Next to her seats a guy in a green suit. He looks at his phone annoyed.

"Heya. Where are you from?"

"Oh, from a small town in the middle of nowhere called Ashenville, and you?"

"Middle of nowhere where? UCAS? CAS? California Free State?"

"What? Oh, right the party thing," He should've said Gotham, "Err... I guess somewhere close to New York?"

"Oh, neat, I'm from Boston. What party thing?"

"Oh, at this party you're not supposed to 'forget," he makes air quotes, "that you're a witch and I'm the Riddler."

"What's a Riddler? And what do you mean, obviously I'm not a witch."

"The Riddler, me, is a super-villain. And yes, you're a witch, just like that guy over there is an actual werewolf, wink." He actually says wink.

"Um, I'm not. This is a holo, I don't actually have green skin. Here, look --" She goes into the settings for her persona and changes her skin color to, hm, purple.

The lights turn off.

"Oh, it happened again. I honestly don't know if it's part of the party or actually an energy failure."

"Huh. Well, anyway -- not a witch." She should still have purple skin. Are the lights still off?

The light just turned back on. "Wow," he says looking at her skin, maybe it's some kind of special bodypaint? Must be that, "that is very cool. Anyway..." Henry lowers his voice to a whisper, "you're supposed to pretend."

"Pretend. Okay. I'll put on my best witch-voice and everything." She cackles experimentally.

Henry chuckles. "If I knew, I would've prepared riddles, but don't tell anyone."

Naomi laughs. "Are the drinks here any good?"

"Pretty great. They do a trick where the lights turn off and your request just shows up on the counter."

"Neat! How do you do a request?"

"Just ask out loud."

She stares at the counter thoughtfully and solemnly intones: "A six-gallon jug of Acid brand energy drink from my local Stuffer Shack."

And the lights turn off for a couple of seconds.

There is indeed a six-gallon jug of the request beverage, along side with a napkin with the words: First one is free.

"Okay, that was very fast. Whoever is doing this is clearly not being paid enough."

Naomi looks over the counter. As she does so, it goes dark, and -- another napkin appears beside her elbow, out of sight of her companion. She reads it.

"Uh. You should probably read this."

Henry reads it.

It's a note from Bar! She explains how she works, her pronouns, and the types of goods available.

"Oh, cool. They're are really invested in keeping the characterization!"

"Sure."

Naomi's starting to think something's up. She looks around at the other patrons, some of whom look vaguely transparent, like her, and some of whom -- don't. Including an extremely detailed demon-like person with enormous wings.

"What's the, um, story, that everyone keeps adhering to?"

"Oh, it's really creative! This is an inter-dimensional hub that catches people every part of the multiverse. And today is having a Halloween themed day!"

"Multiverse?"

"Yeah, like there was a guy pretending to be a fantasy world with magic, another from a post-scarcity space opera, that kind of thing."

"How do you know they're pretending?"

"Because they're too... consistent to be anything else?"

"What, so people who are telling the truth are less consistent?"

"No, I mean everyone is playing their character right. If they're drugged or something else I would expect they would show signs after a few minutes of conversation."

"Riiight. Oh, drek, I forgot to ask you your name."

"Henrique Osvaldo, but call me Henry. Yours?"

"I go by Whistle."

Snort. "Nice to meet you, Whistle."

"Whaat, I'm not going to give some rando my real name. Would you prefer I lie?"

"Nah, that is entirely fair, Whistle."

"Right, well. Now that we've got that all cleared up. How'd you get here?"

"I took a bus."

"Wow, I haven't heard of a bus that stops at Milliways. How'd you find it?"

"The bus didn't actually took me here. I jumped off a couple of city blocks away then walked the rest of the way here."

Naomi smiles mischievously, thinking that this will probably be a bad idea. "Wanna show me where your bus stop is? I didn't see one on the way in." 

"It's just two blocks to the left if you're facing the street."

"But I didn't see one, come on --"

At this point she's off her stool, tapping her foot. 

"Come on... what?"

Her smile falls. She looks a bit sheepish. "I uh. I wanna show you why I'm confused. I didn't see a bus stop on the way in."

"Uh, I have to wait for my cousin and my phone is without signal so I would rather not leave."

"Oh, you have a cousin! Are they here right now?"

"We are supposed to meet here."

Right. This guy is nnot going to meet his cousin tonight. The question Naomi's concerned with is how long it'll take for him to decide to go home.

"Do they know where you're supposed to be? Like, the name of the bar? Have you tried contacting them?"

"Oh, yes. He was the one that gave me directions. And I tried to contact them, but my phone has no signals."

"Maybe you went to the wrong place. Sometimes I don't follow directions correctly even when they're right there, you could have done that."

This rarely ever happens in her world because directions are virtual reality. But, well. It has happened. A couple times. 

"I triple checked and it's not like there are other places in this city-block that could host a party."

Naomi's getting increasingly frustrated. 

"What was the, hm. What was the name of the place you were supposed to go?"

"Milliways..." Henry says slowly, like he is not understanding her question.

.... huh. Naomi asks bar for a smaller cup, pours in some Acid, and thinks. 

She has a few options. She could wash her hands of this guy, who somehow managed to make his way to Milliways, know that the bar is called Milliways, and aggressively fail to realize its interdimensional nature. Or she could dispense with her oblique questioning and be direct, but what kind of result would that have? She doesn't know if the bar's lights normally go off when a drink appears, but she's seen some appear for other patrons -- out of Henry's line of sight. Tricking him into the Matrix wouldn't work unless she escalated. And she doesn't particularly want to. Henry's, er, not her type. 

Well. She'll shelve those thoughts for now. More light banter is on the menu while she finds more information.

"What kinda party's supposed to happen?"

"Just a typical Halloween party? I don't think you have to append 'costumed' to those kind of parties, but I guess it counts as a costumed party?"

"Aaaand do you know anyone else who's supposed to attend?"

"A few of my cousin's friends that told us about this place. Don't recognize anyone, but my cousin is a art major so they're probably some of the more elaborate costumes."

Henry says this and waves to a warrior Orc that is looking at his surroundings very bewildered.

"So, other than staying in character, how do people react to you, ah, complimenting their commitment? Are they angry? Happy? Confused?"

"Well... mostly confused, often angry because I was rude and that is the in character reaction... Why do you ask?"

"I'm just wondering why you don't, er, play along."

"Ah... I just made a poor costume decision? I thought the Riddler looked nice, but I don't know that much about him."

"What kind of costume would you prefer? I could make you one."

"Uh, thank you? But we're in the middle of the party already."

"I don't care. Pick something."

"Superman? Batman? Albert Einstein?"

Batman; easy. 

Naomi's still in VR. To the naked eye, she'll look vaguely transparent -- like a ghost, flickering like a projection, motes of light dancing around her body. The cape and cowl she's making will look similar. She takes something out of her pocket -- a piece of fabric, it looks like -- and, over the course of several seconds, it shifts into a dark Batman costume, meant to be put on over clothing. 

"Oh, my god, that is so cool! How did you do that?"

"I'm not actually here! Milliways has a virtual reality installation. My body is passed out unconscious in my panic room."

"No, I mean, seriously, how did you just do that?"

"I'm not lying to you."

Henry folds his arms.

"Do you want to see an image of my room?" Maybe that will convince him. Somehow.

"Sure, go ahead."

She provides one, projecting onto Bar's surface. And -- there she is, reclined in an ergonomic VR-chair complete with neck brace, in a windowless white room lit by LEDs.

"That... that can't be true."

And then they hear a bloodcurdling scream coming from somewhere else in the bar, then someone laughs triumphantly from another point, and then a lot of panic noises or distressed noises coming from everywhere.

"What was that?"

Well, it might depend what direction she is looking at, people are not running away screaming, but they're moving around confused. The person that screamed was apparently a old woman, she is covered on what looks like the skin of a young woman, complete with hair and make up. The man laughing was someone tall of middle-eastern descent (or equivalent) he is rubbing his wrists and is smiling, there is a boy on the floor near him, looking absolutely terrified.

"What is going on?" Henry asks and there is another scream of terror.

Naomi writes a quick note to Bar. Information please? Help? Announcements?

The lights don't turn off, and the napkin just appears. Some sort of anti-magic effect coming from your friend, and some people here are dependant of magic.

Her "friend" is currently staring at the crowd confused.

Will it stop if he goes upstairs?

Maybe. Please try. Security should've show up but they aren't responding.

"Henry. Bar says we should head upstairs."

Henry nods and follows her upstairs.

And are the people downstairs okay?

Well, things do seen to have calm down a little. Naomi catches sight of a half-naked old man running to the backyard screaming "The spell has been broken!The spell has been broken!". The old woman is cradling the skin like someone would cradle the body of a dead loved one. The tall middle-eastern man is crouching in front of the boy, talking quietly to him, whatever he is saying is leaving the boy utterly terrified.

Naomi goes to the old woman. "Are you okay? Do you need help?"

She looks up. "You have a beautiful skin. Would you give it to me?"

Naomi backs away and checks on the man and the boy. 

The old woman looks disappointed but not surprised.

The man is quietly describing Terrible Things he is going to do once he is back and free to do anything he wishes. Those Terrible Things are capable of scaring adults, so the it's reasonable that the boy would be crying and scared.

... this is her fault and therefore her responsibility --

She writes a quick note to Bar -- Can that ... man ... be locked in?

You can just talk out loud to me. And no. He didn't commit anything while inside Milliways and he wouldn't be kept indefinitely.

Naomi doesn't know any magic, she's a terrible negotiator, she's not strong or fast --

The only thing she had was information -- ha! -- and look at how that dreked everyone up.

Unless she can't do anything about the man's plans anyhow, she's only one person -- 

Henry shows up again. "Hi again, did you solve whatever was going on?"

'Drek. Drek, I forgot to tell you -- you need to be upstairs because you have -- some sort of anti-magic field, Bar identified it, there are people here who were relying on magic and they're not safe right now."

"I am... I am so sorry."

He runs upstairs.

Are there any other immediate crises downstairs? That she can help with? She can buy anything she needs from Bar if it's not magic; she has the money.

Nothing urgent, but the boy with the scary man would like to switch worlds, is there a way to do that? He is begging the other patrons while the man follows him smiling maliciously.

Does he mind living in a world without magic? 

Yes. As long he can actually live. His djinn was his only source of money and he is afraid of being kicked out and have to face his revenge, please take him, he didn't bound the djinn himself - Milliways would've kicked him out if he had - please, please, please.

She asks the boy to come upstairs. "Henry? I think you can help with something." 

The boy follows. Henry looks... tired and weak. His stomach grumbles. "Oh?"

"This kid really wants to change worlds. Could you find him somewhere? I could put him up in a room in Milliways on my tab until then, but I thought I should ask."

"I can try," He says weakly, "what have you been doing?"

"Damage control. Identifying problems, trying to fix them.

... none of this is your fault."

Nod. "What do you need me to do?"

"Stay here, for now. Bar says you have some sort of anti-magic field -- honestly I am so fascinated by this but now is not the time -- some patrons downstairs were relying on magical protections and those ended. I'm going to see if I can fix them, I can afford to drop a lot of money right now. 

Are you going to be okay?"

Nod. Then he pauses for a moment. "Could you bring some food? I don't think I can stay without eating for another ten hours."

"What do you want? I can get you pretty much anything; apparently my currency is worth a ton to Bar."

"I don't need anything fancy and can reimburse you of any purchases."

She gets him food! Mashed potatoes, green beans, and grilled chicken.

Henry devours it.