As further evidence, the bar is decorated for The Feast of the Winter Star with ornament glad trees, wreaths and garlands. There's also bits of what looks like snow on the floor in a couple corners. The bar seems unattended.

Emily looks around. Is there anyone here to talk to, quickly, before she loses too much time?

After a few moments a napkin appears on the bar. On it is written: "Welcome to Milliways. The first drink is free."

Do they have... crystal fruit wine, by any chance? She doesn't need iridium quality, just their regular or silver will do.

A new napkin.

I can provide whatever quality of crystal fruit wine you would like.

Oh jeepers. She'll have the iridium, then! 

A full glass of iridium quality crystal fruit wine appears.

Emily sips the wine slowly. She's never had anything this nice before, and she's not exactly sure why it's happening to her now. She's sad that the bar communicates via written napkins instead of having a friendly bartender to talk to. Emily always makes a point of chatting with her customers when she's tending bar. And Emily really needs someone to talk to right now, for multiple reasons.

As if in response to her desire the door opens behind her. The door is both wider and shorter than it was when she walked through it and in walks a concerning looking being. They have ten legs and an odd sort of insect like appearance with a segmented body. On the front of their body, there's a maw with smaller limbs in constant motion around it.

"Oh, hello there, are you by any chance human? Also do you happen to know where this is or why I came here instead of the room I was expecting?"

"Oooh! Are you a Royal Serpent? I had no idea you guys could talk! They never mention that kind of thing when they warn people off from the mines and Skull Cavern! They just say it's too dangerous and we mustn't go down there. It's so nice to meet you."

"I am human, yes, probably more so today than I was yesterday. I don't know where this is, I just got here myself. I'm as confused as you are. This bar will serve you a free drink, though!"

Emily is a little bit Tipsy from the wine.

"I don't believe I'm a royal serpent. I haven't heard anyone call me that before at least. Also, what do you mean by being more of a human than yesterday?"

"Oh, okay, if not a Royal Serpent then what are you?" Emily's tone is warm and curious.

"Yesterday someone new and very confusing came into my bar and started asking questions and since then I've been... waking up, I guess you would call it? I'm much more aware than I was yesterday."

Emily is feeling much better now that she has someone to talk to.

"How delightful, I wasn't aware that was something that happened to humans. What is that experience like?"

"It's confusing and overwhelming and wonderful all at once."

"I'm still curious about you, though! What level of the mines do you normally live on?"

"I don't live in any sort of mine or cave. Unless you count buildings like this seems to be as caves."

"So... where are we, exactly? Are we in... Zuzu City?"

Emily figures maybe in the big city, monsters mingle freely with humans in bars, and are not confined to mining areas.

"The door that brought me here usually opens to an entirely different room. I rather expect that some sort of extraordinary technology was involved in bringing us here. Perhaps even something worthy of being called magic. I have seen pictures of humans before but I've never met one. I don't think you're from the same group of humans I'm familiar with though. And I can only be glad of that. Some people would be rightfully upset with me if I allowed them to learn we know of them."

Hmmm. This does not entirely answer the question, but maybe her new friend doesn't know where they are, either.

"Magic! Maybe so!" This is a cheering thought.

"Why would people be upset about humans knowing about you?"

"Because they plan to conquer our world and enslave us and our best hope of preventing that requires they remain unaware of our preparations."

"Humans plan to conquer your world? What? Are you saying you're from a different world?"

"As far as I'm aware there are no humans at all on my planet. I don't know how far away your world must be but it is not in my star system. As further evidence you seem quite comfortable standing under normal feeling gravity. As I understand it, they largely live in microgravity and need special drugs to be comfortable in normal gravity. I don't expect you to be aware of the Qeng Ho or the Emergents either. Those are the two groups of humans involved."

This mostly goes over Emily's head. She's aware of gravity. She's aware of other planets, where gravity might be different. She has never actually thought about gravity, however, mostly because she's never thought about most things, and whatever inference the bug-creature is making about her current level of comfort is lost on her.

She does get that there are a couple of other factions of humans and they're the ones who want to enslave her friend.

"You're right, I've never heard of the Qeng Ho or the Emergents, but if they want to conquer and enslave you then that's very upsetting. Are they just evil or is the war mutual?"

Now Emily is thinking how, whenever adventurers go down into the mines, they kill a lot of bug-creatures, and how wrong that is. Possibly she should be trying to designate the mines as a nature preserve, though she also knows that people want to mine for precious minerals down there. 

"I'm not sure quite what it means for a person to be evil but those in control of the humans are not inclined towards cooperation. They need things we can provide for them and it is their habit to take things rather than ask for them.

"They are accustomed to owning people, the Emergent's civilization, they call it the Emergency, is built on that foundation and they are the ones in control. If secrecy were not so critical we might have tried to talk to some of the other humans but I have reluctantly accepted that doing so is not worth the risk."

"Is there anything you can do to get away from them? Or is there any way I could help? Like if they don't talk to bug people, maybe they'll talk to me because I'm human?"

"We haven't even been able to tell most people of the danger. Evacuating is impossible for many reasons and many would rather die than give up the planet we were all born on. And as I said we've decided not to risk talking to the humans. I believe in the team we've assembled and the plans we've made. We'll make it through okay."