Everyone in the throne room were frozen in place as they were watching the giant rat baby happily playing with its dangerous weapon of destruction. Me and Squeakly were the first to move and we tried to bail out of there as quickly as possible. But before we reached the doors out of the room, the guards intercepted our path and began threatening us with weapons: “What have you done to the most holy! Fix this or you shall be executed on the spot.” Squeakly, who was unaware of my deal with The Gardener and of the fact that this certainly couldn’t be reversed, tried to defuse the situation. “Give us some time, maybe we can figure out how to fix this. Just give us a moment.” Then he took me back a little and we started whispering: “This wasn’t what was supposed to happen, do you have any ideas, because I am spent.” He still seemed somewhat hopeful that perhaps I have some mystical answer that will make this all good again, but I had only disappointment in store for him. “Sorry, there is nothing we can do about this, don’t ask me how I know, I just do. Now, we need to create some sort of distraction to get out of this mess.” I looked around the room and my gaze fell upon the enormous baby which was now trying fit the head of the flail in its mouth. “And I have an idea as to how.” Squeakly saw my glance at the former monarch of this city, and he began shaking his head profusely. “No, no, you can’t be serious. This is a horrible plan, this is…” “Do you have a better idea.” “Well not in particular.” “Then shut up and listen, once I make a scene, you will put all the blame on me. Call me a witch, a traitor, a trickster, whatever works. I just…I should be the only one suffering for these consequences, you did nothing wrong, well except for kidnapping me, but we shall set that aside, and you should not be punished for doing your work. And take this, I know it’s not riches beyond imagination, but I stole it from one of the gangsters back in the casino and it’s still quite a handful.” And I gave him the thick pouch filled with gold coins I had stolen earlier. “I can’t accept this. You should be covered in riches and everything. I will not put all the blame on you, you helped me even though you didn’t have to and I am a cause of all of these problems you had to face. I will not let you take all the blame.” Stupid rat, he couldn’t have chosen a worse time for such a show of gratitude and kindness. Time was of the essence and I was destined to suffer great pain anyway, and he was only making it worse for me now. “Look, we shall focus on the distraction first, then we shall see how this turns out.” And without waiting for a reply I began walking towards the baby rat. It was wildly swinging the flail in circles around itself in obvious glee. Once I was close enough, but still in relatively safe space, I started yelling throughout the throne room with the most mocking and sinister voice I could manage. “Oh you stupid rats, I played you all like a fiddle. This doctor of yours cared so much about his Ratxellence that he went to me for aid. But little did he know that I had a score to settle with your whole filthy lot. And now I have managed to poison your Ratxellence, and there is nothing you can do about it!”