conspicuous throughout the night that none of them wearied as they otherwise would have, despite having run all day and being underfed. Nestor speculated that this was attributable to the nocturnal nature of mice.

Nevertheless, these were relatively minor comforts to the party as they found themselves utterly stymied by a door they had only weeks ago been able to open with ease.

The limitations of their frames were made apparent at once, and they went beyond being unable to grasp the door's comparatively high handle. Waving his comrades out of the way, Nestor confidently grabbed the bottom corner of the door – his little forelegs reaching underneath the crack for a grip – and yanked, but where once he would have been able to pry the barrier out of its frame singlehandedly, he now only came up with two pawfuls of splinters he had ripped out of the door. The rest of the door remained sturdily in place. With mounting frustration, Nestor yanked and ripped for the better part of thirty seconds, which amounted to nothing more than a small pile of wood debris. Standing barely taller than the length of a middle finger, Nestor simply lacked the leverage to do what had once been easy as a human. Noting the warrior's sour expression, Samer patted him appreciatively on the shoulder.

"It was a good try" he assured him. "Us mice do not have it easy."

"Cook keeps all the good sausage in the smokehouse" Nestor pouted. "I'll never be able to get in there, either, if I want a snack."

"I've spent years and years telling you that meat is devils' food" Honesty interjected. "Now that we're potential vittles for other animals, ourselves, maybe you'll listen."

Betterment of their situation would not arrive without considerable brainstorming. The party roundly understood how pathetic it would appear if they were stumped by a mere door. Dion climbed up half the length of the barrier and peered into the keyhole as he clung to the handle, reporting that the door was not locked but that he had no hope of depressing all of the wards. Nestor suggested a spell, but his enthusiasm was not met when he, upon failing to pop the lock from the ground, suggested they burn it down. Honesty sat and prayed for inspiration, but in lieu of receiving it, the best he could suggest was that they attempt climbing out the windows and reentering through another room's window – a poor recommendation, given that none of them would be able to open any of the windows from the outside. In all, the group spent over a quarter-hour helplessly unable to advance further into the keep.

The humble solution presented itself when, in a moment of clarity brought on by disgruntlement, Dion threw himself onto his belly and wriggled under the doorframe. The sight of this caused no shortage of alarm among Nestor and Samer, who presided under the presupposition that they would not be able to squeeze through any space narrower than their own heads and now saw their friend apparently being eaten by the door.

"Stop! I'm fine!" Dion squeaked as the two of them pulled on his tail. "We can fit!"

Honesty was the only one left on the other side of the door not completely chagrined by this; the cleric offered multiple exultations of thanks to the ceiling before Nestor pushed him under the door to follow where Samer had just disappeared (Honesty ended up also being the only one among the mice to need extra pushing to get through, moving Samer to comment on the devilish nature of communion pastries).

On the other side, the party was met by light. The torches of the ground floor had been lit and nicely illuminated the large common room. It was, however, eerie in its emptiness. The chairs were placed neatly along the table's length and the floor was clean beneath a small layer of dust – as though it had been swept a week ago and not been walked on since, even though the torches looked like they had only been lit an hour ago. The room was still, with no sounds of movement or conversation coming from behind the doors that led to the gallery, the office, the lavatory, the common sleep area, and the bailey that connected the keep's foremost tower to the second one.

"Ah-ha!" said Samer into the stillness, peering around the room with his miniaturized Revealer. "Finally, some good old magic's afoot! Those torches aren't burning naturally!"

Eagerly, he passed the Revealer around for the others to look through. Nestor held it up to his beady right eye and saw the orange flames suddenly turn green through the device's lens. He craned his tiny neck, and saw the invisible, spiraling curls rising up from the base of the flames - as though the fire were a form of liquid continually being stirred with a stick.

"Well, that trims the fat" he commented, handing the Revealer to Dion to peek. "Whoever's done this to the castle has some power over magic."

"Or they borrowed it!" Samer added.

"Whoever it is, fluffy wizard…" the warrior said. "…if magic's afoot, it'll probably be you who'll need to pop the perpetrator upside the jaw."

"Only if husky, long-tailed Honesty prays for my poppers" Samer replied.

"…and bless our fluffy wizard's wizened poppers" Honesty mumbled aloud, at the end of yet another skyward prayer.

The sound of Dion impatiently tapping his rapier against the ground drew the attention of his friends.

"It's Hyle" the rogue declared, his tone and face sternly resolute.

His statement was met with surprised stares from his comrades. Even Honesty directed his gaze downward again, bringing himself back to the present in much the same way he had during the last two days.

"…Our Hyle?" Nestor asked.

"Our druid?" Honesty asked, his nose twitching as he clutched his flail. "Say it isn't so…"

"I never liked that tree wizard" Samer declared, thumping the end of his crook on the ground. "Never could get him into a levitation contest."

"Magic" Dion explained, pointing at the torches. "Locked gate. No sign of a fight. Who did this was already inside, and Hyle is the only magic man in here. Has to be him."

"It's a very good bet…" Nestor admitted.

"Better than a bet!" Samer announced, peering at the torches again through his Revealer. "That fire's not just any green, but viridian – clearly elemental magic! Hyle, you skunkweed!"

"Why would Hyle have done this?" posed Honesty, sadly. "He never seemed very happy, but to do something like this…"

"He'll be a lot unhappier once we find him" Nestor grunted, balling up his paw and punching into his palm. "Wait'll I get hold of him…"

"You'll splinter him like you did that door, won't you?" Samer teased.

"If he hurt the King…"

All eyes turned to Dion, who whipped his sword threatening before his face.

"I'm sure the King's all right-" Samer began to say, but Dion waved his rapier impatiently.

"No no no – no reassurances" he insisted. "More running. We're finding Hyle or the King, right now."

He led the way to the bailey door, and the others could only follow their fiery Prince's lead. Samer was first to follow, then Nestor, who had had to double back and grip Honesty by the shoulders to stay with the group ("If I can eat on the hoof, you can pray on the scurry!").

It seemed unlikely that the first tower of the keep – being designated for the vassals – would hold any answers for them. Exploring had become an unaffordable expense for them because of their reduced mobility. Hence, the plan became to cross through the bailey and into the King's personal tower, but the plan was derailed by the realization that they, again, were not about to get past the door in their way. Dion flattened himself on the ground and tried to look underneath the door, only to see that it scraped the floor and that there was no way even he could manage to squeeze underneath.

"Stairs!" he peeped, hopped up, and led the charge to the stairway.

A bridge on the floor above connected the two towers, and the plan became to cross it, but once again, an entirely minor hindrance proved insurmountable to the group. The individual stairs of the staircase now roughly equaled the height of a first-story window. They might yet have proven manageable – Dion certainly made a valiant effort to climb up the first step – but Nestor saw the trepidation on the faces of Samer and Honesty. The cleric had never exceled rock-climbing of any kind, and the wizard appeared beyond able to levitate himself at the moment. Nestor thought back to Samer's broken ribs from five years ago that even the most earnest magic had been unable to completely heal, and knew he could not force him to go through with it – not when there were other means.

"Hey, who's for running up Madeline the Bleak's legs?" he posed, loud enough for Dion to hear.

Madeline the Bleak was the first monarch of the city-state of Tears and had initiated the building of the castle many generations ago. The tapestry depicting her and her advisors hung in the common room, over the skirt of the stairway's incline, and was one of the castle's oldest heirlooms. Faded but otherwise well-maintained, the stitching depicted Madeline – downcast but resolute – standing in front of the uncompleted castle. Around Madeline stood the various other founders, including Morality. For the most part, they looked a good deal cheerier than their monarch, whose glumness was only matched by that of Timothy, the forefather of Hyle the druid. He was depicted with his pet cat, Henry, draped around his shoulders.

What most viewers saw of the tapestry, however, only amounted to a third of its length. It was so very long that no indoor wall of the castle was tall enough to hold it entirely, and thus, the thing had been spanned down the space between the staircase and the wall, its bottom portion reaching the common area. The space between the walls which it hung down was only as wide as the space between a person's thumb and forefinger, and continued up into the second floor where the staircase ended. It was as convenient of an avenue as the mouse party could have hoped for.

Dion tested the heavy weaving, nodded at his comrades, and led the way upwards, finding perfect holds in the tapestry with his tiny claws.

"Up we go, then" Honesty said, following. "Closer to heaven, and closer to the problem solved, gods willing."

Nestor watched his comrade's wide rear begin to ascend and glanced at Samer, who was already stowing his crook and crystal ball on his back.

"No such thing, chum" the warrior insisted as the wizard made to begin climbing. "We'll need you to give us some light, once we're between the walls. Grab onto me."

"I wouldn't want to be a burden to you" Samer said as he gratefully placed his miniscule forelegs about Nestor's neck and the two of them began following the others. "I remember when I used to carry you when you were a baby, Nestor. You piddled on my crystal, once."

"Sorry" the warrior said, keeping an upward pace with his comrades.

"On second thought, I don't feel so bad about being a burden" Samer added from over his shoulder. "A little faster, if you please."

The climbing was easy, but once they were between the walls, a great dimness engulfed them. Very little light penetrated the space, and it was clear that the brooms used for brushing the tapestry only rose up so far between full cleanings: the dust was exquisitely thick. A finger-snap was heard in the dark and suddenly they had shadowy light, emanating from the floating ember that Samer had conjured.

Even with steady and unhindered climbing, the ascent took over five minutes for the party, who still adjusted to their new bodies. Nestor was counting the number of times he reached upwards for a new grip; he had gotten to 600 reaches when noise from above made both him and Samer look up.

"Whoa, whoa, wha-! Stop!"

It was Dion. The Prince had apparently paused in his ascent, and Honesty – properly absentminded by now – had climbed up beneath him, his head nudging between his friend's legs.

"Oh, I'm sorry" the cleric apologized, awkwardly scaling down a couple of steps. "I should have been more vigilant; I was reciting the Pantheonic Creed to myself."

"Are we stopping?" Samer called upwards. "Good. I could use a break for tea."

"Come here and look" Dion said insistently. "…Go around me, this time."

Honesty and Nestor clambered cautiously to the same elevation as Dion, who was hanging by a single paw and gesturing at the portion of the tapestry before him. Samer's ember illuminated the woven illustration of the castle's first tower: a round, pointed spire encircled by windows. Nestor did not know whether this represented the tower they were in now or the tower they sought to enter.

"Nice needlework" Samer commented, peering over Nestor's shoulder.

"Look!" Dion urged impatiently, tapping on the dark window of the fabric tower.

Instead of a uniform dark color, the weaver had placed a congealment of gray thread in the lower portion of the window.

"Sloppy" Nestor agreed.

Dion tapped the tapestry window again.

"Mouse!" he said.

Samer helpfully brought his ember closer (Nestor had to wave a paw to keep him from burning a hole into the tapestry), and the party members looked intently into the woven threads that Dion had pointed out.

"…He's right" Nestor was first to say. "There is a mouse in the window. I see it."

"How cute of the weavers" Samer commented appreciatively. "No doubt they had good taste."

"It's not cute" Honesty contradicted, thoughtfully. "He's weeping."

Everyone peered at the section some more. In the illustration, a tiny mouse – its shape very obscure unless one looked directly at it – was crouched on the sill of the window. It sat on its hind legs, its body curled over, and held its paws over its eyes. The human figures illustrated below did not acknowledge it, but the mouse representation seemed like it was reacting to the events that played out beneath it.

"Huh" Nestor said, rubbing his furry chin. "Never noticed that before. Even when they took it down for washing."

"I could be humorous and say I thought this was a coincidence" Samer said.

"Only the Pantheon knows for certain" Honesty declared.

The rogue stared at the weeping mouse a little longer, deep in thought as he plucked at his fur until Samer helpfully touched his shoulder to have him stop. As though the action had caused him to completely lose interest in the discovery, he continued to climb and his comrades followed – leaving behind the first clue of a greater mystery than the one they sought to solve.

The mice emerged from the drafty vent at the top of the staircase, in a rafter-supported corridor in front of the mounted swords and shields once carried by the first protectors of Castle Tears. Dion was the first to pull himself onto the ledge and assist his comrades up. Nestor massaged his neck while Samer glanced down at the depth he had just been carried up from.

"Until we are all tall enough to see over a table again, we ought to have someone string up a mouse pail from up here – to carry us up and dispel the need for tapestry-scaling" he suggested.

The mouse-wizard's gaze traveled upwards, beholding the shields, and he uttered an abrupt guffaw that made the others turn and look at him. Chuckling, he pointed at the shields.

"My chums, I see a pattern developing" he giggled. "Say I am not the only one to have never noticed those morose fellows before."

In the center of all the metal shields, imprinted on the emblems none of the adventurers had thought to look at before they were too small not to notice, were obscure carvings of mice. Much like the illustration in the tapestry, these three mice uniformly hid their eyes and appeared to be weeping.

"This is strange enough to steam me" Nestor said, glowering at the shields. "Don't tell me they've always been there."

"We see what we want to see, we neglect what we want to neglect" said Honesty, inconsequentially.

"The King's hearing about this, when we find him" Nestor declared. "Maybe he can guess what this all means."

"If he's been turned into a mouse, too, maybe he's already noticed them, too" Samer said.

All eyes turned to Dion, who returned the gaze and merely shrugged, as if to pragmatically say 'what if so?' He led the way down to the floor, which was made easy by a large, sloping chiffonier standing against the ledge. Honesty was last to land on the ground behind his fellows.

"Whew!" he exclaimed, straightening the sash he wore. "Thank ethereum for such large feet!"

"Shhh!" Dion hissed, waving his hand at the cleric as he looked down the short corridor that ended in a westward turn, his ears upturned.

The mood of the party changed instantly. For an instant, his comrades looked at Dion's back, recognizing the tensed posture and alert body language that was predicting danger. They followed his gaze, hands on their weapons in preparation of the threat that their rogue had perceived.

Second later, they felt footfalls. Close footfalls. Something much larger than them was approaching, about to come out of the door around the corner.

Dion spun around and, with his forelegs outstretched, he urged his friends backwards with the utmost of haste. Together, they disappeared under the chiffonier, where Dion pushed them all the way to the back until they were pressed against the stone at the base of the ledge. Even when they could go no further, the Prince pressed on them as though he hoped they could all sink into the rock to hide.

"No one speaks" he demanded.

The door opened, the stranger entered the corridor, and the door fell closed. The stranger turned the corner and walked into their section of the corridor. Its gait was ungraceful, like a person with no shoes trying to walk fast over an uncomfortable surface. The stranger panted continuously. All of the mice simultaneously became aware of their heightened sense of smell when the scent of the newcomer reached their snouts and chilled them in a deep, instinctual way. Samer tried lean forward to catch a glimpse of the stranger, but Dion forcefully pushed him back and fixed him with a glance of deathly importance. Though Nestor thought that his own ability to judge size by the sound of footfalls was impaired by his rodent state, he guessed that whatever was out there weighed at least ten stone and was approximately the size of a fully-grown man.

The stranger stood in front of the chiffonier, audibly sniffing at something, and the mice saw its feet…or, rather, its hands. Pale human hands were within their line of vision, the tips of the splayed fingers resting inches from the perimeter of their hiding place. A two-legger was walking around on all fours, and none among the mice –their heads filled with thoughts of transformations more terrible than their own – could pinpoint who among their old acquaintances the fingers might belong to, if any of them.

But the face that pressed itself against the narrow opening to suck at the air with wide nostrils was definitely not human. The opening was less than two inches wide, limiting both how much of the creature the mice could see and how close it could get to them with its nose. After a few sniffs, the dark, wet snout that had been pushed towards them went away and was replaced with clawing fingers that scraped the underside of the commode in a futile effort to reach the mice it now clearly knew were there.

In the past, the party had found itself in a similar situation, when they had taken cover in a low cave while being pursued by an angry dragon. Then too the creature's massive claws had scraped the ground and ceiling of their retreat as it tried to reach them. This current experience, however, was the more unnerving for the quartet, for at least they had known what they were dealing with when they dealt with the dragon.

Also, upon removing its claws, the dragon had not attempted to topple their hiding place like this beast now did.

BOOM.

The sound of the chiffonier being lifted an inch before falling back made the entire party quake and struggle for balance.

BOOM.

Again, the chiffonier was raised up, slipped out of the creature's grasp, and fell back down, only for the creature to attempt anew. Nestor remembered seeing the cabinet being brought into the castle decades ago, and with what difficulty four men had carried it up the staircase. Clearly their hiding place was made of a good deal of very heavy wood, but he did not trust it to protect them indefinitely from the considerable strength their determined investigator appeared to possess.

"Dion…" Nestor murmured to the rogue still pinning him back. "If we don't move, I think the four of us will become elevenses."

Unlike the warrior, Samer did not bother asking to be released. Having wanted to meet the beast head-on ever since it had approached, the warlike wizard had no tolerance for standing still as their impromptu hideout was uncovered. Samer felt adrenaline reanimating his tired body as he slipped underneath Dion's foreleg and rushed out towards the open, his tail held as high as his crook and crystal.

"How remarkably like with the dragon, this is" Honesty commented thoughtfully, watching the wizard race towards danger.

His comrades and he initiated pursuit, but they were unable to reach Samer before he had darted out into the open and faced the creature. Seeing how far up he had to raise his gaze confirmed to his comrades that they were dealing with something gigantic.

"Halt! I say, desist!" the wizard squeaked, bouncing off his feet as the chiffonier came down with one final BOOM. "You may not know this, but you would have to look under a lot of rocks to come up with the gold that cabinet you so indelicately handle cost. You stop right now, or I will hold up a mirror and give you the fright of your life."

Samer's friends joined him in dangerous solidarity to face down their investigator, realizing upon sight that the predicament having befallen the castle was more extreme than they had anticipated.

The creature stood on two human hands and two human feet, but the rest of its humanoid features were inauspiciously divided between body parts found on no man. The monster's head, shoulders, back, and hips were bushy with white fur. Its elbows were close to its body, and its legs had one more joint than a human would have. Man-like eyes faced out from beneath a nonexistent forehead and above a wide, elongated mouth. The dog-man's wet nose crinkled as he took in the sight of the mice assembling before him, their tiny weapons drawn, and he stopped trying to lift the chiffonier.

"There's a good pup!" Samer chirped. "Now, don't be tiresome and attac- Ah-ha! He struck first! No limits!"

The creature's right arm had shot forth, hand outstretched towards Samer, who promptly went on the counteroffensive and burst into flame. Fire engulfed the mouse and billowed outwards from his form until the flame specter was three times Samer's size. The dog-man instantly withdrew its hand and backed away towards the stairs, whining indignantly.

Behind the wizard, the party was not surprised at what had happened. It was Samer's tactic to feign preoccupation with a speech so as to move an enemy to an anticipated surprise attack, then counter with a spell he had been nurturing. Fire was Samer's specialty, and it was expected that he could perform a feat like this even in his tired state. Samer's affinity for combat fueled him further; the wizard ran towards a fight like he did towards saffron tea.

The firemouse advanced on the creature, holding his crook and crystal ball high. The flames fuming off of him billowed with every beat of his heart, blazing with heat that made his fellows' garments flap and the creature's fur rustle. Samer's fire-encased paw separate his miniaturized orb from the crook and wound back.

"Fall with the flight of the slumber tree!" he cried, and flung the crystal ball at his enemy.

The ball became a projectile, flying faster than a mouse's body could possibly generate, and cracked against the wall as the dog-man leapt down the stairs to avoid being struck. The orb caused a miniature explosion where it had collided and left a great singed spot in its wake as it flew back to its owner, who caught it garishly and pursued the beast.

"Come back!" he demanded. "I have some black tea with your name on it!"

A spoonful of icy dread splashed into Dion's belly as Samer said this; the rogue had a feeling that the creature would comply all too willingly. Samer was too far away and untouchable to urge, but he promptly grabbed Honesty and Nestor by their fur and pulled them out of the way. At the same time, the monster sprang up and into view, over Samer's head. The wizard raised his crook and loosed a spire of flame towards the ceiling that merely caught the end of the creature's tail. It landed on the chiffonier, and as it pressed its back against the wall above the vent, it used its feet to unbalance the cabinet and tip it towards Samer, who stood tiny in its wake.

The breath of his comrades collectively stopped as the immensely heavy piece of furniture fell onto Samer with a bone-jangling crash that immediately extinguished his shield of fire. Nestor and Dion pelted forward, disregarding the dog-man still perched on the ledge, but Honesty – apparently choosing the worst time to enter a trance – stayed where he was.

Samer was pinned down by the chiffonier up to his shoulders, and his eyes were closed. Sweet relief came upon the warrior and rogue upon seeing that their friend still drew breath. They knew, of course, about the last-chance protection spell that Samer had long ago spent weeks casting on all of them and which had now reflexively rendered his body as hard as a diamond, but for those few seconds of uncertainty, they had feared the possibility that their wizard had fouled up that spell like he had the one with the tea.

"Pull him out" Nestor grunted at Dion, widening his stance and gripping the edge of the toppled cabinet. "And-a-one and-a-two…"

The chiffonier rose up only as high as Nestor's midsection. In his old body, the warrior would have been able to flip the cabinet into the air, but now he lacked the leverage to do more than dead-lift the thing. Dion grabbed at Samer's clothing and began to pull, then stopped with his gaze upturned, looking at the dog-man climbing down onto the chiffonier. The beast's eyes were registering its upper hand; it knew the mice were in a compromised state.

The monster snatched at Dion, who jumped backwards with great agility but with little alternative but to leave Samer lying. Nestor would have liked nothing better than to drop the chiffonier and pelt the hand that now reached for him, but he did not know if Samer could still take it. Had his body already returned to its normal state and would now be crushed Nestor set the cabinet back on him? The warrior did not know, but he knew he could not hold the cabinet with one paw while wielding his shillelagh with the other. Dion was scurrying bto his aid, but the chimera's calloused palm was already closing around him…

Then it stopped. Dion stopped running, too, and both the monster and he looked down the hallway, where some six feet away, a thunderclap had sounded (Nestor praised himself for not dropping the chiffonier in surprise). Honesty faced them with his forelegs outstretched, his flail lying at his feet and electricity sparking in a thick arc between his paws. It sputtered at first, then grew brighter and more stable. A second thunderclap issued, as loud in the corridor as though they were all standing atop the tower roof. The mouse cleric's eyes had rolled upwards and into his head as he channeled immense forces through the power of prayer, chanting too quietly for anyone but his gods to hear.

Spooked by the thunder, the dog-man withdrew back onto the ledge, gnashing dripping fangs at the strange power. Honesty did not cease. In a booming voice that clearly belonged more to a deity than to him, Honesty said "It is not you that I burn, but the malice festering within you."

A bolt of lightning came down from heaven and passed through stone and mortar to reach Honesty's arc, striking the span of electricity and immediately shooting out over the floor. The dog-man had no opportunity to react before the attack struck him in the neck with a colossal crash and slammed him an inch backwards against the wall. He fell with a THUMP onto the chiffonier and slid onto the floor, where he laid smoking and twitching. The hallway filled with the smell of burnt ozone.

Dion clasped a paw over his right ear, which was ringing abominably. He glanced between a wobbly-looking Honesty and a straining Nestor, and decided to attend to the latter, first. Samer's now-limp body was pulled out from under the chiffonier, inspected, declared fine, and lifted into Nestor's forelegs along with his weapons. The wizard-carrying warrior sprinted as fast as he could to catch up with Dion, who ran to a dopey-looking Honesty.

"That was mighty, mate!" Nestor congratulated, all smiles, and the cleric smiled back - at a spot over the warrior's shoulder.

Dion snapped his clawed fingers in front of the holy mouse's snout, and Honesty looked at him unintelligently.

"He's out of it" Dion concluded, peering into his eyes.

"The almighty spirits – they linger within me" Honesty commented, and required support from the rogue to keep from swaying too much. "I have seen the light, and this time, it was spotted with purple."

"He's probably seeing spots" Nestor said with a sigh, reaffirming his grip on Nestor's body; the wizard's limp head rolled onto his shoulder. "No good, Dion ol' chum. We can make do without one of us, but with two of us beyond helping, I don't favor our chances if another one of…of…"

He indicated the dog-man, who had stopped twitching and was breathing shallowly.

"…whatever one calls that. What is that, a werewolf?"

"What?" Dion asked.

Nestor looked 'round and found the rogue holding his ear again.

"Hurt?" he asked.

"Can't hear" Dion said. "Look at me when you talk; I can tell what by your mouth."

"Bilge" Nestor growled, shaking his head and looking away, but upon noting Dion's irritated gaze, he turned back. "I said 'bilge!' These two are out and you can't hear right – and I think I got a splinter."

A close huddle was formed as Dion – still holding on to Honesty – stepped close to Nestor and inspected his paw while Nestor lounged silently on the crooks of the warrior's forelegs. Stillness settled over the group again like a blanket, and as the adrenaline died down in their bloodstream, Nestor and Dion began reclaiming their at-home feeling, in spite of the presence of the unconscious monster lying nearby. This place that looked so different to them now was still their home, no matter what had happened to it or how many creatures prowled around it.

Nestor looked at Samer, snoozing in his arms, and could not help but feel soft-hearted. All animals looked cute when asleep. He sighed, and flexed his paw when Dion finished extracting the splinter.

"Much obliged" he said. "Monster-bashing is fun, but I wish I were in my personal chamber now with my feet up."

"There's probably a monster in it, now" Dion replied.

"That is what makes a home a home" Honesty declared, and was patted on the back.

"We need to find a place to be quiet until these two are up to it again" Nestor said. "And quickly. With your ear, you probably can't spot traps and know when something's coming as good anymore, eh?"

"I can" Dion insisted, affronted.

As though it had been waiting to prove him wrong, the ground began to rhythmically tremble again with growing intensity. Something was approaching, again. Dion and Nestor looked towards the door at the end of the corridor, chillingly certain that whatever was about to come through it was not going to be any friendlier than the dog-man had been.

"Down the stairs!" Nestor and Dion squeaked in unison.

They did not manage to round the corner. Behind the adventurers, the oak door was smashed off its hinges and flew over their heads. It landed with a crash before them, halting their progress and making them turn around to face what had stopped them.

A bull-man hunkered in the doorway, standing on two human feet and looking at them with its great head turned sideways. Its human eyes were grotesquely situation on either side of its skull, beneath a set of horns so long it made the creature stoop to get through the door. A ring too large for its nose rested on its upper lip. It also was alternatively covered in fur, and had only one hand; its other arm ended in a clumsy hoof.

"Oh, bilge" Nestor groaned, and gave Samer a desperate shake that the wizard did not respond to.

The minotaur directed an agitated bellow at them from a malformed mouth that shook the rafters overhead and filled the corridor with steer breath. It almost certainly was not friendly.

"Oh, bilge" Nestor repeated.

Dion and he were both coming to the same conclusion: it was impossible for all of them to make it to the stairs before the monster took five steps and was upon them. There was no furniture left to hide under, and not only had powerful spells been removed from their repertoire, but also mighty prayers – a reality confirmed by Honesty taking a look at the minotaur and attempting to bow to it. Dion pushed the cleric behind himself and drew his sword while Nestor slowly laid down Samer and pulled out his chain lock.

"I'll smash its feet" he said, nudging Dion to look at him. "When it falls, you get its eyes. Good luck."

"Good aim" Dion wished back, aware of how desperate of a plan this was.

The bull-man stepped forward and reared its head back with a blood-curling roar. Dion and Nestor held their stance in front of their incapacitated friends, ready to dart forward as soon as the beast came closer.

But the minotaur stayed where it was and kept its head raised. It made uncomfortable motions with its neck and flailed its arms angrily, straining to get at the mice while pantomiming restraint by invisible bonds. Dion and Nestor glanced at each other in surprise and looked back at the monster's odd struggle as it snorted at the ceiling and made to turn, giving the impression of being restrained still more firmly.

His natural intuition and years of experience had long since made Dion aware that answers to riddles tended to be obvious, and his eyes traveled up the bull-man's body, and upon observing his horns, the situation became clearer. The monster was indeed restrained by what appeared to be two strands of wire looped around both of its horns. Dion followed the span of the wire upwards, into the rafters…

The mice that perched on the wooden beams were, like his party, clothed in makeshift garments. What looked like a dozen of them were grouped around the wires that held the minotaur, holding and directing them as best as they could with their tiny paws. Another half-dozen or so were running across the beams to directly over the heads of Dion and his friends. Dion nudged Nestor and directed the warrior's gaze upwards in time for him to see two additional wire strands being lowered down to them. One end was plain and thin; the other had a wide, wooden seat fastened at the end.

"Your highness! Adventurers!" one of the mice squeaked from above. "Take a seat! Pull yourselves up!"

Understanding the mechanism at once, Nestor straddled the end of the seat, and after Dion had directed the limp Samer and the goofy Honesty to sit between himself and the warrior, Nestor grabbed at the other wire and pulled. The crude pulley system worked and the party rose off the ground and up through the air – higher than the struggling minotaur's reach.

"We are heaven-bound" Honesty declared cozily. "I wish I had time to wash up before meeting Saranrae…"

By the time they reached the rafters, the ground seemed a league away and the bull-man had torn one of his horns free. By the time he had completely freed himself, the last of the rescuers were disappearing into a sizeable hole in the ceiling, having shepherded the adventurers ahead of them.

Despite his new ability to see in the dark, there were simply too many mice for Nestor to make out clearly. He did, however, recognize their voices. It seemed as though every mouse who asked him and his comrades whether they were all right and welcomed them back belonged to a known acquaintance – seemingly confirming the speculation that everyone within the castle had been transformed. Nestor felt a blast of relief; the worst of the worse scenarios had not come to pass, and the adventurers were among friends.

The mice entered into a dusty holding that the warrior believed was over the church wing, and someone lit a regular-sized candle that had melted onto the floor. With decent light, the first thing Nestor noticed was another depiction of a weeping mouse: the stone altar of the church was so tall that it rose from the sanctuary into the ceiling, and at its hidden tip was perched yet another mouse, cast in rock, covering its eyes as it presided unseen over the glory beneath it. Ignoring the mystery for now, Nestor looked around and thought he recognized some of his rescuers. Captain Ko and the yeomice smiled at him and his party with their new rodent faces, Deighna and some of her scullions were helpfully taking their possessions off their paws, and Aline the physician was on-paw to take Samer out of Nestor's arms to examine the unconscious mouse.

"This is so wonderful, to find you all here! I had no idea you lot were holding up this well!" he said to the group, already beginning to relax in such safe company. "How did you know where we were? And that we needed saving?"

Before anyone could answer, Dion spoke up. The adventurers had been hurried along in a single file, and Dion brought up the rear of that section. The Prince looked more anxious now than when they had encountered the monsters, and Nestor thought it might have something to do with the crowd; Dion hated being cramped among many people.

"Where is the King?" he asked, his voice shaking slightly. "I want to see the King!"

The mouse behind Dion had led him with his paws on his shoulders, and the rogue shook them off. When they began to rub his arms instead, Dion spun around, and looked into the face of the only mouse with heterochromic eyes – one blue and one brown.

"Welcome home, Prince Dion" the King greeted, smiling warmly. "I regret not managing a less exciting reception."

Before he had finished speaking, Dion had planted himself against his father's body with a dull whump, and clutched the back of the King's makeshift robe as he hugged him. The King looked thoroughly relieved and contented as he squeezed his heir in front of his subjects, who either modestly looked away or actually sighed at the nice sight. Nestor was among the latter, and he relished this return to normalcy and urged the droopy-eyed Honesty to have a seat.

He was stopped, however, by Ewart the apothecary. Despite having been turned into a mouse, Ewart still retained a smell of mugwort about his person.

"I beg your pardon, sires and sirs, but there is no time to rest" he insisted. "The Oracles… They were the ones who knew when you'd arrive. They wish to see all of you at once."

He gulped dramatically.

"They said…that the fate of the kingdom rests on what happens now."

"Thank you, Ewart" said the King, his voice slightly muffled from pressing his snout against his son's scalp. "But the kingdom can wait a moment longer. A father's love for his child cannot."