If a rat is faced with a choice between a certain death and almost certain death, he will almost always choose the latter. Thus, the four young ratlings unanimously decided to take their chances with the dungeon.
The government went into damage control and even managed to turn the narrative in a beneficial way creatively. According to the official version, a crafty spy from Dzelk managed to enter the Lord Chancellor's office. Just as this spy was about to open the secret safe and steal top-secret defence documents, he was discovered by a brave young noble rat and his three visiting friends, who were taking a tour of the palace, going in the direction of a nearby cafeteria, attracted by all the delicious food smells coming from it. They managed to catch the perpetrator, one of the guests, getting wounded in the process. The Dzelk agent was thoroughly interrogated, tried and executed shortly after. As a reward for their fearless actions to defend the country's safety, the ratkins were now allowed to gather a party of ratfolk as brave as them and venture deep into a dungeon underneath the royal palace.
This solution benefited everyone the best: the government got to sweep a vast political scandal under the rug whilst giving a solid reason to attack treacherous Dzelk.
Young ratkins got to spend their precious last days with their families instead of being locked up in a cell, while the prison got to save a little money by their absence.
All the ratkin's families got to keep their faces (which mattered most for the House Veluzi, which was hanging on a thread anyways, so the Lord Chancellor was content to have them this small win in their defeat), as well as getting a small sum of money (as a reward for their offsprings' heroism and totally not for them to keep their mouths shut), which mattered most in case of Marik's and Josephine's relatives - for them it was a pretty substantial sum, not for Veluzi though.
Well, Sv?rd got a large sum of money to himself and having no family to spend with, he tried drinking himself to death in a nice tavern, but was secretly planning on donating most of what's left before they'd venture into the dungeon, to the orphanage he grew up in.
Last but not least, it allowed the government to keep the "loophole law" obscure.
—
Needless to say, those last several days of their "free" lives flew by in the blink of an eye. The day had finally come.
The extended party, now consisting of the four friends and nine criminals (carefully selected by the house Veruzi, though, so there shouldn't be anyone too despicable or dangerous), finally gathered. Everyone was wearing simple but decent gear, their group looking more like a petty noble lord's militia than a randomly mashed-together band of criminals.
To the relief of Sozos, cold shoulder treatment almost stopped once the new party members were included. There was little time for introductions as they were paraded through the city's streets to the royal palace with rats gathered around to take a look at the procession, celebrating them as heroes, waving flags, throwing confetti, clapping and cheering.
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Regular citizens were not allowed on the royal palace premises that day, so once they went inside, it felt eerily silent after almost an hour of constant crowd noises. Now, they were accompanied by several government officials, including Lord Chancellor himself, and a handful of palace guards, who were to make sure the "heroes" didn't have a last-second change of heart and try running away.
They went through the central part and took the stairwell into the lowest storage room. In the deepest part of the room, a section of wall was missing, indicating that a secret passage had been opened, waiting for them. The opening led to a rat-made cavern filled with damp air. The sides of the cavern were rough and unpolished, with an odd trace of pickaxe left here and there. It was lit by magical torches, clearly installed earlier today. It wasn't wide, but two average rats could stand side by side and still walk comfortably. The cavern was slightly bending to the left, so if one were about to look back about twenty seconds after they all went in, the entrance would already be obstructed by the walls.
After about two minutes of walking, the cavern sharply turned to the right, revealing a completely different picture. They entered a large room, which had the shape of a halved hemisphere with a radius of about 30 feet: the floor and the far wall were straight, while the rest was curved. A calm ambient yellow light came from the curved part of the room. The flat wall had a single door in the middle, covered in symbols in an unknown language and to the left of the door hanged four plaques: three aged plaques with writing in an older version of ratfolk's script and a new one now hanging closest to the door. They all had a date on top, with a list of precisely thirteen names beneath it.
To the right of the door stood thirteen backpacks with little iron nameplates attached to them.
When all the guards and the Lord Chancellor entered the room, he took a little break to catch his breath and announced: "There's a backpack for every one of you. It contains provisions, a set of spare clothes, a bedroll, some torches, waterskin, a rope, and everything we assume you might need, provided we don't know what's inside."
"Hey, many of the rats here are named after the Gods," said Josephine, who decided to study the plaques.
"Bet you 10 gold; one of those has thirteen names or rats that are about to die soon," replied Sv?rd sourly, bringing several unpleasant gazes from the rest of the party.
"Ahem," the Lord Chancellor politely coughed to get everyone's attention back to him.
"Please, don't spoil your final moments as the heroes of the realm. Grab your backpacks and go in as soon as I open the door," he said, moving to the middle of the wall.
He took a weird black cube out of his pocket, touched the door with it, and then went back to stand behind a row of guards.
The old rat could've said something mean to them, could be an ass, and even ordered the guards to kill them all here and now, but he knew how to handle victory with dignity, so he didn't. He wasn't the bad guy, after all, just a politician.
After several seconds, the door suddenly split in two, each side retracting into the wall. Behind the door, a shimmering blue veil prevented one's eyes from distinguishing what was behind.
The thirteen were reluctant to step inside and just stood there, mesmerised by the shifting patterns of the veil.
"If you please…" the Lord Chancellor prompted again, politely.
One of the newcomers sighed loudly, took his backpack, and stepped in, completely disappearing inside. This gave the remaining courage to do the same, and soon, the doors shut behind the last party member.
