The nickname almost catches Alex off-guard. For as long as he can remember, the Aeslin mice have been calling him "The God of Scales and Silence" since childhood, and hearing someone else come to a similar conclusion about him when assigning a nickname would make him smile more than the twitch of his lips if it weren't for the answer to what Varric asks after that.

"Nothing that would do anything to one of these," he admits. "But one of them did seem to be scared off by the sound of my gun firing. Which was good since I don't think the bullet even tickled when it hit. I'd be pretty fascinated if it hadn't been charging at me up until that point." He's lying, he's still fascinated, and the curious glances he's giving the carcass shows.

"I can't exactly do a field dissection on this, but if you're willing to watch out for a few minutes I'd really like a chance to examine it. The more we know about them, the better we can figure out why they're here and how to make them go away." This is a man for whom the real loot is the taxonomical data we collect along the way.