Before I knew it, we were in the bar. I do have to admit, it was quite the novel experience. Me, shambling alongside a friendly crawler.

  Then power-lifting said zombie into one of the chairs at the bar. I swear, I thought my arms were gonna fall off! They sure as hell made enough cracking sounds to make one believe it, too.

  I mean... he was a pretty beefy zombie, and those rotting arms had a lot of muscle mass to rot through. Had to weigh as much as at least eight cats. Or maybe two mid-sized doggos. At least half a mastiff, thats for sure. So, yeah. Great time.

  At least now I'd have a moment to look around the place and get my bearings.

  "Hey Brother, you seem a little confused. This your first time here?" The half-zombie asked in that gravelly Hulk Hogan voice of his.

  God, he was certainly a chatterbox that one.

  "Well, yes. As a matter of pure fact, it likely is. Probably." I grunted after taking a solid, heaving moment to catch my breath.

  The half-zombie just laughed a nice, long deep laugh.

  The bar itself was just chock full of the undead hordes. After all, I am pretty sure that's what you call a large group of undead, right? A horde? Or a swarm? They're definitely not like crows, which get a cool name like murder.

  Honestly, its actually quite unfair, if you really stop to think about it. But I didn't want to deal with that problem, so I chose to not stop and think about it.

  ...

  I think ghourd works for a swarm of ghouls. Plus it sounds like the food.

  Anyways, the place was packed. There were plenty of tables placed in dark, dank corners with ghastly blue and purple candles giving off just the right levels of unholy light to make the guests comfortable. Of course, there were cleaner sections too, with proper tables and cushioned seating, and others themed after ancient burial sites. Like the sarcophagus tables.

  I gotta admit, this place was huge. Of course, each of the undead went to their preferred sections as well. You had the mummies with the sarcophagi, the vamps by the lamps brooding intensely atop their miniature gothic tower, and general undead in the dark dank corners. Those casper wannabe's, though, wandered most anywhere.

  I guessed that was just a ghost thing. I was curious about the far wall with one-way glass windows that stacked up quite high. The half zombie must have caught me staring, as he chimed in momentarily.

  "Thems for the real fancy folk. The big wigs, brother. You don't wanna stare too long, cuz they don't like the attention. Liches, progenitor vampires, you name it. Thats where they're at. C'mon." The half zombie grasped my shoulder, before spinning in his seat back towards the bar.

  With a grunt and the click of some more of my bones, I managed to plop myself in my seat. The zombie rapped his knuckles on the counter twice, looked towards the bar... man? Bar ghast? Bartender. I'll go with bartender, because honestly, I couldn't pin just what type of undead was manning the bar.

  "10 creeediiiitsss." It hissed, its voice carrying out like a long sigh of air escaping some rapidly deflating lungs.

  That thing was surreal as hell, and to describe it... I honestly don't think I can. In fact, the more I watched it, the more its shape seemed so... indeterminate. The only notable, unchanging aspect was that sometimes, it would turn to look in my direction, and open its three eyes incredibly wide while sporting a massive, toothy grin that filled up most of its face.

  In a moment, he poured out two glasses of some kind of brackish blue liquid that emanated a subtle, frothy fog, and slid them down the table our way.

  His head snaked off from his body and glided down to our end of the counter. The bulky half-zombie got a normal sized glass, while mine was... a definitely larger, oval-like glass. Kinda like the giant novelty wine glasses, but more awkward. Plus, mine seemed... extra foggy. Honestly, the zombie couldn't stop staring at my glass either, as the drool dripped out of a hole under his lip.

  "Sspeeeciaaaalll just for yooouuuuuu. Plusss, looooksss like yoooouuuu neeeeed ittttt." The bar-thing continued, before cackling in multiple dimensions and retracting its head.

  I shivered.

  "Brother, I don't think we've been introduced. Names Bulk, Bulk Brogan! I'm a classic level seventeen Zombie Crawler." The zombie bellowed with a huge, proud smile, and clapped me on the shoulder. I felt like I saw a piece of his skin fly off and land in someone else's drink, but they didn't seem to mind, so I chose to not say anything.

  "Anyways, what's your deets?" He continued, whilst I just stared at him in confusion.

  "Level what-now? Like in some kind of RPG?" I asked, taken aback as I was.

  "Your... uh, well, you level and class? You know, like off you status screen?" Mr. Brogan seemed to be just as confused at my confusion as I was confused at this whole situmacation thing.

  "Oh. I don't got one. Probably." I replied matter-of-factly, while putting on my best, most confident smile.

  The chorus of groans, munching and brooding fell silent at that. And then, everyone stared at me.

  Now, uh, that was quite a lot of attention. Even the bar-thing turned his head towards me again, but this time it made a weird cranking sound as he did it. It felt like he was being intentionally extra creepy. Still had that smile plastered on his face, though. If anything, it had somehow gotten even wider.

  So, I did what any person would naturally do in that situation. I grabbed my uber-novelty wine glass, and downed that mysterious liquid, fog and all, in one go.

  Because if there is one thing I know about bars, its that everyone loves some drink-based theatrics. And I was right, because I was soon met with a horrendous chorus of moans, grunts, and gregorian chants of "Chug! Chug! Chug!". A little weird, but hell, I'd already come this far.

  The damn thing felt like liquid fire going down my throat. The world was going dark, and fast. My heart was racing, and I was sweating like a Siberian Husky on the beach in Burma, snacking on an extra spicy margarita pizza. And I am not talking tabasco spicy, which is bad enough. I am talking about the burn and tang of the Carolina Reaper!

  Fuck! When will this damned drink be finished! Oh god, my poor bones... I could feel them shaking from the prolonged strain like they could snap at any moment. But... I had already come this far!

  So I finished the damn thing in one go, and as I slammed the massive beverage container, I let loose a gloriously foggy burp. My stomach was churning, my head was spinning, I was half blind, my mouth and throat were burning like a wildfire and , but god dammit, I did it!

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  And there was much rejoicing.

  An undead chorus of "Hoooraaaayyy." filled the room, before everyone turned back to their tables and promptly resumed doing whatever it is that they did. Mostly groaning and sipping and munching on questionable things.

  Well, almost everyone. The bar-thing, well... it kinda disappear. Mostly, But my glass began to shake uncontrollably, and a thicker fog formed at the bottom. Then it creaked. And then his torso kiiiiinda just erupted out of it, hunched over, and popped its face out right in front of mine.

  And now everyone was looking at me. Again.

  "Sssooooo... no statuuuuussss?" It exhaled deeply.

  "Well, I, uh, I am kinda new here?" I grinned sheepishly and shrugged. For my efforts, I was rewarded with another thick cough and a chunk of slimy residue splat right between the bar-thing's eye and mouth. To which I laughed nervously, and wiped it off.

  It just smiled even wider.

  Then, I saw a popup.

  I stared at the floating message. Well color my biscuits and grill my gravy, this is one of those situmacations aint it?

  I couldn't help but instinctively react to the accusation at the bottom though.

  "But I'm not dead, though." I grunted, forgetting momentarily the rules posted out front. Not that it mattered though.

  A new pop-up occurred. Followed by a third and a fourth.

  The third was a massive wall, that just exploded in size and scrolled wildly fast. I barely caught the first line before the super speed scrolling occurred.

  The third window was getting impossibly large, and I glanced all around it before spotting a small "X" in the top corner. After I thought about pressing it, the window closed.

  "Seriously though, I am not dead yet..." I grumbled to myself, and gained another new window.

  Moments later, I had a new pop-up. I focused hard on it, and tried ignoring these little black spots roaming around my eyes.

  At this point, everyone was watching me silently. I couldn't help but glance around nervously, but at the very least I felt like nobody else could see all these windows. It felt like they knew I was going through something, and there was this... energy that seemed to fill the air.

  I coughed a wee bit, which then made me double over in pain as it felt like I just pulled a back muscle.

  That drink must have done something, because now the phlegm was much darker and had turned to a truly healthy shade of dark mauve.

  Damn... my insurance definitely won't cover this...

  While hunched, I groaned out my answers. "Horace... Lower class".

  Then, I heard a small *ding* followed by a rather disappointing shower of... spark. Just one spark at a time, for about 3 seconds.

  "Seriously..." I groaned again.

  Then, I got a pair of two more windows.

  As the entire bar stared at me, I stared haplessly at my screen. No, not haplessly... honestly, I had enough! That's right! I don't have to take this! I AM NOT DEAD!

  I seethed with rage, and screamed out at the screen! I tried to grab it to no avail.

  "Status! Status!" I shouted to close and open it again. The damn value was the same.

  "I am not dead! ABSOLUTELY NOT! FIX IT BROKEN SYSTEM!" I howled, while holding my lower back and gingerly shook my free fist.

  The entire room gasped... well, as close to a gasp as a horde of the living dead could manage.

  Then, I got probably a little over two hundred popups filling every conceivable portion of visible space. As, apparently, did every being in the room.

  After spending an inordinate amount of time closing all the windows while grumbling, one of the zombies in the back whispered in a slow, dull voice that I ignored in my rage.

  "Boris... what is that number?"

  I knocked twice on the counter.

  "Bar-thing! One hundred credits, to go!" I demanded. The creature smiled, and a large bottle of some dark liquid that had various skulls forming and deforming in its swirls appeared. I swiped it off the counter.

  A small popup denoting a subtraction of a hundred credits appeared, which had no effect on the approximation displayed on my status page.

  "Close Status. You know, I don't feel like hanging out here anymore. C'mon Bulk, lets go somewhere through your door." I growled.

  Bulk Brogan eyed my bottle in awe, before answering gleefully. "Amen Brother! Hell, I got some good stories about my town too!"

  Honestly, I was a little jealous. That bastard seemed to be having a great day.