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Illius couldn't keep up with Tanya's pace, seeing as how he was a black snake from the torso down. He decided flying would just be easier. He levitated off the ground with ease and kept a good pace going. Although, he wondered...should he support the rebellion or tell Him? I've always been loyal...I've always done His orders whether they were strange or not...do I deserve to leave? And what of this girl? It seems she doesn't want to leave.

Illius kept up te pace while remaining in thought. And why does that girl have no punishment?...she doesn't seem to have any work either...just what is she?

Illius smiled and went over to the damned in the distance. He soon came back with a smile on his face. "Are you ready to play?...We're going to play a game called...tell the truth! You have to capture them and then you have to ask them questions. Questions about um...things. Things like...what they're whispering about! Yes, ask them what they're whispering about ok? Ask them about what they're whispering about. Ok?" Illius tried to make it as clear as possible.

I can only hope that we're successful...

"But what if they're talking about something really really boring?" Tanya protested. "I'd fall asleep half way through! I don't wanna have to listen to boring talk... Can we play another game? This game doesn't sound much like fun."

Tanya looked confused for just a moment or two, but then her face cleared and she beamed. "Oh, now I get it! People who don't say anything interesting can be considered toys! Alrighty then, ready, set, GO!!" she yelled and went galloping off.

Within moments, a shadow creature had formed beneath her so she was galloping quite literally. Roughly twice the size of a horse, it resembled a peacock. A nightmare peacock. Its torso was longer and thicker than a normal peacock's so that Tanya could ride it, and it was four-legged.

Or, more accurately, its forepaws were scaled and clawed like a dragon's while its rearpaws had the powerfully bunched muscles of a hare's hind legs.

The creature's neck was as long and graceful as a normal peacock's, but its head was barely more than a long quivering snout, like a baby elephant's trunk, and two disturbingly human eyes the size of grapefruits perched on that snout.

Most terrifying of all was where a normal peacock should have had a beautiful fan of colourful tail feathers. The fan was still there alright, but instead of feathers, this creature had a multitude of writhing, swaying tails growing from its rear, each tail exceedingly long and whippy, yet width-wise, the size of mere walnuts. They were disturbing of course, but at first glance, not that dangerous. Merely the monstrous equivalent of a cat swishing its tail. That was, until you noticed that each "tail" opened into an eternally, voraciously gaping mouth at its end... and peering down the mouth one saw rings and rings of needle-sharp teeth.

Tanya called the creature "Sniffy".

They sprang around the level in great lolloping leaps and bounds, courtesy of "Sniffy's" rabbit legs. The creepy tails/deadly worms streamed behind them, though a few did occasionally snap out of their own accord to entrap passing bats for the tails to devour. Their mouths were too small to really take much of a bite from the bats, which was why it was necessary for the tails to first bind the poor creature before they all worked together on actually eating it. By the time the already tiny bits of bat made it past the teeth though, there wasn't even the slightest bulge in the tails to mark the bat's passing.

Tanya looked around and wondered who to approach first. Who here looked like he knew the most interesting stuff? Wait, maybe that guy. He was really big and tall and his conversation didn't seem as boring as most's since instead of the perpetually worried expression, his face seemed... happy. Yeah, he was grinning and everything and excitedly gesturing to his companions. As soon as Tanya made her decision, Sniffy bounded straight for him.

Kraa was bored listening to Gracken constantly boast about the mighty things he was going to do in the chaos of the Great Escape. The demon had been preening himself for the past full hour now and Kraa had no choice but to stand there, numbly nodding as he pretended to hang on to Gracken's every word, just like all the other imps were doing. They were probably just as bored as he was, but it wasn't as though they had a choice. Little imps like them couldn't afford to offend a big demon like Gracken.

Suddenly, this enormous black... monster-thing sprang up out of nowhere and bowled Gracken over. It pinned him down with these wicked sharp claws and... believe it or not, snuffled him. Yeah, just sniffed him all over with this probing trunk-snout. That was weird.. it didn't look like it had a mouth. Just this really long nose and those freaky staring eyes....

"Hiya! Sorry, could you tell me something interesting?"

Kraa started, and looked at the gigantic creature more closely. Hey, there was kid on its back! A little girl kid, but she smelt like demon... man, they must be majorly short of staff if they recruited this little once-human. On the other hand... she was the one riding the big monster...and she was smiling. No fear-scent on her at all... Kraa was very very wary of not-scared people in hell who smiled, no matter how young or innocent they looked.

Kraa decided to keep his mouth shut. After all, the kid had directed the question to Gracken. It might not be best to draw her attention to himself... at least not till he figured out more about her.

Gracken, quite predictably, bellowed with anger and tried shoving the creature off him, or failing that, at least getting the snout out of his face. "GET THE F*** OFFA ME!!!!"

"Come on," the little girl coaxed. "Just tell me something interesting really quickly alright? Pretty, pretty please? I'm playing this game you see, with these friends of mine, and I'll win if I find out the most interesting stuff!" the kid seemed to be practically bouncing up and down with excitement now. "This is the first time I'm playing with these friends and they're really nice to me.. they even said that for this game, people could be toys if they were boring, so I'll have fun no matter what! Now quick, tell me something interesting so I can win the game!"

Gracken released a stream of vehement, if unimaginative expletives. The weird kid whom Kraa was now fairly certain was also insane, listened carefully until Gracken started repeating himself then interrupted. "I've heard all those before, they're not that interesting." her tone was that of mild reproof, like a school teacher scolding a little kid for wetting his pants again. Gracken just roared and struggled more furiously before unleashing another burst of equally unimaginative, though much more... intense swearing.

The little girl listened again, but Kraa could see the boredom quickly spreading over her features. Abruptly, she brightened and Kraa warily shuffled back a few paces. "Oh yeah! I almost forgot! For this game, boring people are toys!" She snapped her fingers, more for melodrama than anything else, Kraa suspected, since the monster she was riding didn't look like it had ears.

Instantly, what Kraa had taken to be just the creature's many restlessly swishing tails arched forward, right over the kid's and the monster's heads and hissed. That was right, the tails hissed and Kraa could actually see their little flickering tongues as they did so. Also... was it just his imagination or were there pointy little.... teeth starting to unfold from out the monster's many mouths?

Gracken had a much closer view than Kraa, and by his sudden frantic bellowing and renewed thrashings, Kraa concluded that those were indeed teeth. No wonder the snuffly little snout was so... snuffly. It really didn't have a mouth... not at that end anyway.

Gracken's bellows of fear and anger abruptly shifted to screams of pain as blood spurted. Kraa peered in morbid fascination... those worms.. tails... whatever... had really pointy teeth. And they chewed really fast... one of them had gone for Gracken's palm... you could see it moving under Gracken's skin, working its way up his arm.... a couple of others were entrenched pretty firmly in other bits of Gracken's anatonomy while the rest seemed to prefer to just rip off small chunks and gulp them down.

Kraa tore his eyes away from the bloody sight to check on the kid.... who was laughing and clapping with glee as Gracken continued to scream and writhe in torment while the worms steadily chewed and burrowed in him. That was when Kraa really got a shock. He was no stranger to violence of course, or even pleasure in slaughter as the girl child was showing. However... when later he remembered the incident, and if asked what was the single, scariest thing about the whole tableau, he would answer without hesitation that it wasn't the giant monster, or Gracken's screams, or what was being done to his body, or even how crazy the kid was acting. Nope. What the single scariest thing was... was the kid's eyes.

They were innocent and playful, filled with childish happiness and exuberance. She really did not at all see that what she was doing was in the remotest bit horrifying, or even gross, let alone possibly wrong. Kraa knew some people who delighted in their evil and rejoiced as they slaughtered, but they all had the niggling little part of them saying 'this is wrong'. Sure, some of them just revelled in their corruption but this little girl wasn't like that. She just... simply.... was completely unaware that it might be just a little bit wrong to hurt people like this. Absolute childlike innocence.

Kraa shuddered, then took off as he should have done the moment that big black monster showed up with that thing on its back. Never, ever, ever again, Kraa swore. He was going nowhere near little kiddies for as long as he lived, even if they were pathetically easy prey. One of them could turn out like her. Kraa shuddered once more and ran faster before Gracken died and the kid got bored again.

Amaya watched as Tanya went off, it seemed she got her point. With a sigh she looked around, everyone around Tanya had moved away and Illius was already harrassing some poor idiot. She sighed and looked about again, there had to be someone that wasn't running away or something.

She looked over to where Tanya again, it seemed some of them were scattering about. Even some of those were heading towards her. She smiled and grabbed one of them. "Hey, what's going on? Despite the fact that she," she pointed towards Tanya, "is basically going on a massacure?" She starred at them, it seemed they were too frightened and she sighed.

"Now come on," she gripped them harder, "really I'd like to know since," she leaned in and wispeared, "I want to get out myself." She smiled as they became interested and she released them.

"Well," they rubbed their neck, "it seems as though soon mostly everyone will be trying to escape. For the past little while we've been setting things up. So far it's been hidden as well. In every level there happens some sort of trap that will be set off by the last one to past by. Everyone who will be escaping," they pulled out a small piece of paper, "will have one of these. Once the last person with this on is to pass, the trap will be set off and no one will be able to follow."

Amaya sighed, she didn't know if this was true or not but she still asked, "Okay, thanks. Could I have a few for myself and a few others?" The demon looked at her strangely but gave some to her anyways. "Now, perhaps you should leave before anything else happens."

Amaya sighed and watched as they ran off. She placed the few pieces of paper away and pulled out her katana. Although it had been awhile, she was sure to have no witnesses to what she had asked. She pointed her katana at their back and watched as a stream of flame poured out and hit them. In mear moments, there was no longer there and no remains either.

She smiled and placed her katana away. In all the confusion, she could only guess that no one had seen that. She wasn't allowed to use her weapon unless it was needed. In this case, it wasn't.

Amaya yawned and sat down on the ground, looking about in the madness. She had no idea whether they were telling the truth or not, but she figured that whatever information she could get was a good thing. She doubted someone could just tell everything they knew without lieing. She would have to run this by Illius to see if anything they had found out would match.

She watched as Tanya went galoping around, was she ever having fun. It was amusing how some people would run towards her, and others would run away. She streached and pulled out her katana as it reseted in her sheath. Right now Tanya was having more of the fun. She would love to, but she had certain restrictions as to what she could do. Killing one demon was something, killing as many as Tanya did was basically a death sentance. Shestabbed the sheath into the ground and leaned against it.

Today had been just too much. Meeting Tanya, finding out about a great escape and killing one person. Although it was too much, it had also been fun, if not for the annoyance of Tanya's innocence. She yawned again, Tanya would probably make her way over here eventually. She could only guess she was going to be picked up by Sniffy's tails. If that happened, she could probably just go along with them.

She opened the sheth slightly, letting the heat from the katana roll over her body. It was dimmed quite alot but this heat would keep the tail from latching onto her for a while. She wondered how long it would take for Him to notice the destruction, and on his own level as well. She yawned again and started to fall asleep. This was enough for her, enough for now that was.

After a while, Tanya noticed the place was getting crowded around her again. She assumed it was because people liked seeing Sniffy play and smiled at them happily. Sniffy was so adorable, it was no wonder really. Also, more people meant she could find out more interesting stuff. So far, she'd learned that there was going to be a Great Escape. As far she was able to determine, this was a kind of game where everyone was supposed to try and get out. Tanya believed that this had to be a game because of the many complicated rules involved in it, and also, she couldn't imagine people really wanting to leave this fun place with all its toys and friends.

One of the complicated rules of the game was that everyone playing was supposed to have a piece of paper. Sniffy had gotten one for Tanya, and though it was a little smeared and messy, it was still in relatively good shape. Tanya had asked Sniffy to get it for her because she liked playing all sorts of games and this Great Escape sounded sorta interesting.

Another thing she'd found out was that everyone would know when the game started because words would appear on the paper about an hour in advance with instructions about which way to go and what time to leave and stuff like that. When the last Escaper left, there'd be some pretty fireworks and other stuff set off on all the levels, presumably to console and entertain the people not playing.

Oh yeah, also, to make the game more interesting, some Escapers were planning a massive Wreck and Ruin campaign right before they left. When she heard about this, Tanya considerately told Sniffy to only half-break the boring-people-who-were-therefore-toys so that the people later could have their fun. The last thing Tanya wanted to do was spoil anyone's fun after all.

There were also a goodly number who were planning to launch a more specific campaign, but they were but a fraction of everyone else, and everyone else seemed to think they were crazy. Their campaign would be against this guy called Lord of Lies/King of Hell/His Unholiness and a whole bunch of other names which Tanya couldn't remember at the moment. Anyway, he seemed to be a kind of toy everyone wanted to play with and break though Tanya wasn't really sure why he was so special.

One was allowed to play with and break toys because there were so many of them and they were all pretty much the same so breaking a few was no great loss. Special toys were not toys. They were people and possible friends you could join up and have fun with and who could break toys right along with you. So Tanya was sorely puzzled by this special toy who was not a toy but everyone wanted to break.

In the end, Tanya just gave a mental shrug and dismissed it from her mind. It was making her head ache which was no fun at all. So Tanya continued catching and asking people about interesting stuff and half-breaking the toys, all of which was proceeding at a much quicker pace since so many people were hanging round, that Sniffy didn't need to run after people anymore.