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

[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.

[pocketlockpick]

[I mean, to what effect does death and killing really have when one can usually be revived for gold in the dungeons...?

But he's going to shift his attention to the wok... is it Senshi's?]

[myhungryass]

It sure is!

It's well-tended and beautifully seasoned, shiny inside. When he picks it up, an image flashes through his mind, along with a deep sense of admiration—even idolization—and respect.

For a moment he finds himself thinking deeply about the human impact on ecosystems... how humans can't actually extricate themselves from being part of their ecosystem, and shouldn't, but how they are able to affect it in ways that other animals can't, and how that leaves a responsibility towards stewardship.

[pocketlockpick]

[Laios, pls. Food is food is good. But he does agree on the respect part, especially towards Senshi.

He sighs, then knocks on the Hen House door.]

[myhungryass]

The exterior of Hen House looks subtly inaccurate, the roof material not quite right, the door the wrong colour. The swollen chicken feet that hold up the house are perfect down to the last detail, though. It comes complete with the enclosed mud yard and goat house out back, too.

There's no answer when he knocks, but the door swings open. It feels homey, safe and inviting. He can smell fried rice cooking. As he walks in, he gets a sense of being nurtured. Some of the details inside are wrong, too—clearly Laios has not paid a lot of attention to exactly what the chairs look like—but it's still recognizably Hen House.

He can hear whispering coming from the bedroom Laios shares with Laura and Louis. The door is closed, as are the doors to the other bedroom, the bathroom and the shrine room.

[pocketlockpick]

[he's going to knock on the door, he's got some manners!]

[myhungryass]

The door doesn't open, but he can hear Laios's voice, talking to himself. "You're not a child... you don't need a new father at your age... you can't stay here, anyway... he's not going to stay here... you're being ridiculous."

[pocketlockpick]

... Laios?

[Wait, who does he want to be his father...?]

[myhungryass]

It keeps going...

"Sure, Falin said he's taken you under his wing... but what does that really mean? But, he wouldn't have taught me about how to have sex with a man if he didn't want to... to teach me things, right?

...but dads probably don't tell their sons about how they had sex with dragons... but maybe it's different if you're adopted as an adult?? Ugh, this is so dumb, why am I even worried about this! Get it together. You're not a child..."

The voice loops.

[pocketlockpick]

[he's going to take three steps back and pretend he never heard that at all.

Let's.... try a different door]

[myhungryass]

Bathroom or shrine room?

[pocketlockpick]

[bath... wait, what if there's naked people in there? Shrine room.]