Rick is confused about what she means by that. That he's terrible at this? Well he'll show her---wait no shit he means he'll show... where was he going with this?

Oh right. "I have to keep trying." He really really wants a plan of his to work, just once.

He tries to unobtrusively get up and start packing away his fake refreshment stand.

She won't obstruct him at that. 

"To beat people up and take their stuff? Why would you have to keep trying at that? It's a bad thing to have happen."

"Well yeah, but lots of people do it. And none of my plans require hurting the marks! Much."

He folds up the stand, slings it onto his back with a wince and a grumble. Then looks back and forth to figure out which way he should go.

"Do you think we won't stop other bandits if we meet them?"

"Um. You're like, a powerful mage with combat mutations, right? You two can probably take any of the local bandit groups, yeah..."

He's just going to. Start walking. That way.

Yseult walks over to him, grabs him by the waist, and sits down, pulling him into her lap. 

Rick sputters and flails, overbalancing with the packed stand on his back, and entirely failing to get away.

"What?! Hey! What are you doing?! Guh??"

He can kind of feel her boob powerful mage can totally kill him-

"H-Hey!" Also, he's sitting in a girl's lap in the typically-feminine lap-sitting position and that's just demeaning. "Lemme go, huh?"

"What part of 'we're press-ganging you into being our native guide' makes you think I am going to do that." 

(She leans in a little closer to subtly smush her boobs on him more.)

Rick flushes as the boob-contact cuts off his next objection.

That sure is some boob-contact.

"Um. I guess I can. Travel, with you, and tell you about stuff? For a while? Since we're probably going in the same direction anyway. Unless you're trying to get to the ocean."

"Not especially!"

"Okay."

Rick's embarrassment at lap-sitting continues to war with boob!

Yseult is totally on the side of Boob, here :3c

"So where are you wanted, exactly--no, wrong question. What's a good route to somewhere you're not."

"Um."

Rick is spending a lot of attention on Boob, yes.

"I'm wanted in Zaryn's Landport. It's south of here, but they don't enforce laws outside their walls, 'cause inside the walls lot's of merchants use it to send goods down the River. Or get goods from the River. Um. Basically every direction from here is scarier than here. West is Relvos territory. I'd guess you were coming from that way, being a mage, except you're human? Most Relvoans are beastmen. North is the Dragon Empire's main trade road, and they don't mess around. I guess there isn't anything important if we go east? Except the border of the Green, obviously."

"'Where are we from' is, uh, complicated. Is the River metonymous for smuggling or something?"

"I'm sure smuggling happens on the River. It's the River. Everything happens on the River."

"Is it, like, the only river around?"

"There are lots of rivers but only one River," Rick recites. "Um, it's like fifteen miles wide and is what separates the Sands and the Green? You've never heard of the River?"

"You may approximately model me as having fallen out of the sky with very little knowledge of the world and less experience using my powers."

Rick is not one of those people who has the concept of 'mental model as a deliberate act'.

"I don't get it but okay."

He hesitates, due to continuing Boob, but, "Can we go now?"

She raises an eyebrow at Yseult. 

Yseult hauls him back to his feet with one last boobsquish. 

"Okay, great, um, great."

He pauses.

"Where are we going?"