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

[misenplaits]

Ugh. Fine. Which opening has the least amount of climbing required?

[myhungryass]

The wolf's nostril is right at ground level. The tongue can just be walked up like a ramp, into the rhino's mouth, but that's still more climbing. And the bird's eye requires actual climbing.

[misenplaits]

Let's go through the nostril, then.

[myhungryass]

As you step under the archway of the wolf’s nostril, the heavy scent of blood and meat is blown away by a warm, gentle breeze of fresh air. For a moment, your eyes are dazzled by light… when your vision clears, you realize you’re walking down a stone corridor. The ceiling, floor and walls are all made up of the same evenly-cut grey stone 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. Marcille can probably recognize this as the first floor of the Dungeon... if a little friendlier and more idealized than she might be used to experiencing it.

[misenplaits]

Of course that's how Laios remembers it. Of course.

For lack of anything better to do, Marcille makes her way to the area where they'd had their scorpion hotpot together.

[myhungryass]

You round the corner into the market area of the Beginner's plaza and a memory washes over you. You can feel Laios's excitement and fascination—and the fact that this is a brand new activity, a new try, a new skill being taught by Senshi... who at this point is a brand new acquaintance.

The memory takes place in the market... which takes place in some kind of underground graveyard, with tomb markers around, and arched vaulted shelving that might have originally meant to store remains. However, other than the memorial stones scattered around, it barely resembles a graveyard at all. It's a round space, organized around a central fountain with a pillar going through it. All around the edges are vendors and adventurers who have laid down there gear or wares on mats. The shelves behind them are also filled with goods and supplies. Several doors and archways, shadowy, seem to lead off into other spaces. Stairs leading upward can be seen through one.

Most of the faces browsing or heading to and fro seem familiar. Senshi, Chilchuck, Marcille herself... Falin in her human form, Shuro and Namari. There are some folks from Tributary, too… Jarlaxle, Lark, Harriet, Star, Louis and so on.

[misenplaits]

"... okay, what gives? I know Harriet isn't from our world. She's from her own really terrible one that they kidnap people from other worlds to."

She's going to start poking around here to see if anything will happen.

[myhungryass]

Harriet's head comes up when she's mentioned. "Uh, why are there two Marcilles all of a sudden?"

[misenplaits]

"What do you mean, two? I'm the only Marcille... right?"

She is, isn't she? Isn't she?

[myhungryass]

"No? You just got here?" She points. There is another Marcille right over there across the room, talking to human Falin. She seems to be in a cheerful mood! Sometimes Falin says something that makes her make a bit of a face, but within moments, they're laughing together again. It's a reassuring sight...

[misenplaits]

"Oh," Marcille says, softly. She watches the two of them interact.

"They seem like they're having fun," she says after a moment.

[myhungryass]

"They're best friends. They love each other a lot. I think they always have fun together," Harriet proclaims affectionately. "It's nice to see them relaxed like that, though. Especially Marcille. She's been through a lot, and sometimes she takes it hard."

[misenplaits]

Marcille frowns.

"You aren't Harriet, are you? That's not how Harriet talks. You're Laios, aren't you."

[myhungryass]

She rolls her eyes. "Sure. I'm part of him. This is all him."

[misenplaits]

"Some kind of dream world?" Marcille frowns. "I feel like I'm way more lucid right now than I usually am while dreaming."

[myhungryass]

"You're the one who knows all about magic. It's probably something like that, though." Marcille can feel the trust behind this. Dismissive as the words may come off, and strange as it may be to hear this Harriet-facsimile speaking more like Laios with Harriet's voice... she can feel the sense of safety and assurance in the atmosphere heighten, just to get her assessment of what's going on. The market already felt friendly, communal, but it feels really safe now.

[misenplaits]

It does. That's... kind of nice, actually.

"Is there something I should be doing here?" she asks Laios-Harriet, since she (they?) seems to be in weirdly helpful mood.

[myhungryass]

She shrugs. "I dunno, what do you want to do? It depends on what you wanna see, or whatever."

[misenplaits]

"Do I have options to choose from?" she asks, slightly exasperated. "You can't expect me to know what Laios has inside his own head. I'm not sure Laios knows."

[myhungryass]

"You probably saw the different heads already. There's a fourth one around the back. This one is all about people. The people he cares about, his connections to us. If you want to understand more about what's in his head, try the bird. There's probably some memories he needs to take kicking around in there, anyway."

[misenplaits]

"What does the rhino one have to do with? And the one in the back? Do I have to leave each head and go back in or are there ways to go to the different parts from inside?"

[myhungryass]

"Uhhh..."

She taps her foot, a little agitated. "I haven't been here all that long. I don't know everything. The rhino's more... visceral? The snake is sort of the opposite of here. I think there are probably some shortcuts around, but I don't know where they are."

[misenplaits]

"I'll go look for the short cuts, then," Marcille says—and that's exactly what she does.

[myhungryass]

If she looks around the area, she will find three accessible routes: back the way she came in, up the stairs out of the Beginner's Plaza, or to continue down the corridor that passes the turn-off to the Plaza.

[misenplaits]

Hm. Maybe she'll see what's up the stairs for a moment.