"Thank you! But we should abandon it soon anyway and move north, I think.

"—oh, wait, I want to introduce you to my friend the demon staff."

Well that's a sea change.

"I'd... be delighted? I have no idea what those words mean in context, though."

"Did I forget to mention? I found this broken staff a while ago and he turns out to have been an advisor to the giant-kings way back when. He's told me about the bracelets and how to break them."

"Oh, fascinating! Yes, I would love to meet him. Perhaps he'll know a bit more about the workings of magic."

"This way." To the alchemy back room, hidden behind one of the benches, covered with a tarp. "Fair warning, he's a lecherous asshole." And then he pulls the tarp off to reveal a roughly 1.5 meters tall silver-and-black staff, the top shaped like a cobra's head.

    Its eyes light up red. "Oh, hello! Back from your trek already. And who is that beau...ty? Wait is that a man or a woman?"

"A man. Thank you for the dubious compliment. Are you the kind of lecherous magic expert who professes to lechery but is easily distracted by magic or the kind who professes to magical expertise but is easily distracted by lechery, please, I need to calibrate based on how irritated I will be while speaking with you."

"I think he's only interested in women."

    "You're a pretty boy but he's right," says the staff.

"Excellent! I am from another universe where sorcery does not exist. I would like to know more about it, please. I'm told you advised the giant-kings?"

"Oh, yes! I was a gift, you see. The serpentmen sent me, to help our allies the great giant-kings, and to act as their ambassador and voice."

"So... were you a serpent-man in life?"

"—what? Oh no no no, I'm not dead. I'm—something else."

"Oh. For some reason I assumed that - well, actually I assumed that your attraction to human females stemmed from having been a humanoid male. If you're some kind of void spirit then I have no idea why you'd have a libido in the first place, let alone why it would be restricted to those among us with tits."

"I am not a void spirit either!" he says, sounding terribly amused.

"...I'm assuming that's not merely a taxonomical complaint? I meant, you know. Void spirit or demon or angel or other form of spirit from the unseen aether."

    "I do have a physical body, thank you very much! Haven't... used it in millennia, but so it goes. No one thought to put an end clause to my contract."

"The magic that was keeping you sealed and dormant within the staff had nothing to do with it?"

    "Ehhh... maybe a bit."

"Fascinating. But you never died? Were you ever, well, born?"

"...yes? Well, not like animals do," he scoffs.

"If you were not born in an animal fashion then you are, for my purposes, a spirit of some kind, and my curiosity is sated."

"Whatever works for you." There is a distinct feeling of eyerolling going on here even though the only eyes are little light spots on the staff.

"That being established, how much do you know about magic? Can you teach me to throw fire and lightning, or things to that effect?"

"Not in this form! I can tell you about it, though. As it was thousands of years ago, at least."

"Not in this - well, feel free to tell me about it, I don't want to hare off down every tangent I can find."

"Well, what do you want to know? I advised the Witch Queen of Lemuria for a while, and the Giant-Kings in The Unnamed City, they had their own magic. Very different! They had to work together to create those, ah, those slave bracelets your friend there's wearing... which you're not? Huh!"

"I guess... tell me why you can't teach me to throw fire and lightning 'in this form'."

"Hmm... Well, the most important part of the answer is that the staff binds me from having effects in the world. Other than talking. So I can't cast spells myself to show you. But there is also the part where casting magic is very, very expensive for your personal energy if you don't have something to channel your magic through, like a wand or a crystal."