Lydia looked at the mangled stump of what was once a tail doubtfully. She also grimaced at the pain that radiated from her teeth and she also looked disgustedly at the dyed fur that now adorned her skin.

She then began to shudder at the memories that all of these brought. The Rat King had pronounced the sentence and then she had felt a sharp pain in her tail.

The guards had chopped it almost right off, and yelping she had turned around and tried to run.

The guards were there first. They knocked her out, and started to mutilate her teeth, a bit more of her tail, and they dyed her fur.

When she woke up and seen all of these changes, Lydia almost screamed, the pain was too much for her to properly express the depths of her horror. Afterwards she was kept in the castle for a week just eating. She was told that she needed to look ‘plumper’ after all she was supposed to go in there as a mouse.

If she saw one more piece of ‘mystery meat’ she was going to puke.

They said that she was lucky that she was a girl, it gave her a more mousy sounding voice. She remembered the Rat Kings nephew.

He had sounded mousy, or at least she thought so. She had after all only ever seen one mouse, and that was at a distance. The mouse was an envoy from the corrupt critter kingdom. The smallest kingdom. If they had been any bigger then the Evertree would have fallen long ago. In fact, she was sure that they already had spies in the Everguard. At least she thought so. They did after all have the easiest time infiltrating the Evertree. Sadly, most of their people were angry farmers instead of trained soldiers.

They were also the least militant. They hadn’t been absorbed by the other kingdoms yet because of how good their fortifications were. After all, they had come from the Evertree, and every rodent knew (but wouldn’t admit) that critters had much better knowledge of architecture then they did.

She shook these thoughts off and focused on the present. Apparently, they were going to sneak her through some ‘secret’ passageway that would lead into the Evertree almost right next to Everguard Castle.

When she had voiced her concerns about coming out so close to the Everguard Headquarters the King had just laughed her off, saying that “You are an experiment, it doesn’t matter if you live or die. If you live? Great! We get information! If you die? It’s a criminal that has just been killed. A win-win situation.!”

With those words, he had sent her off… With the special forces.

It was the final humiliation.

Anyway, here she was now standing at the bottom of the Evertree and preparing to enter it. Enter into a place where no rodent was welcome.

They had entered under the cover of darkness, going through a tiny hole that she almost got stuck in and then having to try to sneak out of that same hole.

In the dark.

One at a time.

Without getting seen.

They managed it but there were a couple of pretty close calls. None of the Everguard of course, just normal critters, still each time a critter passed it always made them jump.

They all got out, scouted the area, told her to come back to the hole at least once a month to report. Then they all went there own ways, scouting out just a little bit more of the Evertree.

They left Lydia on her own of course. She sighed and looked at the huge castle that rose up in front of her, imposing, and evil-looking in the darkness of night.

She shouldered the pack that her ‘helpers’ had left with her and went off on her own to find a place to camp. Preferably a secluded place.

She found a cave and slept there. Shivering, she was used to caverns but they were manageable. Sleeping in a cave? With the wind blowing in constantly? She barely got any sleep and only drifted off when the sun was just starting to rise.

She woke with a start, where was she? This wasn’t her bed!

Then Lydia remembered. She peaked out and breathed in deeply. The air was fresher by the Evertree. Much fresher then it was in the caverns.

Lydia shouldered her knapsack and walked toward the castle, she briefly thought about running away but knew that she was being watched.

Besides, where would she go? No going back to the caverns only thing that would spell was death, painful death. No running away to live with the critters, she had no idea how their society worked and would end up being found out, she shuddered just thinking about it. Critters showed no mercy. The stories that were told in the caverns always highlighted that fact.

At least with the Everguard, she knew the basics. After all, she was schooled a little bit in the ways of the critters.

Lydia approached the castle with trepidation, going slowly, studying it.

She didn’t like what she saw.

She continued walking just in time to catch an altercation between what looked like a noble and a… Big rat thing? Lydia didn’t know any of the critters beyond mice and… That was it.

Lydia stopped and watched, and decided that she would need to get on that nobles good side. She would also have to try to befriend the other critter but in a more subtle way. The noble was the priority.

She was just about to go and interfere when she saw a guard detach himself from the wall, she stopped and watched. It would be good to get a feel for what the Everguard could do.

The guard promptly took out three large critters and the other critter. Then go on and take out the noble. All within the space of a couple of minutes.

Then the guard looked up at her and grinned.

Crap.