The Bay
It was a dark and stormy night. I don't know why the weather bothered really, but tradition had to be kept up, and the storm had practiced for tonight, it's big night, for a long time now. A whole water cycle went into maintaining it, and even if it meant that some story would have the world's worst opening line, the storm wasn't going to let the side down.

Lightning rolled and thunder flashed. The stranger in the bay rolled his eyes, and muttered, "Damn weather. Dyslexic clouds. This is just too much!" But he was a professional, and he had a job to do. He said to himself, "Stay strong. You're a professional and you have a job to do!"

He strided, something that isn't easy to do when you're wearing a tattered cloak on top of a battered robe, and is absolutely impossible to do if you're anywhere in the vicinity of a dictionary. Luckily then, he was wearing a small cape and jeans. Well, bad cloaks are just so hard to come by and anyway, robes are so last century!

He strided stridently and steadfastly across the sandy beach, which had become the muddy beach in the torrential rain. He stopped before George's Tavern, a landmark that didn't mark much because it moved to suit your mood, and your thirst. That's the biggest advantage of visiting a place that exists only in your imagination. Of course, if you're in a good mood it's a great place to go to, but on a bad day, it can have problems, because instead of butterflies the land could be filled with pterodactyls.

Inside the bar the patrons drank merrily, or drunkenly. The two are really one and the same, and both are slightly related to gaily, but that's another story altogether and is best left for another time. The Tavern was one of the most unusual bars in the world. Or outside of it, for that matter. There were vampires drinking blood out of goblets made from skulls, poured out of bottles labeled Extra Virgin, which raised a lot of questions, unlike the Extra Virgin Olive Oil which only raises the cost of a meal.

There were Martians, or were they some other random brand of E.T.? Who knew and who cared, as long as they kept drinking the green ooze they seemed to like so much and didn't try talking much. They were all so predictably boring, wanting to show you photos of the trips they'd taken and talking about their relationships.

There were people too, but here, surrounded by vampires, werewolves, aliens and ghouls, they were the real exotics, and whiskey and vodka were fancy treats.

The atmosphere in the Tavern was light and cheerful with George singing obscene songs as loudly as he could. If anyone asked, he pointed out that it was his bar and that it was his gun, and it was your crotch, so talk fast. Few people complained twice. After they did, few people complained once.

The thunder rolled, in a hopeful and operatic way, drowning out the last bars of George's song, which was about hedgehogs, and the door crashed open. As the wind drove in the assembled drinkers saw the cape clad stranger stand in the doorway, eyes glittering in the dark. Lightning flashed theatrically, and in the sudden soggy silence, he stepped in.

Looking around he saw that he was definitely in the right tavern. Off to one side a mercenary was talking to a bounty hunter, and then shot him with a pistol concealed in his boot. Off to another corner an android was talking to a Klingon about human drinking traditions. Somewhere in the center of the room, shrouded in the darkness, a forest ranger sat covered in a tattered cloak. He looked the stranger up and down with keen eyes, nodded once and briefly pointed to the party of hobbits he was keeping an eye on. Anytime soon they'd pass out and then he could steal their stuff.

The stranger gave the ranger a nod, one professional to the other, and continued his silent scan of the room. In one corner he saw three young magic students having their first drops of highly illegal Firewhiskey. Walking over to the ranger he said, "Listen mac, you've already got a cloak. Why d'you need this shroud of darkness? Lemme borrow it for a minute."

The ranger nodded no mutely and in a second felt a slight pain. That's when he saw the expertly administered poisoned dart, which the stranger had so casually affected to the rangers buttocks. The stranger smiled and said, "What, did you think I was so happy to see you?" Both men laughed, the ranger rather more weakly, and then while the ranger slumped off his chair, the stranger sat in it. The hobbits could wait. He had to meet the Wanderer, and carry out his little bit of Deus Ex, or he'd get into all sorts of trouble.

I dunno if I'll continue this story or if I'm going anywhere with it. It's four in the morning, and I can't keep my eyes open. It's just that the words wanted to come. And I was really just the delivery mechanism. Sorry if that left any stains.