The Castle Crawlers
Chapter 4
Returning to the common area by the route that the mice had designated was less strenuous than climbing the enormous tapestry, but the narrow, sloping path between the walls still made Nestor wish profoundly for the ability to just walk down the stairs. Because of the cramped state of the passageways – with their splintery runs and dust sticking in the air, thick as spiders' webs – only a small procession accompanied them. While Captain Ko and her yeomice were as of good company now as they had always been, they did not fully alleviate the sensation of being in a dungeon within their own home. The mood had been agreeable enough while the adventurers had joined their now-tiny neighbors in a send-off meal, but now, they already felt miles away from all warmth and gaiety.
The warrior almost couldn't blame Samer for trying to lighten the mood. Almost.
"Nestor, listen to this!"
"You better not."
"No, I mean it, listen! What holds the wizard's magic tomes together?"
"I don't want-"
"The spell binding!"
Samer's laughter carried down the passageway, but even if everyone had laughed along with him, the chance of it actually alleviating the gravity of the situation would have been small. The stakes were simply too high for jocularity.
They emerged among the beams above the tabletops of the reception hall, where the enchanted torches still burned in their brackets. For the mice, the 15 feet between ceiling and furniture might as well have been a drop into a canyon, but with magic back at their disposal, descent would be no problem. Best of all, one of the tabletops had become the platform for the royal pet they sought. Already a large cat, Fat-Fat looked like a furry wyrm from this distance.
"You need to stay here" Dion directed Captain Ko and her underlings. "If he gets afraid, we'll need to chase him."
His fellow adventurers agreed with this, and the guards bowed to the order of their prince.
"Good luck" bade the captain.
"I don't think we'll need luck!" Samer said, chummily slapping Honesty on his back. "Now that we have our dear cleric back to full praying capacity, we can count on the favor of the pantheon to- Oh, bugger."
The slap had caused Honesty to become unbalanced and fall headlong into the deep, a mildly exasperated expression on his face as he spun towards the table beneath. Samer leapt after him sheepishly, followed by his fellows. The four of them shot towards a sudden impact until Nestor applied a coordinated heat spell. Air rushed up from around the table, causing Fat-Fat to scramble his gaze around in alarm and completely miss the scene of four clothed, armed mice slowing in their descent until they floated to a billowy stop on the opposite end of the table.
"Nice!" called Ko, her voice emanating from practically another layer of the atmosphere. "We'll let you know if anything's coming down the stairs! Then we'll follow for as long as we can!"
The squeaking from skywards made Fat-Fat look up, his green eyes wide, and by the time his gaze leveled, the group before him had collected itself and Samer had apologized to Honesty. The big white feline started as he realized he was no longer alone, endangering his balance on the table as he drew close to the edge. Then, as he comprehended by inches that he was faced with prey, he stepped forward on thick cotton paws with his scrunched face pressed forth with interest.
"Easy, now" urged Nestor his fellows. "We don't want to scare him. Or hurt him. Does anybody have any ideas how we can keep from doing either and still make him do what we want?"
Honesty strode forward, holding his flail before him and his free paw open wide, causing Fat-Fat to come to a brief pause.
"In the name of Erastil" squeaked the cleric. "Peace be with you, cherished one. I address you by the grace of Old Deadeye. Hear my plea, that we may aid each other in our time of need. Preserve us, cherished one, as we have preserved you. Serve us, cherished one, as we have served you. A moment of your indulgence for the cascades of cream that have been your lifelong tribute."
Fat-Fat huffed in bewilderment, breathing hard through his flat nose. Then he pounced at Honesty, his front paws coming down on the tabletop like a pair of anvils. Honesty fell onto his back and retreated towards his fellows. Samer giggled as he helped pick him up.
"I admire your persistence" he commented. "That didn't work with the dragon, but it might have worked with this one, huh?"
"I should have known that Jordan was a devotee of Bahapsumut" said Honesty, straightening his vestments. "This cat, however, appears to be beyond my pantheon."
"Good! Then it's my turn" sang the wizard, pushing to the front of his comrades and stepping towards the cat. "Kitty! How about some tea?... I jest, you guys."
Samer inserted his crystal ball into the curve of his crook and held the instrument aloft. The ball began glow with pulsing light, changing color from blue to green to yellow to red to purple. The wizard swayed back and forth, rocking on his knees as he began to hum loudly. Fat-Fat followed his movement with suspicious eyes.
"This magic crystal was found at the bottom of the ocean" Samer crooned. "If it were not magic, you could resist its glow. Now, you are beginning to feel calm and content. Your eyes are growing heavy. You are falling under my trance now. Let your eyes close…close…clo- HEY! MINE!"
Fat-Fat had grabbed at Samer's cane. He yanked it out of the black mouse's paws and threw himself onto his side, gnawing at it.
"Nooo!" fretted the wizard, pulling at his ears. "Nestor, do something! I can't stand drool on my things!"
Instead of Nestor, it was Dion who moved forward. Stepping around the agonizing Samer, he walked up to stand beside the preoccupied Fat-Fat, whose attention he gained by impressively clicking his tongue. The feline looked up at him and reached out a paw as large as Dion, but the rogue was standing out of his reach. Dion placed his own paw into his clothing and pulled out a tiny sack, out of which he poured a quantity of granular, moss-like fragments. With a puff, he blew the material over Fat-Fat's outstretched paw. The cat snatched back his limb with an expression of indignation, but was immediately overcome with the new fragrance of his paw. As the puffy cat excitedly sniffed, nuzzled, and rubbed his paw over his face, Dion calmly stepped closer, picked up Samer's crook and ball, and returned them to their owner. His friends observed him with ironically accusatory stares.
"Couldn't have brought that out a minute earlier, could you?" asked Nestor.
"I wanted a show" Dion explained unabashedly, before looking to Samer. "Cats can't see colors like that, I think."
The subsequent taming of Fat-Fat was a relatively easy. Calmed by the mint, the cat became amicable enough to be approached by all of the mice, and between Honesty's and Samer's efforts, he became agreeable to suggestions. It took him a while to make the effort, but eventually, Fat-Fat stood back up with the four mice sitting astride his back, clinging to his fur for balance. Riding a cat was not nearly as easy as riding a horse, or even a dragon, and the entire party was nearly thrown as Fat-Fat leapt from the table. The king's pet was slow for a feline, but he was infinitely faster than the mice. He whisked them away - across the hall and up the stairs – with a speed that had hours ago seemed natural but now felt like flying.
As Captain Ko watched the adventurers and their cream-colored mount disappear out of sight, she exchanged glances with her guardsmice, conveying hope and humiliation at the same time. The inhabitants of this castle had seen much more dignified times than this.
Luckily, the bull-man who had broken the door of the second floor's landing off its hinges was nowhere to be found now. Fat-Fat casually trotted across the horizontal door and over the threshold, into the center which branched off into the private abodes of the king's court. His passengers rode at the ready, their little heads turning in all directions with Samer prepared to fend off enemies with his crystal. They thoroughly hoped it would not come to this, given Fat-Fat's meekness and the certainty that having an attack fired from over his head would cause him to panic, mesmerizing spell or not. Luckily, nothing of the sort occurred, and the quintet was able to move unmolested through the second level to the door that connected the tower to the bridge. The door was not even locked: Nestor was able to turn its handle using the wire that Samer had shrunk for him and the wizard's magic to maneuver it over the grip. As the door opened, the mice collectively slid from the cat's back and took refuge beneath his body, under his abdomen, where his ample fluff would hopefully provide sufficient cover from any creature looking down from above.
The door opened to cool, clear night and the narrow bridge. It was the newest addition to the keep, and unlike the towers, it was constructed of wood. It had a tall railing that could be fitted with shielding in times of siege, and spanned the length of 100 feet from one tower to the next. The torches sitting in the brackets by the doors were not lit, maintaining the delusion for outsiders that the castle was completely quiet. For some reason, dim illumination from below revealed that the torches in the bailey were lit. However, the most pertinent features were the two bird-men positioned like guards halfway along the bridge, clearly aware of an intruder's presence.
The Oracles had predicted that the transformed animals were being manipulated towards the single purpose of controlling the mice. Given this, they were unlikely to show the same aggression towards other animals. It was a reasonable hypothesis, but now that the adventurers were directly tasked with testing it, it seemed very, very risky. Fat-Fat certainly seemed discontent with it: the mice felt his fur stiffen as he beheld the two monsters from afar, and if it were not for the spell he was under, he clearly would have already fled. Honesty and Samer managed to contain his anxiety, communicating that he was as protected from them as he was from the ravens who charged him when he sat in front of the glass window in the king's chambers. They reminded Fat-Fat that by going forward, he would actually be closer to said chambers and the large bed he always slept in. With wary gradualness, the cat began to creep forward, reaching his legs out long while he kept his body so low to the ground that the mice had to grab at his fur and be pulled along the walkway.
The chimeras that eyed them with angled gazes had once been pigeons that fed from the streets and nested in town. They appeared to be in a rapid state of devolution, having already shrunken to the size of children and grown feathers where there had previously been none. As the adventurers moved between the two of them, they glimpsed the grotesque sight of calves reverting into tarsus and the clawed toes on bony feet that seemed at least as capable of inflicting injury as any human appendage. Samer – frontmost along Fat-Fat's body – had only glimpsed their facial features as the door had opened, but he mentally embellished the image of their beaked countenances, with their red eyes slowly shifting 'round to the sides of their heads. The bird-men stood restlessly, their claws tapping the wooden floor as they shifted weight between legs, and the wizard felt the fear of uncertainty when he could not tell whether they were preparing to attack or were simply aching to fly off into the sky.
Fat-Fat did not dare glance up as he slunk between the guards. Fortune seemed to favor the group, for even though the avian eyes followed the cat, they did not attack. Whether this was because the prediction of the Oracles had been true or because the magic controlling the monsters had subsided enough to dampen their inclination to attack was unclear, but either way, it permitted the cat and the mice to reach the opposite end of the bridge without trouble. Samer and Nestor scurried forth, hurriedly opening the door in the same manner that they had the first one, while Honesty and Dion crouched low with their weapons at the ready. Fat-Fat actually dashed inside before they had a chance to get back underneath him, but to their collective surprise, the bird-men did not attack. They were not even looking in their direction anymore. As Nestor finally pushed the door closed, he peeked around the corner and found that the monsters had disappeared.
"Hope they've already grown wings" he declared as the door latched.
Fat-Fat had run off into the center of the tower, and the mice followed his mournful yowls to where he was scratching at the closed door to the king's bedroom. They had intended to ride him to the topmost level of the tower, where they predicted Hyle to be fortified in his quarters, but the cat's tortured complaints and plaintive looks made it impossible for them to deny him his comfort zone.
"Check if there's anything inside, first" Nestor advised as he opened the door with his wire.
There was no slowing Fat-Fat, however, who darted again inside even as the door was still opening. The mice rushed after him, but there had been no reason to worry: the royal domicile was free from monsters. It was a warm room, decorated in green and copper, and in their rodent state, the adventurers found even more appreciation in its calming design than they had before. It was cozy, with a plushy rug, clannish furniture, and light curtains drawn against the night. Fat-Fat leapt onto the bed, where he turned around on the spot and curled up defensively among the blanket and sheets, still unmade from the night that the entire populace had been transformed.
"I forgot how nice this place is" Nestor commented as he and his friends looked around.
The room had an emotional effect on the mice that had nothing to do with its design or its signs of luxurious comfort. It felt like a sanctuary – a momentary refuge from the task facing them and, simultaneously, a reminder of what they were fighting for. One of the castle's few oil paintings hung here, and it depicted the king and Dion seated on their thrones, dressed in white and lavender robes. The artwork was several years old and showed a much younger and paler Dion, but the king looked very much like the friends remembered him, before he had been turned into a mouse.
It occurred to them all at that they were already getting used to regarding each other as mice. Yes, they were fighting for a future wherein they never had to look at each other's tails again, but their presence had already begun to seem natural. Getting around the castle had become more difficult, but they had to admit to themselves that the biggest obstacle was the threat of monsters. If they had a chance to apply their creativity and utilize cooperation in the absence of antagonists, this place would cease to be an obstacle and be their home again. In the king's bedroom, it already felt like it.
Disciplining themselves for such complacency, the warrior and the cleric and the wizard turned away from the painting to find their rogue climbing onto the meridienne couch. Dion took a seat on the cushion and gazed down on his comrades as though from a very high throne.
"Is everything well?" Honesty conscientiously called up to Dion, who shook his head.
"No, it isn't" the inimitable prince replied. "But that's fine. Things will work out, even if they aren't well."
While his comrades took time to ponder this logic, Dion hopped back down to the floor, where he landed on all fours before righting back up onto his hind legs. He stepped among his fellows and urged them on.
"Let's go. The night's getting old, and Hyle hasn't made his unexpected attempt to stop us yet."
They left Fat-Fat lying on the bed with his cautious eyes watching them go, and headed back the way they had come. The floors of the two towers were not identical – one of the last lines of defense against invaders – and the arching stairwell branched off to either side of the bridge entry door. With Samer's magical stamina back to full capacity, climbing the stairs would be no problem at all; they could float all the way to the top by his incantation.
Dion was already anticipating this part of the trip, glad at the prospect of having a few moments to ready himself, as the mice stepped back into the landing area and saw the door to the bridge standing open again – wider than it had been even when they had entered. Dion was not surprised, having been on enough quests to anticipate last-moment resistance as his friends and he neared the final chamber of a dungeon or the center of a labyrinth. He did not even need to draw his friends' attention to the detail as they all took defensive positions, prepared to retreat if necessary.
As was his duty, Dion sensed something coming before he saw it. He, as well as his comrades, was expecting more monsters – potentially the last among Hyle's inhuman guard. He was not expecting an enormous hand to reach through the doorway, filling it entirely with the breadth of its wrist and grabbing at them.
What happened next happened so fast that all of the mice's reactions were made purely in reflex, beyond all thought. Nestor and Honesty leapt backwards, the former swinging his chain lock. Dion dove sideways. Less quick on his feet, Samer sent a spell at the hand that detonated upon its knuckles in a fiery cloud. Instantly, the air in the landing became thin and filled with ash. Scrambling to his footpaws, Dion squinted through the soot and saw Samer's glowing crystal ball rushing past him as its owner was dragged towards the door between the knuckles of the titanic hand. Dion sprang onto the appendage, and by the sound of various metal weapons battering down upon its woody hull, he knew that his comrades had done the same. If the being which this limb belonged to felt pain at this, it did not convey it, as the hand was smoothly pulled out of the smoky tower and into the open air. Suddenly, Dion was clinging to the sylvan surface as the hand's angle shifted upright. He caught a glimpse of the massive body attached to the hand – tawny and silver, and having climbed the side of the tower – before finding his tail and hind legs dangling high over the torch-lit lawn of the bailey.
As the mice squeaked chaotically, the creature flicked its wrist. The action sent all four of the adventurers falling towards the ground. Dion tried to gain control of his momentum and turn backwards to land on his footpaws, but he hit the grassy earth before mastering his motion. Had he still the mass of his human form, the impact would have been fatal. Now, the blow to the back of his head merely caused the world to go dark and quiet for what seemed like a very long time. In truth, he was only unconscious for a few moments.
"Dion? DION. Dion, can you hear me?... Oh no, not now. Nerull, if you stick your nose into this, I will enact such an anathema against you, not even the fiends will acknowledge your existence... Oh, thank the pantheon!"
The rogue opened his eyes, in pain and feeling dangerously vulnerable. He wanted to tell Honesty to back off and stop hovering over him, but for the first few moments, trying to speak made him feel like vomiting. He wanted to back up, even if that meant pushing himself into the ground, but with uncharacteristic urgency, Honesty had taken his paw and was pulling him into a sitting position.
"I'm so sorry, Dion. I abominate doing this, but this isn't the time you would want to be prone."
As Dion regained his bearings and Nestor and Samer fought through the grass to reach him and Honesty, the whole party was observed by the giant that had pulled them out of the tower and flung them asunder. Dion got a better look at it while the others fussed about him, and kept what he saw in perspective. As mice, the biped before them towered like a titan, but Dion judged its size against the tower behind it and knew that the thing was not even 15 feet tall. They had fought monsters in the past that could have picked it up and played with it like a doll.
However, while the party had seen a slew of creatures in their adventures, this thing was unique. For one thing, Dion was not convinced that it was a creature but a machine. Timber membrane covered it in plates like armor, leaving many spaces upon its form uncovered and therein revealing a skeleton of springs and cogwheels. The thing made grinding noises when it moved but also produced a soft clicking sound as though it contained an immense ratchet (if he had not been so preoccupied on the bridge, Dion was certain he would have noticed this). The being was headless, but the rest of its body was apelike. A massive torso was its main feature, with short legs (allowing for easy maneuvering in the cramped bailey) and arms long enough to reach over ten feet in any direction. Currently, the thing sat hunkered, facing the mice with its hands resting flat-palmed on the ground, one of them blackened and scratched from Samer's spell and the mice's early counterassault. It made no move as the mice strategized, though it was clearly observing them.
"Let us count our blessings" Honesty said as he healed Dion's concussion and Samer's scrapes. "It is not often that we come across a reserved gatekeeper."
"Did Hyle build that?" Nestor demanded. "It's not enough that he can make that and turn folk into mice, he also needs to host an ascension? Let's just kill this thing and get to him so I can knock his head."
"I don't take kindly to tail-grabbers, but we shouldn't just up and slay it" said Samer. "Mayhap it's but a poor, possessed beasty like the rest."
"Kill it" Dion weighed in.
"It hasn't killed us" Honesty pointed out. "…Perhaps not for lack of trying, but it's not trying now. If it's simply barring our way…"
"It's standing in the way of everybody not being mice" interrupted Nestor. "I have no idea how long beating up Hyle will take. We are getting past this thing right now, whether we kill it or enchant it or adopt it as a pet."
"I've always wanted a pet that doesn't drool…" Samer mused.
Despite this non sequitur, the group was in agreement about their tactics: they would attempt the nonviolent approach, then they would try to subdue the being, and if that did not work, lethal measures would be employed. Nestor stepped in front of his comrades, chain lock and shillelagh at the ready, and spoke to the thing in as loud of a squeak as he could. Over the course of his short address, he heard his voice getting considerably louder and knew that the wizard was amplifying his tone.
"Attention, animate! We're prepared to forget that you just attacked us, under the condition that that was the last time! Let us go, don't get in our way again, and everything will be fine! Try anything like that again, and you'll be immensely lucky if there are enough parts of you left over to build a longcase clock with! Don't underestimate the ire of a mouse who's fighting for the ability to raid the smokehouse!"
Reaction to the warrior's words was immediate. The mice tensed as a particularly loud CLICK inside of the being was followed a cranking sound and the sight of the creature's thoracic plate – its carapace – folding upwards like the canvas of marketplace stall. A spotted feline face on a humanoid body looked out at them from behind a panel like a miniaturized version of a ship's pilot board.
"First of all, I am not an animate" he said, in a tone pungent with aloofness. "Second, consider these choices instead: either you stay where you are for just a little while longer and nothing happens, or you get uppity and I smash all of you into pâté."
The mice stared. Most of them jumped to the conclusion that they were looking at one of Hyle's soldiers – potentially the last over which the druid's spell still held sway – but as frequently was the case when it came to critical first impressions, Dion came to a more enlightened opinion. He could recognize that particular variety of standoffishness anywhere. Fat-Fat was a spoiled whiner, but even he could not compare with the arrogance and pomposity of the prince's least favorite animal in the castle.
"Richael" he identified.
"Richael!" Samer was first to exclaim, glancing wide-eyed from the rogue to the feline in the robot. "Kitty! Don't you remember us? I mean, we used to look different, but hey – I always give you milk when I'm here!"
"Oh, right – the wizard who can conjure any food from thin air but only ever gave me ice cold, watery whitewash" answered the cat-man with a cold smirk. "You've tried to make a windup man before, haven't you? Master Hyle didn't even need to crack those moldy tomes of yours to build this one."
Samer fell silent at the rebuke, and even from the distance, Richael's bright eyes could be seen crinkling in delight at the sight. The suit of metal and wood that he wore rocked back and forth in apparent glee at causing distress.
"I'm sure you have questions, so listen to me" he said. "What I said was true. I will flatten all of you if you try to get past me, but if you behave yourselves, then we'll only have to endure each other's company for a little while longer. Very shortly, Master Hyle will have completed his business and then he and I will take leave of this place. You'll never have to see us again, and all the little animals will stay as they used to be. There'll be no more monsters, no more fighting, no more being chased…well, unless you fail to control the dogs. But that'll be your matter to deal with as you please, so it's a generous deal, really. A little patience in exchange for a lifetime of autonomy."
Nestor raised his voice again, dislike replacing his fresh shock. Offensive or not, the transformed and newly-loquacious Richael clearly had knowledge of the vilified druid's plan.
"Richael…" he began, wondering whether the cat remembered being shooed by the warrior years ago. "What exactly has Hyle been doing?"
"He's been preparing our departure" replied the cat-man. "And to do that, he just needed to withdraw a magical boon he'd placed over all of you and the castle. He had a feeling that you all would not be in agreement with his methods and try to exact revenge, so he made sure your animals would keep you away. But like I said, very soon, everything will be back to the way it-"
"Is he turning us back?" the warrior interrupted, uninclined to take for granted anything the druid's cat claimed but nevertheless determined in his pursuit of information.
Richael fell silent as he was spoken over, and though his face was impassive, his ears rose into sharp horns.
"As I was saying…" he said after a prolonged pause. "Everything will be back to the way it's supposed to be."
"Is. He. Turning. Us. Back" Nestor demanded, his tiny teeth gritted.
"Back?" repeated Richael, in an innocently confrontational tone. "You mean you didn't always seem as puny as you do now? My mistake. If you only knew how we've held back until now, for your sakes."
Becoming riled, Nestor turned from the armored Richael to his comrades and found silent agreement among them. Time had become too precious for them to be toyed with in this regard. They would not be the ones to initiate a fight, but it was too late not to chance one. They lined up across from Richael and his suit and drew their weapons, to the amusement of the feline.
"You're seriously going to try to get past me?" he chortled.
"There'll be no trying in it" replied Honesty, his dreamy voice a stark contrast to his more focused expression. Hee continued to speak as he and his fellows began marching. "O angry puss, may you heed my prayer. We seek peace in our dealings with you, as well as with your master, but we will more than match any strike leveled against us. Do not bar our way, for in one way or another, you will be budged."
The troupe walked forth in silence, parting the blades of grass before them in a steady step until the form of Richael's monstrosity loomed over there, outlined brightly by the light of the torches blazing on either side of the tower doorway behind him. The cat-man looked down at the mice but they resolutely did not meet his gaze. Their determination translated into a far holdout that this situation may yet be resolved without combat. With some foes, this approach worked, and with others it did not, but the mice had no way of ascertaining what kind of a foe Richael was, yet. He would be powerful within this suit, for certain, and all of the resolve in the world might not be equal to it. Nevertheless, the adventurers held out. They wanted to see Hyle punished, but more than that, they wanted to have their home back the way it was. All of them had lived considerable portions of their lives under siege, thanks to the decades of war faced by the castle, and they were still tired of needing to fight while in their own home. The castle, though it also housed antisocial druids and snooty cats, was their sanctuary, and they hoped so very much that, even in his state of subservience to Hyle, the cat would recognize this.
However, even if he did, Richael did not appear to care about the matter.
CRASH!
The blackened fist of the machine suit came down on the ground exactly where the mice had walked a split-second ago, before the alert Samer rushed all of them backwards in separate directions with a blast of warm air. They landed in the grass several yards away, in time to see Richael shaking his head at them as the plate that had revealed him creaked closed again.
"Budge this" he said, before disappearing completely.
In their state of preparedness, the mice were undaunted. Being transformed and needing to contend with enormous falling chiffoniers was one thing, but an attack by a powerful enemy barring their way was nothing new; everyone among them was an old hand at this. As a group, the mice experienced a rush like adrenaline as Honesty's prayer to the pantheon enhanced their agility. Edging closer, Samer heckled a spell at their enemy that turned the ground upon which the machine stood black with flames that shot up to the robot's waist. Richael uttered a groan of frustration inside of his armor and blundered out of the fire, only to be blasted back into it by Nestor's lock, slung with such velocity from the end of its chain that it might have been shot from a firearm. It struck the suit in the chest – splintering wood like the swing of an axe – and the machine fell onto its back. For a moment, the mechanical beast writhed in the flames, its operator cursing, and when it was finally able to free itself, its wooden plates were sizzling and the air was almost cozy with the smell of burning wood.
"Hyle's equipped you very inadequately for fighting a handful of rodents!" shouted Nestor, whirling his chain. "Give up now or we'll have a bonfire!"
Richael responded by raising the clockwork being's arms, and the panels covering its forearms snapped open. Clearly the counterattack had unnerved Hyle's pet, who was no longer interested in merely protecting the tower. There came a fierce mechanical whining noise and the mice dove for cover as sharp-ridged gears shot out at them, spinning as they flew and lodging themselves firmly in the earth. The adventurers formed a group and Samer enacted a flaming shield strong enough to disintegrate the projectiles. Honesty placed a hand on the wizard's back, bolstering the defensive casting, and they pressed forward as one, Nestor huddling in their wake with his weapons at the ready while the gears kept coming. The moment they entered striking distance, the projectile attack ceased and Richael's slammed his machine's hand into the ground again. Expecting this, Samer dropped his shield, and Honesty and he dashed one way while Nestor dashed the other. Hopping onto the metacarpal of the machine's hand, the warrior swung his shillelagh at the mechanical wrist joint of the hand – crushing it.
Nestor jumped back to avoid a slap from the other hand, and he and his fellows regrouped outside of the giant's reach. Inside of his damaged contraption, Richael was cursing again.
"Damn it! You stupid mice!" came the hollow howl as the mechanical creature inspected the extent of damage to its form.
"How many stupid mice does it take to topple a dumb cat?" teased Samer, twirling his crook. "…C'mon, ask how much. The answer's really witty."
The answer, however, would never be heard, as the next moment, the machine suddenly fell onto its knees. The mice darted backwards, but quickly realized that whatever was happening was of greater worry to Richael than to them. An awful crunching and snapping noise emanated from within the suit, along with a frightened gasp from its occupant.
"What…! What did you do?!" cried Richael. "What's… Rrrrgh! Come on!"
As Richael fought to maintain control of the machine now holding itself over the ground with shaking arms, Dion calmly rejoined his friends from his unnoticed excursion into the suit. Getting behind distracted opponents to strike them was a regular tactic of his, but he had yet to enter inside one of them before, and he looked mildly exhilarated at the experience.
"Magic powers it" he explained to his troupe. "But only the engine. It's still running, but a couple of hosepipes are blocked now. And a valve or two may be crammed."
"Brilliant" declared Samer with a grin. "I say we put in our Dion for a medal. Premier Corker and Stoppler of the Royal House of T-"
An explosion from the machine made all the mice recoil. It had emanated from the being's back, where an open fire was now spreading. However, the speed of the fire was not equal to that of the hissing, whistling noise that grew louder with each moment. Everyone knew at once that the explosion had only been the first one.
"Oh bugger" said Nestor. "We need to- WHOA!"
He and the rest of his group had started forward, but with what must have been the last of its coordinated strength, the machine's undamaged hand lashed out and grabbed at them, missing Nestor by less than an inch. The mice withdrew, and what happened next did so too fast for them to do anything.
"No, no, no!" cried Richael from his inside the contraption. "Hyle! Help!"
Honesty spoke a prayer of salvation as fast as he could, but he could not stumble over the words fast enough as the whistling reached a crescendo and the sabotaged engine exceeded its capacity.
"Hyyyle! Help meeeeee!" Richael managed to mewl before the second explosion ripped outwards into the bailey and Samer had to enact a shield around his friends again.
The roar had been enormous and Richael had fallen silent in the din, but the mice assumed nothing. Too many times in their own experience had the villain risen up from his own ashes immediately following his defeat. They had to be certain. So they rushed into the wreckage, clambering over dislodged pieces of shell and scampering around machine parts, avoiding the fire all the way. The flames had not penetrated the thorax, and it was dark and cramped inside. It was surprisingly voluminous, to the point that all were surprised when they did not find its occupant immediately. It was not until Samer's crystal lit up and gave them a warm orange light to search with that Honesty's voice called out from the vicinity of the machine's abdominal region: "He's here, my friends."
The remaining mice crawled and climbed towards the sound of Honesty's voice and found him standing by the horizontal base of the pedestal that had supported the machine's control panel. He was leaning on his flail and regarding the remains of Richael, which lay under the enormous ratchet that Dion had predicted. As the engine had exploded, this part of it had collapsed onto its operator, who – much to everyone's surprise – no longer maintained his humanoid form. Apparently Richael's bipedal body had been as much of an enchantment as that placed over the other castle animals, and with no life force to bind it in place, the spell had evaporated. A sleek, medium-sized cat lay beneath the debris, its lower half obscured by the machinery that had crushed it. Its eyes were closed and its paws were outstretched as though in sleep. Richael's whiskers were bent and disheveled.
"I can't believe how easy that was" commented Nestor in a hollow tone, regarding their defeated foe.
"Bluster and banter can seem very powerful" Honesty remarked, looking at his feet.
"He was just a cat in a clock" said Dion.
Nestor sobbed loudly, and the other mice promptly looked 'round at him. He had tucked away his shillelagh but his chain lock still dangled from his paw as he raised his paws to his face, placing them over his eyes and assuming the look of crying mouse motifs.
"I… I… I…!" he sobbed, stammering as he wept. "I…d-d-didn't want to-to-to kill the kitty…! He's n-not a monster or anything…he's j-just a k-k-kitty!"
The domino effect was instantaneous, with Samer dissolving into tears at once and Honesty fighting not to follow suit.
"He's so tiny" whimpered the wizard. "I mean, we're tinier, but still…"
"What a woeful night" said the cleric, dabbing his eyes with his collar. "What cruel personalities orchestrated this tragedy? How tragic… How sad that little cats should suffer…"
Dion did not cry, but he did feel agitation at his comrades doing so at a time when they should be hurrying on. He looked upon the body of the beaten Richael and felt frustrated that, even in death, the cat practiced a means of hindering them. He turned away from the pitiable sight and crawled out from the wreckage and clear of the fire, letting Honesty say whatever prayer he thought appropriate. He waited in the grass until his friends followed him, wiping their eyes and trying to compose themselves.
"Sorry, Dion" Samer and Nestor muttered simultaneously, and Honesty made a noise of agreement.
The rogue nodded.
"It's fine. We need to go."
The machine had collapsed in front of the tower's ground entrance, and while the door could not be opened enough to admit a human of any size, Nestor was able to pull it ajar enough with his wire for his party to squeeze inside. It seemed odd that this door should be unlocked while its twin – the door connecting the first tower to the bailey – remained barred, but everyone quietly theorized that it had been left open in case Richael had needed to go to Hyle. Nestor had to bully away the sniffles upon wondering when had been the last time the cat and master had seen each other.
On the ground floor of the tower, the group had anticipated heading upward, but Samer never even commenced the levitation spell when it became clear to all that they had already reached their target. While a wider staircase to their left circled upwards, a more cramped flight to their right led to a narrow door some ten feet down. The door led to a cellar for storing food, but judging by the light shining from underneath the door, it seemed likely that it had become the base of operations for the last portion of Hyle's centuries-old conspiracy.
"Everyone done sorrowing?" asked Dion, and was answered with affirming silence. "Then we're going. He might try to trick and trap us, so watch out."
The prince actually led the way down the stairs – hopping one at a time as his comrades floated down on Samer's magic. They caught up with him at the foot of the stair, where the light brimming out from under the door caused them to cast tiny shadows on the floor. The sense of unitedness that had settled in when they had faced Richael was returning to the group, and each of them gripped their weapons a little more firmly. Nestor stepped forth, but Samer stopped him with a glimmer of excitement in his eyes.
"Perhaps the element of surprise would be of use, here?" he asked. "…Oh, please? I might not get to blow anything else up tonight!"
Time was short. There was no allowance for arguing, and besides, the wizard had a point. Nestor stepped back, but as Samer directed a blast of flame at the door that instantly disintegrated the wood, he and his mates rushed forth anew – into a confrontation that would forever change their lives and the fate of their home.