The Mages floating in the hall cried out as they fell. Darkness descended without warning, and the guests, whose nerves had only just begun to settle, panicked and scrambled for their lives.
Rose used the chaos to break free of her Fiancé. She picked up a fallen oil lamp and ran to the Basement to find Jack.
A dense tide of rats surged through the Basement. A waiter waded painfully through the Rat Tide swarming around his calves and struggled back onto the stairs.
"My friend's locked in the Basement..."
"I can't... I can't do it..."
Rose asked him for help, but the terrified waiter shook his head, dodged past her, and fled upstairs.
Rose was alone in the Basement corridor. She took a deep breath, stepped into the Rat Tide that made her skin crawl, and called Jack's name between hurried breaths.
Jack, shackled to the floor and struggling to free himself, heard her and called back. Rose followed his voice to him.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have suspected you of stealing the Gemstone Necklace."
The lovers embraced. The purest love blossomed amid the filth of the rat tide.
The key to Jack's shackles was somewhere in the rats. Rose had no choice but to push through the Rat Tide, now up to her knees, and feel around among them, gagging as she searched.
They could not understand how this scene had been filmed... Were all those rats real?
Fortunately, Rose found the key and unlocked the shackles. Clinging to each other, she and Jack fought through the waist-deep Rat Tide and escaped into the hall.
The real rat tide had already poured into the hall from outside the Mage Tower. Guests screamed and fled for higher ground. Some Mages clumsily swung their staffs at the charging Ratfolk, only