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.

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  "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.