Still, the laugh sounded menacing, which worked pretty well really. It's what Tor would have wanted to do himself if he hadn't mainly been living in a trance state. That tended to wash out his outward emotions a bit. Most of the way, really. Until he got all the way out of the working state he'd seem flat and boring for the most part.

That chuckle could have been on purpose. Rolph, Prince Alphonse, Tor corrected again, was good at judging the moment like that.

“Or,” he added, looking at the Count with a grin. “Tor might just do something like that. Military grade force lance? Please tell me you didn't hand a kid one of those explosives…”

Tor nodded to the boy.

“Force lance and shield. Not instantly lethal, but it should even things up if need be.” Tor gestured to the page to let everyone in. It was obvious that he wasn't going to be getting back to work any time soon. He tried to seem casual about it, but coming out of a working trance to find some overbearing giant threatening his bodyguard or whatever the boy was, kind of made him feel a bit surly. It was a fight to keep that out of his voice, flat affected or not.

“Please, let's sit for a moment and see to things, then I really need to go and exercise for a while, all this sitting has to be balanced out somewhere… and for some reason everyone keeps thinking that beating me without mercy is the way to do it.” It really was the common thought too. Maybe because running wasn't a group activity, but Tor kind of wondered if some of them weren't secretly taking pleasure in it.