02/23/2020 Snippet, TRADE NEGOTIATIONS.

This story is going somewhere else. This may not be a bad thing, though. It may be a more interesting place than where I was going with it earlier.

Leo escorted Jimmy to the Weird Thing in the road, but he didn’t really have to. Elves have a certain affinity with magic, so at this range Jimmy could feel the Weird Thing’s presence, in ways that Leo couldn’t really manage himself, low local magical energy or not. It was the difference between expertise and instinct.

The Adventurer’s reaction was almost as instinctive. He made the hand gesture for ‘spread out’ and ‘pick a shelter point’ as soon as he got a good ‘whiff’ of the Weird Thing, and the RSA crew obligingly scattered in an intelligent and disciplined manner. Leo stuck by Jimmy, though, and shrugged when Jimmy gave him a raised eyebrow.

“I’m not going to shout, milord,” he said. “If one of us approaches it, then I’ll keep more of a distance. But the artifact doesn’t feel very dangerous.”

“I don’t know what it is,” said Jimmy, looking at the Weird Thing. It looked like a set of sticks and spheres that had been attached in a roughly cubical fashion. “That makes it dangerous.”

“I know the rule, milord.” Leo looked at the Weird Thing with what appeared to be some kind of strange, Virginian-made spyglass. “But really, how often is it relevant?”

“It’s always relevant,” said Jimmy. He started walking towards the Weird Thing. “It’s just not always true.”