Giggle. "I am not really the type, no," he agrees. "I did however recently acquire a few very shiny rocks!" (Which he totally did not in any way murder a jeweler for. Also, the jeweler had it coming.) 

He reaches into an inner pocket of his silk coat and produces a gemstone. It is reasonably obvious he has no idea how much it's worth, but the answer is 'a fair amount,' if Nick knows anything about shiny rocks. 

He is acquainted with shiny rocks. 

"I'd have to examine it a bit more closely, but 'shiny rocks' would do for letting you ask a few questions."

Bounce bounce. "Fantastic!" He hands over the gemstone for examination. "Now, what do I ask the crystal ball, hmm, this is so exciting, I have to ask it something interesting..." 

He examines the shiny rock. "...Three questions. It does better at questions like 'where is the lost treasure of Blackbeard' than 'what is the meaning of life'. Also the door to your world has to be open to answer questions about your world."

Three questions! How traditional. 

"Oh, I already know the meaning of life!" he says brightly. "No one ever seems to understand the explanation, though. Hmm. What about how questions, suppose I asked it 'how do I regrow a severed arm,' will it show me how to cast a regeneration spell?" 

"Likely not. It might direct you to a potion that'd do it, or somewhere you could learn, or tell you how to convince someone to do it, though."

"What about a thing that probably exists but I don't know what is specifically? Less 'where's the secret treasure of Blackbeard' and more 'where's the coolest magic sword'?" 

"Probably doable, you can even describe 'coolest' for best results! You write down appropriate words on papers as part of it."

"Writing stuff down, of course, very wizardy," nod nod. "Second thing, hm," thoughtful tap-tap of his tail against the floor. "Maybe gotta figure out how to fix mind control without any paladins? Aaaaaand then I think I want to find a dragon. I have run out of dragon." 

"Well, one at a time." He pockets the gem. "You want to know where the coolest magic sword in your world is? Write down eight words that seem appropriate to looking for a cool magic sword and then come over to that booth over there."

Nod, nod. "I shall!"

He skips over to the bar and addresses it in the obvious expectation that the barkeep is invisible. The resulting napkins are peered at fascinatedly, and then he hands over another gemstone and pats the bar delightedly when it vanishes. Presently he has received in exchange a glass of something blue and slightly luminescent, a plate of some unidentifiable raw meat, several sheets of paper, and an inkpen, the collection of which will occupy him for at least a short time. 

Speaking of which, "More blood, please, bar. On my tab."

And his glass refills. Human, if Ashiok is familiar. He sips conservatively. He opens the book he was reading before again.

He is moderately familiar, at least, in the way of people who've definitely encountered plenty of human blood but maybe not ever actually drunk any. He flashes a fangy, approving smile, but doesn't comment. 

After a little while Ashiok presents Nick with eight slips of paper, reading: 

freedom

sharp

s͜p̵͘í͜͜r̕a͢l̨͜

̼͉f̩̲l̸̡̙̪͇̳̰̪̣̀m̧̡͎̗̹͙̗a̡͙̰̝̣͇d̨͉̩̕h͏̭̮͙̠͟ ̧̧͓̝̼

z͚͕͔̗̞y͏͓̟y̶̪͕͍̻̦̺̙̙̮͝z̶͏̲̞͕m̛̘̲̦̼͔̀

̵̴̯͉͉̱̰͞t̹͍̬ͅe̵̛͙ȩ̴̨̯̯̳̻ṭ̞̝̳͝͝h̨͏̙̠

̙̬͇̫̠ṿ̨̡͚̭̩̖͇̟į̡͚͔̻͔͈r͎͚͞ͅc̡̮̫͞l̺͖̼̪̲͍̩̭͠y͏̝̝w̸͙̰̜͢w̗͉̗͜

d̏ͫ̏͏̬͚̳̞i̴̘̣͉̥͖̤͇͎͇͌̈́͗̚͠f̛͎͕̲̯̳͇͙͍̏͒ͫ͐̏͆̀̔ͤq̢̛̞̣̝͉̯̮̉̀̌̈̑̅́ͭ̃ḿ̛͕̤ͯͩͩͣ̀͐ͭ̏z͔̝͇̥̦̹͍̀͊́͝͠y̸̘̝̦͚̒̊͌̍̅͢ͅr̵̳̯͉̈̐̅̍ͅ

Ah... Huh.

"Question. Are these words inherently magical in any way, shape, or form."

"Nnnnooooo?" he hazards, somewhat less than confidently. "They're not spell components or anything, they don't .... do anything magic, they're just words? Their function is they ... mean ... things?" 

"Any words that Milliways translation is not handling gracefully I do not want going near my crystal ball. Could give it dangerous ideas. That would be... All of them except freedom and sharp."

"Dangerous ideas!" he giggles, secure in the knowledge that this is totally not what they're for. (That's totally what they're for.) "That would require them to contain any ideas! They don't, promise, they mean things that don't mean anything, that's sort of the point - okay, okay, let me try again..." 

Scribble scribble. 

freedom

sharp

laughter

spiral

unholy 

teeth

cold

darkness

"Much better. We shall burn these as you speak your question, and the vision will begin."

(He's going to have to use one of those cleansing pearls, isn't he? But it's a very nice ruby, that gem...)

(A contact corruption hazard? Him? Never!) 

"Okay! You have a burning-source? I know it's a stereotype, but I don't really do fire." 

Flick. His trusty Zippo lights up. "Handy-dandy."

He walks over to a booth. The crystal ball is now set out on an attractive eight-sided patterned red mat, sitting on a very pretty brass stand with dragon-heads, clouds, mountains, and so on reliefed into it.

Of course. Gotta trust your wizards to inexplicably always have sources of fire even though they're the ones with all the flammable paper.  

"Shiny." Ashiok admires the crystal ball, as yet free of interesting visions, for a long moment. "Oh! Just to be clear, I should mention, I said 'sword' before and I wouldn't mind a sword but actually ideally I want something more like this?" From nowhere, or possibly the void, he produces a weapon rather taller than himself with a wickedly spiked hooked, bladed end.

He steps over to the door and wedges it carefully open with the blade, which with any luck is sufficiently attached to him that it counts as him holding the door himself, so that the crystal ball can "see" into his world. 

"Okay, magic ball of wisdom," he says sunnily, "where can I find the very coolest magic bladed polearm?" 

The rest of the world fades away as visions fill the crystal ball.

They make no sense. And at the same time, they make perfect sense. The vision is, in a not-entirely-literal way, sharp and stinging.

Mysteriously understandable painful nonsense full of purpose! Ashiok's very favorite thing!!

He is so thrilled with the crystal ball. He might be a tiny bit ominously glowing, with how enthusiastic he is about the crystal ball. 

And now he has a quest. 

"Eeeheheheeeeeheee," he trills, as the vision fades and Nick comes back into focus, "you're my favorite wizard." 

"Not, technically, a wizard. But I will accept the compliment. You have two more questions, unless you want to give me another shiny rock, in which case we could bump it to five or something."

Not technically a wizard. Yeah, okay, he can understand that, he is also technically-not-a-wizard by many definitions. Nod, nod. "No, no, three is the number that it should be, can't have too many quests at once or I'll forget 'em." Thoughtful hum. "Do I now do the writing-on-pages thing again or is 'how do I fix mind control without any holy nonsense' a clear enough question by itself?"