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]

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?

[myhungryass]

By this point, she's been walking for awhile. She's probably closer to the side she's been walking towards, with its stairs going up.

[misenplaits]

Then let's go there.

[myhungryass]

The stairs lead up... and up, and up, and up, far further than she remembers descending.

Eventually, they lead up to an archway, filled with opaque white light. Does she go through, turn back, or just poke her head through?

[misenplaits]

She'll go through!

[myhungryass]

She steps through onto the bony lower ridge of the eagle head's eye socket, about twenty feet above ground level. There doesn't seem to be any way to go back the way she came.

[misenplaits]

IS SHE GOING TO FALL?

[myhungryass]

I don't know, is she? The ridge is wide enough to make a sturdy perch, but if she starts flailing around, she still might, either down to the dark water or into the eye socket.

[misenplaits]

This is Marcille. She is totally clumsy enough to fall into the eye socket.

[myhungryass]

She goes tumbling through into space... and an updraft catches her! All she has to do is spread her arms, and she's flying, soaring through a blank, white space, a refreshingly cold wind whipping by, buoying her up. She finds herself able to steer by instinct.

Far below her, 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 his vision, in the far distance, where the curve of the horizon should be, stands... wait. That's her?? That's definitely another Marcille.

[misenplaits]

... GOING TO FIND OUT WHAT LAIOS' DREAM MARCILLE IS UP TO NOW.

He better not be misrepresenting her to everybody!!!

[myhungryass]

This version of her seems lucid and helpful, as long as she'a asked direct, to-the-point questions. She explains things in a straightforward way and will clarify as needed—a methodical teacher. She's also quick to criticize Laios if given the chance. She seems very aware of his flaws and weaknesses, and a bit exasperated with any points of failure.

If Marcille takes exception with this portrayal of herself to her doppleganger's face, she will get to hear exactly what Laios thinks of her in plain language: "You're one of his most important people in any world, but right now, he can't stop worrying about how you don't trust him. He felt so happy when he saw your dream, and you told him you're glad to be friends, and he understands that you need hard evidence to believe anything bad about the Winged Lion, after he helped you so much. But he can't stop thinking about how that evidence might make you feel, and whether or not he was right to try to warn you."

She'll also explain her role a little more specifically. "I'm not you. I'm not even exactly the way Laios sees you, as a person. But you're one of the smartest people he knows. When there's someone here to see it, yours is the face he puts on the part of himself that needs to methodically analyze rules and facts. The part that thinks critically and can actually be self-aware. The part that worries, the part that stops to question if he's doing the right thing or not."

She'll probably send Marcille on to pick up a couple untaken memories, if she's interested in that, or tell her that there's a fourth head out back of the big monster... "That's where he's loneliest."

[misenplaits]

She probably does take a slight bit of exception, because she feels like she doesn't actually complain about Laios that much. She'll be mollified a little to know that this isn't actually meant to be her but his personification of the part of him that thinks critically. She likes the idea that she's his critical thinking.

She'll definitely want to get him his untaken memories, though she'll be worried since one of them is the winged lion. And of course she'll go and visit the fourth head, taking the Moon House shortcut... and be very Concerned that she now knows Far Too Much about Demon Owl Cloacas.

She will fuss a lot over Scruffy Laios and make him let her give him a hair cut because really!!!

[myhungryass]

She can probably even find shears, soap and a waterskin in the wagon, if she expects to! He's so dirty Marcille. He has fleas. He's also horribly emaciated. It's a bad scene.

He looks significantly better after she cleans him up.

[misenplaits]

He is getting SO MUCH SCOLDING for letting himself get in this state. Really, Laios! Also he needs to eat more. He is far too skinny. He needs pasta!!!