Swamped

"Essentially, if you keep holding onto that, it's going to slowly leak magic. At first it won't do much, but over time it builds up, and you could find yourself very sick, transformed into something else, or unable to touch the ground. The exact effects are unpredictable."

"That does sound dangerous," you agree. "But won't it keep doing that if I let go?"

"No. It's linked itself to your aura," Ember says. "So once it gets far enough away from you, it won't be active. In fact, you've made it less dangerous for anyone else, since there's no chance of stray magic causing it to link to them any more - you should either hold onto the others, or activate them now so they can be dealt with."

You give him a skeptical look.

"Look. I know you're the wizard, and you know all this weird stuff like what an aura actually is, and I don't have the expertise. But what could something like that possibly be used for, whether this person is a real bounty hunter or not?"

"Well, it's just a side effect. You suspected the bolts have something to do with a magic crossbow - that means the bolts themselves have a minor enchantment. It just happens to be one that's highly susceptible to disruption, which... no, hold on, that's not important right now. What you really want to know is what the bolts actually do, isn't it."

"That would be nice, yes," you sigh. "And what it means that our guest had them in the first place."

"Well... I can't actually tell the effect for sure. It seems to be one part of a spell and the crossbow itself supplies the rest. That said, I do have a guess. And it might even go some ways to explaining where this so-called hunter got them."