World's End Inn

The World's End is an inn, or "free house", located at the end of all worlds. Travelers are welcome to stay as long as they wish. It is customary for guests to share stories to pass the time. The Inn appears in the titular collection.

History
The collection begins with the narration of Brant Tucker, he and co-worker Charlene Mooney are involved in an auto accident on their way to Chicago. With Charlene hurt, Brant is directed to a strange inn named "Worlds' End, a free house" by a hedgehog.

The Inn is identified later as one of four inns where travelers between realms shelter during reality storms which occur after momentous events. Brant describes how the inn patrons watch a funeral procession cross the sky. Thereafter, Brant returns alone to his own world, while Charlene remains at the Worlds' End as an assistant to its landlady. *The framing sequence is penciled by Bryan Talbot and inked by Mark Buckingham, Dick Giordano and Steve Leialoha, with the exception of the funeral procession, which is penciled by Gary Amaro and inked by Tony Harris.

The remaining stories within the collection are each narrated by a different person during a storytelling session at the inn; as the introduction notes, this is similar to the device used in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. This gives each story a distinct style, both in the telling and in the illustration, with the collection drawn together by short sequences between stories set at the inn itself.