x
A Last Call Inn Short Story.
Bartholomew "Bart" Thatcher had been wiping the same spot on the counter for nearly ten minutes. To the untrained eye, it might have appeared to be dedication to cleanliness. In reality, it was the mechanical motion of a man desperately waiting for the clock to strike midnight so he could flip the sign from "Open" to "If we don't open after three knocks, We're Closed.»
The Last Call Inn wasn't much to look at. Low ceilings stained with decades of pipe smoke, lighting from oil lamps that flickered with the resigned persistence of government employees on a Friday afternoon, and the perpetual smell of spilled beer, wood polish, and that particular musk that only develops when five different species use the same bathroom. An odor which, Bart had decided after careful consideration, could serve as an effective alternative to his modified crossbow if he ever needed to clear the room in a hurry.
Nevertheless, the inn was his. Had been for twenty-three years before the rifts opened. And somehow, miraculously, it had survived five years of interdimensional war when buildings twice its size and thrice its importance had been reduced to rubble. The clock on the wall had endured three direct magical blasts, two gravitational anomalies, and what might have been a time-reversal event that had temporarily turned all the beer in the cellar back into barley. The clock continued ticking with such perfect accuracy that several patrons had theorized it might actually be the thing holding this corner of reality together.
Somehow, the Last Call Inn had been at just the right, and wrong, place at the wrong, and right time, and as such it had survived through countless skirmishes, patrons and battles. Not only survived, but thrived in its own little way. Bart considered this a testament to his business model: Serve anything that can pay, don't question or take sides, and keep the crossbow loaded.
"Ten minutes," Bart muttered to himself, glancing at his multiversally resilient timepiece. His grandfather had made it, which to Bart was enough explanation as to why it still worked. Grandfathers, as everyone knows, just made things that lasted. "Ten minutes and I can..."
The door crashed open with all the subtlety of a dragon playing hide-and-seek.
Bart's hand instinctively reached for the modified crossbow he kept under the counter. Five years of war had taught even the most peaceable of barkeeps to prepare for the worst. After all, the worst was usually his clientele.
But what stood in his doorway wasn't the worst. It was something... weirder. Which, in Bart's professional opinion as a man who had once served a drink to a being made entirely of sentient smoke, wasn't all that weird.
Three figures silhouetted against the night sky, each looking like they'd been dragged backward through the nine hells while being forced to listen to an ogre with a lisp recite elven poetry. About feelings.
The first to step forward was short, barely reaching Bart's waist. A kobold, scales the color of rust with patches of what might have been blood or red clay. One of its horns was broken off halfway, and a scar ran from where it should have been down to its snout. It wore makeshift armor cobbled together from scavenged metal, leather, and what appeared to be the shell of some enormous beetle that had clearly lost an argument about personal space.
"Got anything that'll burn a hole in my stomach?" the kobold asked, its voice like gravel being stirred with a wooden spoon.
Before Bart could answer, the second figure pushed in. A woman, tall and lanky, dressed in what once might have been a sleek spacesuit but was now torn and patched in dozens of places. Her helmet was cracked along one side, revealing a face covered in tiny scars that looked like constellations, the kind astronomers would name "The Extremely Bad Day" or "Somebody Tried to Kill Me with Something Sharp."
"Whiskey," she said, her voice clipped and precise. "Or your closest approximation that won't make me temporarily color-blind."
The third figure had to duck to enter. A mountain of a man with a mechanical arm that hissed and vented steam with each movement. Goggles pushed up on his forehead, a captain's coat torn and burned at the edges, and a beard that seemed to contain several small metal objects woven into it. The objects occasionally blinked or made quiet ticking sounds, suggesting they weren't merely decorative but potentially useful for telling time, navigating dimensions, or possibly making very small toast.
"Whatever they're having," he rumbled with a formal, nautical cadence, "and a pint of your darkest, if you would be so kind."
Bart's eyes flicked to the clock. Eight minutes to midnight. He sighed. The very last thing he needed was customers who looked like they'd just crawled out of the war's messiest corner. Those types either couldn't pay or paid in things that defied classification by most reputable financial institutions.
"Last call was five minutes ago," he lied, with the practiced ease of a barkeep who had been closing "in five minutes" for approximately twenty-three years.
The kobold snorted, a small flame escaping its nostrils and singeing the edge of a "Happy Peace Day (Someday?)" banner that had been hanging optimistically since year two of the war. "Someday" had been added later based on the differing writing style.
"Bar's still open. We can see the bottles from here," he pointed out, tapping a claw on the counter that left a small scorch mark. The sound of talon on wood created a distinctive sizzle, like bacon frying on a particularly irritable griddle.
"And if time is your concern," the spacer said, tapping a strange device on her wrist that seemed to display several different times simultaneously, none of which agreed with each other, "I can assure you it's a far more relative concept than you might imagine. Tuesday has been happening continuously for the past eight days just north of here, you know."
She delivered this information with the matter-of-fact tone of someone reporting the weather.
The pirate simply stared, his mechanical hand flexing with a series of clicks and puffs of steam that somehow managed to sound judgmental. The metal fingers clinked against each other in what might have been Morse code for "serve us or regret it."
Bart recognized the look in their eyes. He'd seen it often enough these past five years. The thousand-yard stare of those who'd seen too much, done too much, and somehow lived to tell about it, even if no one would believe them. Even worse, it was the look of people who needed a drink badly enough that they might get creative if denied. His hand moved away from the crossbow. Creative customers were bad for the furniture.
"Fine," he said, reaching for glasses that could charitably be described as "clean-adjacent." "But you're paying up front. Last time I accepted a tab from a kobold, I ended up with scales in the register that melted the coins."
The kobold clambered onto a stool, leaving little scorch marks where its claws touched the wood. Each mark added to the collection that had turned the barstool into a connect-the-dots puzzle of previous patrons. It dropped a handful of glowing gemstones onto the counter, which skittered across the surface like sentient marbles before Bart caught them. Each stone pulsed with a light that seemed to come from within and emitted a barely-audible hum that somehow managed to sound exactly like the color blue would if blue made a noise.
"These work?" the kobold asked with the hopeful expression of someone who had attempted to pay for things with mysterious glowing objects before, with mixed results.
Before Bart could answer, the spacer placed some kind of metallic card next to the gems. It gleamed under the lamplight with an iridescence that suggested it might be made of something not entirely from this world.
"Universal credit," she explained, her tone suggesting this should be obvious to anyone with a basic education in quantum economics. "Works in seventeen systems, though there's a terrible exchange rate in systems twelve through fourteen. Daylight robbery if you ask me."
The pirate sighed, reached into his coat and produced a handful of actual gold coins, which was the first currency Bart had seen from them that didn't require a degree in theoretical physics to understand. The coins clinked against the wood with a reassuringly solid sound.
"Real gold," the pirate said unnecessarily, setting the coins down with precise, deliberate movements befitting a ship's captain. "Not the kind that turns into butterflies after midnight."
Bart reached for the gold with the practiced nonchalance of someone who had once accepted payment in the form of a chicken that laid time-delayed eggs. The weight felt good in his palm; real currency that wouldn't try to escape, explode, or philosophize.
"What'll it be?" he asked, already reaching for bottles.
"Fire whiskey," the kobold said, baring teeth that glinted in the lamplight like miniature daggers. "The kind that validates my life choices."
"The same," said the explorer, removing her cracked helmet completely to reveal more of those constellation-like scars across her scalp. The removal released a faint odor of ozone and something else that smelled suspiciously like space itself. Cold, vast, and somehow theoretical.
"Dark ale," rumbled the pirate, stroking his beard with his flesh-and-blood hand, causing the small metal objects woven into it to chime softly like tiny ship bells. "The kind that requires a spoon. And a whiskey chaser, if you'd be so kind."
As Bart turned to fetch their drinks, the bottles clinking against each other in a familiar rhythm, he noticed the taproom wasn't as empty as he'd thought. In the shadowy corners sat other patrons: A high elf in a once-immaculate robe now singed with peculiar blue-green burns, delicately sipping some concoction that glowed faintly and hummed a minor chord whenever he set it down; a pair of dwarves with mechanical limbs and steam-powered monocles that wheezed and clicked as they argued over blueprint sketches, their beards intricately braided with copper wire and tiny blinking lights.
The Last Call had always attracted an eclectic clientele, but since the rifts opened, "eclectic" had taken on an entirely new meaning. Not to mention an entirely new smell, which was something like ozone mixed with dragon breath and whatever that peculiar metallic tang was that accompanied teleportation spells gone slightly wrong. Bart had grown used to it, the way someone living next to a fish market eventually stops noticing the overwhelmingly piscine atmosphere.
"Rough day?" Bart asked, sliding their drinks across the bar while ignoring the other patrons. It was the question he always asked, though he'd long since stopped expecting honest answers. In his experience, the rougher the day, the less people wanted to talk about it. Unless they'd had at least three drinks, that was.
The kobold laughed, a sound like a box of nails being shaken in a tin can.
"Rough five years." It took the fire whiskey and, to Bart's alarm but not surprise, lit it with a flick of its tongue before downing it in one go. The flames briefly illuminated the kobold's face, highlighting scars Bart hadn't noticed initially.
"We just came from Horizon Ridge," the explorer said, staring into her glass with the intensity of someone seeing something far beyond transparent liquid. Her fingers, calloused and precision-steady, traced the rim with microscopic accuracy.
"Typical brass idiocy," the pirate added, taking a long pull of his ale and leaving a foam mustache atop his real one. His formal tone contrasted with the bitter content of his words. "Send in the heroes, see who survives to declare victory."
A strange, uncomfortable silence fell over the bar. Even the ambient sounds of clinking glasses and murmured conversations in the corners seemed to dim, as if the very air were listening. The lamps flickered in unison, casting momentary shadows that seemed to have too many dimensions.
"You didn't hear?" the kobold finally asked, addressing no one in particular as his tail swished behind him nervously. The movement created a soft whooshing sound, like a very small, very annoyed broom.
Bart paused mid-wipe. "Hear what?»
«It’s over.»
«What? The war?"
"So it would seem," the explorer nodded, her expression unreadable as she ran a finger along one of her facial scars. The scar briefly luminesced at her touch, then dimmed.
"Hard to tell the difference," the pirate added, his mechanical hand clenching with a soft hiss of steam. "The dead are still dead. The ruins still ruined."
Bart found himself wiping that same spot on the counter again. Five years of war, just... done. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. After all, the Last Call had kind of thrived because of the war. People fighting tend to be thirsty, and prone to dull both physical and mental pain with whatever their currency could afford. Peace might be bad for business, assuming there was enough world left for business to happen in.
"Well," he said finally, "I suppose that calls for a real drink. On the house." He reached beneath the counter and pulled out a dusty bottle he'd been saving for a special occasion. Whether the end of an interdimensional war qualified as "special" was debatable, but it certainly qualified as an "occasion." The bottle made a satisfying thunk as he set it on the counter, dust motes dancing in the lamplight.
"Didn't you lot fight for different sides?" Bart asked as he poured, the question that had been bothering him since they entered together. Their equipment and appearances couldn't have been more different, yet here they were, drinking together like old friends. Bart was no stranger to different sides in his little tavern, but they rarely entered together, and they almost never sat together without at least one attempted murder. The lack of bloodshed was almost disappointing. It would have given him something to bill them for beyond the drinks.
The three exchanged glances.
"Not anymore," the explorer said flatly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear to reveal another scar shaped like a perfect hexagon.
"Someone actually did it," said the pirate with a shrug that caused his mechanical arm to vent a perfect smoke ring. The ring hung in the air for a moment before dissolving into nothing.
"War's over," the kobold stated, exhaling a small puff of smoke that formed itself into a tiny mushroom cloud before dissipating. "As far as we're concerned, anyway."
The clock ticked closer to midnight, the sound somehow more ominous than usual. Bart decided he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Some nights you closed the bar. Other nights the bar decided when you were done. This was shaping up to be the latter.
---
Somewhere between the third and fourth round, Bart learned their names, or at least what they called themselves these days.
The kobold was Spark. The space explorer introduced herself as Commander Nova Starburn, though she conceded that "Nova" would suffice. The steampunk pirate gave his name simply as Captain Grimshaw, with the air of someone who had either abandoned or eaten his first name long ago.
"So how'd you three end up together?" Bart asked, curiosity finally overcoming caution. "Last I checked, the Draconic Legions, the Stellar Coalition, and the Brass Armada were trying to blow each other to pieces. With considerable success, I might add."
Spark snorted another tiny flame, which briefly illuminated his face in orange light. His scales shifted color slightly; a kobold tell that Bart had learned to read over the years. This particular shade indicated a mix of weariness and dark humor.
"They were, right up until about... some hours ago," Spark said, puffing a small smoke ring.
"Big battle at Horizon Ridge," Nova explained, her fingers tracing the rim of her glass, leaving faint trails of light like phosphorescent sea creatures. Her voice maintained its clipped precision. "Textbook example of tactical stupidity, if you ask me."
Bart had heard of Horizon Ridge. It had been all anyone could talk about for weeks, the massive buildup of forces, the desperate gamble by all sides to secure a strategic high ground that happened to sit atop a major rift. What made this hilarious, in a cosmic sort of way, was that the "strategic high ground" was a hill that offered a spectacular view of... more hills. All equally empty, all equally useless, all equally worth dying for, apparently. Bart had been in this business long enough to know that military strategy and common sense kept separate residences, rarely visited each other, and couldn't pick each other out of a lineup.
"Nasty business," Grimshaw said, his expression darkening as he twisted one of the small metal objects in his beard. The gesture produced a soft chiming sound, like distant ship bells. "My vessel, the Relentless, was providing artillery support from the western approach when the rift surged. Most unseemly affair."
"Surged?" Bart asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know. In his experience, questions often led to answers, and answers often led to the kind of knowledge that made sleeping difficult.
"Expanded without warning," Nova clarified, making a sudden outward gesture with her hands. Her scientific detachment never wavered. "Swallowed three battalions in seconds. Draconic, Human, and Brass alike. Very democratic, when you think about it."
"No discrimination in how it killed," Spark muttered, his wings folding tighter against his back with a leathery rustle. "Just... gone."
From his corner table, the high elf suddenly spoke, his voice like wind chimes in a gentle breeze after they've had perhaps one too many glasses of elven wine. "The void has no preference for which flesh it consumes. All are equal before the great nothing. Which is nice in a horrifying sort of way."
The dwarves paused their argument, looking up with identical expressions of annoyance. Their synchronized eye-rolling would have been impressive if it hadn't been so predictable.
Spark bared teeth that glinted like tiny daggers. "Nobody asked you, fancy-pants. Go back to being cryptically useless somewhere else," he growled. His tail lashed behind him, nearly knocking over an empty glass with a sound like a very small whip.
"Actually," Nova said quietly, adjusting one of the many patches on her spacesuit with methodical precision, "he's not wrong. The rifts have been getting worse everywhere." She spoke with the calm authority of someone who had measured the approaching apocalypse and found it statistically significant.
Grimshaw nodded grimly. "My ship's engineers were reporting the same phenomenon before their unfortunate demise," he confirmed, his naval formality intact despite the grim subject matter. "Reality appears to be coming apart at the seams." He demonstrated by pushing his flesh hand through the air as if tearing fabric.
"Some wiseass hero must've managed to do it," Spark added with a shrug, his spines bristling briefly like a hedgehog with attitude. "Find an end to the rifts. And by 'end' I mean... well." He made a small explosive gesture with his claws that spoke volumes about the probable fate of said hero.
Bart felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. Could this 'hero' be that Doug-fellow that passed through three years ago? Or was it Greg? Or Ar'thara'sa? Or Marvin? Not that it mattered. Heroes had a way of solving problems permanently, especially themselves. Bart had learned long ago that serving a drink to someone who proclaimed themselves a "chosen one" was statistically equivalent to hosting their funeral reception.
"Figured the war was over then and there," Spark continued, his scales taking on a reddish tinge around the edges that Bart recognized as the kobold equivalent of thoughtfulness. "When you see three battalions disappear in the blink of an eye..."
"We stopped fighting," Nova said simply, her scientific precision giving way to bluntness. "There was no point anymore. Statistically speaking, survival required cooperation."
"Kinda hard to worry about territorial disputes when the territory itself disappears into nothing," Grimshaw elaborated, taking a long swig of his ale and wiping foam from his mustache with his sleeve. His captain's dignity remained intact despite the casual gesture.
"So we figured there was no point fighting anymore," Spark continued, using a claw to draw patterns in the condensation on his glass, which sizzled faintly like bacon on a too-hot pan.
"And we decided to get a drink instead," Nova finished, glancing at her companions with what might have been the ghost of a smile. "Your establishment was the only functional drinking venue we could locate."
"I can imagine," Bart said, refilling their glasses without being asked. The liquid gurgled pleasantly into each glass, providing a momentary counterpoint to the somber conversation. «Hear that more often than you’d think.»
"So just like that, the war was over?" he asked, skeptical. Wars didn't end cleanly in his experience. They limped to messy conclusions, leaving everyone dissatisfied and thirsty.
"For us, at least," Nova said with a shrug, her matter-of-fact tone returning like a shield. "The motivating factors no longer apply to our situation."
"Five years of fighting coming to an end so fast," Grimshaw mused, staring into his ale as if it might contain answers. His mechanical fingers tapped a rhythm on the counter that might have been a naval code. "There's likely a moral to be found in these circumstances."
"If you find it, let me know," Spark replied dryly, blowing a smoke ring that formed itself into a tiny question mark. "I'll use it as kindling."
"Anyway, the rift surged, battalions evaporated and the the sky itself tore apart not unlike the day the Rifts appeared and this whole thing started. That's when the three of us decided to depart," Grimshaw said, his formal diction contrasting with the casual content in a way that suggested he'd never mastered informal speech.
Nova sighed, rubbing her temple where a particularly large scar formed what looked like the North Star. "Figured it was a good time for a drink."
One of the dwarves suddenly slammed his mechanical fist on the table, causing his drinking vessel to jump and splash its glowing contents onto his blueprint. The sound echoed like a miniature explosion.
"Seven hells and a quantum fluctuation!" he bellowed. "I told you the calibration was off, Gromdak! Look at this mess!" His beard bristled with indignation, the tiny lights woven into it blinking in patterns that suggested alarm codes.
The other dwarf peered through his steam-powered monocle at the spill, which was now eating through the paper with a sound like a very small monster gargling mouthwash. "Hmm, interesting reaction," he observed with academic detachment. "Perhaps we should incorporate this into the design? A self-dissolving blueprint would be perfect for our top-secret Very Large Exploding Thing."
"You're dripping dimensional solvent on my boots, you bearded catastrophe!" his companion replied, the words emerging from somewhere deep within his facial hair. "These were specially enchanted to repel everything except compliments and beer!"
Bart glanced at the clock. Half past midnight. The hands seemed to move with reluctance, as if time itself was considering taking the night off. He should have closed an hour ago. Dwarves drinking after midnight rarely ended well. Their argument would either result in them building something amazing, something terrible, or something amazingly terrible.
Yet somehow, the thought of kicking everyone out into the night didn't sit right with Bart this night. His profit-minded pragmatism was being overruled by a strange feeling that might, in other people, be called compassion. Bart preferred to think of it as "customer retention strategy."
"Another round?" he offered instead, already reaching for bottles with the instinctive precision of a man who could pour exactly one finger of whiskey while blindfolded during an earthquake.
Three glasses slid toward him in unison, creating a synchronized scraping sound across the wooden counter.
As Bart poured, he studied his unusual customers more closely. They were battered, filthy, and clearly exhausted, yet there was something else in their demeanor. A strange mix of relief and dread, as if the end of one nightmare had merely heralded the beginning of another, possibly wearing pajamas and carrying cookies.
"So you three just walked away from the battlefield holding hands and skipping along?" Bart prompted, leaning forward on the counter. The wood creaked slightly under his weight, a familiar sound that had become part of the inn's constant ambient noise. "From enemies to drinking buddies is quite a leap. Usually requires at least one near-death experience and a shared hatred of someone else."
"We got both," Nova said with a dark chuckle, absently tracing what looked like star charts in the condensation on her glass. The precise movements of her finger suggested she was mapping something specific.
"And the shared hatred?" Bart asked, wiping a nonexistent spill with a rag that had seen better days, possibly in a previous dimension.
"Everyone who kept this pointless war going for five years," Grimshaw replied, his formal tone returning as he straightened his tattered captain's coat with military precision. "When I enlisted in the Armada, it was to explore new territories, not reduce them to rubble."
"All those commanders sitting safe and sound in their bunkers," Spark added bitterly, his claws digging slightly into the wooden counter with a sound like miniature knives being sharpened. "Writing orders in ink while we wrote them in blood."
"So you just... walked away?" Bart asked, genuinely curious now. In his twenty-eight years of bartending, he'd served deserters, heroes, villains, and everything in between, but he'd never seen enemies become allies quite this quickly without magic or mutual blackmail being involved.
Nova looked up from her glass, meeting his eyes directly for the first time. Her gaze was unnervingly precise, like being examined through a microscope. "What was the alternative? Die for a cause that doesn't exist anymore?" Her scientific detachment slipped, revealing something harder beneath.
"Continue fighting when the entire world is demonstrably falling apart?" Grimshaw added, his mechanical hand opening and closing rhythmically with a series of clicks and steam hisses.
"Stand around waiting for orders while reality itself has a nervous breakdown?" Spark said with another puff of smoke shaped suspiciously like an extended middle finger. "I don't think so. I've spent enough time being cannon fodder for one lifetime. I have enough nervous breakdowns to deal with of my own." His mention of cannon fodder was delivered with particular venom, suggesting a history he wasn't sharing.
Bart nodded slowly. It made a certain sense. Soldiers finding common ground in shared trauma was as old as war itself. Only the nature of the war and the soldiers had changed. The alcohol helped too, of course. Alcohol was nature's way of telling you that the person who tried to kill you yesterday might be your best friend today, especially if they're buying the next round.
"To fallen comrades, then," he said, raising his own glass in a toast. The amber liquid caught the lamplight, glowing like trapped sunshine.
"And fucking off," Spark added, raising his glass higher, a tiny flame dancing on the surface of his drink like a miniature fire spirit doing the backstroke.
They drank in silence, the only sound the soft sipping of liquid and the background murmur of the other patrons.
"You know what the worst part is?" Spark asked after a while, his voice softer than before. "For five years, we all thought we were fighting for something. Territory. Resources. A way home. Better cocktail recipes. And now..."
"Now it doesn't seem to matter as much," Nova finished, her scientific precision giving way to a hint of the wonder that had likely drawn her to space exploration originally. "The rifts make it statistically irrelevant."
"It might be a good thing," Grimshaw countered, speaking with the measured cadence of someone who had delivered many speeches on ship decks during storms. "United, we might have a chance to find a solution. Or at least expire in confusion together instead of expediting each other's demise."
"Optimism from a pirate," Spark remarked, his spines relaxing slightly. "Now I've seen everything. Next, you'll tell me elves have a sense of humor."
"I prefer the term 'privateer,'" Grimshaw corrected with a hint of a smile beneath his massive beard. It made a soft, rustling sound as his expression changed. "And it's not optimism. It's common sense. Combined knowledge is better than fragmented knowledge."
Nova nodded thoughtfully. "If anyone's going to figure out how to fix this mess, it'll take all available intellectual resources." For a moment, the scientist in her seemed to resurface, calculating probabilities behind her constellation-scarred face.
"Cooperation," Bart mused, wiping a glass that was already clean enough to perform surgery with. The circular motion was as much a part of his bartending as breathing. "Novel concept."
"Desperate times," Grimshaw shrugged, the movement causing his mechanical arm to release a small puff of steam. "When the vessel is sinking, even pirates and naval officers tend to share the same lifeboat." He said this with the air of someone who had experienced this exact scenario.
---
The Last Call Inn had settled into that peculiar atmosphere that only emerges in the small hours of the morning, when pretenses drop away, when strangers become confidants, and when the line between one day and the next blurs into insignificance. It's the same in every bar in every dimension: the 3 AM Truth Hour, when even the most hardened warriors admit they're scared of the dark and dragons confess they collect teacups.
Bart had brought up his best bottle from the cellar, a thirty-year-old whiskey he'd been saving for either the end of the war or the end of the world, whichever came first. Now it seemed both might be happening simultaneously, which meant it was definitely time to break out the good stuff. The liquid poured with a sound like velvet sliding over marble.
The customers had drifted closer over time, the artificial boundaries of faction and species giving way to the simple desire for connection in uncertain times. Even the dwarves had joined the loose circle around the bar, though one kept glancing nervously at the remnants of their dissolved blueprint, which was now forming a small puddle of what appeared to be liquid reality on the floor.
"Then we started to throw our cannonballs at them!" Grimshaw concluded with uncharacteristic animation, his naval formality momentarily abandoned in the enthusiasm of the story.
A laugh erupted around the bar, the sound jarring after so much somber conversation.
"Wait," one of the dwarves said as he wiped a tear from his eye, foam glistening in his beard like morning dew on a particularly hairy plant. "Was that at Hollocks Bollocks?"
Grimshaw emptied his beer and nodded, the movement precise despite the amount of alcohol he'd consumed. "You were present at that engagement?"
"Yes!" The dwarf lit up, foam sputtering from his beard like a malfunctioning espresso machine. "My party took out one of those damn airships with an exploding sheep-spell, a balloon and the best damn archery I've ever seen!"
"That was your handiwork?" Grimshaw asked, his mechanical eyebrow raising with a soft whirring sound.
"I engineered the balloon, but it was a joint effort, yes," the dwarf confirmed, chest puffing with pride.
Grimshaw slammed his glass on the bar, making the empty glasses rattle like wind chimes in a hurricane. "My family was on that ship."
Silence fell over the Inn, as silence does when everyone is uncomfortable and waits for someone else to break the silence. The dwarf paled underneath his beard, and Bart was sure he was about to throw up, pass out, or possibly both in an impressive display of multitasking.
Grimshaw started to laugh deep and hard, the sound starting somewhere around his boots and working its way up. "I'm merely jesting. That vessel was likely occupied by useless bureaucrats," he clarified, formal diction returning despite his mirth.
Relief flooded the dwarf's face, visible even through the thicket of facial hair. "Had me going there, Captain! Thought I was about to experience high-velocity dismemberment!"
"Not that it matters who did what to whom," Nova interjected, measuring her words with scientific precision. "We assessed Hollocks Bollocks after the battle. The casualty statistics were significant."
Spark grunted, a small ember escaping his nostril. "Like the battle of Eagle Mountain?"
Nova started to blush, which looked as weird on her as makeup on a rock troll. The constellation scars on her face seemed to glow slightly, as if embarrassment activated their luminescence.
"So what happens now?" Bart interrupted, pouring another round with the practiced ease of a man who could hit a shot glass from across the room. The interruption was tactical. He’d seen enough bar fights start from reminiscing about battles. "The war's over. Do you all just... go home? Open a gift shop? Start a band?"
The three soldiers exchanged glances. Something unspoken passed between them, a language of shared experience that needed no translation.
Nova shrugged, her constellation scars catching the lamplight. "If there is still a home to return to." Her tone remained clinical, but her fingers traced one of her scars in what appeared to be a self-soothing gesture.
"I mean..." Grimshaw said, his mechanical fingers drumming on the counter in what might have been morse code for "damned if I know." The rhythmic tapping created a soft metallic percussion.
"The rifts are kind of working overtime," Spark added, stretching his wings briefly before folding them again. The leathery membranes made a sound like canvas in a light breeze. "Swallowed entire outposts. Like cosmic Pac-Man, but with more screaming."
Bart frowned. "So you might be stuck here?" The thought of permanent interdimensional refugees wasn't appealing from a business perspective. Refugees tended to have limited funds and unlimited problems.
"Maybe," Nova shrugged, her scientific precision returning as she adjusted settings on her wrist device. It beeped softly, displaying readings that meant nothing to anyone except her. "Don't even know if there's a 'here' to be stuck in much longer."
"Does it matter?" Spark asked, surprising them all with the philosophical turn. "Five years of war? We've basically redecorated the entire planet in 'post-apocalyptic chic.'" His flippant tone couldn't quite hide the concern in his eyes, which had darkened to the color of cooling embers.
No one argued with the assessment. They'd all seen enough to know it was true. The silence that followed had the quality of mutual recognition, the shared understanding that sometimes there are no good answers, only less terrible ones.
"What about you?" Nova asked Bart, her analytical gaze taking in the inn around them. "This establishment has somehow maintained structural integrity. Will you remain?"
Bart looked around at his inn, battered, scarred, but still standing. The worn boards, the stained ceiling, the clock that refused to acknowledge the apocalypse. All of it painfully familiar and somehow precious.
"Well, not exactly here in this spot, but tt's all I have," he said simply. "Plus, I've got a mortgage that'll outlive the heat death of the universe."
"Speaking of which," Grimshaw said, checking a pocket watch that seemed to be running both forward and backward simultaneously, its ticking a strange syncopated rhythm, "we should probably return to what remains of our posts." He spoke with the resignation of someone who had followed unwelcome orders countless times before.
Nova nodded reluctantly, draining the last of her drink with scientific efficiency. "They'll be looking for us by now."
"If they're still there," Spark added, adjusting his makeshift armor with a series of metallic clinks. "If anywhere is still there."
They settled their tabs, though Bart tried to refuse payment for what had essentially become a wake for the world they had known, and gathered their gear. The sounds of preparation, buckles fastening, gear shifting, weapons being checked, created a practical counterpoint to the melancholy mood.
"It was an honor," Grimshaw said formally, extending his flesh-and-blood hand to Bart with a slight bow that spoke of his naval background. His grip was firm, warm, and slightly calloused; the hand of someone who worked despite his officer's rank.
"Best bar on any world I've visited," Nova added with a small smile. "And I've been to the gas giant where drinks serve themselves." The scientific observer in her gave way momentarily to genuine warmth.
"If we somehow stick around," Spark promised, his claws leaving one final scorch mark on the counter, "first round's on me next time. Assuming currency still exists and hasn't been replaced by interpretive dance as a payment method." His tail swished behind him, leaving a faint trail of smoke.
Bart found himself unexpectedly moved. "I'll hold you to that," he managed, surprising himself with the sincerity in his voice. "My interpretive dance is terrible. I look like a wounded flamingo having a seizure."
He followed them to the door, suddenly reluctant to see them leave. After five years of carefully maintained neutrality, of keeping everyone at arm's length, these strange warriors had somehow broken through his defenses in a single night. Which just proved that the universe's most effective solvent was alcohol and shared trauma, possibly in that order.
"Be careful out there," he said as he unbolted the door. The metal latch made a solid, final-sounding clunk as it released.
"Always am," Spark replied with forced bravado, puffing himself up to his full height, which was still barely above Bart's waist. "Hasn't killed me yet. Well, technically it did once, but I got better."
Bart swung the door open, hinges creaking in protest, and they all stepped out into what should have been night.
What greeted them wasn't darkness. Nor was it light. It was devastation.
The sky burned with rifts that tore through the fabric of reality like badly-healed wounds, offering glimpses into other dimensions that should never have touched this one. Familiar landmarks had been twisted and broken, buildings stood as hollow shells where they stood at all, and the very air tasted of metal and magic gone wrong.
Through the rifts, impossible worlds leaked into their own: Strange forests with trees that ran on clockwork, oceans where the water flowed upward, cities built from crystal and thought. The mountains in the distance were crumbling, while rivers had either dried up or now flowed with substances that weren't water at all.
Everything and nothing, was everywhere and nowhere, all at once.
They stood in silence, taking in the apocalyptic landscape. Nova's scientific detachment crumbled as she removed her helmet completely, letting it fall to the ground with a hollow thud. Grimshaw's formal posture sagged, his mechanical arm venting steam in what sounded like a sigh. Spark's wings drooped, and his usual fiery demeanor dimmed to embers.
"So," Bart finally said, his voice small against the backdrop of destruction, "who won?"
Spark looked at the desolate wasteland, then at his unlikely companions, his scales shifting through a spectrum of colors that perfectly matched the emotional journey from disappointment to resignation to gallows humor. "Beats me."
The three soldiers exchanged one last look, then trudged away into the broken landscape, their silhouettes growing smaller against the chaotic backdrop of a world coming apart.
Bart watched them go until they disappeared among the ruins. Then, with a sigh that carried the weight of five years and approximately three extra dimensions and then some, he stepped back inside and flipped the sign from "Open" to "Closed."
Some habits die hard, even at the end of the world. And sometimes, Bart thought as he began wiping down the counter, those habits are the only thing keeping you sane when everything else has gone mad. The familiar motion was comforting. A small island of normalcy in a sea of chaos. If the world was ending, at least his counter would be clean when it went.
16Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5CwiLhxHy1
