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]

The sea serpent swims alongside her as she walks across the surface. 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?

Across the water is an identical colonnade. If she follows it to its end, there are stairs leading up.

[dragonindungeon]

[ Good questions! What is a monster? What is a person? Tributary has blurred the lines even more... but she's here for a purpose, so those will have to be pondered later. Maybe even with Laios. Up the stairs she goes! ]

[myhungryass]

She climbs up. Up and up and up, far further than she went down. Eventually, she steps through an open archway onto what should be a balcony...

...and finds herself standing on the bony ridge of the bottom of the eagle head's eyesocket. At least it's broad enough to make a sturdy perch.

[dragonindungeon]

Ohh, the exit!

[ Nods to herself! And turns around. ]

[myhungryass]

If she stepped all the way through, when she turns around she'll see the black water below and the main bulk of the enormous four-headed monster spread out atop it. If she just poked her head out, she can pull back into the staircase, though!

[dragonindungeon]

[ She only peeked out, so back tracking it is. ]

[myhungryass]

Back down the stair case onto the colonnade... if she crosses the water again she can head down to the end of the first one, the only place in this area she hasn't checked out.

[dragonindungeon]

[ Which she does so! Thinking maybe it'll end in the other eye. ]

[myhungryass]

Rather than an exit, it ends in 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 with an empty room... but a sense of renewed vigour. And, somehow... reconciliation?

[dragonindungeon]

How nice.

[ What a happy ending! Albeit unexpected. With no other course, she'll head back to the eye in that case. ]

[myhungryass]

When she steps out onto the lower ridge of the socket, it just seems like a blank black void where the eye should be.

[dragonindungeon]

Strange...

[ But she'll step out to peer over it? ]

[myhungryass]

She peers over into... a blank white space. Far below, she 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 her 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, facing away.

[dragonindungeon]

!!!

[ MARCILLE. Forgetting herself entirely, Falin launches herself into the air - thinking as a chimera again, believing herself to be able to soar over to Marcille given enough height. ]

[myhungryass]

And so she can! An updraft catches her, and buoys her aloft. It actually feels like she could fly properly in here, not just glide. As she approaches Marcille, the winds change, trying to buffet her back, but she can still land next to her if she stays focused.

[dragonindungeon]

[ It's Marcille. Of course she's focused.

Falin lands besides her with a small bounce. ]

[myhungryass]

She brightens as she turns towards her. "Oh, hello, Falin!"

[dragonindungeon]

Hi Marcille. Were you exploring...?

[myhungryass]

She shakes her head. "No, I'm the Marcille that exists in here."

[dragonindungeon]

Oh!

So why are you all the way out here?

[myhungryass]

"I'm trying to figure out what's missing around here, or at least properly measure the gaps."

[dragonindungeon]

Gaps?

[myhungryass]

"Between his memories."

[dragonindungeon]

Wow, that's a really important job.

[myhungryass]

"It's really hard work! You wouldn't think a place this empty could be such a mess, but that's Laios for you. I swear, he never pays attention at the right times. It's no wonder Shuro was so fed up."