Lv. 426

As Kurumi asks this, two mice walk out of the Mouse Hole. The gray mouse in a bonnet and apron is visibly vexed. She’s carrying something. Luna can easily see that the mouse is carrying a rolling pin.

The other mouse is brown, and he’s wearing an undersized hat and an oversized bow tie. The expression on his face is like that of any husband whose wife is miffed.

"I told ya we needed to save up for a door, but no. You had to get the mailbox, the seven inch TV, and the subscription to Brie weekly."

"But honey! That subscription puts food on the table—specifically Sunday Brie!"

"Don’t but-honey me! I don’t need my but honeyed. I need my butt protected!"

"But huhhh…I mean WHO can protect us from Robotic Spiders?" The brown mouse suddenly notices out heroines, and the broken spider-bots.

A large❗️appears over his head!

"Oooooh, that’d betta be a QuestGiver Exclamation Point, and not one of your ideas!"

Before the brown mouse can respond, The Quaz gives the mouse a thumbs up. "Aaaaaay. I think the exclamation point is a mark of coolness."

Not one to be out-cooled (more than once), a large❗️appears over Quazie’s head as well. Whose QuestGiver Exclamation Point is cooler depends on the coolness of the quest.

Also… Cass has a sneaky suspicion that accepting a quest is a great way to delay the inevitable reunion with Vera.

"Cinderelly?" The brown mouse looks confused.

"She said Cin-der-ell-AH. And more importantly, she said she can help!"

The two mice look at each other with such hope, they don’t even fanfare sounding off from the accepted quest.The brown mouse tips his hat to the princess. "Why thank you. I suppose you mean to send your fairy friend in?"

The mousewife gives him the side-eye. "Please. Everyone who reads The Paper knows fairies have Pixel Dust that can shrink their friends so the lot of ’em can enter mouse holes."

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The Quaz slowly backs away from the conversation. His exclamation point deflates to a limp question mark. Having been out-cooled by talking mice, he thinks it best to ride his motorcycle to Outta Here.

Anyone who happens to be looking out the window sees Quazie’s bike blast off toward space.

And anyone who keeps watching notices that the Quaz lands on the road and looks back to see if anyone was impressed. Then he keeps riding, but on the road and at the posted speed limit.

’Cause reckless driving ain’t cool.

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But getting back to the mice, they’re ecstatic!

"Do come in! It would be our great honor to invite a real live princess into our humble abode!"

"Just gimme a jiffy or two to shoo the spiders off our furniture."

"Isn’t that the whole point of inviting a shrunken princess and her entourage?"

"Right… we better wait for you to do the Pixel Dust thing before we put the kettle on then."

Our heroines feel an odd sensation of nakedness as their clothing billows from their bodies—but only for a fleeting moment! for Luna is simply following proper procedure. Were she to shrink the clothing first, it would tear like giftwrap.

In a matter of seconds, clothing is comfortably snug and the world is a forest of legs. Only Luna and the mice appear to be normal to our human heroines.

Purple lasers criss-cross along the entrance to the Mouse House. Can our tiny, gravity-defying heroines slip by without setting off the obvious trap?

Our Heroines enter the mouse house only to find lasers criss-crossing, zig-zagging, forming a web that never quite connects…

Our heroines manage to get through most of the way, until finally a toe or a wing or a strand of hair barely brushes a thin purple line—

—and the purple lights flicker off. The mouse house door slams shut! And all would be pitch black if not for Luna’s aura and the golden specks that keep our heroines temporarily tiny.

From the candle-flame-like glow, the humble abode appears to have human objects repurposed as mouse furniture. A bare spool for a table with thimble chairs. A matchbox stove. A raisin box to store food (probably raisins). A futon made of folded fabric.

It’s cute and all, but the mouse couple did say something about spiders. All those red eyes suddenly illuminating around you… that must be them!

—from the red eyes, glowing lines form in the air—red near the glowing eyes, golden as they draw closer! They move slow because the adrenaline (or the game’s Cut Scene) is giving you the ability to experience the current second-and-a-half in slow motion. So you have time to realize that these red-gold lines are not lasers. They’re webs!

You have time to 🕹️DODGE or ㊙️BLOCK!

As our heroines fumble through the laser-webs, a couple spiders get some lucky strikes in—their pointy ‘legs’ stabbing at Pira and the Princess! Kurumi is almost struck as well, but Luna’s quick flight distracts her assailant, allowing Thundra to smack it away!As Cass and Pira blast and smash, the Princess literally cuts off the spider-bots’ hindering attack. Those that remain attempt to reposition themselves! A few skitter toward the closet door, but our heroines can see that there’s a huge hole in the back of the closet that leads to Who-Knows-Where.

Another pair of bots run on the ceiling toward the bathroom while the rest head for a dark hallway..!The spiders are bigger than you, to stop them, you’ll need to act as a team!