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]

No. It's oppressively quiet. The only sound is the soft impact of his feet on the dark water. The air is heavy with the scent of blood.

[pocketlockpick]

I guess the only way forward is in.

... god, this better be some weird magical bullshit and I'm not walking into something's stomach.

[He's going to climb up and shimmy his way into the eagle eye.

[myhungryass]

The black, almost perfectly round hole of the empty avian eye-socket looms above him, but the feathers reaching down to the surface of the dark water offer easy handholds. Once he's reached it, the lower ridge of bony socket makes a sturdy perch... but he can't see anything inside. It's just a black abyss. Does he jump?

[pocketlockpick]

[absolutely not. He's going to see if he can yank a feather or two and use them to guide him down.]

[myhungryass]

He can yank out a feather or two! They're about as tall as he is, so he should be careful about not falling in. Is he just feeling around into the socket with one, like a poking stick?

[pocketlockpick]

[yes. Or use them as some sort of makeshift climbing piton/handhold, if he can drive it into the wall]

[myhungryass]

The shaft of the feather, while sturdy, absolutely isn't strong enough to drive into bone, and the membrane covering the bone isn't thick enough to make a good hold. When he waves the feather around inside, though, he feels an updraft try to catch it, and gets a sense of a vast, open space, an impression of flight.

[pocketlockpick]

Am I really going to do this?

... fuck, I'm really going to do this.

[He's just going to take a bunch of feathers and try to make some sort of makeshift parachute out of them, holding both ends]

[myhungryass]

When he grabs both ends of the feathers like that, although it didn't seem likely a second ago, the grip fits his hands perfectly, the vane and shaft curving into something that feels more like a glider.

[pocketlockpick]

... I'm going to die.

[But he jumps and prays that it'll lead to a safe spot.]

[myhungryass]

An updraft catches him. He's suddenly soaring through a blank, white space, a refreshingly cold wind whipping by, buoying him up. He finds he can steer his impromptu glider by instinct. His arms and hands don't even get tired!

Far below him, Chilchuck can see items and even buildings scattered around... a sword, a wok, a book. A tombstone, a lion plushy. Hen House. Sun and Moon House.

At the very edge of his vision, in the far distance, where the curve of the horizon should be, stands a lone, familiar figure, blonde, in a blue outfit, holding a staff.

[pocketlockpick]

Marcille?

Marcille!!

[He's going to try to steer towards her and hopefully land in one piece.]

[myhungryass]

Flying towards Marcille is a struggle. The closer he gets, the trickier the winds seem to be, fickle, shifting, always trying to thwart him. Still, he can eventually land next to her unarmed, with some careful steering. Her back is to Chilchuck, and she seems to be gazing off at something beyond this blank space, but she turns towards him at the sound of her name.

"Oh, hi, Chilchuck!"

[pocketlockpick]

Marcille! Please tell me you know what's going on? Did you climb into a freaky monster head? Where are the others?

[myhungryass]

She raises her hands in a whoa there kind of gesture. "Just slow down for a second! I do know what's going on—you're inside Laios's mind. Well, that's an oversimplification, but it gets the point across. I'm part of this place—the Marcille that exists in here. There are some others like you who have come in here for some reason tonight, but I'm not sure where they are right now."

[pocketlockpick]

... I'm in Laios' mind?

[pocketlockpick]

[pocketlockpick]

Then that monster earlier...

[pocketlockpick]

[pocketlockpick]

HOW DO I GET OUT OF HERE?!

[myhungryass]

She sighs. "Of course you'd be mad about this. I don't exactly know how to get you out, but you could try bringing him the memories he hasn't taken yet? I think they're disturbing his dreams, so—maybe if he processes them, this situation will resolve."

[pocketlockpick]

What do you mean, disturbing his dreams?

Also, why are you the one guiding people in his heart?

[myhungryass]

"Well, I assume this is some kind of Wild Magic effect, and we're experiencing it as a dream? And I can't think of anything that would shift his dream enough to send people out of it other than shifting the weight of those memories tugging at him. And I'm not really here to guide people. I'm just... part of him that likes to answer questions in a sensible way."

[pocketlockpick]

I don't know if sensible is what I'd use...

right, so how many memories is he missing?

[myhungryass]

"There should just be two. They're probably in this area. I can't imagine they'd be lying around anywhere else, at least."