"I'd rather meet engineers than diplomats, to be sure, but I'll meet either if they're trading something. May I see the notes, in exchange for which I'll introduce you to everyone here who I think would benefit from trade with you? I don't know if this is a fair offer, it's hard to assess the value of metallurgy notes until I've read them."

"It's often pretty difficult to assess trade fairness in situations like this. Just to clarify, does making this trade make it harder for me to get a place for my rescuee - his name's Nelyafinwë Maitimo, or possibly the other way around, I forget - to stay?"

"...no? Why would we be less willing to make agreements with people who've dealt with us in good faith previously?"

"That's not what I mean, I mean that once I have traded you metallurgy for introductions I no longer can trade for hospitality."

"From me personally? No. But I'm not going to go around sharing your ideas, and if they're valuable I'll be able to confirm that for people."

"Oh! I didn't realize that you had internal, mm, intellectual property; when I've shared things with a population of Elves I've tended to assume that they can not only all hear me in the first place - I don't hear as well as they do and sort of assume that if I'm within a hundred miles they can eavesdrop - but that if some of them weren't paying attention they'll be able to get it from the others."

"Well. Elves."

"Indeed Elves. Under these revised assumptions, by all means, have a look at the notes." She shoos them over in his direction.

He reads through them. "These are very valuable. I expect that anyone and everyone would be interested in meeting you, out of the desire to interact with someone familiar with an independently arrived-at weapons tradition if no other, and also honored to host our first visitor from another realm. I also expect most of them would happily host your friend. Who would you like to meet?"

"With little basis to choose I'd be happy to accept your recommendation."

"If your friend is a diplomat perhaps you or he'd desire to meet the ruling council? Elves tend to care about that sort of thing. You could hold a lecture and ask people who benefit from it to see to it that he's comfortable. I don't know your other priorities."

"I don't think he's equipped to do very much diplomacy while he thinks everything is a hallucination, but meeting the ruling council seems like a reasonable default. My priorities in general are defeating the Enemy, likely through the expedient of developing a spell to go back to familiar realms and import various contrivances and persons therefrom, and making sure that as many people who are alive today survive to that time as possible. I am actually quite comfortable with giving away things of value which, so distributed, advance these goals - including this information and healing magic for anyone in need of it - for abstract goodwill of a redeemable value to be determined. It's just that my rescuee ought to have a place to go and I'm short on other places to ask; that's the only concrete thing I needed here."

"Oh, lovely."

"Tour now, figure out what you want and what you're offering along the way?"

"Sure."