Piripiri needs a second to respond. She's gulping air like a city girl who's never had to actually run for distance before, and it's about two parts show to one part actual distress. Poor girl's had a day and this hardened knight shows up fresh to charge the castle, again. She even debates lying, trying to trip up the knight, but that leads everyone (Azazuka included, and just [i]why[/i] is she here still?) into the fire. So she tells the truth, sort of.

There's a balance here, you see, and it's got three edges. She needs to keep the enemy knight's attention off her, so she needs to seem like a simple maid who got extremely lucky. So give the information in the wrong way, or give information a maid shouldn't know was important, and you're now under suspicion, which is bad enough alone when there's supposed to be a rakasha around. Worse if you're already planning a well-timed trip. Now, that being said, give too little information, and they all walk into a trap and she's right back in Ven's outfits. Not that she'd mind seeing some of these others dressed up all helpless and pretty but all the same, she'd rather not. Finally, give too much information, and the knight can be prepared for everything and succeed, which is really not what she wants here. So find the center, and begin.

"The demons with the coats," ("wrack-dolls" says the witch, and good to actually have a name to put to them), "the wrack-dolls, they seemed like they were working like normal guards? Like, they were on the walls. I got lucky and kicked one down a hole, I think, but it was so dark I'm not sure. I don't know how to fight them really. There were snake ladies but Ven's probably really mad at them for Azazuka and me escaping? And the Laema herself, I think. She'd wanted me to call her, um, 'my terrible Lord' as a title." Maids track titles, right? Ignore the sympathetic flash to the poor, doomed snake who she'd counter-seduced. Maybe Ven hadn't found her yet? It could have happened. "And there was a door, a gate that felt wrong. I think it went to Hell proper. There was at least one window too, in Ven's bedroom, when they made me clean that. And there was a weird, furred snake, that ate us and that's how we somehow got to the castle in the first place? I don't know how that worked, or if Ven can use that to leave, or if it's even still around. I don't think I saw any other people other than Ven, me, and Azazuka."

She takes a few more minutes to catch her breath, before going on. "The layout I didn't see as well? There's a courtyard with an empty gate out into the jungle on one side and the Gate to Hell on the other." She shudders, and it's not fake. "I didn't get a good look beyond that, I'm afraid."

There. Enough information to not fall for the obvious traps, one hopes. Not enough information for the knight not to end up close to an edge. All she needs to do there is push. One last, bitter aside. "Did you have to take Azazuka? Or me? We just escaped from here where, you know, they captured us. History shows neither of us are much good at fighting Ven or her demons."