Bob's Bar

The barkeep stared at Bob. Bob stared back, blank-faced, trying not to be irritated still. The room was silent for a very uncomfortable moment. Bob spoke first.

“You can’t even answer my question?” Bob said. “You aren’t making this easy. Why are you acting like a prick?”

With a long drawn-out sigh, the barkeep finally spoke.

“You have asked many questions, and I still don’t understand how you managed to get in here. It would be best if you weren’t in here. This place is not meant for normal people.”

Bob looked at him confused.

"Normal people? What is this some bar only rich people are allowed in?" Bob replied.

With another sigh, the barkeep responded. "Not rich people, no. The type of patron we host here is, how do I say this? Warmongering fiends with an insatiable bloodlust? Hmm, or maybe stupid people with a hero complex? Yes, that sounds almost right, stupid people, we host stupid people who wander into the bar."

"You're calling me stupid?" Bob said. "Really, that's what you're going with after all this? Screw you then."

Bob marched back into the hallway. He began knocking on the wall where he knew the door was. He used his hands to feel for any indication of a seam or gap. Pushing on various places along the way there was no give to be found anywhere. Turning to the other walls, Bob did the same thing, searching for anything like a door. Again he found nothing.

"You're not going to find anything in there," The barkeep said with a raised voice. "There is no door to go back through"

Bob didn't reply to him. He just kept searching. After what seemed like an hour of pointless searching, Bob punched the wall, hard. It was solid. It was like he punched reinforced concrete. His knuckles bleed from the punch, leaving behind a smear of blood. He hissed in pain.

"I'm not cleaning that mess," the barkeep said. He threw a rag into the hallway.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS PLACE," Bob yelled, spinning on the bartender growling. "Get me out of this fucking place!"

"I told you," the barkeep replied. "the only way out is having a drink"

"And I told you, I don't want whatever your stupid bar has," Bob said still seething with anger. He was panting from being so angry and was starting to feel like he was trapped. He marched over to the bar top to get behind the bar. In his mind, he knew there had to be some form of mechanism to open the door. He moved and started to reach for the little door to get behind the bar.

"You're not coming back here," the barkeep started to say but was cut off when Bob charged the little door to get behind the bar.

When he reached for the swinging half door, his hand stopped. He couldn't move it. It felt like his hand was stuck in thick mud. Except the more force he applied to try and reach the little door the more solid it felt. Bob pulled his hand away looking at it. Shaking his head he went for the door again. This time he got a little closer but still couldn't reach the door. Bob had failed to notice that while he kept pushing to reach the door, the barkeep's eyes lit up with a white ring around his pupils for a second and then back to normal. Bob finally looked up at the barkeep confused and at a loss for what had happened. Nothing in his entire life had ever felt like what he just experienced with his hand being stopped like that.

The barkeep watched as this stupid man charged the bar. Smirking to himself he knew that the man wasn't going to get behind the bar, there was simply no way. His smirk faded quickly and his brows furrowed as soon as the man got his hand within an inch of the small door. Unbeknownst to "Bob" there was magic guarding that door. He shouldn't have been able to even get within a foot of said door. The barkeep's eyes lit up with white light as he had to force some of his magic to stop Bob. After stopping Bob's hand the second time, he was drained. Almost all of his mana was depleted. A bead of sweat formed on his brow and he was trying to calm his breathing.

Bob stopped looking at his hand. He was so confused, and it was written all over his face as he looked up at the barkeep. The confusion grew even more when he noticed the barkeep had a little sweat on his forehead and was slowly calming his breathing.

"Did I put a scare into this guy," Bob thought to himself. "What the hell was that feeling on my hand?"

Bob took one more look at his hand, then back at the barkeep.

"Wha, what was that? What happened to my hand," Bob asked the barkeep.

"That, sir explains to me how you managed to get in here," replies the barkeep.

Bob just looked at him confused, still in a bit of shock from the experience with his hand.

"Sit down at the table," the barkeep said. "I will answer some of your questions."

Bob just walked over to the table in the middle of the room and sat. He was so confused as to what just happened. He was at a complete loss, and his brain didn't want to work properly. He felt a little exhausted like he had just finished a company run with his old unit from the military. He watched as the barkeep walked over and bent down to pick up the rag that he threw. The barkeep then walked to the table to sit down across from him. The barkeep placed the rag over Bob's hand which was still bleeding a little from hitting the wall.

"I misjudged you, Bob," the barkeep started. "There IS a reason you found this bar. I'm not going to answer the how of that or very many of your other questions, let me get that out of the way now. But I will answer some. First, I am sorry, there isn't a door leading back the way you came. Second, yes there is a way out, but you must choose a drink. That IS the only way out of this place."

Bob just stared at him. He still had a look of confusion and exhaustion on his face.

"Just tell me," Bob said quietly. "Is this hell? Did I die somewhere out there when I was walking on the street?"

"You haven't died, and this is not hell," the barkeep answered. "This place is like a halfway point between your old life, and your new one."

"New one? What is that supposed to mean?" Bob asked.

"As I said before, I will answer some of your questions but I will not answer that. You must order a drink if you want more answers," the barkeep said.

Bob watched as the barkeep walked behind the bar and back again with a simple white sheet of paper. The barkeep sat back down in front of Bob and slid the menu across the table to him.

“This is our menu, and the drinks we have on offer," said the barkeep.

Bob looked at the menu. There were just names and no descriptions of what was in the drinks. The names were all based on video game classes from a fantasy universe.

"Assassin"

"Maurader"

"Barbarian"

"Pyromancer"

"Cryomancer"

"Chronomancer"

"Archer"

"Gunner"

"Grenadier"

Bob looked back at the barkeep.

"No more questions for now," the barkeep said. "You must choose a drink."