"I'm just saying, there's a lot of stuff that can kill us all going on in the world right now."

"Surt's back."

"...huh?"

"It's not nutjobs. Surt is here. Maybe it's not Ragnarök but if it's not Ragnarök it's something bad anyway. Surt was meant to be back for Ragnarök."

"Um."

"I don't care what you believe. I'm just saying it's not insane to think it."

"Well, if it's Ragnarök then fighting Surt won't work anyway. Only Freyr is meant to be able to do it."

"Even if we don't kill him we can send him back. Or away. Somewhere other than Midgard."

"The topic of adventuring was a lot more productive than this talk about the end of the world, you know."

"Sure. What are your plans for your adventuring career?"

"He wants to be a tower wizard."

"You don't have to sound so condescending."

"'A tower wizard'."

"You know, one of those wizards who just stays in the Geffen tower, reading old tomes and trying to invent new spells."

"Not very adventuresome."

"I don't want to be an adventurer, I just want to study magic. But I do have to do some adventuring first to get a few spell Skills and enough Stats to be able to cast more interesting things."

"Which in practice means he'll definitely need a party to carry his ass because he's not getting any Stats in anything that'd help him actually survive."

"His fireballs will be huge, though."

"I'm more of an ice mage."

"Bjorn, that was innuendo."

"...what? Oh." He flushes beet red.

Vallynn starts laughing.

And Annika rolls her eyes.

"That was terrible," opines Pierre.

"Got him to react, though."