Perhaps this boy who is fiddling with his glasses and jogging towards her is interesting! He certainly seems interested in her.

"Hello," he says in English. "What a cool necklace! Did you make it yourself or was it a gift?"

"Hello to you, too!" She touches the necklace, "It was a gift," she confirms, "My clavemate made it." 

Zed, who is sitting pressed up against her side, looks up at the question. They look kinda bored, but not unwelcoming.

"Wow..."

He adjusts his glasses, trying to get a better look- what does it do? Tomonori can tell there's some connection to her friend's necklace...he looks between the two of them in confusion until he realizes that there's a third-

"There are three! Where is it?"

She giggles quietly, "My brother has it- Alex, come here and show the nice boy," she reaches over and tugs at the back of his shirt. 

"What-?" 

He turns around, and yep, there's the third one. Equally connected to the other two, like a tether pulling them all closer together. 

Nia traipses up. "Hey! Are you guys going to get things down the stairs?"

Zed nods to Nia. "If that's where the spell leads."

"And it will be, I can't imagine we'd find anything of use up here," Angie agrees. "Did you want to come along?" 

"I did!"

"Can I come?"

"The bigger the party, the easier the spell," is their answer.

"Ooh, what spell?"

"So long as we all want the same thing," Angie points out. 

"Something I wrote a few years ago. Gathers everyone's sensory experience and criteria and uses it to find things. The more people, the more data it can use."

"So as long as we're all agreed on which supply room we're going to first, it'll be fine. Or I guess we can make use of the maps."

"Um, which room is that? I can agree as long as we go to all of them."

"Give me a map and I can find out which one would be best."

"Did someone say supply run? I'm definitely interested."

"There's one over there," she points to the wall near one of the doors, "Shall we go check?" 

Oh, new person, "We're just preparing for it now." 

"I need school things mostly, but will go along for other things!"

"Glad I caught it in time then, assuming you'll have me."

"I could use alchemy ingredients and artificing supplies and school things. I'm Tomonori. Thank you for letting me join your expedition."

"Make a list of the things you want to find," they respond. "Don't go overboard. The spell can't do everything."

Their eyes flick to Alex for input.

"There's safety in numbers," Angie shrugs, "So long as you can zap or stab a minor mal if we get attacked by a horde, somehow." Unlikely, given it's the first day. 

Alex motions to Sara, who collects Zed and then leads them over to the map. 

Nia has a little notebook and writes out in very small letters her shopping list. She wants a binder, and pencils, or pens failing that, and three-hole-punched paper and folders and she also wants masking tape for labeling things.

Lily nods seriously. "I can do that."

"...let's focus on school supplies first so we can get more paper to make lists," Tomonori says authoritatively, as though he's the one making decisions around here.

Angie would also quite like paper, more pencils, sketchbooks if those are in evidence, and she expects Alex will want notebooks if there are any to be found. She also has a list of jewelry making supplies, some of which she has, all of which she'd still love to find. 

"I'm Angie, by the way, Montréal enclave, artificing," she tells the newcomers. "This is my brother Alexei, he's in creative writing track, and our clavemates are Zed, languages, and Sara, who is a junior. That's not a bad idea," she adds to Tomonori.

"Lily, Canada, Artificer. Affinity's for bracelets, which are incidentally for sale - I've got shielding, blasting, endurance and storage ones on offer."

"Ooh, that sounds very good."

"Storage? How does that work?" 

"What would you sell the shielding ones for?" Alex interjects, pulling away from his mal watching. 

Tomonori squints at the bracelets so they will reveal their magical secrets!

She pulls out one of each type to show. All of them are made of woven wire and beaded with semiprecious stones, except the storage bracelet which has a single pinky-sized diamond inset in the band.

To Tomonori's sight there's a weave of magic overlaid, pooling in the semiprecious stones and being drawn through the wire to form a circle of taut energy. It looks like very solid work, especially for a freshman. 

"Shielding enhances wards and shields cast while wearing it, Blasting does the same for hexes, Endurance helps you resist fatigue, poison and wounds, Storage stores months of mana almost losslessly. It works by reinforcing a conventional mana gem with a ring of semiprecious stones that circulate dissipating mana back into the diamond."

She looks over at Alex. "I'd trade for enchanted items, high-quality artificing materials like gemstones or precious wire, or enough straight mana. And I trade in all kinds of things, so if you have something you'd like to move I might be interested."

"Interesting!" And it sounds like something she could work out how to do, too. "Alex, we're fine for shielding," she reminds him, exasperated. 

"There's nothing wrong with adding a little more on top," he returns. But he does go back to watching the ceiling and tables nearby. 

Well, he's not entirely wrong, "Would you trade for enchanted earrings?" Angie asks. "We have an extra pair which improves the senses, it takes a little getting used to but when I say a little I mean 'typically an hour or so of extra jumpiness'." 

Even if they're not well-behaved, she could really use a sensory item. "I would trade for enchanted earrings."

Nia will have to accumulate stuff to trade for things. Even if she reaaaally wants an endurance bracelet. Though - "Does endurance make building mana more hard?"

She glances at Alex, "A shielding bracelet for a pair of earrings then," she agrees, and Alex digs them out to trade. 

"...I'll take a storage bracelet when I can trade you enough mana. How often can you make them?"

She hands over the shielding bracelet, and tucks the earrings away into her pack. 

"The endurance bracelets are specifically built not to make building mana harder. They stretch the zone where it sucks but you can keep moving and doing things."

She looks at Matsumoto. "I've got five Storage left to trade, after that you're looking at a much pricier commission cost. I would estimate I'll be able to manage maybe one a week here, between building the mana and putting in the work hours. Assuming my materials don't walk off."

"I want an endurance. I don't have things set aside for trade yet besides mundane medical objects and some storage sapphires I can replace before I need all of them for storing. I am a good shop assistant though, my mum artifices."

Angie takes the bracelet and passes it to Alex, who hangs onto it for now.

"What do you have in the way of drugs, and how many storage sapphires can you spare?"

"Ritalin, tramadol, vitamins with iron and D and C, ibuprofen."

"How about... a dozen sapphires, and thirty pills each of Ritalin, Tramadol and Ibuprofen."

Tomonori will just need to keep his eyes peeled when they go for artificing supplies, then; he does have his glasses, and those should help.

"Okay. Thank you."

He reviews the list of school supplies in his head again.

"The sapphires are big," she says, pulling one out; it's a substantial rock. "You still need a dozen?"

Zed and Sara wander back over from the map.

"I found a route. Is this everyone?"

"Hi!"

She looks at the sapphire, calculating in her head. "Six. And the pills."

"I guess not everyone."

Nia counts out six from her bundle of them - they're not on a chain all together where they'd scatter if the chain broke, each is on a separate string and held in a bundle from a keychain ring. She peels off six of them, and then counts out pills.

"I'm Matsumoto Tomonori. This is-"

Oh no. Bracelets...

"Lily! from Canada. She has enchanted bracelets."

Lily gets out her first aid kit and carefully adds the pills to its little compartments, then stashes the sapphires in her pack. Once everything is settled, she passes over the endurance bracelet.

"Pleased to meet you."

"You too! I am Nia, Notting Hill."

"Zed, Angie, Alex. Sara is a junior. Montréal."

"Are you okay? You look exhausted."

"Calgary. It's nice to meet some fellow Canadians though."

"Always am. It's fine."

That does not sound super fine to her but saying so out loud seems like a bad idea. 

"Well, now we're only waiting on Alexius, I think this is a big enough group with him, especially if he brings someone else along." 

(Alex shifts a little so Zed can lean on him while they're standing around.)

They lean against Alex's shoulder.

And soon, the Prophesied One himself trots up. (Well, he doesn't know the actual Prophecied One is elsewhere, looking unintentionally foreboding). "Oh hey, more people. I'm Alexius, Jacksonville not-quite-an-enclave." He has a somewhat scorched power-sharer, and (to Tomonori) a bit less enchanted gear than is typical for enclavers, but a sort of faint aura that looks simultaneously right on him and... annoyed with him? 

"Alexius the Great! Did you find anyone interesting? These are, let's see, Nia, from Notting Hill, Yolanda Park from NorCal, who I think you might have some things to trade with, Matsumoto Tomonori," pronounced nearly flawlessly, "and Lily from Canada, who has some interesting bracelets for sale." 

Aw, he has a title already. He won't complain; he wouldn't have made the joke in the first place if it weren't enjoyable. "Hira Khan from Jaipur seemed well-prepared," and entirely too distracting, dammit, "but alas she was not in need of more supplies. We'll probably swap language tutoring, though." He waves to the newcomers. "I do love trading! Whatcha got?" 

"My affinity is self-buffs and I'm creative writing track! I have been informed you might have a use for my spells."

Self-buffs!!! "Self-buffs!!! Oh this is going to need, like, its own afternoon. I do self magic and I've managed to trick it into extending to potions, barely, but don't tell me or I might notice." He actually bounces with glee. "And you'll be writing more, let's be friends. What languages you got?" 

(Tomonori is trying to puzzle out Alexius' aura, but it looks like it would be the work of heavier-duty magic than his glasses have. The poor power sharer, though...)

"English, Mandarin, Classical Chinese, and Korean!"

"I have English and Mandarin! Some of the best ones are in Latin though. For you I've got stimulants, gut microbiome tweaks, slightly faster thinking, an untested ice spike and cold resistance I got from Hira, and a smattering of healing spells including one to staunch bleeding and oxygenate what's left." 

"Stimulants and slightly faster thinking sound great. What do gut microbiome tweaks do in practice?"

"It kinda depends on how much biology you know. You can cover for nutrient deficiencies, help your body get the right tools to heal itself, recover a healthy balance after antibiotics, even produce unusual compounds if you don't mind how they come out. You can also make yourself deathly ill for days if you don't know what you're doing. My affinity makes it safer for me than most. Yours...might?" 

"I don't think I know enough about biology to want to risk it!"

"That's fair! What do you have in trade? It doesn't have to be spells or even present goods, if you're going to be writing personal buffs I want on your good side." 

"I have divinations if anyone wants them," he contributes.

"...how do they work?"

"Blasting, shielding, endurance and storage bracelets, as well as various luxuries."

"If you meant my spells, I can detect magic on enchanted items, unless they're hiding or they're complicated. I can detect poison. I can detect mals within my sight. That only helps sometimes. I have old spells, too, one that detects if something is clean, in Cantonese. I have one that can identify what a spell does even if you don't understand the language- that's in Classic Chinese, and it doesn't work on everything."

Angie is so pleased to have facilitated these meetings.

The twins have some little things for trading, but nothing listed interests them too much at this point. Angie's paying attention to Zed's conversation with Matsumoto-kun about the divination spells, though.

"I have a spell for strength, a spell for reflexes, and a spell for speed, right now," Yolanda offers. "Plus another speed one in Korean."

They don't actually want to have this conversation out in front of everybody. And they should actually show Angie and Alex the book first before they show anyone else. If at all.

"Could we meet up again in a few days?" they ask Tomonori.

"Strength sounds wonderful. Speed and reflexes sound suspiciously close to Angie's, have you two been swapping? If not, how do they compare? I wouldn't say no to more variety." He's got more detail on the stimulants, too - one works more or less like a cup of coffee in exchange for a small chunk of mana, while the other is flexible and finicky and needs a constant trickle. He'll gladly swap thinking for strength and the stimulants for reflexes and speed. 

He's also curious about the nature of Lily's enchanted bracelets and what she wants in trade. He mentions his plans to sell potions at breakfast if he gets the supplies he needs. 

"We haven't really gotten to comparing! Not that I wouldn't be happy to. That trade sounds good to me."

Let the swapping commence!

"We can meet up later, yeah," he says to Zed. Tomonori still wants a storage bracelet, but he can't afford one yet.

...no one minds if he jogs into place to build mana, right? Right.

Very industrious of him. "You know," he remarks to Tomonori after the trade is done, "it turns out that it doesn't matter if something is fun as long as it's hard, for building mana." After a quick mal check, he pulls a deck of cards from a backpack pocket. "I know some really difficult card games." 

Yeah. Zed will go back to leaning on Alex. And looking bored.

"That's a good idea. Maybe after we get some supplies."

Hint hint.

"Mhm, let's talk mana gathering strategies on the way down or after, if we're going to do that," Angie suggests, starting off in the direction of the door.

Alex wraps an arm around Zed's shoulders for a moment, squeezing, and then nudges them after her. 

"I'm ready whenever you are."

They start walking towards the doors.

"The spell takes about a minute to get through, everyone should have what they want to find in mind during. I'll start it when we get closer."

Yolanda starts thinking about things. 

Alexius heads that way too. "I can take point if Lily wouldn't mind letting me test out one of those shield bracelets, just for this run. I'm a tad more resilient than the average thanks to my affinity and I have a darn good envelope shield. Will be casting in Latin, FYI."

Lily gets a determined look, and passes over a shield bracelet.

Thinking thinking thinking about school supplies. So much thinking.

Out of the cafeteria they go, thinking hard and watching carefully!

Alexei slips their shield bracelet around his wrist for now, and sets to circling the group with a focus on the back, if Alexius is planning to take point. 

Nia fixes her attention on her list.

Tomonori will focus on his list and look for mals.

He will only see a mal if it is within visual range so it's not that helpful.

Alexius puts on the bracelet, makes sure no one is listening who doesn't want to be, and recites a poem in Latin. There's a faint shimmer around him, indeed looking a bit like a wetsuit, and he grins. "Oh this is nice. I can be the first one to open toolboxes and such. Combat folks, please blast anything that tries to nom me. I'm decent at close combat but more defensively oriented than offensively. I believe the hip young video gamers call this strategy tank-and-spank." 

Onward. 

(Sara, the Montréal junior, takes whatever side Alexei is neglecting, along with occasional double-checks - she has more experience, after all.)

Lily takes a rearguard position with an ease that speaks of long practice.

Well, if they're all going to be so nice about it Nia is happy to take the middle and watch the ceiling.

Miguel has no idea how to talk to people and he's starting to get the sense that's going to be debilitating, here. But he makes himself follow along. Maybe no one will challenge him on this?

"Hello," says Nia, "what is your name?"

"Miguel. You?"

"I am Nia! It is good to be your acquaintance."

"If you want to join, walk a little closer, think of what you want to find, and I'll add you to my spell."

Oh good that's a better outcome than expected. She's pretty and friendly and doesn't look like she's stunningly rich and has been her entire life, which a lot of the kids do. Is that a standard English greeting or is she not a native English speaker either? There are black people in America. Is she even black or is she Indian - "Nice to meet you to," he says, before he can further overthink this.

"Uh, yeah," he says to the other guy, even though he's not sure what spell that is or if it's a good idea. He'd like to find.... canned food? That trades well at home. He doesn't know what trades well here.

"I think we agreed to look for school supplies first," Angie tells him as he moves in closer. "Zed knows the way, but they also have a spell to point us to the best supply room. Hopefully one that hasn't been overpillaged..." On the first day, with a group this size, that should be safe enough. 

"Sounds good." Zed must be the other guy. 

Here, paper paper paper. Some cardstock and Sharpies would be nice, too, for signs and making his own cards. Check for mals, check for mals, check for mals, knife scuttling thing before it bites his ankle. Envelope shield is nice but no sense being wasteful.

Here, paper paper paper. 

Paper! Pens! Binders? Highlighters.

Tomonori meditates on school supplies, since that's supposed to help with the spell.

Down the stairs they go at Zed's heels, vigilant for mals and thinking about the supplies they hope to find. 

(Sara gets to demonstrate the value of having an upperclassman along when she zaps a couple mals before anyone else sees them, though they probably would have caught them before anyone had actually been hurt)

"What's your track, Miguel?" Angie asks at a quiet point, "I'm Angie, from Montréal, mine's artificing, my brother who's circling us is Alex, in creative writing." 

(Zed begins the spell in their mother's language, Swati, only absently paying attention to where they're going and their surroundings. They have to rely on everyone else for this, putting all their attention into the spell.)

Alexius does his best to be in the way of anything that might jump at Zed. 

It doesn't take too long to arrive at the first stairwell leading down to the language lab and storeroom level. But it doesn't feel quite right. It's the third stairwell, after a bit of a trudge and a detour near the back of Maleficaria Studies that wasn't strictly necessary, that seems most promising to Zed's magic. There are only two small mals hiding out there, easily dispatched with this many people on watch. 

Descending is easy enough, but third floor landing is...dark. 

...Alexei draws a little from his power-sharer and murmurs something in near-silent French, producing a little orb of fire that brightens the hall. 

"Not sure I like this," he states, for the record. 

Nia writes flashlight on her list.

Zed finally finishes the spell and blinks out into the darkness.

"Third door on the right."

-Sara moves to join Alexius at the front of the herd. 

"It's the first week," she reminds the freshmen, "Don't relax, but don't start jumping at shadows now. Overvigilance can kill nearly as easily as nonvigilance."  

She motions Alexei to stand with her at the door, and nudges it open. 

Nothing comes charging out. 

How kind of the nothing. Nia is so happy to see it.

As is the designated chew toy. Alexius advances through the door, eyes darting from side to side. 

That's nice of him. Tomonori appreciates not being eaten by mals. He follows close behind Alexius, though, looking out for mals or poison or anything magically interesting.

He goes over his list again, in case it's still an input to the spell.

The first thing they spot when walking in is a very full tub of paper and pencils weighed down by a heavy duty flashlight.

"Flashlight!" chirps Nia. "I was not sure if it was too late added."

Sara and Angie follow on, knives out in the latter case, but Alexei pauses to wait for everyone to file in, his fireball hovering in the doorway and lighting both sides of it. 

"I'm not actually sure how the scholomance even stocks these rooms, maybe expectation has something to do with it?" 

In the corner is a small, but very full box of empty glass jars.

Well now how d'you like that. Alexius spots a small clear plastic bin of what looks like cardstock, and nearly makes a beeline for it before he remembers his job. He instead sets about poking each and every one of the excellent finds, the pinnacle of a paranoid pointman. 

Alexei joins him at that once everyone's inside, while Sara surveys everything from a central location, eyeing a packet of paper on one of the bottom shelves.

Nia waits for things to be checked, and takes the flashlight and three jars and a big three-ring binder already full of paper and folders and a whole box of mechanical pencils, though she will portion those out if anyone else urgently wants them, and two rolls of tape, and a bright pink permanent marker. "The spell for finding is tremendous!" she exclaims.

Small shy smile. "Thanks. Took a long time to write."

Tomonori collects his paper and an empty three-ring binder and no hole punch. He'll deal with that later.

Many, many pens, though, and highlighters in a variety of colors (no blue, but that's fine). He offers a few pens (though not many...) to anyone who wants some.

"It's smart! Not many spells are so friendly with the school."

"Best spell I have heard of all year. Knight in shining armor of spells. Sir Spell the Marvelous."

"We're very proud," Angie brushes against Zed's side as she passes. 

Aha! She prods at a shelf carefully, double-checking, and then takes the two small cases of coloured pencils and a packet of sketchbooks on it, and grabs a quartet of spiral notebooks from the shelf above it to give to Alexei. Tape! She takes some of that, too, they hadn't spent space on it, figuring they'd be able to get a fairly early supply run in with both a combat specialist and Zed among their number. 

-oh, and she grabs the packet of paper Sara was eyeing, too. Nice, sturdy stuff, maybe she needs it for shop? Angie makes a note to ask about it later. 

Okay they're just going to blush and not actually reply.

He'll take a pencil and...oooooh, pens. One or two of those and a highlighter would be great. He spots a Sharpie on the lower shelf and snags it. And a fancy notebook...it tries to snap closed on his arm and he jerks back and thunks his mini-machete into it. Time to find a different notebook. 

Eventually he locates a decent alternative, albeit with half the paper missing. 

Alexei grabs some extra pens and pencils and a trio of highlighters in blue, yellow and green. Nothing needs stabbing on his end, but he's still keeping the fireball in the air. It's not very expensive and he could toss it at something, so it's technically in-affinity. 

It's a good thing everyone else here has offensive capabilities! Tomonori will pretend he is also prepared to do more than notice an incoming mal.

Carrying all this paper without a way to get it in the binder..troubling. He looks around for a hole punch. ...there must be one near the binders, because that's where one would belong. Maybe it's hiding where Nia got her binder.

There! Hole punch. Tomonori picks that up, too. He starts putting paper in his binder as long as the others are still looking around.

Lily is late in, but there's enough even for her. She takes a nice large binder, some tape, a pair of Matsumoto's pens, and a couple highlighters. She also snags some lined paper and - ooh, is that a stapler? She prods it with her athame. Yep, that is indeed a stapler. It's a pretty cheap plastic one but it's already loaded with staples and she will absolutely take that.

There's still some paper left - she should fill her binder -

"Matsumoto, can I use your hole punch once you're done with it?"

Yolanda finds--yess, there are a couple of graph paper composition books. She scoops those and a box of regular pencils and a package of erasers aaaand yep there's a pencil sharpener. 

"Your spell is awesome. Hypothetically are you interested in trading it."

They hesitate, but they can't just outright refuse, this is the Scholomance. "Do you know Swati?"

"I do not. Damn."

...Angie passes Zed one of the packs of coloured pencils and a sketchbook, "We might be able to work something out where we trade for supply runs they lead," she tells Yolanda - and the room in general. 

"I would be extremely interested in doing that," she informs them. 

They nod to Yolanda, and tilt their head to the twins. "Talk to them, they can arrange it."

"I can't take anything. Spell requires that I don't."

"- how far can you not take supplies? Not today? Not these specifics? Not things traded for them?"

"Sure."

"I can punch things for you," Tomonori offers to Lily.

"Can't take things for myself or add what I want to find into the spell. Other people can take things and gift them to me later. But I can't have or give any preference."

"That's a little strange. Definitely a spell you want to have strong allies while using."

Nia winks at Zed and takes another binder even though it won't fit in her bag and she'll have to carry it in her arms.

She knows. They're for later. Angie motions with her full arms, "Hold them for me while I get my bag open?" 

And to Yolanda, while she does that, "We'll trade for mana, I suppose, though I expect you need it more than we do. For completed projects and potions, if they're ones we're interested in. Homework, maintenance shifts, maybe language tutoring - do you know Japanese? Alexei and I are good enough at it that it won't bite us, but a little more polish wouldn't hurt. And Zed is doing language track." 

"Sorry, no. Chinese and Korean, but not Japanese."

"I can offer homework help, languages help, potions, or mana. I expect we'll work something out," Alexius pipes up, then goes back to scrounging and checking for mals. 

Yolanda gets a sympathetic shrug, "We can't go around giving something for nothing too often," she says, "It is what it is." 

To Alexius, "If you'd be interested in trading those memory potions for help with the supply trips to make them, that sounds fair."

"Yeah, I'm open to trading maintenance shifts or doing homework in exchange for supply runs, it's just Japanese in particular I can't help with. Although I'm considering picking it up, since it's not like I can get out of language lab entirely, so I'll have to pick up something, but I'm probably not going to get to better-than-you."

"I would not mind taking a little extra maintaining for a little more to maintain with!"

Angie is pretty pleased with this, "We'd be happy to trade a few shifts to a supply run," she agrees, "As for homework, we'll have to see what classes we all have in common." 

Miguel spends approximately an hour agonizing over how to talk to these people, who seem like they all share a common language, and he doesn't mean English, though it's probably not helping that his English is kind of rusty -

"I might be up for that as well," he says eventually. Probably the pause was long enough to be weird? Ugh. "I also brought cocaine specifically to trade alchemists. So if you can use that - or know anyone who can -"

"I'm definitely also willing to trade for a place in any further supply runs. I'd probably do better at homework help than maintenance work, but whatever you need. I also have a strong wakeup spell I could trade casts of."

"We have fatigue solutions," they could hardly not have them, "But we can get back to you on homework as well, and we'll be happy to trade projects for guidance to supplies, as said," Angie nods to Lily.

To Miguel, "None of us are alchemists- and we have better solutions for energy than coke, at keast for now. You'll want indies, upperclassmen, and older indies especially, for that, I expect. And I guess all the new blood, though they might not know they'll need it yet," she adds. 

"Don't need cocaine right now, but I'll ask around in lab," he offers. Man, it's like being back in Florida already. 

"I'll keep you in mind when talking to alchemists." 

"Seconded."

Well, that's not a disastrous outcome but it's not encouraging for the value of his trade goods, either.

She gives him a small smile - she's sure he'll be able to find someone, but it sounds like it won't be this group - and then looks around at everyone, "Alchemy labs next?" She pauses, "Are you up for another casting so soon, or should we just proceed without?" she asks Zed. 

"Up to you." She's the one in charge. And she knows it's mana expensive.

"I think... Well, it's pretty mana expensive, especially three times," she glances at Sara.

"Our power-sink isn't limitless," says Sara, unimpressed. "Why don't some of you frosh donate some mana, rather than powering it all off of my work. Or we can take our chances with the alch labs, give the kid a break."  

Yolanda shrugs, does half a cartwheel to get into a handstand, and starts doing handstand push-ups. She's still pretty new at doing those freestanding, so she gets a decent chunk of mana just from focusing on her balance.

Lily sits down and starts doing sit-ups. 

Nia bends and touches her toes and starts the process of getting deeper into the stretch; she can't get her hands flat on the floor yet.

Strictly speaking Alexei doesn't need to take part in this but a little extra can't hurt, really. With a heavy internal sigh, he starts doing some math problems in his head and shoving the resulting mana into his power-sharer.

(Angie, meanwhile, is actually still gaining a little mana just from carrying her pack around. Alexei is not wrong to be worrying about her, for all she's not showing the strain, rather pretty much just channeling it into her cheer.) 

Having established that nothing else is trying to eat them, Alexius finishes up. "Iiiii would rather not get in the habit of distracting myself with mana-building on supply runs, especially as the designated mal attractant. But I do in fact have a power-sharer and am entitled to draw on it as long as I pay it back, which I will once I sell my potions, which I will have more to sell if I happen to find a nice fat stock of mercury downstairs. Therefore..." and he siphons off some mana for Zed. 

Sara takes it, "Fair, kid," she agrees. "Pass it on, you all, and let's get going. Lexi, stop distracting yourself, you're on watch," she adds. The nickname causes him to make a face at her, but he returns to his former vigilance as told. 

Yolanda completes her cartwheel to get right-side-up and passes over the mana thus accumulated. 

Nia donates hers.

Lily stands, and carefully channels her stored mana into Zed's proffered sink.

Zed gathers all the mana and starts on the spell again, grabbing hold of the back of Alexei's shirt and nudging him forward through the door.

Nia writes an alchemical wishlist, though it's sparser than her school supplies one.

Lily takes up her rearguard position again.

Alexius heads towards the front of the pack again, ready to bodyblock for the others, and thinks about brewing station parts and memory potion ingredients. 

Yolanda is not super an alchemist so she mostly thinks about expensive alchemical trade goods. 

Alexei reluctantly passes them to Angie after a moment, not being the safest person to be following around. She holds onto their arm as they descend deeper into the school, keeping them from running into anything. 

None of them particularly need anything from the alchemy storage, though, so they're mostly just guarding and planning on taking whatever is there that piques interest.

...things that combine well with cocaine? Things that have high trade value? 

Safe, easily transportable, valuable compounds. Orichalcum powder - Orichalcum rods, she could draw those out into wire - citrionelle oil, eucalyptus oil, alum, lubanja, mineral oil, vitriol, moongold, platinum, coral, zafranum, ginger oil, mustard seed -

Tomonori would like quite a few alchemical supplies!

Jasmine attar, daemonorops resin, caraway seeds, sandalwood powder...cassiterite, although that's a long shot.

Down down down they go, Zed muttering the spell and concentrating very hard. All the different types of mana very strange. They're used to Alex and Angie's. But the spell works and -

"Next door on the left."

"Thank you Zed and Sir Spell the Marvelous!" She waits for the mal check before diving into the cabinet in search of coconut oil and pine sap and rock salt.

A huge five kilo tub of coconut oil! And the other two as well, but mostly the coconut oil takes up the whole cabinet.

Lily keeps her rearguard position and doesn't so much as glance over at anything.

"Oh, Sir Spell, this is a little much," she muses, peering at the coconut oil. She regards it and then pulls one of her jars. "Has anyone a spoon?"

Alex silently offers her a ladle from a nearby shelf.

"Thank you, Zed, and Sir Spell the Marvelous!"

Spells probably aren't like items in that they need you to appreciate them to behave the way you want them to, but it seems only fair to be nice to Zed and his spell. Tomonori is glad Nia started the thankfulness train- he probably wouldn't have thought of it on his own.

He can't help with her coconut oil dilemma, so hopefully the ladle will do. Attar, resin, seeds, powder...ore, if he's lucky, although maybe the school thinks that's only for artificing. He can imagine it getting confused.

Nia ladles coconut oil into her jar, humming merrily, and puts the rock salt chunks and little vial of pine sap each in her pants pockets, previously turned out for safety reasons but now shovable back into her pants, since her backpack is now very full and she has a second binder to carry too.

"Thirded," says Lily quietly.

There's a large row of shelves near the back of the room that look very promising...

"That is a lot of coconut oil." She glances around for any unclaimed containers that might be lurking in the alchemy cabinet; it seems ungrateful not to take any coconut oil when there's so much more than the people who actively want it can carry.

Non-alchemists will still have to take intro to lab. Two of the Montréalites go through the shelves for valuable trade goods - there's not a lot that one would really call very rare but there's plenty of common and somewhat uncommon ingredients for the taking, as well as equipment. Alex takes enough equipment to set up a lab in his room, actually. 

Angie, though, stays by Zed and keeps an eye on the room. And also takes their hand discreetly and smiles up at them, appreciative. 

Blushing and hand squeeze.

Cute. 

Yolanda finds some empty containers and helps herself to spare coconut oil.

Lily keeps watching the door, though the clink of glassware behind her makes her want to turn around. 

"Do we have enough glassware for me to take a set?", she asks.

In the corner of her eye Lily spots a section of a very high shelf full up with small jars of different kinds of seeds and oil.

Tomonori is investigating these shelves in the back of the room. He finds...powder, although he can't tell if it's sandalwood, and he doesn't have an enchantment for identifying powders on his glasses. Maybe the school will give him one. He can worry about that later. For now he has alchemy supplies! Exciting. He collects the powder and jasmine attar and caraway seeds.

"I found some metals here, if anyone wants to look."

Not the ore he wanted, but that's okay. Tomonori puts some of it away that he doesn't recognize. He won't be able to carry much else anyway.

"Is there rose gold?"

"Gold, silver, copper, brass...?"

Alex comes to take a look, "Looks like... silver, copper," he takes a bit of each, after a careful look out for any signs of mimics, "And uh, something silvery but not silver? Tin?" 

"Aluminum?"

"Might be," he grabs some of it, brings it back to Angie to look over, and then moves to relieve Lily on guard duty. 

Angie tests it for a few seconds - it's a little cube, she scratches at it and peers at it and rolls it between her fingers, and then nods, "Aluminum," she agrees. 

...very funny, Sir Spell the Marvelous.

That's okay. He couldn't carry much more anyway.

Tomonori will offer to help everyone else with whatever they need now that he's got everything he wanted.

Lily smiles at Alex and thanks him, then takes a small magnet out of her pack and touches the silvery metal with it. It doesn't stick. 

"Aluminum," she agrees. "Tin's magnetic." She takes some of the silver and copper cubes, as well as a set of glassware which she carefully puts in the top of her bag, padded carefully with the paper she fetched earlier. That fills most of her space - but the empty beaker can still hold something, so she points out the high shelf she's too short to reach. "More seeds and oils up there."

Yolanda pockets some aluminum and reaches for the seeds and oils. 

Once Nia's all packed up she does stretches again to donate mana for another casting of Sir Spell.

Lily stuffs her beaker with small vials of mustard seed and mineral oil and citronelle oil and eucalyptus oil and ginger oil, then zips her pack closed and allows herself a small smile. 

Of course, after that it's back down to the floor for more situps.

For cheap mana, Tomonori uses meditation.

It's so hard to sit still and focus your whole mind on just his senses and not thinking at all, which is what makes it good for mana-building.

After dutifully mal-checking the nooks and crannies, Alexius beelines for a tiny cupboard in the back and cackles over a dusty steel bottle filled with mercury. And there's silver, and he spotted some fluorite and even carnelian on the shelves, and there's enough glassware and metal left over for a bootleg brewery in his room. He's over the moon. 

"Zed, you are the greatest. There will be eidetic memory potions at breakfast, I'm gonna move up my timetable with this haul." Hint hint, weirdly altruistic spell. 

Zed is just gonna not make eye contact with anyone and press themselves against Angie's back. All this lustre making them very uncomfortable.

Poor Zed. Even if they certainly deserve the praise. 

"They'll take you up on that tomorrow morning, then," Angie tells Alexius. 

Alexius nods, still grinning at his fortune mutually beneficial arrangement. "Shop last?" He doesn't have anything specific in mind but some basic tools would be neat. 

Lily gets up and makes her donation of mana.

"Yep," last thing, best thing for her, most dangerous for them all. At least she has a lot of space left in her bag, actually, courtesy of carrying most of Alexei's stuff through induction. "Pass the mana in, make your lists, and we'll be on our way." She accepts Lily's mana as she says this.

Nia does squats - they're efficient enough when she's got a heavy backpack on - and passes over her results.

More handstands! And then yep, mana transferred. 

"Thanks," they say quietly, mostly to Nia.

"You're welcome! We must feed Sir Spell and his lovely caster."

Alexius continues his secondary malwatch duties and forks over another dose, half from power sharer and half from carrying stuff around all afternoon. 

Aaaaa? Gods, they shouldn't have said anything because now they're blushing and everyone is probably looking at them and knowing. They try to hide behind their hair and Angie and are very much bright red.

Angie purses her lips, and accepts mana without comment. 

(Alexei misses all of that, busy securing a bit of tubing to the bottom of his bag. Zed's expression gets a momentary concerned look, before he goes back to mal watch.) 

Once the mana is all passed in, Angie nudges Zed, "One more?" 

Right, yes. Stop blushing about the pretty girl and actually do the one useful thing they can contribute to their friends. Right. Rightrightright.

They nod and start the spell again.

Heeeeeere wire. Wire wire wire. Gold wire silver wire copper wire brass wire. 

Angie leads them out in the middle of the group again, keeping a grip on their shirt as they keep a grip on hers, and an eye on the ceiling and floor. Same strategy as the last two times - shielded guy in front, upperclassman spotting for him, Alexei in the rear.

(Wire and gems and glass sand and she'd probably kill someone for a good set of etching and engraving tools-) 

Please let there be a drawplate.

Clamps and chisels and lapidary tools and a slip roller and mallets and a screwdriver. She will tie things to her backpack straps if she has to.

Tomonori can't carry too much more but he can think about the things everyone else can use, and a few small things for himself.

Gems. Lots of gems, and wire. Small chunks of metal or wood. Burnisher, chisel, screwdriver, square. Nails, sandpaper...

Let's see, what tools did he forego due to the weight limits, or could loan out as a rarity...a crowbar, maybe, good synergy with his strength spell for getting at locked stuff when finesse fails. He's gonna have to do most of his furniture work by hand to save mana, so, one of those screwdriver and wrench sets with multiple fitting sizes, he wouldn't put it past the Scholomance to have, like, Tamper-pruf screws. Hex wrench. Metal glue, to further enhance his paranoid room sealing. That's probably enough to start but a spare multitool wouldn't go amiss either. 

The path this time bypasses one stairwell and then doubles back towards it after descending the second one. After a bit more walking and a turnoff just short of the usual shop supply location on the blueprints, a door labeled MMXLVIII can be seen in the corridor wall. A trio of tiny mals flee from the light in lurching hops when Alexius opens it. 

...Alexei throws his fireball at them before they can get out of sight, and then calls another one up.

"Not a promising sign. Really don't touch anything in there without double checking it, this time." He takes the rear, waiting by the door.

"I have enchanted gloves, maybe I should touch everything first."

"If you're volunteering, go ahead!" Angie has a knife in each hand in preparation for throwing them though.

Yolanda checks everything VERY CAREFULLY before she touches it but she does in fact touch all of the things that pass this scrutiny. 

"What are gloves enchanted for?"

"They're protective, mostly against toxins or caustic substances. They let me punch mals without worrying that this will result in some kind of horrible mal blood getting on my bare skin."

"How nice! They look fetching also."

"Thanks, my aunt made them for me."

Lily draws her athame and surveys the room carefully.

Now that's thinking like a self-buffer. Alexius, true to his malbait job, opens the cabinets and drawers for Yolanda to rummage through. 

...Zed sits down against a wall, exhausted and shaking just a little bit. Though they sit on their hands so it's not so obvious.

Alexei steps inside while the shelf checking is going on, spots Zed, and immediately moves to crouch in front of them, protective qnd close but ready to spring up at any moment. Angie can get whatever they're getting in here.

"Potion?" He asks them, quiet. 

They should be able to push through this. It's the first day, this should be nothing.

Absolutely not. Alexei reaches around to Zed's bag and rifles in it for a tiny vial, which he uncorks and holds in front of Zed's face.

"Drink." 

Zed drinks. And that blush is back in full force.

That's...concerning, but also probably not his business. Alexius pokes about for tools, instead, making a pleased noise when he finds a crowbar. 

A few mal vermin, including one cunningly disguised as a dollop of running wood glue, do attempt to bite Yolanda, but they don't get through the gloves. 

While that's going on, Angie follows along after Yolanda and stabs things that tries to bite her. And collects useful items from the shelves.

Lily follows behind Yolanda, sorting known-good items into neat piles of tools and materials.

Nia has some Hard Decisions to make about what to take, here. She can tie a few things to her backpack straps, though they will clonk annoyingly against her legs. She can put small objects in her remaining two jars, and wear the tape on her wrist. She can carry both binders in her arms, that's not much worse than hauling just one, and she can tape things in place if they're sticking out of her bag too precariously. But she can still only fit one clamp if she also wants the slip roller which she really does, so she weighs her various choices and picks a nice generic one that looks sufficiently adjustable.

Angie collects wire and a small bag of semi-precious gems and two jars of sand and a screwdriver to augment the one on her multi-tool, which she pats lovingly as she packs her things up. She also finds a beautiful little hammer, and a graver which she had half expected to be on the list of things the spell couldn't find, and she vibrates in place happily for a moment as she grips both to her chest before sliding them carefully into her bag, radiating glee. 

And then she packs everything away and goes to crouch next to Alexei and Zed, taking the latter's hand and squeezing gently. 

They lean their head against her shoulder and squeeze back. Not exhausted anymore thanks to the potion, but feeling much better with the company.

Yolanda takes as much wire as she can carry, and some semi-precious stones, and ooh wool, and--oh! She scoops up the little wire cutter tucked in behind the wire. 

There is really a lot of wire. Lily pockets four spools of gleaming copper, three of brass, and one shining silver. And a long piece of steel, about the size of a ruler but a good few centimeters thick, pockmarked with holes of varying diameters. She tucks a clamp and a ball-peen hammer into her belt on opposite sides.

Alexius finishes collecting his tools and pockets a handful of leftover trinkets. "Everyone okay, ready to head back?" he asks the room. 

"Think so! Sir Spell was so good to us," chirps Nia.

"I'm good. Seriously, though, thanks a ton."

They'd really like to stop blushing so much, thanks. Their face is going to be permanently red at this point.

Angie pats Zed's shoulder and stands, "We're ready to go back up," she confirms. "Everyone back in position?"

Lily takes up rearguard again. "Ready."

"Ready!"

"Ready."

Back up to the higher levels, then, climbing many, many stairs with a lot more weight on their backs than they had on the way down. At least it's mana building. 

Quite mana-building. Nia keeps most of it in her person for now, she feels all empty, but maybe soon she will have enough that she can start putting it in her remaining sapphires.

Up, up and up they go. They avoid running into any mals, which isn't really surprising, but still a very good thing, until finally they are back where they started. But now also full to the brim with their spoils.

"Well!" Angie says, when they come within sight of the cafeteria, "I suppose dinner will be soon? Perhaps we should all go drop our spoils off, beforehand. It was good to meet you all!" 

"Good to meet you also! I will see you in future."

Shy smile. "Good luck."

"Oh, look," she says, "silly me, took two binders and need only one." She offers the second to Zed.

- they burst out into a soft laugh and take the offered binder.

"Should really keep a better eye on that. Thank you."

"You're welcome!"

Angie beams at her, "That's very kind of you."

Nia attempts a curtsey, though awkwardly since she's in pants and heavily laden. "One must be on one's best behavior in front of knights of the realm such as Sir Spell."

Tomonori is so pleased with all of the spoils! What a good spell. He'll need to work to build back that mana later, but it'll be worth it. He'll jog to his room and to dinner. He'll stick around enough to be properly polite to the Montréal enclave, who have been very helpful today.

"Thank you for the supplies! It's a very smart spell," he says to Zed.

Small acknowledging nod as a 'you're welcome'.

Yolanda passes him one of her coconut oil jars, some wire, and a couple of aluminum cubes. "--I didn't have any idea what you'd, uh, want or need," she adds belatedly. "But even if this stuff is useless to you it's perfectly good trade goods, plus of course coconut oil is edible so if you're ever in a pinch for calories."

"Also good moisturizer."

They take the supplies and nod. "I'll keep that in mind. Both."

And it's off to store the loot. 

Lily wordlessly offers half of her selection of cubes and vials to Zed, along with the hammer. 

And they will wordlessly thank her and take what she offers. Awkwardly, because that's just their life now, they suppose.

And Angie gives both Lily and Yolanda smiles and then Montréal peels off from the larger group to head to their rooms to store their supplies.