And in walks an 8-feet tall man squinting at a clipboard.

"Okay, I am pretty sure yesterday's shipment is correct but-Gah! You're not Aross. What is this place?"

The girl whirls on her chair and grins. "Welcome to Milliways, the bar at the end of the universe!"

Katur is still confused, but he smiles politely. "Thank you? Did I just go through a double-portal that took me to the rim?"

"Nope! Milliways' door sometimes hijacks doors from other universes for reasons unknown. The bar is sentient and female and communicates via napkins, and time is paused in your home universe while you're here."

Katur comes closer and checks Bar's sentience. He is quickly corrected about his assumption that he needs to write on napkins too and accepts a free drink. Something bright red and frothy. "This is good. And this is the weirdest place I have seen or heard of in legend. I'm Katur by the way."

"Kaede. Nice to meet you. I was just about done interrogating Bar about stuff, if you have questions you can probably shoot them at me and I'll know."

"My pleasure. Any idea what kind of magic was used to create this place? Interworld transportation is always handy. What is the name of your world or universe?"

"Bar doesn't know how she was created or how old she is, and there isn't really a sense in which that question has an answer because the door can pick people from any universes at any point in their history. My world doesn't really have a name? My continent's called Galatea and people there call the planet the same thing but there are other continents. You seem much less surprised than I was by the whole multiversal shenaingans."

"I'm surprised this place exists as it is, but not that it could exist if someone was powerful enough? And multiversal shenanigans are a commonly known thing? My current residence is in a pocket world that is connected to five regular universes including my native one."

Blink. "Yeah mine isn't. This was really really new to me."

Nod. "Yeah, one of Elsewhere's features - the pocket world I mentioned - is that it sometimes abducts people from other worlds. At least this place offers free drinks and explanations."

"One free drink," she corrects, smiling. "It's a very helpful bar." She looks around. "Er, when I arrived it was kinda full. From what Bar tells me, this might've been on purpose."

"That is one more free drink than people that get lost in the wild get. And what do you mean with on purpose?"

"Sometimes it looks like the door grabs people who would for one reason or another be interesting? She can't directly communicate with it or whoever's in charge of it, but."

"Oh? Well, you are interesting to me. Not everyday I get to meet a person from a new universe. Also, is there some translation effect going on?"

"Yeah, there's blanket translation magic here, it's really cool."

"Extremely cool. So, do you have a sense of what Galatea is like when compared to other worlds?"

"Nope, I haven't asked Bar about other worlds, only about the bar itself and the door and stuff."

"Well, how would you describe it? I'm curious."

"That... depends on what your culture is like, really. My continent—Galatea—is basically the only inhabited one. There are lots of islands, and there's one other continent with a few people but not many. There are three kingdoms, and they're really different. There are—four types of magic."

"Why only three kingdoms? And what are the four types of magic?"

"Why only three is a long and complicated story but the magic types are Elementalism, Enchanting, Arcanism, and Metamancy. Elementalism is using magic on yourself, Enchanting on objects, Arcanism on symbols, and Metamancy on magic itself."

"Elementalism doesn't use magic on elements?" Pause. "Does your magic consume anything?"

"Elementalists are called that way because one of the magics elementalists can do to themselves—do you want, like, the full explanation?"

"How long is the full explanation? And can your magic be learned in the time period we are here? I'm still curious but not enough for a two hour lecture about magic I can't bring back with me."