Looking around I noticed the utter lack of Barkeepers. The smell of soot, mold and ale was thick in the air, but in a soft sweet reek only the afterlife provided, the utter absence of poison that always characterized the afterlife and made it distinguishable from both wakeing and dreaming in the world. I sniffed, sniffed desperately for the scent of humid wood. But although a drunken wench was entertaining her dragon with a massive pipe off in the corner of the bar, my nose could nary locate a humidor. This didn't bother me, ask and ye shall recieve, he remebered reading those words many lives ago. Not that anything could be read here, at least not in the normal way.
Whatever had happened the last time I was away it had left me unnerved. The last time everything had been polished and bright, with a smart sharp contour. The men wore suits, and the women wore something near to suits as well. Not that there hadn't been the usual mischief that comes when you take the risk of dying and replace it with the risk of living. That was not what was unknown.
Somehow, this time, in this place (if it was a place indeed) the emotional vengence of a handful of lives lived was growing deeper and closer to the imortal spirits of men. Instead of reflecting the unyeilding saftey of this upper world with cleanliness the new surroundings seemed to flaunt the gift of being uncoruppted with mold and moss and weeds. Weapons seemed to be growing thick as scales on the patrons of the tavern all around me. I clutched my own cloak, and felt the reasurance of my own dagger, hammer, brush, and the wieght of my sword on my hip.
"Sir, how are you today?" I asked the first passerby not not woozy with the liquor of the upper world.
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