“So, here’s to being dead!”

I looked at the enthusiastic spectre next to me and decided she'd come straight from heavy psychological trauma. There was nothing good about being dead. It was cold, it was dark, and worst of all, nothing ever changed.

Nothing except fresh spectres popping in from the living and trying to convince themselves they were happy with a bad situation.

Right – that didn’t change, either.

The bar was otherwise dead that night, pun intended. The new arrival didn't seem to have realised, and had been chatting for the last few minutes. That wasn't unusual in itself, but usually by now they would have mentioned their cause of death. This one had been complimenting the architecture. Until the last words out of her mouth, I'd been assuming she hadn't noticed herself dying. The associated side effects were rather obvious, but it still happened more often than one would think.

At least that was one tiresome conversation out of the way. I pulled my stool close enough for the spectre to lean away out of discomfort and gave her a suitably misanthropic grimace. “Ho, new bones. What kind of stunt brought you here?”

I knew the answer already, of course, which was ‘nothing in particular’. Good or bad, everyone recently mortal ended up at my bar – no exceptions – and either stayed or wandered into the labyrinth. I’d made a game of guessing who would do which when, and the results could be surprising.

The spectre surprised me with another smile. She pounded a fist against the centre of her chest. “The best kind. I’m the hero of Charismo! I –”

“What’s Charismo?”

Her smile became slightly more fixed at the interruption. “The continent. Big one."

I stared at her blankly.

"...Centre of civilisation – oh.” She put down the drink she’d been nursing and slapped herself lightly in the forehead. “This is a multi-dimension afterlife, isn’t it?”

Ah, one of the souls who thought they were an expert. But I'd seen probably about a million, and no one had ever gotten it right. “Nope,” I asserted. “Multiple dimensions would be too interesting. Everyone here comes from Soddit.”

“Soddit? I’ve never heard of it.”

“Of course you haven’t. What’s the point in naming a dimension when you’ve seen no others to compare against? But now you've come here - not that the afterlife strictly counts as a dimension - and lo, it becomes relevant.”

Her smile faltered. “Perhaps. Soddit doesn’t sound like a real name.”

“Neither does Charismo. What else have you got for me? Dexteriland? Wisdomistan? Experience Pointsonia?”

“Wisdomistan is a very well-respected region.”

I rolled the lifeless pinpricks of light in my eye sockets. “I can tell you what the problem is. You come from a chaos bubble. They happen every fifty years or so when Kaedhrakthys gets bored.”

“Keedra… Keedrakthis,” she enunciated slowly, emphasising the ‘th’. “How do you spell it? Also, who is that and how are they related to this?”

This part I was more than familiar with. Sometimes when I became exceptionally tired of explaining, I’d refuse to elaborate - occasionally for years on end. But not today. Before the new visitor had arrived with the usual loud bang, I'd already been several ghost wines in and my sense of propriety had loosened.

“Kaedhrakthys is a steaming pile of excrement,” I slurred.

“I’ll admit I was hoping for more than that,” she replied.

“Because that’s all you need to know.” I wasn't too keen on getting into that whole thing. “I’m sure you want more, but I’ll forewarn you it won’t make any difference.”

The spectre frowned. “Now, wait a minute,” she said. “It's exclusionary to bring up a name someone doesn't know and then not answer questions. And those were strong words. If someone's giving you problems, well, you’re talking to the hero of Charismo!" Just like that, the enthusiasm returned. "I died – bravely – saving the world – successfully – from Dark Lord Aggranda. So if there’s another one of those pissbutts in the afterlife, I have the relevant qualifications and experience to deal with them.”

My glass was too empty to continue this conversation, but I could fix it. I slid through the bar to the other side of the counter, swung my apron off its hook to my person and poured myself a drink. Being a ghost, the liquid glugged visibly down my neck through my skin.

My visitor widened her hollow sockets. “Wait, you’re the bartender? Then who’s he?”

She pointed to Mothrow.

“That’s Mothrow,” I said.

“You’re not good at this whole ‘explaining’ thing, are you?”

“On the contrary,” I remarked, taking another swig, “I can wax lyrical with the best of them when I want to. But so far you haven’t given me a reason why I should bother.”

“Defeating your nemesis isn’t good enough?”

“Sheesh, take it easy.” I found my stool and thumped its feet hard against the stone. “You died fifteen minutes ago. This isn’t Soddit; no one’s having their villages destroyed by bandits.”

“Undead.”

“None of those here,” I confirmed. “Maybe you should get that workaholism looked at. Then again,” I added, shrugging, “your only current diagnosticians are myself and Mothrow. Drink?”

Far from having the desired effect, the spectre stepped back from the counter and began pacing to and fro across the wider expanse of the room. The edges of her form dissolved into continually reconstituting trails of wispy shadow. Other than human and female, it was hard to tell how she’d looked while living, since all dead were blue and translucent with features prone to shifting. I’d used to think it would get easier with time, but it didn’t.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“That's a good point," the spectre muttered. "Where are all the others? People were dying all around me. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Squashed under chains the size of mountains; torsos ripped from limbs or exploding from the inside out; organs squishing everywhere with undead devouring the living hearts; whole legions of –”

She paused, noticing my attentive bend forward, elbows supporting my chin.

“News is slow,” I justified it.

“You know that’s creepy.”

“We don’t get a lot of viscera here,” I said reasonably, passing an illustrative hand through my body. “No one appreciates the full breadth of the living until after they’ve been dead. Do continue.”

“I don’t think I will,” she said.

“Pooh.” Disappointing, particularly for a representative of Charismo. I sighed and dropped back to semi-inattention.

“What's the deal, then? Do each of the dead get their own bar? Are they all bars? Or is it tailored for each individual?”

I doubted it would even have been an improvement having others to share the load. “Time works differently here,” I fell into rote, gesturing mechanically around at the tables and piano. “Ghosts drop in in no particular order whenever they feel like it. Sometimes I get several hundred at a time exceeding the dimensions of the room so that they all have to stand inside each other to fit. Sometimes I get no one. Today it’s you.”

“And Mothrow.” The spectre nodded towards him.

“And Mothrow.” Since I’d already started explaining, I supposed it didn’t hurt to fallacy my sunk costs further. The wine helped. “Looks like you’re the first arrival from your chaos bubble. Heroic sacrifices jump the queue. It's a meaningless privilege, but you get to tell the story first.”

“So then, regardless of bubble status, where are the dead who were here before?”

I flicked a thumb towards the door.

“You’re doing it again,” she said.

“I am a bartender in the afterlife,” I recited, finishing my drink and pouring myself a second. “I am, in fact, the only bartender in it. You cannot possibly understand the excruciating depths of my boredom. People arrive here, they leave, and I never see them again. Sometimes it takes them a while, mind. But they go.”

“A while? Are they scared to move on?”

“This is moving on, hero. There's no afterdeath; what you see is what you get. This bar, and the eternal doom labyrinth.”

The spectre’s hollow gaze swung very slowly to where the latter was pressed up against the outside of the nearest window. “Oh.” She glanced back at Mothrow. “I don’t blame you.”

“I do,” I said.

Having now captured our attention, the labyrinth began trying very hard to retain it, flashing seductive glimpses and attractive poses. Traps, spikes and glints of ambiguous treasure shimmered sultrily in its all-devouring partitions. My wine glass vibrated slightly as the labyrinth ground against the walls.

“Well, we know one thing: your nemesis is out there, and I’m coming for him.”

“That’s two,” I pointed out. “I’ll also advise that entering the labyrinth means certain doom, and it’s not a figure of speech.”

“Marvellous! I wasn’t sure death would be capable of offering a challenge. Besides, I’m already deceased. How hard can it be?”

I coughed lightly over the rim of my drink. “You’ve a lack of weapons, an equal lack of knowledge, and any items or magic you had in life will be gone. Also – and I feel the need to stress this – certain doom.”

“Sure, those are all valid points,” acknowledged the spectre. “But if the alternative is ending up like you, I’ll take my chances. You can’t tell me ‘oh no, bored forever’, and then be surprised when I take it seriously.”

I straightened up, moderately insulted. “Do you think I’m in this position by choice? Chaos, I would have thrown myself in a hundred times over. But you’re newly dead. At least think it through.”

My patron’s eye sockets slanted expressively and sympathetically upwards in the centre. Amazing what they accomplished without eyebrows. It had been so long since I’d seen any I could barely remember how they looked. And I might have been thinking of caterpillars.

“Awww, you’ll miss me!” was what she took away from it.

“I might if you continue your story.”

But I probably wouldn’t. Too many dead passed through. After a while they all merged into a fuzzy blur, no matter how subjectively interesting.

“Alright, change of plan,” the visitor said. That was fast. “Local dark lord deposition is now moved to priority two. Number one being getting you out of here.”

“Good luck with that,” I said. Pulling the shirt down from my collarbone, I tapped at the ominously throbbing marble-sized orb in the centre. “See this? It’s a curse. Walking over the threshold triggers it, and then I’m right back here behind the counter.”

“Have you tried the windows?”

I wasn’t about to dignify that with an answer.

“Come on, I don’t know you! I’m trying to gather information here, despite trying circumstances. Although I suppose reticence is understandable; I didn’t finish introducing myself.” She held out a blue, translucent arm. “I’m Fascina.”

“Like fascism?”

“No! Like fascination. It’s traditional Charismid.”

I debated not taking it. Positive relationships led to sentimentality, which invariably proved unpleasant. But she did command attention in a slightly-too-enthusiastic manner, and I did want the rest of her story. After a second, I held out my own semi-opaque limb and let her shake it over the counter. Our hands mostly went through each other.

“Ameri,” I introduced myself, then wiped my palm on my trousers. “You were talking about an epic battle? As a way to get to know each other and all.”

“Yesterday’s news,” Fascina brushed it off. “Dark Lord Aggranda is finished and disposed of. The concerning matter of the day is now your career exit. Fortunately, I’m a renowned curse-breaker.” She beamed at me and tried to pull up a stool. Her hands went through.

“You have to want to hold it,” I instructed her. “Like with your glass earlier.”

Her sockets got squinty before she succeeded; so much so they risked shrinking out of existence. “First question: Can you walk through walls?”

“Some.”

“Sink through the floor?”

“Yes, but it triggers the curse and I’ve seen too many patrons get lost in there.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Did the curse-giver mention any cryptic conditions, possibly in rhyme?”

“You know, showcasing an example in context would be more enlightening,” I suggested. “Maybe in a viscera-filled battle against Aggranda.”

She wagged a playful finger at me. “Answer the question.”

“Fine - no conditions. And before you ask, I can tell you what was on Kaedhrakthys’ mind. Unless you count excessive creative swearing, it wasn’t cryptic.”

“That does sound dark lord-ish. Did you come into possession of any recent heirlooms or artifacts, or other notable changes soon before the curse?”

“Let me think. Oh, right, I died and was told I had to run this bar.”

Fascina’s smile widened as she leaned her palms on the counter. “So you picked a fight with a dark lord.” Her voice rose in excitement. “You know what this means: You’re a fellow hero. This is excellent news; I'm off to an efficient start with my new party. Consider yourself officially recruited." She beamed at me again. "I knew I was drawn to you!”

Technically, everyone was drawn to me. Or at least the bar. “Were you?" I sighed, reasoning she'd soon be gone in a week or two anyway.

Oh, joy.