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

[myhungryass]

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.

[dragonindungeon]

[ Again, not a new feeling for Falin. But... that gem sure does look tasty... is it a kind of jewel bug? That'd be so cool if it was too. ]

[ She touches 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!

Falin 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.

"Hi, Falin."

She might realize that her perspective has changed. She's lower to the ground than she's been in awhile... standing on two legs. She still has a ruff of feathers on her chest, though...

[dragonindungeon]

Big brother! You look amazing!!

[ She's totally arrested by how Laios looks to care about herself. Besides, him being bigger than her feels natural too. ]

[myhungryass]

He laughs, getting to his feet. To his hooves. And reaching out to draw her into a big hug. "I know, right??"

[dragonindungeon]

[ Giving him a big hug back!!! ]

Super cool!

[myhungryass]

"You look great, too."

[dragonindungeon]

[ Pulls back and looks down at herself :o? What DOES she look like? ]

[myhungryass]

She seems to be human shaped, but she does have the ruff of feathers around her neck and shoulders. She can see better than she could before she transformed. This might not be exactly what Falin looks like after her final resurrection, but it's pretty close—what Laios would be inclined to extrapolate after seeing her most recent memory talking to Marcille. Since it was from Falin's point of view, he didn't get a completely clear idea, but it feels about right.

"Even though your chimera form is pretty cool."

[dragonindungeon]

It's cool, but doesn't function very well. Thank you.

[myhungryass]

"I hope we remember how we did it, soon."

[dragonindungeon]

Maybe after this?

[myhungryass]

"Maybe. I think I do have some memories I haven't taken... you can probably find them around here somewhere."

[dragonindungeon]

... do you think if I find them, you'll know them when you wake up...?

[myhungryass]

"Uh, probably? What do you think?"

[dragonindungeon]

I bet you will!

[myhungryass]

He nods, encouraged. "It seems reasonable, right?"

[dragonindungeon]

Right. I'll go find them for you.

[myhungryass]

"Thanks, Falin."

[dragonindungeon]

[ Gives Laios another big hug! Before letting go. Looking around... ]

[myhungryass]

He returns it. If she goes around back of the tree, 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.

[dragonindungeon]

[ DECISIONS, DECISIONS......... goes for the wolf door. ]

[myhungryass]

As she opens it, a breath of fresh air, warm and pleasant, wafts out at her. She can step through into a stone corridor. The walls, floor and ceiling are all made up of the same even grey blocks. Torches in brackets line the walls at regular intervals. Nevertheless, the atmosphere feels inviting, the air clean and easy to breathe, not smoky at all. It's clearly the first floor of the dungeon... if a little friendlier and more idealized than it truly is in life.

[dragonindungeon]

[ Sniffs at the air happily and follows the corridor down. ]

[myhungryass]

As she walks, she can start to hear voices. They seem to be coming from up ahead, off a passage that turns to the right. It's quite a few voices, cheerfully upraised—the mild clamour of a not-too-busy market.

She can ignore them and keep going straight down the corridor, though.