Elara had slipped off her leather gloves for the round of handshakes, stuffing them into her trench coat pocket. Johannes’s comment not to eat or drink anything brought forth a bittersweet memory of her mentor and prompted her to reply with one of her earliest lessons. 
“‘Never consume anything freely given.’,” she said with a wry smile after seeing coins being rejected at the bar, followed by a murmur. “Even across worlds, still getting justified.”

What had even prompted her to look at her surroundings to catch the failed exchange of the automaton was her wanting to see if there were any other patrons avoiding the food, or seemingly having not yet partaken, so she could intervene, but that desire came to nothing as the knife-wielding gnome approached.

Elara was not quite satisfied with Lux's response as she placed a hand on the back of a chair in case she needed something quick to batter the gnome with, but, noticing the surrounding gazes all settling in this direction, she opted to act instead. She pulled the chair around so its back was facing the gnome and sat backward on it, with the backrest between her and the potential knife in her ribs if things went south.

"Is there anything we ourselves could bring to the festival? The hospitality everyone here is showing has been incredible, and it would only be right as a gesture of appreciation for us to contribute." Elara's nerves were rising, but she kept a practiced, easy smile, much like when addressing the audience during any other nerve-racking theatre performance she grew up doing, albeit far less deadly. "But I've been stumped by a bit of a conundrum, you see. What could we possibly provide you with that you might want, when everything is already so plentiful?"