After the battle was over there were three rats remaining from the invasion group (one who looked a little rough, being used for a chewtoy by a fairly ferocious infernal feline will do that for you.) They were tied up a good distance from each other, but given the limited space (they wanted to keep them away from windows,) still within earshot of each other.

“Who sent you?” Mibbet asked.

“We aint telling yew nuffink” the apparent self nominated leader of the remaining rats growled, (he had one nibbled ear, the other had enough metal in it to keep a scrap merchant happy for a year or two, especially considering most of it was probably brass, the green patches were a dead giveaway, that or he was cultivating moss back there.)

“You aren’t telling me nothing? Then you must be telling me something.”

“Nope not telling you nuffink, and you can’t make me.”

“I bet you I could, all I need to do is wave a strong magnet past you and I’d get answers, but we aren’t that cruel.”

At that the rat in question grinned smugly. That lasted all of ten seconds, and fell rather quickly when Errol dropped a pack of Laura Laff’s finest itching powder in his lap. (There was also coarsest itching powder, but Errol was willing to swear that it was useless to anybody who has ever sat down on a beach.) The rat fairly quickly started to squirm but held his ground, and didn’t talk.

“Hmmm we need something harsher, anybody have any ideas?” Errol asked once it became clear he was a bit tougher than he first appeared.

“Well I do have a last resort plan but it is way too cruel, so let’s try everything else first.” Mibbet replied

Errol suddenly excused himself and dashed off towards the carriage, returning after a few short minutes clutching a glowing crystal.

“HEY that’s mine” Elvira snapped as her recording crystal of the band “singular way” was slotted into the music player.

“Don’t do it Errol, don’t turn into a monster like that.”

“Like what?” Errol asked looking up with eyes that would be familiar to any brother who has ever shared a room. “It’s just music, I’ve heard this recording so many times I could sing along to it, in fact I think I will, again, and again, and again.”

Nobody in the room could hold back the look of aghast horror at the thought of an act of karaoke on such a horrendous scale. Then to make it worse Errol didn’t hit the random button, but did hit the loop, and he started to sing...........

Several mind numbing, horrifying hours later the rat finally squealed.

“Alright, alright, I’ll talk, I’ll talk, just please make ‘im stop singin’ or kill me so it doesn’t stick in my head. Please show some mercy.”

“Awww,“ Errol pouted. And here I was about to sing the song that gets on everybodies nerves.”

“Well that is how it goes” Elvira added, she would never admit it but she actually enjoyed the singing personally. (Then again she did listen to the original in much the same manner Errol had just used to extract answers, so her music tastes were definitely at least somewhat questionable.)

“So I’m going to ask you again, and I want answers this time, who sent you?”

“The Grey twins.” He replied.

“HA I knew it,” Rattanian crowed, “ I’ve been looking for proof those rat bastards were out there for years and nobody believed me, now I have proof. So where are they?”

“Shut it, do you want to get us all killed?” One of his erstwhile companions hissed at him (he looked like a brick outhouse that chewed up horseshoes and spat out nails, but thus far had held his tongue.) Maybe he was a bit bigger a player than they thought earlier Mibbet thought to herself.

“You do realise you are prisoners, under trial for attempted kidnap of one crown princess, and recklessly endangering another right?”

“Who cares? If you’re going to off us then you may as well do it, as soon as we get out of here we’re dead rats walking anyway. You’re getting nothing more out of us.”

At that Errol broke out the big guns, ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall, and he kept slightly miscounting or getting to two, and then oops, where was I again? Looping back to ninety nine.

But after several hours of that they were no further forward, and all they were doing was making themselves suffer with no answers forthcoming. It was pointless.

Next they tried the friendly approach,but the thing about the friendly approach is it only really works if you use it at the beginning, when one has weaponised a boy band it is usually too late to try to make them think you’re a friend, unless you can convincingly suppress the wince and pretend you genuinely like it yourself there’s just no way they’re buying it. (Oh and even if they did unless at least one is a fan you’re definitely going to be dealing with a hell of a grudge.)

“Well that didn’t work, I do have another plan, but it’s just too cruel.”

“You’ve literally subjected them to Karaoke, sung by Errol, how much worse than that can it possibly be?”

“Well remember how Rats have really sensitive noses?”

“What about it?”

“Well we do have a hamper of laundry back in The Carriage.”

“So what? It’s not like a few unwashed clothes are going to make them crack.”

“Depends what clothes you plan to use really.”

The colour drained from Errol’s face as the realisation dawned on what she was planning.

“No Princess you can’t mean that surely?”

“Exactly that, now go get the hamper.”

“Princess how could you be so cruel? Even I’m cringing here, please Princess reconsider, for the sake of your soul if nothing else.”

“We’ve got no choice, we need to know....... Fetch me Sir Leeroy’s socks, and the kraken tape."