“I think you might be in luck here, then; there’s bound to be other scholars around, I bet,” she said with a smile. It had to be a culture thing, she supposed, having more warriors than scholarly types. A big beard must have been a part of the… Viking image, then? She wasn’t sure why, exactly, beards always went hand-in-hand with the idea of strong fighters, but that was how it was.

The man’s joking replies continued to add to the picture of his not fitting into that same mould. As many people with fighting abilities as there were, there were also a large number that didn’t fight. Lingormr wasn’t alone in that regard. It could safely say the motives behind the Institute’s abductions didn’t strictly lie with offensive capabilities, at least.

“That’s all right. Fighting only gets people so far, anyway. Sometimes it’s better to avoid some of the hospital’s attacks if you can.”