Laios's Heart Game

[myhungryass]

It's dark, and you are not quite conscious. You have the sense that you are climbing; that you have been climbing for a long time. You can feel the burn in your thighs, the ache in your calves. You're a little too hot, and what you're wearing is a little too heavy. You have the sense of taking a last weary, heaving step onto a plateau.



You find yourself in a dark, blank place, dominated by a huge, dead monster, building sized, as big as a tower. Each of its enormous heads that you can see laid out before you is easily the size of a ballroom. There is blood on its lips and nostrils, blood crusted around its empty eye-sockets, but there is a feeling of hollowness about it. On second thought, you're not quite sure if it's a corpse or a moult.

There is no sign of the stairs you vaguely remember climbing. You are standing on the surface of some opaque black liquid. It feels almost completely solid under your feet, springy, but your footsteps leave ripples spreading out in rings... all around you is a velvety, impenetrable darkness. The only thing you can see is the vast, lifeless beast in front of you, illuminated as if by spotlights, though no actual light-source can be found.

Its orifices are mostly clogged with blood, but somehow, as you stare at it, one vaulted nostril on the wolf's head begins to seem like an archway... the lolling tongue hanging out of the rhinoceros's head like an entry ramp... the exposed, hollow eye-socket on the eagle's head like a portal...

Of course, if you're not quite ready to step inside a monster, you could keep walking around its body and see what you find.

Comments

[lapinlazuli]

[Harriet takes in the grim sight before her. A big monster... with multiple heads... there's only one person she knows who would have a dream about something like this.]

.....well, shit.

[She rushes up to the rhino's head- and hesitates. As much as she'd like to get to the bottom of this she is not thrilled about the idea of crawling inside a giant dead monster. So instead she stands near the open mouth, cups her hands around her mouth, and yells.]

HEY, LAIOS! YOU IN THERE?

[myhungryass]

There's no answer. As loud as she yelled, the words still seem to fall dead in the stifling air.

[lapinlazuli]

[sigh.]

This is gonna suck.

[So gross. But she has to start somewhere, right? Reluctantly, Harriet clambers inside the big rhino mouth.]

[myhungryass]

The tongue is a little spongy underfoot, but it makes a surprisingly good ramp. As she steps between the monster's teeth, the smell of blood gets heavier and stronger... but also more appetizing.

Her stomach growls. Her mouth floods with saliva. It smells good in here. As she walks into the red cavern of its mouth, she'll only grow hungrier.

[lapinlazuli]

[Okay yeah this sure does suck, but not for the reasons she expected. Nothing quite like the scent of blood making her this hungry to remind her of her inherent inhumanity. She swallows a mouthful of saliva and presses on, doing her best to ignore her hunger.]

[myhungryass]

Strangely, it's better lit in here than it was outside. The walls of the mouth are vivid pink and red, the clear pathway down the esophagus easy to see.

As soon as she steps up to it, there's an enormous gulp, all around her, and she's swallowed. There's nothing she can do. One moment she's pushing carefully forward, and the next she's sliding helplessly, rushing along, squeezed down by that powerful contraction of muscle, slick fluid making it impossible to find purchase.

As she's dragged along, a memory washes over her.

She lands with a thump in a dark, cavernous space, on a flagstone floor. Before her are three large archways. Between her and the archways sits a familiar figure.

It's Kabru...? He is almost cross-legged, one knee up with the foot planted on the floor. There's a slightly dangerous light in his blue eyes. Also, there's a big ol' hickey on his neck and he is not wearing a shirt.

He doesn't speak.

[lapinlazuli]

[AUGH FUCK. It takes a moment for her to gather herself after all that.]

So that's what happened to her... damn.

[She looks around, and once she spots Kabru she jolts to her feet and runs over to him.]

Kabru! Did you get eaten, too?

[myhungryass]

He smiles at her and raises his eybrows, apparently unconcerned. "You could say that."

[lapinlazuli]

...Ooookaaaaaay.

[The vibes. They are off. She squints at him suspiciously.]

...Do you remember what I told you the other day? What I would've done if I met those corpse retrievers?

[myhungryass]

"Of course I don't. That wasn't me."

[lapinlazuli]

Thought so. You're like, Laios's perception of Kabru or some shit.

You got any idea where he is?

[myhungryass]

"If you figured that out, you know this is all him."

[lapinlazuli]

Ughhhh cryptic bullshit. Love it. You know what, I'm just-

[She walks around Kabru towards the archways and heads to the middle one.]

I'm gonna go this way. Have fun being a little fuckboy.

[myhungryass]

"Bye, Harriet."

She steps through and feels a jolt, like missing a step on the stairs. She finds herself in a dark pit, an archway of light far away up above. Her appetite is overwhelmingly strong in here. It's not painful—she's not starving. But it's hard to think about anything else. It feels like she could never be satisfied.

Floating in the air in the center of the pit is a twenty-sided gem, bright and gleaming. It looks so tasty.

[lapinlazuli]

[Oogh. There's that hunger again. This sucks.

...But gem look tasty? Can... can she eat it?]

[myhungryass]

When she reaches for it, her hand glances off... nothing. A disconnect in the world, like what's beyond that point is totally separate and unreachable. She gets the sense that it's less a barrier and more that the gem is just... not quite in the same place as her.

However, reaching for it also transports her immediately elsewhere before she can contemplate that too deeply!

Harriet lands on a grassy underneath a tall tree. The sound of the sea can be heard lapping in the distance. Laios is lounging under the tree... but a different Laios than she's ever seen before, with hooves and a tail, feathers around his neck and shoulders, and strangely formed arms, one resembling a bird talon and the other a tiger's paw. He looks up and waves to her.

"Oh, hi, Harriet! ...wait, how did you get here?"

[lapinlazuli]

[Yay it's Laios her friend Laios! Except, uh. Different.]

Uh... I walked inside a giant dead monster. More important question: what the hell happened to you?

[myhungryass]

"I don't actually remember yet, but it's pretty cool, right?"

[lapinlazuli]

I mean... yeah, I guess so. Maybe it's related to what Lark told you about? I dunno.

Hey, weird question: have you ever seen a floating d20 that looks really fucking tasty before?

[myhungryass]

"Uh... a what??"

[lapinlazuli]

[oh right he wouldn't know that terminology]

A little object that's got 20 sides? It was all shiny.

[myhungryass]

He looks troubled. "No, but... I think there might be some memories I haven't seen around here somewhere. If you can find them and bring them here, maybe I'll be able to answer you better."

[lapinlazuli]

I’m on it!

[She’s all pumped and ready to go and then realizes she has no idea where she’s going.]

…Hey, uh, how do I get out of here?

[myhungryass]

"Oh, right. Sorry. Just use the doors in the back of the tree."

It's a big tree. When she goes around back, she'll see four hatches in the trunk, one marked with a doodle of a bird, one a wolf, one a rhino, and one with the whole monster. There's no snake door, though.

[lapinlazuli]

[Oh, well. There we go. Question answered.]

Thanks! I'll be back.

[Let's see, she went inside the rhino... so she's gonna take that door. Maybe it'll take her back to the fake Kabru.]