The venture within was devoid of evident force, except for the raised claws of the lumbering beastmen, and it was in the descent down those steps that Entoma and Inta were separated from Watson.
The way down was dark, and the stairs were crudely cut compared to the surface, but as they went farther and farther down, Entoma noted the honeycombed nature of the place. 'They said this was a town… but there's more to it than we thought.' She recognized as she saw the way the stairs branched off into various long and musty hallways with no evident purpose.
There was a faint odor of blood and crushed insects, and the smell of composted waste was accompanied by heat radiating out of a few locations, but those were her only clues.
"Here." Their 'captor' as they thought of themselves, pointed to a heavy door with a thick bar across the outside of it, he lifted the bar with his more agile hand and grunted once, nodding toward the interior. The room within had nothing to speak of, the wall was rough, and some chains hung loose and still. Ominously, the floor contained flecks of blood which hadn't been scrubbed clean, and instead remained to stain the brown rock black as night.
A glowstone was embedded into the ceiling,and gave off a steady yellowish white glow that pulsed in an almost hypnotic rhythm.
Entoma considered her own cooperation to be a foregone conclusion, and she waited patiently while watching Inta enter the room and without protest, be secured with his arms above his head.
Outside, the escort guided Entoma to the next room which, except for the black stains of aged blood being in different spots, was identical in every way. She did nothing as her limbs were secured above her head.
Then, much to her surprise, the ones responsible for doing so… left.
She was alone in the room with the pulsing pale stone, she gave the chains a light tug. 'Lord Ainz is going to… how did the crazy one put it? Oh yes! She said he would, 'Murder this Kingdom to death.' That sounds right. When he learns what they've done here, chaining me up for interrogation… hmpf.' Entoma gave a dismissive snort, but to her shock, when she tugged on the chain, she didn't feel the weakness she expected.
'No…' She couldn't turn pale as a human might have, nor did her mouth part in shock, but she tensed the muscles beneath her outer shell and gave a lighter tug. 'It can't be.' She curved her golden fingers around the chains, though they weren't like flesh, they were enchanted to allow her to have some sensation of touch almost on par with that of someone with natural hands. 'Something is different…' She wondered just what it was, and tried to work it out.
The sound of muffled voices passed through the wall…
"So what did you intend to come here for, meat?" The ratman asked Inta. The vampire was quick to answer.
"To lay the foundation for killing you all." He said with such blunt truthfulness that the ratman in front of him took a step back.
Inta's words carried outside to the guards, and a low rumble of hatred was carried back to Inta in turn.
Inta smirked, "You didn't think I'd tell the truth? I'm a spy, sure. And yes, I did get betrayed by the Chasm people… but so what? Our little mission, mine and my subordinate's, that is, was to learn what we could of your borders before crossing over, and to win an alliance with the arachnid peoples, failing that, well… too late now."
"What is too late?" The ratman asked, his brown fur bristled and his nose twitched, his little red hands rolled one in the other in a gesture that could have been called furtive if a human had done it. His little rounded ears twitched above his head, and his beady eyes glared with steady hatred at the chained prisoner.
"Oh, nothing… nothing, we were supposed to poison the Queen of the ants. If they refuse to work with us, we can't have them in the way." Inta acknowledged and rattled his chains a little when he shrugged.
"Why are you being so forthcoming?" The ratman's eyes focused harder on Inta's face, suspicion gnawed at his heart.
"It's just our way. There's nothing I know that your superiors don't, so…?" Inta rattled the chains around his wrists and gave a smirk through the chameleon bugmask that hid his vampiric nature, "It's just easier this way, like the way you kidnapped the ant Queen and killed her. That was brutal, and so well timed, right as we got here?" Inta whistled, "My hat is off to you beastmen."
"Killed her?' The ratman asked.
"Was taking off her head really necessary? I ask because I've never killed a giant ant before, but I know they're pretty tough." Inta asked it so conversationally that the ratman's tail lashed about behind his back as if it were a whip in use.
The ratman's eyes gleamed in the light, 'He's bluffing.'
"I've got to say though, how you squeezed that monster into your underground safehouse east of the city, I don't know, that thing was huge, and it seemed a waste to kill your own men… or was that just coincidence?" Inta asked, his false eyes guileless, he cocked his head, "Is something wrong?"
Rata'tatan's mind raced, his long tail lashed, 'He knows about our burrow, he knows about where it is… our scouts, dead, our guards, dead… no wonder we heard nothing from them… but still and all, I should confirm it.'
"Wait here… elf… creature." Rata'tatan spun around, putting Inta to his back and rushed out of the room.
The arachnid was exactly where she was left before… seemingly indifferent to her capture, in the expressionless way their race typically was. "Have you tried your chains?" Rata'tatan wiggled his long nose, and though her face was expressionless, the way her many eyes focused on him was answer enough.
He rubbed his small hands together, "Good, good, you see we know about the strength of arachnids, we prepare special chains just for your kind, we've had centuries to learn how to confine you, how to weaken you, how to handle your kind. Go ahead, pull, try to break free, try as hard as you like." The interrogator urged and extended a furry arm out toward the upper chains.
Entoma couldn't frown, but she wished in that moment that she could have, she yanked on the manacles and everything felt… wrong, but in some indescribable sort of way. Even if the chains held, 'Why hasn't the stone shattered?'
"I have questions for you. And they will hurt, and you will answer them." Rata'tatan chittered, his big buck teeth rapidly rising and falling.
Entoma stared at him in stoney silence.
He looked over his shoulder and shouted, "Bring me the prybar, it's time to shell the bug!"
Entoma opened her mouth to cast her spell… but the words didn't form. She tried to pull on the chains again, and though they snapped taut, nothing happened.
"You will suffer. You will speak. And when I am done, you will die… bug. But you can spare yourself pain, so much pain, if you just tell me what I want to know." Rata'tatan said, and put his hand on the carapace of her chest. "I hope you understand… this isn't personal. This is just how it is." He said, as if it were some kind of bizarre apology, just as one of the lizardlike race entered the room holding what a appeared to be a crowbar.
"Put it at the joint, we'll start with her leg." Rata'tatan commanded.
And as the lumbering brute approached, Entoma promised herself, 'I will not scream.'