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]

"A great deal of it is inaccessible, still, I'm afraid."

[girlsniktdoor]

Inaccessible? Why? Has some damage been done to it?

[myhungryass]

He tilts his head. "In the sense that some damage has been done to Laios's memory of it."

[girlsniktdoor]

The amnesia...I understand. Well I will see what I can see.

[She is going to try to go down one of the shadowy passages.]

[myhungryass]

True to Jarlaxle's word, they all seem to hit a dead end fairly quickly, just a blank stone wall where a doorway should clearly be. Except the one she turned off of to reach the market... that continues on down a flight of stairs. (She could also go up the stairs visible from the market level.)

[girlsniktdoor]

[Going down rather than up. Up will lead out, she wants further in.]

[myhungryass]

She walks down the stairs in an angular spiral, apparently winding her way down the inside of a boxy tower. It opens out onto a collonade that borders a large reservoir of water. A big globe of water rises up out of the depths and hovers for a moment... she gets the sense that its watching her somehow.

[girlsniktdoor]

[Narrowing her eyes at it. Moving very slowly to not draw attention to herself. Looking for another exit from this space.]

[myhungryass]

It's either back up the tower, or along the collonade, which is mostly open to the reservoir, in a series of broad arches.

[girlsniktdoor]

[Slowly along the colonnade for now it is then. Keeping her eyes locked on that weird water thing for any movement]

[myhungryass]

It does follow her along, but it doesn't make any aggressive moves, although there is a sense of possible threat from it. When she reaches the end of the collonade, she can enter into a sheltered room.

At first, it seems like it's full of people all sitting around eating a stew.

Then the image fades, and she's left in an empty room, with a sense of renewed vigour. And, somehow... reconciliation?

[girlsniktdoor]

[Laura smiles gently. Then realizes this room is another dead end...unless she crosses water...and Laura is vaguely aware that she is very bad at swimming.]

[myhungryass]

So it seems. But that sense of renewed vigor and peace stays with her.

[girlsniktdoor]

[If there is any spot she can see where she can pull herself up onto land, she is going to try to swim to it then]

[myhungryass]

It looks like a long swim, but there is another stone walkway visible in the distance, across the water.

The big water orb is still floating in the air a couple of meters above the surface.

[girlsniktdoor]

[Even knowing that she will have to fight against the weight of her claws she's going to try to swim to the far walkway.]

[myhungryass]

She sinks into the water... far below her, she can see a kingdom spread out. It's blurred, but she can make out the tops of buildings, green fields, and people moving together alongside monsters of many shapes and sizes, working together in peaceful harmony. It's distant and indistinct, but looks beautiful.

[girlsniktdoor]

[Laura looks on in wonder for a moment before remembering that a lungful of water is one of the things that has a higher likelihood than most of killing her. As easy as diving to the bottom would be for her, getting to the surface before her air runs out might be a harder task. She swims on toward the walkway]

[myhungryass]

She can make some progress forward, but the water pulls her down. Shapes move under her... colonies of fish linked together in wheels, or strangely distorted. They look a lot like the corrupted fish in Tributary.

A bigger, darker shape comes looming up underneath her, fast and sinuous, blocking out her view of the distant kingdom.

[girlsniktdoor]

[She stops and surfaces. Treading water with her claws out now. Ready for whatever that large shape below her might have been.]

[myhungryass]

The huge, scaled head of a sea-serpent comes up underneath her and... buoys her gently upward?

It seems to be offering her a ride.

[girlsniktdoor]

Oh. My apologies.

[She unsnikts and will happily take the ride. ]

[myhungryass]

It carries her gently through the water and deposits her on the far colonnade. The sound of its passage through the water somehow brings rhythmically whispered words to her mind: What is a monster? What is a person? What is a monster? What is a person?

[girlsniktdoor]

[She stands and watches as it departs. A tear falls down her cheek.]

I wish I knew...

[Sighing she is going to explore this new colonnade.]

[myhungryass]

In fact, it doesn't depart. It bobs along beside her as she follows the edge of the water. There's a very friendly feeling about it. A sense of companionship, protection, and freedom.

At the end of the colonnade there is only another set of stairs going up.