“That's ‘need to know’ information. And you don't need to know.” Francis said automatically. He looked at the woman. She was chained to an iron ring attached to the floor. “You want me to sort that out?”
“That would be divine, thanks. Zed should have the key in his robes somewhere.” Willow gratefully accepted the key from Francis when he found it.
She stood up and cracked her back. Spending hours laying on a black marble floor was hell on her joints.
Francis watched as the faun smoothed down her form fitting black robes. They were embroidered with skulls, ravens, and occult symbols that read like death metal lyrics. She was about 175 centimeters tall with a very pretty heart shaped face.
He liked her green eyeliner, black lips, curly hair, and ample curves. But she also had ram horns and pointed ears. So that put her off the list of potential playmates. (Francis was from Texas, but he wasn't from that part of Texas.)
The two of them went about raiding Zed’s drink cart and getting to know one another. Willow was about five hundred years old, but looked twenty. Francis was thirty-six, but still acted like a teenager. They got along surprisingly well.
She had tons of local knowledge about Brexis and the world in general. Francis wished Miller were there to translate it into grunt. When he told Willow this, she got a funny look on her face.
“Well why didn't you say so?” Willow waved her hands in complicated circles and tapped herself on the head. Suddenly she was speaking perfect Grunt.
“So there was this asshole named Zed who ran Brexis. Things were good and they were making a ton of money. Then Zed got mad because other cities wanted him to do stuff. So he said hell no, tore up his treaties, and thoroughly fucked himself in the process.”
Willow waved out the window at the tall dark trees surrounding the ruins of Brexis. “Zed decided to become a lich and the Dark Forest swallowed the city. That was about two hundred years ago.”
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Then Willow said the single most erotic thing Francis had ever heard. He didn't know women could talk like that. It even made Francis start to doubt his “no livestock” policy.
She brushed a lock of hair away from her face and looked up at Francis. “The rest of my party died. They were torn apart by Zed’s zombies. There’s nobody else here but us.” Willow smiled, showing sharp white fangs. “What do you say we find them, and loot the bodies?”
“Yes, Ma’am!” Francis said enthusiastically. Maybe it was the elven moonshine talking. But he could already tell this was going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. (And absolutely nothing more than friendship… probably.)
***
As they strategically acquired her former party’s equipment, Willow explained a thing or two to Francis about the world. She started off by explaining Heritages. But thankfully her translation spell was still active so she said it in Grunt.
“Race isn't politically correct anymore and Species don't work because we can bump uglies and make babies. So people started calling it Heritage. I'm a faun, which is a mix of human, demonic, and fae ancestry.” She pulled up the hem of her robe to show a normal human foot wearing elegant golden toe rings and ankle bracelets. (But not the kind of ankle bracelets Francis usually saw women wearing. These were covered in jewels and didn't look court ordered.)
“Back in the old days magic was fucking bullshit strong.” Willow continued her Grunt history lesson, sipping from a bottle of fae whiskey. “Everyone was fucking everything and not traveling much. So, eventually their inbred children took over whole areas and never left.”
“Kinda like the Amish and their extra fingers.” Francis said, chiming in to show her he was paying attention. Or at least trying to. “I bet they would fucking love it here.” (They would not.)
Her magic hadn't completely translated his statement. But she got the general idea. Apparently the Amish were an ethno-religious group from his homeland.
She decided to keep going before the spell wore off. “So now we have a whole bunch of racist elves to the south, rock licking dwarves underground, bloodthirsty orcs to the north, mischievous wild folk in the west, and humans stuck in the middle between all of them. Don't even get me started on the fae realm, the celestial planes, or the underworld. If anyone tries to take you to any of them, just don't go.” Willow advised.
“Noted.” Francis considered his next moves. He had a ton of loot and a decent chunk of cash. But he didn't know what any of it did or how the local currency worked. He also needed to go turn in those quests and make his horse payment.