4. Mr Voice


    Once again, the physical blended with the metaphysical into a sensation that Serac could only describe as ‘believing what she was seeing’.


    What she saw with her naked eye was the dissolution and disappearance of Porky’s lifeless body. What she understood, however, was that Porky himself (or his soul, at any rate) had been resorbed into the ether—into the interstitium that filled the unseen spaces between the tangible and the ever-present.


    Wait, what? The interstitium? The tangible and the ever-present? These were not words Serac would’ve used to describe anything she knew about the world around her, and yet, they now came to her unprompted, fully formed, and readily understood. She knew that Porky or the essence that defined and tethered him to his place in hell still swirled about the vicinity with its petulant menace, ready to go right back to grunting and belt-slinging at the earliest opportunity. She knew this with a conviction that required no primer and brooked no doubt.


    Because she herself now held the evidence within her own soul.


    “What you just experienced,” Mr Voice again, “is Karma transfer. Your smiting of a Hellspawn Aberrant has been recognized and credited with the proportional amount of Karma. The fellow you just dispatched, as angry and surprisingly inventive as he was, was still just your run-of-the-mill Jailer. All that to say the returns are somewhat modest, but I daresay there are worse ways to whet your appetite.”


    Even as Mr Voice spoke, Serac’s overlay sparked with new information: [300 ?].


    “Karma?” Serac frowned. “Is this any different to the Karma that supposedly determines what happens to a soul when they die?”


    “The very same.”


    “I didn’t know you could count Karma!” Serac widened her eyes, just now starting to feel self-conscious about talking so loudly when she was ostensibly alone. “I mean, I guess there had to be a way to measure it, but I never imagined you could attach real numbers to it.”


    “It’s one of the perks of becoming a Wayfarer. The Devas are watching you now, Serac Edin, and say what you will about them, but they are meticulous with their accounting.”


    For a short while, Serac sat with that revelation—both spoken and read between the lines. Then all the questions she’d been holding back in the interest of survival came flooding out with a vengeance.


    “That reminds me,” she said, “I’ve been meaning to ask what this partnership is even about. You said I’m not to—what was it?—deviate from REVOLVER’s intended use until our ‘shared goal’ is achieved. What goal, and how does this six-shooter figure into it?”


    “In the interest of flow, I’ll take the liberty to answer that question in reverse. You ask how the Instrument in your hand is meant to help with our goal. It’s simple, really. I’m sure you’ve surmised by now that REVOLVER is no ordinary six-shooter. Each of its six chambers has the potential to imbue a bullet with a magical property, and that potential will be unlocked in a step-wise manner with each milestone on our journey. In other words, it’s a weapon that grows stronger along with its wielder, and it’s sure to be an invaluable asset, given the kinds of obstacles you’re likely to face.”


    Serac subconsciously shifted her gaze toward the vaunted talisman in her right hand. Now that she was no longer in immediate danger, she decided to take a closer look at the engravings upon REVOLVER’s lotus-white grip.


    It was a dense configuration of symbols and geometric shapes—dots, squares, diamonds, wheels, waves, crescent moons, flower petals, and more—which all came together to form a circular pattern. Serac had no clue what each of the individual symbols was meant to represent, but the sight of all of them together woke an amorphous memory, yet another that she wasn’t entirely sure belonged solely to herself. Somehow, the memory told her that the object depicted by the engravings was called a mandala—circle, unity, the universe.


    “Yes,” Mr Voice gave his approval of Serac’s ‘private’ deductions, “and just as I suspected, this flows back nicely into the first part of your question. What is our ‘shared goal’? What is the ideal you’ve committed your service to, the failure to abide by which will result in your forfeiture of and by a Deific Instrument? Why, this answer is even simpler than the last. You and I are going to summit Mount Meru. Ascend its Six Realms, all the way to the top. And for that, I need you to procure a lot of Karma.”


    For at least a brief moment, Serac was in no danger of having her thoughts read by a sentient six-shooter. Because her mind had gone completely blank.


    “It goes without saying that you’ve got your task cut out for you,” Mr Voice went on, evidently having interpreted Serac’s blankness to his own satisfaction, “given that you’ve started from the literal bottom. Naraka: the lowliest of the three Lowly Realms. And from the pits of its subterranean prison to boot. But let me assure you, Wayfarer. Stick with me, and I will show you the world. All of it. To Pretjord and to Tidereign after that. Then onto the three Virtuous Realms: Manesfera, Suradao, and yes, even Devalem. Imagine it, Serac Edin! By the time I’m through with you, you will be a god.”


    When the day had started, Serac couldn’t even crack a good-natured joke with her Jailer without being reduced to a sniveling wreck. From the lowliest inmate in the lowest pits of hell to… a literal god? Surely not. As a pragmatic realist, Serac knew that a girl could dream, but also that there were hard limits to how much a girl could achieve. And yet…


    The power to topple a mountain with the snap of a finger. To cross a thousand skies in the blink of an eye.


    “… You’ve gone uncharacteristically quiet,” Mr Voice said, which struck Serac as rather odd. Hadn’t he ‘heard’ her latest thoughts? “Is something the matter? You’re not getting cold feet, are you? Regardless of the circumstances under which it came to be, our agreement is final. I will hold you to it, even if I have to—”


    “It’s just…” When Serac cut in, a wry and somewhat defensive smile curled one corner of her mouth. “You and I barely know each other, and now you want me to go on a Realms-trotting adventure with you? You want to show me the world? And you even managed to say that with a straight face (I assume)! All I’m saying is… could you cool your jets? Take things slow? At least buy me dinner first?”


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    “Take things slow? But we haven’t achieved anything! You haven’t even left your first Waystation, for heaven’s sake! The longer you spend dallying and second-guessing, the farther we drift from our goal. Now, will you do this with me, or will I have to resort to… more direct forms of encouragement? I don’t want us to step off on the wrong foot, but that doesn’t mean I’m above wielding my powers as I see fit.”


    “Whoa, whoa, easy there, chief.” Serac let out a nervous chuckle, suddenly feeling uncomfortably warm. She hated herself for falling back on a familiar address for Porky—that object of fear she’d had to appease and cajole all her life. Yet, right now, Mr Voice was the very thing she had to appease and cajole. “No one said anything about backing out. But would it hurt us to get to know each other a little? You seem so hell-bent on reaching the top of Mount Meru, but you haven’t told me why. So, why don’t we start there?”


    This was followed by a pause, one in which Serac felt fully exposed while she herself could read nothing of Mr Voice’s thoughts. Subconsciously, her free hand (albeit weighed down by a mass of rocks that still dripped with fresh Jailer blood) twitched and drifted upward, almost in anticipation of the Penitent’s Circlet closing around her head.


    “Very well,” Mr Voice eventually said. Meanwhile, the Circlet maintained its baseline tension, allowing Serac to relax. “But I’ll have you know that I’m under no obligation to answer your questions. I also don’t particularly see the point. All souls should strive to achieve as much as they can during their afterlife, if only to facilitate a nobler existence on their inevitable Rebirth into the mundane. What more reasons do you require? But very well, I will give you an answer in the interest of camaraderie and a healthy working relationship.”


    “Sounds good to me, chief.” Serac hid a sigh of relief, wondering at the same time if there was any use hiding anything from Mr Voice. “Lay it on me.”


    “It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that I too am a soul, much like yourself. Due to a spot of trouble in my former life, I had the misfortune of becoming Unmoored—from the Six Realms as well as my own physical vessel. Luckily, as the previous wielder of REVOLVER, I found a way to attach myself to its essence as it lay dormant between transmutations. That was how I found you. And as much as it pains me to admit this, I’m as reliant on you as you are on me. You will be my proxy for re-scaling Mount Meru—to restore the former glory of my existence—while I shall be your ticket to freedom. Isn’t that what you value above all else, Serac Edin? Isn’t it the very reason you entrusted yourself to me in the first place?”


    Serac let out a low whistle in a feeble attempt to mask the disturbance within her soul. She then tried and failed to suppress the pounding of her heart.


    Even with that bit of confession, Mr Voice continued to keep things from her—things that were difficult to glean from between the lines. He did so unapologetically, knowing Serac would’ve expected him to be less than forthright and still have no way to do anything about it.


    Freedom? Despite her unfamiliarity with the subject, she doubted this was what freedom ought to feel like. REVOLVER had certainly been ‘instrumental’ in her breaking free from Porky the Jailer, but as things stood, she’d only gone out of the frying pan and into the fire.


    Not only that, but her subjugator had also undergone a considerable upgrade: from a mean Narakite Jailer to someone—if Mr Voice were to be taken at his word—who’d seen the peak of Mount Meru!


    Had he also started out as a confused ‘Wayfarer’ like herself? Or had he always been one of the Deities that ran things from atop their ivory tower in Devalem? Not that Serac had remotely the reference point to understand what that was like…


    And yet, as much as she was a realist, she was also a pragmatist. And that pragmatist saw no reason why she couldn’t use Mr Voice as much he intended to exploit her.


    “Why me?”


    “… What do you mean?”


    “I mean exactly that. Why did you choose me, out of all the poor souls you could’ve hitched a ride with? Assuming you did have a choice. You didn’t just wander aimlessly until you latched onto the first soul that let you, did you? Surely not, what with such lofty goals like yours…”


    “You’d be correct in that assumption,” Mr Voice said quickly—almost defensively. Then he took a moment to choose his next words. “Even before I came Unmoored, I always had a certain perceptiveness—call it a sixth sense, if you will—about the true nature and worth of a soul. And yours just happened to shine brightest and scream out the loudest. A Rakshasa you may be, Anchored to the lowliest Realm, yet your soul burns with ambition and a restless energy that belie your meager stature. You don’t belong in the lowest pits of hell, Serac Edin. And I intend to find out just how high you can climb.”


    That’s right, and you best never forget it. Satisfied that she’d at least clawed back some semblance of respectability in this highly unbalanced ‘working relationship’ of theirs, Serac decided she could turn to other matters. Including a question that, while perhaps not as urgent as some others, had nevertheless been bugging her for the longest time.


    “What’s your name, anyway?”


    “… My name?”


    “Yeah! You know mine, so it’s only fair that I learn yours. I’ve been thinking of you as ‘Mr Voice’ this whole time, but I think we both know that’s not meant to be a permanent arrangement.”


    “I… frankly don’t care. I lost my claim to my previous name at the moment of my Unmooring, and I’ve not had a need for another one since. Call me whatever you wish. Even ‘REVOLVER’, if that suits your—”


    “What was that thing about the Manusya firearm REVOLVER was modeled after? Something like… Simon & Wesley Triple Lock? ‘Triple Lock’… I kinda like that. Badass in an understated sort of way. But it’s one too many syllables for a proper nickname between friends.”


    “… Were you going to suggest an alternative?”


    “I’ve already decided on it, actually. Trippy! That’s what I’m calling you from now on. You’re going to respond to it, and you’re going to like it. I mean… it is pretty damn ‘trippy’, isn’t it? That we’re even having this conversation?”


    This was followed by a pause, one in which Serac was oddly content with her present place in the universe while Mr Voice appeared to her like an open book. She sensed his considering her ‘decision’, perhaps even trying it on for size. In the end, his response began with an audible sigh.


    “Very well. Trippy, it is. Like I said, I really couldn’t care less what you—”


    “Awesome! Well, Trippy, what’s next? I’m guessing you’re anxious for me to leave this Waystation behind (even though it’s really pretty to look at), but I really have no clue where I’m supposed to go next. Now that we’re free to do whatever we like, what’s our first order of business, partner?”


    This was followed by a relatively brief pause, one in which both Wayfarer and her Unmoored companion took stock of each other’s readiness for and commitment to the shared journey ahead.


    “Why, isn’t it obvious? Our first task is a prison break. We need to get you out of the Damnatorium and for good.”