The response of the guards was immediate. "Spies?!" They shouted at once, and the call went up from the commander.

"Yes. Trying to gain knowledge of your country. They said your God-Emperor's big mane was overcompensating for small balls." Watson's utterance was so utterly unexpected from the humorless being that Inta impulsively let out a laugh, a genuine, full throated laugh that was as much at the unexpected source as it was at the words themselves.

The effect was immediate and thorough outrage. Shouts and roars and stamping, angry feet, furious bellowing and bodies shaking with rage as Watson's relayed words spread about the wall and down into the settlement beyond.

Atop the wall, a guard leaned over the wall and stared down with eyes full of hatred and shouted, "Hold them, insect! We'll send someone for you all immediately!"

The guard wasn't kidding. 'A reckless strategy… but it does get us inside the walls, and I did say we were strong enough… clever. They test our boast, see if we live up to our words, and if we don't, they win, and if we do, they win.' Entoma felt her estimation of the Mother and Father rise, and Watson's enigmatic mannerisms began to make a lot more sense.

'No wonder they've survived.' Entoma thought while she waited patiently for her 'captivity' to begin.

It wasn't a long wait. But the means by which they were 'retrieved' was wholly unexpected.

"Open the wall!" A voice out of view shouted, and then there was the sound of sliding metal, like many small bars being slid out of place.

'Didn't he mean, open the 'gate'?' Entoma wondered.

Then she stopped wondering, chains rattled and a segment of wall began to descend. The segment was wide enough for three to pass abreast, and the taut stretched chains, even at a glance, were definitely not composed primarily of iron or even steel. They had a faint green hue to them which could only mean one thing. 'They've been forged with a touch of orichalcum.' Entoma recognized, and wondered about the bars themselves.

The heavy stone wall segment landed with barely a sound on the ground, kissing the earth beneath as quietly as a butterfly landing on a flower.

The inside of the wall had multiple rows of metal slit gaps, and moving out of view were numerous lumbering lizard-like beastmen holding long L-shaped metal bars. 'Security is not taken lightly here.' Entoma realized, though she couldn't be sure, a sneaking suspicion crept up on her that the border towns and cities would have fairly significant defenses. Moreover, the interior of the town beyond was immediately and obviously well made. The buildings she could see were all clean and two stories tall, and made out of stone cut into large blocks.

Guards lumbered out, their dark scaly bodies undulated with muscle beneath the surface, their crocodile-like heads swayed back and forth with every steady trudging step, their feet were bare and webbed at the toes, offering excellent purchase on the sands to draw them forward. They had long, sharp claws in lieu of swords or spears, and wore boiled leather in places to add to their natural armor. Each one however, had filed down the claws of one hand to make them into little more than sharp fingernails, and it was those that reached out to snatch Inta's wrist before the opposite hand came up and put claws to his throat.

Entoma remained calm. "Bastard." She cursed at Watson as his claw came away from her throat to be replaced by four long finger claws which threatened to open up her neck if she moved even a hair.

Watson himself stood by with passive indifference, though he offered what passed for a 'shrug' when Entoma cursed him and the other guards formed a ring around his back. His stinger lowered behind him and his claws drooped down at his sides.

The number of claws up and ready increased as they drew closer to the wall and walked over the downed section. A set of chains went up through a loop embedded into the wall, and on the far side as she crossed the threshold of the city, Entoma saw that six of the curious creatures were holding each thick chain in their clipped individual hands. The pull was quiet, steady, and gradually the wall was made whole again. When it stood secure, those of the lumbering, hunched beastmen who were holding L shaped metal bars, rushed in and began securing them back into place.

Entoma looked back, many sections of the wall were like that. 'Almost anywhere could be a gate, and if you did break the wall anywhere, you'd have those orichalcum blended bars in the way still… clever, really, very clever.'

Her estimation of the Devor architecture and government went up another notch when she saw the town itself. It was obviously laid out on a grid pattern. Every road centered and every building equidistant from the carefully laid out road, with a slightly elevated place along the side to serve as a sidewalk, which itself was framed by many small wooden stakes secured together and sealed with some black substance. These kept the hard packed earth of the walkways from breaking up, and pedestrians walked on those while pack animals and golems hauled goods in the road itself.

The buildings were close together and as they walked, Entoma saw that every corner building had a staircase of metal bars embedded into holes in the stone walls. Many more pedestrians used the rooftops of buildings as an additional roadway for themselves, and descended the steps when they saw fit. 'Hmpf, nothing holding the metal in, the fact that they could be stolen and they haven't been, suggests an orderly and mostly crime free society. Also they're easily removed, they can get up to the rooftops and remove the way up in seconds if they have to.' Devor defensive architecture quality also went up a notch in her mind.

The claws at her throat were no bother in her mind, a hundred ways to beat them came immediately to her mind, but watching them around Inta's throat, her golden hands craved to wrap themselves around the impudent necks of their 'captors'.

But he flashed a warm smile back at her, and she felt her heartbeat slow and her pulse with it, she relaxed. 'All we have to do is break out…' Entoma reminded herself as they came to a gray stone building, cube shaped and relatively small, it was utterly ordinary except for being the only gray building she'd seen so far, with all else being brown and built out of locally harvested stone.

"In. You go into the ground, there we will question. There you will answer. Then you will beg forgiveness for blasphemy." The guard at the head of their little column said, he had a rough gravel like voice, and where the others were only a little taller than the average human, this one towered over his comrades in every respect, he wore bright red paint on his leather armor in a curious spiral pattern, as if daring anyone to attack that spot, both Inta and Entoma had to crane their heads back to look up at him when he pointed toward the open door to the gray building. He was far too large to go within, but his subordinates were not.

They went in one by one, and Inta followed, his hands held at the wrists, he had to turn sidewise to go through, and when he entered he said, "Fuck your forgiveness, and fuck your God-Emperor's hairless balls."

The beastmen sucked in a breath. Inta winked at Entoma, stopping her from responding when the meaty fist of the champion connected to Inta's face and sent him crashing back against the stone and then crumpling to the floor as if he were unconscious.

The behemoth turned toward Entoma and grunted, "Walk to there," he pointed to a hole in the floor inside the building, "or join him and we drag you."

With that, Entoma took a step forward, and walked.