Small footsteps scampered across the wooden deck, barely audible over the swaying and creaking of the ship's lower deck. 

"Esper, I see the loot." 

Another pair of small paws carried a second mouse to stand beside the first. "Indeed. A fine target." 

The pair of rodents peered perilously over the ceiling beam on which they balanced to cast their beady eyes on the dankness below. Lamps swayed beside them, burning within grimy glass canisters to cast a dim light on the drudgery of the lower deck. A thin layer of must and slime reflected the polluted light from the sagging wooden floor beneath a heap of splintering wooden barrels. Rusted metal hung loosely around the seeping wood, letting a thin trickle of mold-spotted grain drip from its cracks onto the floor with every sway of the ship. Across the room a cracked door hung limply in its frame by a single dented hinge. 

The first mouse wrapped a thin paw around his significantly larger companion's neck. "See there, my dear comrade, if any of the Big Ones come we will be made aware with time to spare." 

Esper nodded his rotund neck, letting his huge hairs flap lightly against his furry shoulders. "And the Harry One? What if it senses us? His claws," the mouse struggled to lift his meaty paw, revealing the thin white stroke of a hideous scar. 

"Let him," the other mouse chuckled nastily. "Tonight we dine to our hearts content. And if the Hairy One find us," his paw drew a jagged thorn of rusted metal from a string tired around his waste, "we will scratch him for once."