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]

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."

[pocketlockpick]

Got it.

[he's going to have to pick up after him, thats what this is, isn't it?]

[myhungryass]

"I don't know how a place that's still so empty can be such a mess, but it's about what you'd expect from Laios, after all."

[pocketlockpick]

Mmmhmm.

At least I have an idea where some things are.

[He's going to beeline to the lion plush because it's the most suspicious.

[myhungryass]

The winds don't thwart his approach towards the lion plushie, but nor do they hurry him towards it. When he gets up close, he can see there are little wings embroidered on its back. When he picks it up, instead of a memory rushing over him, he feels that nudge in his mind of a potential memory... the way it feels when there's one waiting in his own bracelet.

[pocketlockpick]

Alright, found one.

But I have to find Laios?

[Or how does one activate a memory? He's going to examine the plushie for a moment for clues.]

[myhungryass]

He can turn it in his hands. It's nice and soft. It has button eyes. He does get the sense that, as with his own memories, he could just give in to that mental pressure and let it in...

...but would that return it to Laios? Or would Chilchuck just see it himself?

[pocketlockpick]

[... he's very relieved he did not go with his initial instinct which is to rip the head to release whatevers inside it. maybe.

He'll keep looking around, maybe he'll spot him soon. Tombstone seems like the one that's also slightly off, so he'll head over there next]

[myhungryass]

When he touches it, a memory washes over him.

[pocketlockpick]

[even as a kid, Falin's been keeping an eye on him, huh.

Does the tombstone mirror the one in the memory exactly or are there different carvings on it?]

[myhungryass]

It's just like the one in the memory.

[pocketlockpick]

[Are the cottages or one of the other strange items closer at this point?

He'll head to whichever is closer.]

[myhungryass]

As he releases the tombstone, he finds himself thinking more about Falin. Is she okay? Did Laios ruin her life? Is he holding her back? Did they really eat her? They would have had to kill her first. Did Laios kill his sister? Did he kill his sister? Did he kill his sister??

Hen House is the closest! The wok also lies on the ground pretty close to it.