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]

Thankfully, there's no scent at all of decay, at least. The air is heavy with the scent of blood, but that's the worst of it.

Aside from the monster, there's nothing but the dark surface of the water. If Al walks far enough away, he'll find himself somehow looping back, those three bestial heads looming up quickly again.

[scentsibility]

[ with as much of it as is in the air, it's enough to turn his stomach. ]

Ugh, so I really have to ... ?

[ uuugggghhh he screws up his courage, just stepping into whichever "entryway" is closest (the eagle head). ]

[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. Or he can fly up. 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. But when he steps inside...

An updraft catches him. If his wings weren't already spread, they are now! He's suddenly soaring through a blank, white space, a refreshingly cold wind whipping by, buoying him up.

Far below him, Al 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 figure, blonde, in a blue outfit, holding a staff.

[scentsibility]

Whoa—!

[ thank god he actually got his flying skill back or this would have been a short flight straight down. he circles once or twice to get the lay of everything, noticing the figure on the second pass, but heading first towards Moon House since that's familiar. ]

[myhungryass]

If anything, flying feels way easier and more practiced than he even remembers, in here. The winds even seem to guide him gently down to Moon House.

The details are a little off. The rickety curve of Moon House is even droopier and more dramatic than in real life, the clang of wind-chimes patches in and out, Sun House looks stubbier, and the colours of its stained-glass front windows are somewhat jumbled.

Al can open the door of Moon House as normal and go right on in. At the doorway, a wave of information floods through him, about carnivorous plants and constellations and monsters and how to treat one's friends and owl demon sexual characteristics and myths... the information is neatly organized, and there's a visual component to it, the vague impression of a flow-chart.

Inside, it looks like Moon House, complete with ball pit. Some details, again, are just a little off or not quite complete, but it feels familiar.

[scentsibility]

Oh, wow—what was that ... ?

[ he holds the side of his head as the information floods in, noticing how the details are off. then blushing as he realizes the bit about owl demon sexual characteristics dskgfd. ]

[myhungryass]

It comes and goes quickly, leaving your head full of potentially new facts, at least for the time being.

Do you explore further?

[scentsibility]

[ yeah, he steps further into Moon House to see what's different than what he knows, maybe even over into Sun House. ]

[myhungryass]

There's not much of note... the colours are just slightly off, the platforms arranged differently. Little things.

When he investigates the ball pit, though, the balls rattle together restlessly. His mind is flooded once more with information and urgent questions. If someone is taken out if this cycle, will they immediately be stabilized? How best to help them? If one’s nature is changed, that’s harder to get rid of than a curse, right? But at the same time, people grow and change naturally throughout their lives. Is there a way to encourage a soul to grow more whole again? There has to be, right? The questions feel anxious but determined.

If he goes touches the trap door into the wine cellar, he'll get the sense that if he goes through, it'll be a long, circuitous trip to go back up to Moon House.

If he goes through anyway, he'll suddenly find himself outside again, rather than in the tunnel to Sun House, but in a different location, with no sign of how he got there.

[scentsibility]

What ... is that all about ... ?

[ he pauses in his walk to just—process all that. after which he does take the tunnel route ... to then look around in confusion?? ]

Wait, where—?

[myhungryass]

He's back outside on the dark water, now on the far side of the enormous monster, between its two tails—a lion tail and one that is actually a serpent's head and neck, coming off the hindquarters. The eyes and mouth are tightly closed, the nostrils mere slits. However, there is a wound just behind its jaw that has something of a suggestion of a raggedy, collapsing doorway…

[scentsibility]

Did I just come out its backside ... ??

[ don't think about it don't think about it. he'll just, climb back inside the monster, sob. ]

[myhungryass]

He climbs in... to a covered wagon? There are crates and sacks stacked neatly inside... clearly cargo.

A green book with many bookmarks sits on top of one of the crates.

It's a little too cold in here. Al feels suddenly very tired.

The wagon is bumping along... there are sounds of horses and people calling outside. Closed flaps at the front and back prevent him from seeing outside for the time being.

[scentsibility]

[ he is tired, too tired to try to see past the flaps ... he reaches for the book then, flipping it open. ]

[myhungryass]

The book is full of descriptions of monsters! Sea serpents, slimes, walking mushrooms... it seems to be a guidebook for cooking and eating them. There are many notes on the bookmarks and in the margins, making corrections and posing theories.

At the back is a loose page. The monster on it seems to have been drawn by a child, albeit one who's pretty good at drawing monsters. It has one head fewer than the huge monster Al recently walked inside, but... it does seem similar.

As he touches that page, a memory washes over him.

[scentsibility]

[ oh. oooooooooooh. ooooh. suddenly the slightly-off details in Moon House make more sense, in a way. he still doesn't quite get what's going on or why, but at least he has some context now. ]

[scentsibility]

[ ... he closes the book though, not wanting to see talk about how to cook dragon meat, kthx.

he sets it down, trying to sit up and pull at one of the flaps of the wagon cover to see outside. ]

[myhungryass]

[front or back?]

[scentsibility]

[ back first! ]

[myhungryass]

He immediately comes face-to-face with Laios, but a much scruffier and slightly younger version than he's used to. He's leading three horses on a string. They're all laden with packs, and Laios himself is wearing a heavy pack, too.

Even though he must be younger, he looks older. He's worryingly gaunt, and shuffles along, seeming listless. Although there's surprise on his face when Al pops out, he barely seems interested. "Hey... what are you doing in there?"

[scentsibility]

Uh ... just traveling? Where are we headed again?

[myhungryass]

He shrugs, looking away. "We never seem to get anywhere."

A cold fog is rising around Al, obscuring his vision. He can still see Laios, but he seems murky, distant, indistinct. Who is this guy, anyway? He's nobody important. He's probably more trouble than he's worth. He looks like bad news. He's clearly an anti-social weirdo.

These thoughts creep into his mind, but it's possible to fight them off, to try and reach out. But on the other hand... Do you really want to waste your time talking to him...?

[scentsibility]

[ he shivers, glancing around at the fog. what on earth is going on?

he glances back to Laios, and he's surprised at how distant he suddenly is. ]

—Hey! Um ... where do you want to go?

[myhungryass]

That does make him glance up again, at least. "Want...?" He seems to have trouble with the concept. "...it would be nice if I could see my sister again."

[scentsibility]

Yeah? Where is she?