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]

"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.

[myhungryass]

It's only a short flight of stairs. The archway at the top is filled with opaque light, but if she pokes her head through it, she'll find herself looking out the wolf's nostril onto the dark water that surrounds the bulk of the giant, hollow monster. At least it seems to save a walk all the way back up the tunnel...?

[misenplaits]

You know what, she's going to note that and go back down, so she can continue down the corridor. It seems like it might be another short cut.

[myhungryass]

It leads to a flight of stairs going down!

[misenplaits]

Let's go down the stairs then.

[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 colonnade that borders a large reservoir of water. A big globe of water rises up out of the depths and hovers for a moment... an undine. It seems to be tracking her movements.

[misenplaits]

OH NO. She watches the undine warily. Is it going to attack?

[myhungryass]

It does drift along, following her, but although she may get a sense of potential threat from it, it doesn't attack.

[misenplaits]

Is there anywhere else to go from here? Can she cross the water? She did just get her utility spells back, one of which is water-walk...

[myhungryass]

At the end of the colonnade she's standing on, there is a shadowed doorway into... some kind of chamber? Across the water is a seemingly identical colonnade! If she casts water walk, it doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to get over there, either.

[misenplaits]

Then Marcille will do that! It seems like the most sensible thing to do in this situation.

[myhungryass]

Fish swim by under her feet, resembling the corrupted fish from Tributary. Once, a sea-serpent ripples by. None of the monsters seem aggressive, though. She feels a sense of hope and connection...

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.

[misenplaits]

Is it the Golden Kingdom? She remembers visiting it—she even showed Laios in a memory bubble!

[myhungryass]

It looks a lot like the Golden Kingdom. There are subtle differences, but she's looking at it from far, far above, through water that gives the effect of peering through thick, greeny-blue glass. It would be reasonable for her to think they're the same!

[misenplaits]

Yep, that makes sense. She feels a little nostalgic as she strolls over the water.

[myhungryass]

The undine floats silently nearby, following her, but no longer giving off threatening vibes. The kingdom below her wavers under the water.
Fish swim by under her feet, resembling the corrupted fish from Tributary. After a little while, there's a rush of water behind her as a huge sea serpent's head surfaces. As it rises, she feels a strong sense of connection and hope. It gives her a tiny, gentle nudge in the back with the tip of its enormous nose, like an affectionate dog.

[misenplaits]

Oddly, she finds herself scritching its nose. It's a monster, but it's Laios' monster. It's probably tame like the ones in the Golden Kingdom.

"Do you know where we're going?" she asks it.

[myhungryass]

It tilts its nose to point up the stairs, then back to point at the far end of the other colonnade, questioningly. Like... well, you have options.

[misenplaits]

Which is she closer to?