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]

Every time he gets close it just YEETS itself further away, clearly fleeing. It's only about as fast as a grasshopper, though. If he pounced, he could definitely grab it.

[scentsibility]

[ what if Al just smacks it down in place with his tail? ]

[myhungryass]

Pinned!! A flood of information about monsters and how cool they are and how to prepare them for eating and musings about what certain ones might taste like and whether or not people and monsters could ever have a more harmonious relationship washes over him as soon as he touches it. There's no voice to go with it... it's more a series of images and concepts... but it's accompanied by a feeling of eager fascination, even obsession.

The sword gives one more violent rattle as he smacks it down, then goes still. It's a double-edged sword with an embellishment on the hilt that looks like wings.

[scentsibility]

Ah ... they're still wondering the same about demihumans.

[ he half-mumbles that to himself over the musings that wash over him, bending over to pick up the sword by the scabbard rather than by the hilt so he can look at the decoration of it. ]

Oh, is this what he uses in the dungeon? Can swords normally move on their own though ... ?

[ musing again as he walks with it, going for the next item (if nothing happens). ]

[myhungryass]

It remains totally inert as he heads over to the tombstone. When he touches it, a memory washes over him. He finds himself thinking about Falin. Is she okay? Did Laios ruin her life? Is he holding her back? Did they really eat her? Did it save her? They would have had to kill her first. Did he kill his sister? Did he kill his sister? Did he kill his sister??

[scentsibility]

[ he gasps at the memory, of the feeling of that ghost and the cold. but it's the thoughts that come after that cause Al to hold his breath, his hand rising to press itself to his face. the book he was holding falls to the ground with it. ]

F-Falin—

[myhungryass]

The thoughts are accompanied by a feeling of guilt and fear, mixed with fierce love and gratitude.

[scentsibility]

[ wow those are intense when they're not mine. he takes a moment to recover, taking a breath before he leans to pick the book back up. he looks at the tombstone after ... how is he going to carry that to Laios ... ]

[myhungryass]

Marcille and younger Laios did specify "memories he hasn't taken yet," and Al can tell the difference between the book (untaken) and the other things he's touched (either full memories that must already have been recovered, infodumps of things Laios is pondering, or a mix), so he can probably figure out that the tombstone needs to stay where it is...

...or he can try something wild? I'm just narrating here.

[scentsibility]

[ aahh~~ dungeon meshi~

but no, Al does realize the different then, glancing between the book and the tombstone. it feels almost shitty to leave it when it was that intense, but he does move on to the other objects since he said he's help Laios. ]

[myhungryass]

Then it's just the plush left! It's soft! It has little white wings embroidered on its back, and button eyes. The buttons only have two holes, so with the thread between them, it creates the look of a double or hour-glass pupil. When he picks it up, just like with the book, 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's already looked at Moon House, and probably noticed the forbidding feeling coming from Sun House means he wouldn't be able to get in. Will he investigate Hen House in case there are more items hidden in there? Marcille did say there probably weren't more than two, but it might be best to check? Or he can just fly on out of here.

[scentsibility]

[ huh, weird that Sun is closed to him. but yeah, he will check out Hen House quickly. ]

[myhungryass]

Just like Moon House, exterior looks a little bit… off? The roof is made of the wrong material… the door isn’t quite the right 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.

He can't just walk straight into this one like Moon House, but the door swings open if he knocks. 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 hasn’t paid too much attention to what the chairs look like.

The doors inside (to the bedrooms, bathroom and shrine room) are closed, but he can hear whispering within the bedroom shared by Laios, Louis and Laura. If he approachs, he realizes it’s Laios’s voice, talking to himself.

[scentsibility]

[ he snerks at the detailed chicken feet, eventually getting inside. he does wander towards the voices, recognizing Laios's voice as he gently knocks on the door. ]

[myhungryass]

There's no direct answer, but he can hear the words now.

"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. 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.

[scentsibility]

Wh ... what is ... should I even be listening to this ...

[ once he realizes it loops, he does step away to leave that, ah, private thought to itself. ]

[myhungryass]

Does he take a look at anything else? The second bedroom is locked tight, but the bathroom and shrine room doors both swing open if knocked on.

[scentsibility]

[ he'll start with the shrine room then, knocking gently. ]

[myhungryass]

The door swings open, and a wave of warm excitement washes over him. A sense of potential. When he peeks in, the egg seems to dominate the room beside its little incubator lamp set-up, his focus immediately drawn there.

[scentsibility]

Oh ...

[ he approaches the egg, fascinated. can he reach out to touch it gently with his fingertips? ]

[myhungryass]

Definitely! It's warm... a busy tangle of thoughts wash over him, all related to care. The egg's routine, daily schedules, diet and exercise, the care and keeping of chimeras, and then more wide-scale... food distribution on a kingdom-wide level?? That sense of potential remains potent. He can also sense a feeling of warm purpose and determination... maybe a little nervousness, too.

[scentsibility]

For a ... kingdom ... ?

[ is there anything around the egg that might give context? ]

[myhungryass]

There sure isn't! It's simply a not-quite detailed enough version of Hen House shrine—the incubator is perfectly accurate, but the random shoes and gloves are mostly in correct pairs instead of singles, and instead of tins of meat, there are just weirdly non-descript metal boxes. Aside from the egg, nothing in the room feels significant.