Department of Many Voices

Spoiler Alert! Warning! This page contains spoilers for Aru Shah and the Song of Death.

The Department of Many Voices, also known as the DMV, is an agency in the Otherworld where sages curse or gives boons or protection to people.

Description

The DMV was a massive building on a stretch of lawn. It was squat, long, and painted a shade of depressed supermarket egg. A plain white sign on the lawn read ASHRAM in small letters.

Lobby

The lobby has hand and hoof sanitizer dispensers on a stand. There was a wide reception desk with a calendar and a box of paperclips, and a box of what looked like Kleenex but read: CURSE WIPES.

Around the corner and down a great spiral staircase, was a wide room with about a hundred rickety wooden seats facing a row of empty glass-framed booth. Each booth was for a sage, above them were little neon signs with a sage's name, they include Bhrigu, Kindama, Narada, Durvasa.

Cosmic Gallery

The entrance was door beyond a gold gate with a red sign that said DIVINITY ONLY. Inside was very different from what DMV looked like on the outside. There was a glittering floor beneath as if someone paved it with crushed stars and a ceiling that looked like an open sky half in daylight and half in darkness. There was a slender silver bridge that connected day and night, if one looked at this sky and waited for the clouds to move there were two grand palaces for each realm. The one in the day was studded with carved rubies and garnets, the one in the night looked like it was chiseled out of sapphire and moonstone.

On a wall, there was a row of glass display cases containing statues that appeared to be alive. They twisted and morphed in place, sometimes looking human, other times resembling asuras and apsaras. One of the statues was of Shakuntula, she was a beautiful woman sitting on the ground and weeping, there a metal plaque on the bottom with here name. Another statue was Rambha, who was actually turned to stone.