It was night, dusk had past and now the starry skies and torches were the only light that Lucas could use to see. Nivens hopped in front guiding Lucas to the stables.

"He is here? Quite odd to keep a monster of that size…" Lucas looked at the stables.

"No, No, those are the horse stables. His lair is just beyond." Nivens corrected.

Lucas nodded following silently. He was scared to death, but he knew he had to do this. For Alice, for Tarrant. For everyone, apparently.

They stand in front of an old dilapidated shack, where big huffs of breath shook the frame.

"The Sword's hidden inside." Nivens says as Lucas quietly moves in front of the small shack. A gust of hot breath washed over them, so strong that the stench gave Lucas flashbacks of when he was almost eaten by it. They both react to the stench, recoiling away.

"I know that smell. He opens the door of peeks inside the stable. The Bandersnatch lays in his shack with his huge ugly head on its paws. He moans, jagged teeth showing as he did so. The socket with the missing eye oozes blood, as the beast's face contorts in pain. Lucas gasps and closes the door. Nivens ducks to avoid another hit.

"I-I can't. I-I'm not going in there! Look what that thing did to my arm!" Lucas shows him the wound, untying the constricting band around it. It's larger, very swollen, the gash is deeper and seemingly infected.

Nivens gasped, looking at the wound. "Dear oh dear! Why haven't you mentioned this?"

"It wasn't nearly this bad before." Lucas said, hissing at the touch.

Nivens twitches, breathing fast, flapping his paws and faints. Lucas looks back at the door, considering what should he do.

Alice ran with the Tweedles, asking toadstools, pigs, chandelier bats, and spider monkeys for information concerning where the queen hid her treasures. Many shook with fear, others eagerly shook of their head, implying they knew, but were not willing to disclose whether from fear or some self-preservation notion. Through a vigorous search, three arguments from Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and a swordfight with Mally, they seemed to aggregate enough information to find this Vorpal Sword.

Alice soon found out why no one had ever seen where her treasures lied. Apparently there was a passage into a secret room, close to the queen and near impenetrable. It was in her quarters, and within her quarters where a secret passage surface, and there was her treasures.

Alice and the Tweedles tried to devise a plan, a plan for Alice to secretly get in and out with a shiny gleaming sword. As to how, no one knew. Luckily, the Hatter, had known a way to get into her treasures.

"Oh! What a marvelous hat this is! Do you like my work young lad?" Hatter asked Alice, who was a bit flustered at the incorrect title. Alice and the Tweedles occupied the small space of Hatter's hat prison.

"Yes, of course. Can you help us? We know where the sword is now, however we cannot yet get to it. We need a distraction, perhaps you could help?" Alice asked softly to the Hatter, who seemed to be in a somewhat calmer manic mode than usual. His eyes were an unusual color, and his pale face still darkened by a bruise.

"Nothing can bweemel a person more than an eloquently made hat!" Hatter chuckled, finger bleeding through bandages as he worked on hats with an incredible speed.

"Bweemel? What's a bweemel?" Alice asked the Tweedles, who tried to conjure a way to explain the term 'bweemel'.

"Like when you go aah!" TweedleDee said, who was cut off by TweedleDum.

"-No! No! Bweemel is more like ooh, yeah?"

"No! Maybe more of an Eek! Though not in a scary way."

"Closer, but I think it'd still be like an ooh…"

"-It's like you're amazed so much so that you can't gaze away from it… like the perfectly sized top hat." Hatter muttered, still in his otherworldly zone, ignoring the Tweedles and Alice to an extent.

"That's it! When the Queen comes in for her hats, that is when we-," Alice exclaimed loudly, but then quickly quieted down to a whisper when she happened to glace at the Hatter who had a dark warning etched on his face that seem to be unlike him. It reminded Alice of a face one would give during a serious scolding.

"-Then we go and take 'it'." Alice said, and the Tweedles agreed silently with nods.

Lucas prepared himself, physically, mentally and every other way possible as he gazed at the billowing hot breath that shook the frames, and a stench so rotten it made his stomach make uneasy flips. Shaking with nervousness and sweating from the high fever the scratches induced, Lucas takes a step inside the deadly hut...

Alice creeped quietly into the Queen's quarters, soon after she had gone to her hat fitting. She left one of the Tweedles outside the quarters for security, and once she found the secret passageway, behind a large bureau with cosmetics and a mirror, she left the other Tweedle there. The passage was steep and narrow, and dark, with very little light. With a courageous inhale, Alice stepped down into darkness...