Lydia stalked her way through the cavern and caves that made up the rodent kingdom of Rat King Rel, his was one of the stronger rodent kingdoms. There were six kingdoms, three Rat kingdoms, one Weasel kingdom, one Fallen Critter Queendom, and the last kingdom was the Mixed Rodent Kingdom, obviously, they each had ‘special’ names, what they were called officially but all of them were stupid names and she was pretty sure that even the Rulers themselves thought of their kingdoms, queendoms, whatever’s, as Rat Kingdom #1 or The Weasel Kingdom.

She shook those thoughts off and continued on her way sinking her thoughts into what she was going to say to the Rat King. She had heard that the King actually didn’t like his nephew that much. So maybe she could capitalise on that? Lydia continued to think on these things as she navigated through the tunnels.

Lydia had also heard that the Rat King was willing to make deals, so Lydia set to thinking about different exchanges that she could make.

Sadly, she wasn’t able to think of anything that she would actually be willing to carry out, but then again you never know what you're going to do when your life is on the line.

She finally made it to the outside of the palace and looked for the secretary that was usually there.

Nothing, except a pair of rat guards standing by the doorway. She was a bit hesitant to approach them though, they had made a reputation for themselves as the most unpredictable, loyal, and vicious soldiers in the entire kingdom, and she had heard that they even took pride in their reputation, and looked to fulfil it whenever possible.

Unfortunately it looked like there were no alternatives, at least that she could see, and she wasn’t willing to go snooping around the palace in plain sight of the guards, and so sighing Lydia made her way over to the guards, stopped in front of them and started to speak.

“I have come to meet with the King, he should be expecting me, I was the one that killed his nephew.” She just wanted this to be over and so she gave it to them straight, pretty much every rat in this kingdom heard about the latest of gossip.

The guards just stood there silently, not acknowledging her presence, just completely emotionless. It was unnerving, to say the least, Lydia just waited for any type of acknowledgement, any type of anything. She was pretty confused, this wasn’t normal rat behaviour at all, this wasn’t normal rodent behaviour.

Lydia would’ve thought they were statues if she hadn’t heard them breathing.

She waited, and waited, and waited, until a rumpled looking secretary came back, looked at her and said “You the murderer?”

Lydia glared at the other rat, “I killed the king's nephew, yes.”

The other rat wasn’t amused, and said, “The king is ready to see you…. Murderer.”

Lydia sighed, remembering why she was here, really remembering.

Remembering that she might not make out of this one alive.

She swept past the secretary and the guards opened the door for her, and she found another pair of guards on the other side that fell in behind her. No doubt as an ‘escort’ though honestly, they were probably going to be her executors or her jailers.

The Rat King liked public executions, he probably thought they were good for morale.

Lydia continued, but ended up having to be led, the palace was a labyrinth! Twisting hallways, and traps, how paranoid can a king get? The guards seemed to be able to identify where the traps were and they also seemed to be able to navigate the palace, Lydia, on the other hand, couldn’t for the life of her make rhyme or rhythm of the cursed place.

The guards moved on ahead of her, obviously not worried about her somehow escaping, fair enough all things considered.

A couple turns and couple traps later she found herself at the beginning of a huge hallway, which the guards immediately lead her down. Statues of old Rat Kings lined the hallway but that was about the only thing interesting in the entire place, there was no decoration, no colour, even for a rat it was a bit dull.

Finally, she found herself at a pair of huge stone doors that rose high above her, they were huge! They might even be a remnant of the time Before, where rodents and critters weren’t the highest power, a time where they were merely slaves and scavengers.

She shook those thoughts, she had to remain focused and clear-headed for what was about to come. The Guards knocked on the door, there wasn’t any sequence that she could detect, just a simple knock. Surprisingly simple all things considered.

The stone doors slowly, opened, the stone moaning, opening into a huge throne room, at the end of which was a stone throne a simple thing, and sitting on that throne was the most average looking rat she had ever seen. He wasn’t too big or too small, his fangs were normal-sized, his hair was the usual black, his tail was an average length. He just looked average. Except for the small crown that rested upon his head and a sceptre clutched in his other hand.

The crown was a simple affair with a diamond set into the head of it but that was all, it was the sceptre that really gave Lydia the chills, it was a rod of iron and gold, but that in itself wasn’t what gave her the chills. It was the skulls that adorned the top and the bottom of the sceptre, at the bottom was a mouse kings skull from the rodent-critter conflict, and at the top was the previous rat kings skull.

She bowed before the king, and was about to speak when the king held up his sceptre and, leaning forward said,

“what are we going to do with you, little rat?”

She felt shivers go up and down her spine.

The rat king didn’t look happy.