166. On the House

Exhausted, world-weary, and admittedly a little rattled, Serac knew right away that her second visit to the Wayside Lotus wouldn't feel like the 'vacation' it was last time.

The trio settled into their respective rooms, then quickly separated. Zacko took it upon himself to give a wide-eyed Renna a tour of the premises (this was her first ascension, after all!), while Serac found herself surprisingly in need of a drink.

The teahouse looked almost exactly how Serac remembered it—not that she'd paid too much attention the last time around. The only conspicuous difference was the absence of the slooowly extinguishing Yaksha man—clear indication that she now occupied a 'separate' manifestation of the same Lotic space. The concept still hurt her head if she thought about it too hard, so for now, she decided to leave it well enough alone.

Speaking of headaches…

Ebenezer 'Eben' Yama, the thickly bearded and leather-jacketed Lotus-keeper, stood stock-still behind the bar, with a distinctly unfocused look to his eyes. Serac recognized this to mean he was currently busy serving customers in a different 'plane'.

While she waited, she nervously palpated a band around her skull. She started from the right temple, went around the back through her wavy, ash-gray hair, then finally ended at the prominent bump just behind her left ear. The exercise only reaffirmed what she already knew.

There was no use pretending otherwise. Her 'Penitent's Circlet' had grown again, now making a semicircle around her skull.

She'd only noticed it last week, but she was almost certain it'd happened much earlier—about a month ago, to be precise. I'm willing to bet my soul this happened because of—maybe even during—that super weird 'visit' with the Peach-monger.

Yes. The Peach-monger. Aka ██████U██████ge Eq██████n. Aka the third entity (pretty sure, anyway). In exchange for saving her from certain Frenzy, the insolent brat had somehow left a deeper imprint of themselves on Serac's person.

She didn't know what was more alarming—that the familiar metallic pain of the Circlet had grown in size and intensity, or that the pain was so familiar she'd barely noticed it. The only consolation (so far, anyway) was that the semicircle had grown around the back, meaning it was still largely invisible to the casual observer.

Only a matter of time though, she thought glumly. If the pattern holds, I'm just gonna keep picking up more 'recollections' of the Peach-monger in the higher Realms. Only a matter of time until the Circlet is full again. Until—

"Apologies for the delay. Here's your order."

Serac jumped in her seat, having utterly forgotten where she was. Eben the teamaster was 'back' from his interdimensional excursion, and had already presented his lone customer with a drink.

"But I haven't—"

Serac stopped as her eyes fell upon the drink in question. It'd been served in a squat, clear glass—a bright-yellow liquid overflowing with crushed ice chunks, and garnished on top with a large, succulent slice of peach.

Serac stared at the concoction—far more colorful and elaborate than anything she'd tried in Pretjord—even as her mouth flooded with remembered satisfaction. Is this what I think it is?

"A chilled mai tai—with a personalized twist on the garnish," Eben confirmed her suspicions, as calmly as though commenting on the weather. "Admittedly a little outside our usual fare here at the teahouse. I had to take a moment just now to source some ingredients. Please enjoy."

"D—do I owe you anything?"

"The first drink is always on the house."

Well then, don't mind if I do! Serac took a sip… and was instantly transported to heaven.

The tropical sweetness! The citrus tang! The floral notes as the juices passed through the peach garnish! It was golden perfection in liquid form. If Renna could make one of her [Pearls] taste like this, I'd be drinking it all day, effects be damned!

The chilled mai tai, quite literally, was the drink of Serac's dreams. She'd fantasized about it even in the lowest depths of the Damnatorium where she should've had no knowledge let alone memory of such a thing. She realized now—long after the fact—that it must've been yet another element that had trickled through from her third entity. Instead of being annoyed by the fact, right now, she was pure vibes.

You know what, Peach-monger, you're alright. Her gratitude also extended to the Lotus-keeper. You know what, Eben, you're alright too. Sorry for thinking you were kind of a buzzkill before.

Tongue loosened by joy and chemical encouragement, Serac spent the next hour or so talking Eben's ears off. She recounted her epic adventures in Pretjord. She got a little misty-eyed talking about her new friends and how she missed them already. And she shared her cautious optimism for what was still to come.

That was when the teamaster offered one of his rare few commentaries. He spoke without looking up, bushy eyes fixed on the glass and cloth in his hands.

"I daresay you're wise to be cautious, ma'am. Especially now that the Wayfarers you meet on the road have reasons to be cautious of you."

Serac had been resting her chin on one hand while absent-mindedly tapping her glass with the other. She now stopped her clinking and looked up at the teamaster with bloodshot eyes. As much as she loved the mai tai, she couldn't hold her liquor at all!

"Cautious of me? Why's that?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong, ma'am," Eben said smoothly, eyes still pointed to his task. "For us Anchored souls, sizing up a stranger is an inexact art. We can try and judge by your figure, by how you carry yourself, maybe even by the glimmer behind your eyes. But in the end, it's mostly guesswork. Not so for you Wayfarers. You've got Pathsight to tell you exactly what you're looking at."

"Well, sure," Serac said uncertainly, "but I still don't see how I'd come across as a threat. I'd be showing up to Tidereign at KL-60—the bare minimum required for ascension. Chances are, the Wayfarers I run into there will have much bigger numbers than mine."

"Of course, ma'am." Eben nodded, even adding a slight bow as he did. Then: "But numbers aren't everything, are they? Not for you. Not anymore."

Serac froze, instantly forgetting the drink in her hand. Eben was right, of course. Numbers weren't everything, especially now with a prominent 'update' to her status sheet.

"But," she murmured slowly, "how would you know about that?"

Eben flashed her a bushy-eyed look—only for a moment, then he was back to wiping glasses.

"Forgive me if I misspoke, ma'am," he said without a hint of contrition. "In my business, I can't help but learn things that are, well, none of my business. But I'm sure it's nothing. Please. Forget I said anything, and enjoy the rest of your drink."

Serac did—or tried to, anyway. She drained the last of her now heavily diluted mai tai, but barely tasted anything at all.

[The Upheaver]. As much as the epithet had been hoisted on her without consultation, she couldn't help but feel she'd somehow been complicit in its provenance.

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I did want to name my team 'the Upheavers'… but that was to honor Trippy Version One more than anything. How was I supposed to know that some asshole Deva would latch onto it first—let alone that it'd become a permanent addition to my status sheet!

Even a hell—well, no, Serac wasn't really a hell bumpkin anymore. And she'd been in her business long enough to know that an epithet next to a name was something to take notice of. Which, again, meant Eben was right. Her fellow Wayfarers would certainly be taking notice of her epithet and wondering just what the hell to do about it.

Welp. There's nothing I can do except to own it. We're the Upheavers now, whether we like it or not. Let's just hope it brings us more luck than trouble…

"I see you're finished with your drink," Eben again. "Shall I fix you another?"

Serac thought about it, then shook her head glumly.

***

The next day, a slightly hungover Serac visited her favorite person in the Wayside Lotus (not that the competition was particularly stiff). Beatrice 'Bea' Sattva, the deer-person Seersmith, flexed her mountainous muscles and swung her giant tool, hammering the next Seerflame upgrade into REVOLVER.

[Designation: REVOLVER]

[Instrument Class: DEIFIC]

[Anchored Realm: PRETJORD (+1) -> TIDEREIGN (+2)]

[PHYSICAL Base AV: 141 -> 151]

[INFERNAL Base AV: 164 -> 176]

[ZEALOUS Base AV: 176 -> 189]

[PRIMAL Base AV: 143-> 153]

[ERUDITE Base AV: 137 -> 147]

[MARTIAL Base AV: 143 -> 153]

[DEIFIC Base AV: 164 -> 176]

As expected, Serac's Zealous damage remained her highest output. Lucky for her, then, that she had a convenient spell for converting all her bullets into Zealous type.

"But can you still use that spell now that you've left Pretjord behind?" a sharp-minded Bea had asked by way of conversation. "Didn't it rely on the Realm 'gimmick' down there or some such nonsense?"

"I can still channel Mana as an alternative resource," Serac explained. "Plus! One of my friends from Pretjord gave me the coolest parting gift imaginable!"

Serac beamed from ear to ear as she produced her show-and-tell. Nearly a week after receiving said gift, she still couldn't stop smiling about it!

[Designation: CHEF'S BEST FRIEND]

[Realm of Origin: PRETJORD]

[Trinket Description: Once a Pretjordian chef, always a Pretjordian chef—and a good chef never goes anywhere without her salt and pepper! While the trinket is equipped, its wearer is reminded of the taste of home cooking, thereby retaining [Hunger] and [Synthesis] even outside of Pretjord.]

When Petter Svensen had gifted Serac her own set of shakers, he'd purely meant it as a memento. Imagine both of their surprise, then, when the thing announced itself as a Pathsight-certified Trinket!

At the cost of having to 'eat for sustenance', Serac could maintain her access to [Satiety] as a secondary resource, as well as the ability to benefit from consumables. In other words, she could keep on pretending to be a Yaksha, just like her pink frog companion.

The best part was just how low-footprint the thing was, at a [Burden] cost of only 6. Evidently, Pathsight deemed [Hunger] to be a big enough downside to warrant the discount (Zacko would agree). The upshot was that Serac could comfortably wear two Trinkets together without incurring too great a penalty to Poise and Stamina expenditure. And if the [Hunger] ever got to be too much, she could simply take it off and put it away.

In a very real sense, [Chef's Best Friend] was only the latest in a series of major lucky breaks. Until she acquired it, both she and Trippy had resigned themselves to the notion that two of her three [Chamber Two] imbuements would be more or less useless moving forward. Well, now she could keep on [Metabolic Shifting] as long as there were Aberrants for her to [Harvest].

"Now, that's a neat piece of kit!" Bea met Serac's show-and-tell with the appropriate level of oohs and ahhs. "But I gotta warn ya, buttercup. It might be a little tricky to put that thing to good use up in Tidereign."

"Oh no," Serac reacted, suddenly apprehensive. "Do you think we'll go [Hungry]? I should manage okay, but I don't know how it'll be for Renna."

"Oh, there'll be plenty of food if you need it. That ain't the problem. I just don't know if you'll be on the right side of Tidereign for all that [Harvesting] you'll need doing."

"What is Tidereign like, anyway?" Serac asked—and who better to direct the question to than a living, breathing Mriga from the next Realm up? "Anything else we should watch out for?"

"Plenty," Bea answered cheerily, "especially for a Rakshasa like yourself. First thing to know about are the changes that'll happen to your body and mind as soon as you ascend. I think you Wayfarers call it… Frenzy."

Serac gaped at the deer woman, not quite believing her ears.

"Hold on," she said. "You're telling me I'm going to start out Frenzied?"

"Yup. Frenzy is the default state for all Tidereigner Wayfarers, which… as I understand it, you'll be counted as one too while you're there."

"But, but, but… isn't that just game over, then? Is there a way to prevent it from happening? Or, or, or… to fix it once it's set in?"

Serac was thinking about her Peach-monger again. But Bea the Mriga met her alarm with a good-natured laugh.

"Don't worry, buttercup. Come find me in between jobs, and I'll tell you everything I know. It's really not as scary as it might sound. Speaking of jobs…"

That was how Serac paid for the Seerflame upgrade with real, hard-earned Karma. For the [+2] iteration, Bea charged her a whopping [18,000 क], which very nearly broke the bank.

But Serac was also delighted by the manner in which the payment was collected ("Just sit here and do your meditation thing. The Karma will transfer directly to the Wayside Lotus itself and replenish its 'health'. That's how we keep this dump running, you know—by robbing you power-hungry Wayfarers blind. Heh heh heh…"). She also made a mental note to herself to bring enough cash before her next visit.

***

Rested, upgraded, and armed with insider knowledge about the next Realm up, the Upheavers eventually made their way back to the entrance/exit portal. There, they checked in with each other one last time—which, at this point in their journey, was a mere formality.

"Ready?" Serac asked with a big, confident smile.

"Always," Zacko answered with one eyebrow chilling near his hairline.

"Let's get on with it," Renna urged, already easily the most 'adult' of the trio.

"Alrighty then, see you on the other side!"

[Inter-Realm transfer active. Destination: TIDEREIGN]

Solid into vapor and back into solid again. Serac knew the drill. But before she could touch the ground and find out 'which side' of Tidereign she'd ended up in, Pathsight announced the newest chapter of her journey:

[TIDEREIGN Realm Boon unlocked: OATHBIND]

[REVOLVER Spell pending]

[Chamber Three: pending]

[WARNING: Frenzy Imminent]

[TIDEWATCH: You now have 42 minutes to affirm your OATH]

***

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End of Book 2: A Feast Without End

Stay tuned for Book 3: The Gloaming Vow

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