“Hey you, what are you doing?”

“Me?” I point to myself as though I’ve been strangely singled out for no reason.

“Yes you, you’re covered in blood.” the man says loudly over the noise of the crowded bar.

No one has noticed our conversation yet as I stand amongst the crowd of people rubbing against them, they seemingly have no care about me or what I’m doing yet the man before us does.

“So what? Is that against the rules?”

“No but you aren’t permitted to be here, you need to exit this realm.”

“Get me a drink first, idiot.”

The moustached bar tender places a glass before him, he turns around and selects a bottle carefully before opening it and pouring it out. An instant aroma fills the room as everyone’s attention is drawn to it, yet none of them move.

The cup is filled with a glowing gold and green liquid, it mixes ever so slightly to reveal an intricate pattern in the middle.

I take a long hard look at the pattern in the glass, it’s a pattern that would be called beautiful is one were from outside this realm but here it’s simply trash. Bottom of the barrel, something you’d find in this sort of place.

I pick up the cup, it’s heavy yet I can lift it with ease and take a sip.

The liquid is cold and icy, yet bitter before all of it creating a sweet after taste yet it’s over in a flash.

I slam the glass down, “More.”

“You need to leave, you got what you wanted.”

“I want more” I say with an aggressive tone, the atmosphere dulling as shadows move about on the ground.

“I can only make 2 elixirs every 500 years. You want to drink my entire stock?”

“I don’t care, I need more. I’ll have 1 more then leave.”

The bar-tender takes out his bottles again and pours out the drink again, this time it looks much duller and muddier.

I instantly down the drink, this time a large bitter flavour comes over my mouth as I nearly cough up, I look down on the bar for another thing to drink when I look up and notice everything has gone.

The people, the bar-attendant, the life and atmosphere are all gone.

All that is left behind is an empty decaying room filled with skeletons, the bottles on the shelf looking much more decayed and empty yet as I pick up the glass that I left behind and take a sniff.

“Elixir 6 and 7. I only need 1 more to exit this accursed place and jump to the next realm.”

I turn around from the bar and walk through the skeletons without a care, this place is long dead and decayed, resigned to the banals of the universe to be reclaimed by something eventually but not before rotting.

I exit the underground bunker turned into a bar and enter the street once more, my eyes look up in the sky squinting for the signs of anything that might be hostile as the thunder and fire clouds brew above. Only the toughest of creatures can survive that, but also the hungriest.

“1 more elixir… where can that be?”

So I walked, I walked and I walked through this barren landscape for years and years, an untold number of years through this desolate landscape until finally I came across another underground bar with the same bar keeper.

I walk in to the room after much travelling weary from the fighting but much more learned, there are no ghostly figures of people this time there is only the attendant behind the counter.

He is polishing a single glass as though things are normal, I approach him as I always do.

“Get me a drink.”

“You could atleast greet me, you are my first customer ever so I was hoping this would be a high point but now I see it’s just a realm hopper that will move on.”

“Yea woe is you, you’re new so that means you still have both elixirs?”

“I have 16, my family had a large stock of them so I can let you have two if you tell me about your travels.”

“I’ll take all 16.”

“I’ll let you have 3.”

“I’ll take 14.”

“Most I can do is 4, you won’t ever be back here and there are sure to be more realm hoppers after you.”

“Fine, 12. Final offer otherwise I’ll use force.”

“That will leave me with nothing. How will I show myself to my family if I return with no food and I have lost the elixirs.”

“I’ll show you a trick that all the other bar-keepers used, it’ll attract lots of patrons but I want the elixirs first.”

“Half, I’m already taking a risk with that much plus if you mess with the setup…”

“It’s ok, I know what I’m doing.”

I hold my hand out to the bar-keeper, he passes over two bottles that seem much more purer than the previous times he has drunk it, as though this is the actual item whereas those weren’t even fit to be called pig squill next to it.

I lick my lips and take the bottles storing them away where they will keep, the attendant begins to mix some glasses before me.

4 different types of glasses are there, a shallow cocktail glass, a normal glass, a wine glass and a shot glass.

I raise my eyebrow at this display, most of these bar keepers only use a normal glass.

The bar-keeper pours out the liquid of two bottles together into each of the glasses yet the result is a different colour each time.

The cocktail glass turns a milky yellow, the normal glass turns a transparent colour with floating orbs in it. The wine glass is a solid whiteish yellow while the shot glass is black.

I hold up the shot glass with a raised eyebrow, the bar keeper speakers.

“The family calls this Devil’s Liquid, it will cause an unknown affect each time. We have never had something show up that was beneficial.”

“Is it permanent?”

“Sometimes, like having an extra arm or eye. Easy enough to remove.”

“What about the other ones? Can it turn back after being like this?”

The bar-keeper points to the cocktail glass, “This is illesium liquid, it has an uplifting feeling,” he moves onto the next cup, “this is what it usually is which we call Elixir 10+. Each of the orbs contain more elixir than 1 through 7 combined.”

“Wow.”

The barkeeper finally moves onto the wine glass, it looks like a white wine which he picks up and passes to me. I take a sniff of it where it smells quite pleasant.

I take it from him and look at the bar-keeper.

“Drink it, it will do two things.”

I take a sip of it as I expect the bar-keeper to explain but I instantly begin to feel woozy, my body begins to change and I notice that it has changed in a big way. I’m not attached to my body in a big way but it feels strange being forced in to this form after designing the previous one to handle all situations as needed.

My previous big hulking exterior, scaled flesh and monstrous claws have been switched to petite human-like hands, delicate fingers and skin that one could poke through.

Another big problem is that I have switched gender, I am a male but this form is a female form with breasts and…

I reach my hand down and fiddle with my region downstairs, it feels complete in every way as I stand there naked before the bar-keeper, drink still in hand.

“It will adopt the opposite gender form you have chosen, quite odd that is yours given your initial abyssal demon behemoth form.”

“And?”

My voice pitched higher with a softer yet still rather masculine voice.

“You can copy the form of anything if you put its information in the drink before, we call it the copy cat brew.”

“How do I turn back?”

“Finish the drink then you’ll find out.”

I quickly gulp down the drink not wanting to try out the other function, a weird sensation hits my mind before my form shifts back to the hulking behemoth shrunken down to almost human size.

“Anything else I need to know?”

“I’m going to need the container back when you’re done with it.”

“I need it forever.”

“I need it back, it’s my great ancestors. I will refill it when we meet again.”

I frown for a moment before nodding my head, “Ok. I’ll give it back when I’m done, how will we meet?”

“I’ll summon you.”

“Even in another realm?”

“Of course, this is connected to everywhere. I’ll be in touch.”

I blink once and notice the bar-keeper is gone, the other drinks are still sitting on the counter in liquid form.

I firstly take the cocktail glass and take a sip, “illesium?” I mutter before finishing it off.

A warm energy enters my stomach, it strangely feel warm and nice as though I have a burst of energy.

I take the next drink which is the elixir, this one simply tastes like water but each orb is unleashing a load of power as it hits my stomach becoming difficult to control.

I look at the final glass, it’s the black liquid.

I frown and debate with myself before opting to drink it, “Either way I’m going to be going to the next realm shortly.”

A burst of energy wells up inside of me as the black liquid enters my throat, I try to control it but with the other energy in my stomach it almost becomes uncontrollable.

I rush out of the building and onto the open space above, I let out a gigantic roar.

*ROOOOOAR*

It echoes in the area, several other louder roars respond yet I cannot think about that as I control the energy and fight it back as it’s not time yet.

“It’s not time for me to jump yet. I can control it, I just need to concentrate.”

I say to myself over and over again but several distant rumbles getting closer don’t bode well, I weigh my quickly narrowing options and opt for the most reasonable solution.

A white light appears at the end of my finger tip as I circle it in the air, it leaves a trail of cracks before revealing a hole. This is the ability of a plane-hopper, they’re able to tear through the fabric of each plane with ease, be it realm, pocket realm or universal realm.

There is no stopping them.

I look at the giant creatures coming from the distance, each one more vicious and dangerous than the last. These are the true overlords of the region, I could take on maybe 1 or 2 of them but not when there’s 20 of them.

I step through the doorway as the first creature pounces from above, a giant moth.

It attempts to grab me from its stealthy position being invisible but it’s still a moth.

I begin to fall through the empty space of nothingness where endless things meet and part, where they’ll be forever met and never have met at all…

The doorway behind me shuts trapping a large tentacle like appendage, it wriggles about in this space but as it’s not a plane-hopper then it won’t survive long.

I watch the tentacle and it doesn’t take long for it to dissolve into a burst of black mist, I absorb the energy into my body and look for my next destination.

Any sort of plane of light.

I look out before me and see trillions upon trillions of plane bubbles but…

“They’re all dark.”