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

[scentsibility]

Ah, dream logic ... right.

[ he hands him more of the snacks. ]

Here, take this at least. and I guess I'll talk to you you later?

[myhungryass]

"Thanks!" He'll take them. "Yeah. Good luck..."

[scentsibility]

[ he waves, closing his eyes and he ducks back into the wagon. should he try going to the front of the wagon since he was just out the back ... ? ]

[myhungryass]

As soon as he ducks into the wagon with his eyes closed, he finds himself stepping out of the snake, back outside, onto the dark water.

[scentsibility]

Whoa—guess that worked.

[ does he need to walk around to the front of the monster again? ]

[myhungryass]

He does. Sorry Al. Lots of treking in this heart. Still, it doesn't take him too long before those three huge heads are looming over him again: the wolf, the rhino and the eagle.

[scentsibility]

[ he thinks about going through one of the other entryways (ugh), but he remembers seeing someone in the distance before when he was flying over Moon and Sun House. he takes the eagle way again, aiming to land near that person this time. ]

[myhungryass]

Flying towards Marcille is a struggle. The closer she gets, the trickier the winds seem to be, fickle, shifting, always trying to thwart him. Still, he eventually lands next to her. She seems to be gazing off at something beyond this blank space.

[scentsibility]

[ he didn't feel that at all before, weird. he makes a rough landing, but saves himself from falling over. ]

Hello ... ? Ah, you're Falin's friend.

[myhungryass]

She turns and smiles at him. Apparently you can't go wrong bringing up Falin in here, either. "That's right. I'm not really Marcille, though. Just the Marcille who exists in here."

[scentsibility]

Ah. Right. Inside Phoenix's heart-dream thing.

... Would you be able to help me?

[myhungryass]

"I can try! What do you need help with?"

[scentsibility]

I'm looking for Phoenix's memories to bring them to him. Do you have some ideas where I might find them in here?

[myhungryass]

"You're in the right general area," she says, crossing her arms with a slightly discouraged sigh. "I've been trying to piece together what's missing myself... or at least measure out the shape of it. You wouldn't think something could be this empty and this much of a mess at the same time, but I guess that's Laios for you." There's a definite hint of exasperation in that last sentence.

[scentsibility]

This is messy?

[ looks around at the vast nothing?? ]

[myhungryass]

To be fair, it is a vast nothing untidily scattered with random objects, even if there is a lot of space between them. "Well, it's not organized."

[scentsibility]

Should I just start going through it? The last memory I saw was in a book.

[myhungryass]

She nods. "That would be a great help! There shouldn't be more than two untaken ones lying around... if you can find them and take them to Laios, it would really be a step to sorting things out around here. You can probably find him in the stomach."

[scentsibility]

... In the ...

[myhungryass]

"That would be my guess. If you find that too disturbing, you don't have to, though. Eventually you'll wake up, even if you just lie down right here and don't do a single thing."

[scentsibility]

Well ... he did say he was always hungry. Why does it feel like he'll be eating me, though ...

[ he's just gonna. start looking through the items now. ]

[myhungryass]

They're scattered pretty widely, but he can make his way over to any of them. There's the book, wok, sword, tombstone and plush, in addition to the cottages.

[scentsibility]

[ he heads for each item in that order, starting with the book since he had luck with the other book. ]

[myhungryass]

And he lucks out again! It’s just some shitty geometry textbook? When he picks it up, though, 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. 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 probably, he’d just see it himself, rather than returning it to Laios.

The wok is 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. (Notably for Al, he probably gets at least a vague sense that the definition of "human" here does not mean, exclusively, "tallman" but more like "sapient person" but this info dump isn't specifically about that.)

The sword rattles violently in its scabbard when he gets close. If he goes to pick it up, it suddenly skips across the ground away from him! Does he chase it...?

[scentsibility]

[ wow, right off the bat, his luck really is holding out right now. he tucks the book under his arm to keep it safe while he reaches for the other things, taking a moment to let that ecosystem consideration sink in, huh.

he nearly flinches when the sword first rattles, then takes his hand back entirely when it skips away. ]

What on earth?

[ he does follow after it though, approaching more cautiously now. ]