There he is, trudging back from the dinner line with a heavily-laden tray. Some of the contents look...questionable. Not toxic, just, singularly unappealing. He spots Connie, blinks, and quirks a faint smile. 

Connie heads toward him, glancing around for tables with space open.  "Hey again." 

That one's near a vent but not too near and the weird puddle is on the ventward side?  Probably the other end is okay?

He spots the weird puddle too and pauses. Damn, he doesn't have a generalized mal-zapper yet and knives might not work on an ooze... "You got a way to fry that if it turns out to be hungry?" he murmurs. 

"Um.  I have a force-net?  And kind of a fire spell but it's hungry and I don't want to startle people... could throw something at it from over here?"

"Startled is better than eaten, by a long shot. Force-net probably won't stop something puddly. Let's take a seat and keep an eye on it. If it moves, fry it and I'll refund some of the mana? Also, kind of a fire spell?" He sits, slightly closer to the puddle so she can be farther away. 

"Well, don't wanna startle an upperclassman into blasting something they don't need to, if we're in range... oh, gotcha.  Yeah, I can do that."  Oh no he's being a gentleman.  She sacrifices some limp green beans to mark just outside the edges of the puddle and three inches away, nudging them into place with the end of her fork, then joins him at the far end.  (The puddle does not react to this.)

"It's, uh, a regular fire spell, I... kind of have it."  God this is embarrassing.  But embarrassed is better than letting somebody rely on you and be wrong about it, at least if you expect to see them or anyone they talk to again.  "I mean, it always works!  I've got the fire part down.  But it, like, only comes in one size, so far?  And sometimes it doesn't go exactly where I meant and I have to kind of- scoot it."

(He is also following the strategy "put the person with defensive magic between the ranged person and the foe"). 

"Huh. Well, better than no fire at all, I suppose. At least you know its weaknesses and can adjust." There's a touch of bitterness in the last sentence. 

"Oof, fair enough.  Long's I don't land it on something flammable while I'm adjusting."  She pokes at her lasagna.  "I'm hoping one of my classes next week has a more usable mal-zapper, though, like you said a knife doesn't work on everything."

"If you get one I'll trade you," he mutters around a mouthful of Mystery Meat. 

"Mm."  Om nom lasagna.  It's actually not that bad?  "Should probably just ask the void for one tonight, not wait around.  I've got it on the ceiling, though, and I haven't figured out- I mean, even if I ask for spells from my bed, it's not a great start to a relationship, falling six feet?"

"Hold a pillow up so it has a soft landing?" He mimes a supplicating gesture skyward. 

"Oh, yeah, that'd work, good point.  I was gonna be like 'what if it missed' but if it was gonna pitch it out just anywhere you'd have people with void walls getting books under their desks and landing on their heads and stuff, and nobody warned me about that beforehand.  Guess it could depend if it likes you."

"From what I've heard about the void, liking and niceness seem mostly uncorrelated. It'll go, 'oh good you know three sentences of Sindarin, here's a spell written by a starry-eyed linguist.' And then preen smugly.

"Haven't heard of it playing Book Soccer, though. I suppose we take what we can get." 

"That's sure true."  She stabs her lasagna a little more forcefully than necessary and glances over at the puddle again.  "Oh, we should swap language lists probably, if you wanna trade spells later, so we know what's useful."

Well..."I have English, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian, Mandarin, Hebrew, and Sanskrit." It's no longer as much a source of pride as it was this morning, considering he can't share. 

"English, Spanish, Amharic, Mandarin, and Koine and modern Greek but those don't really count as two whole languages, I just didn't want to risk getting modern spells and tripping myself up."

"Koine, huh. Good idea. Amharic is a new one too. Maybe we should swap tutoring sometime. I'm at least secondarily language-track." 

"-Koine Greek, sorry, not Yoruba koiné.  Amharic I'm actually almost native in, just kinda rusty, my parents found an Ethiopian lady to watch me when I was little."  She rolls her eyes a bit.  "My brothers got Mandarin immersion preschool, but they didn't realize with me how early you have to get on the waiting list.  Didn't get me a spot till second grade.  ...which, yeah, if you want to pick up Amharic or do a practice group for one of the others, I'd be down, I want to get my Mandarin up to where I can actually hold a conversation and not sound like an idiot."

"Hey!" sudden upperclassman????

"How have your first classes been?"

"Hi...?"  WHY do upperclassmen keep TALKING to her.  "Uh.  Fine, I guess?"

"Great! Are you settling in well, is there anything you're short on?"

Mana. Trade goods. Respect. Anything resembling a plan.

If this guy's been paying any shred of attention, he already knows Alexius as The Potion Fuckup Kid, which makes a sudden offer of assistance mighty suspicious. On the plus side, if he's a maleficer looking for marks, Alexius is slightly better prepared to make him regret it than the average freshman. Not that he thinks he has much chance against an upperclassman. Won't stop him trying. 

"Shop class screwed me over gloriously but the immune booster I got in Comp was right up my alley." 

"Sorry about the shop class, what assignment did you get?"

This is not less confusing. 

"Are you, like, running a store, or...?"  What do they even have that Rando Upperclassman would want.

"No, I am not running a store. I'm just - talking to all the freshmen, making sure you all know you're not alone in here and that you can ask people for help if you need it. And offering help in case you already do."

On its surface that sounds refreshingly unhorrible. "Mostly just a materials-starved Friday class." Also a make-and-mend spell, but his problems with affecting non-Alexius things are not really the Scholomance's fault. "I'll be fine, I have four weeks. ...you've probably already heard my flustercluck potion story from the rumor mill, that's what's really eating me. If you want to trade mana for decent personal spells or language tutoring or homework I suppose that'd help." Asking hurts his pride, but it'd be awful hypocritical of him to tout the benefits of sticking together and helping each other and then turn around and refuse help when it's offered. 

"Sure, tell me more about those spells? Unless you're some sort of super-genius, in which case I have a friend who could use your help on some homework - She's a junior like me and was doing honors classes before - well she's not able to do her own work right now - anyways, I wouldn't want to dump junior honors classes on a freshman unless you're the next Browning or something."

"...does she need someone for math, actually?  I can do up through calculus."  She's still not entirely sure what this guy's deal is but if you run away from every opportunity you don't get anywhere, and there's a limit to how much of a problem it can be if she doesn't go anywhere alone with him, right?

"Ooh, maybe! She could definitely use some help with math homework. She did calculus last year, but maybe she has more this year? I don't know how much calculus there is, I'm not a math person."

"I have the advantage of potion-assisted eidetic memory for history and some literature-type homework. And languages don't care about class level. For spells, what languages are you looking in?" He repeats the eclectic litany of English, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian, Mandarin, Hebrew, and Sanskrit.

Connie shrugs.  "I think mundane school does two years?"  Maybe don't mention what math you're doing, actually, there might be two sections of number theory but there might not be and then he'll know where to find you. 

"If you let her know- is she up for doing her own haggling, actually, or are you arranging that?"  Hopefully that's a decent enough hint that she's not looking to do someone else's work out of goodwill towards men, without being rude about it?

To Alexius, "I've got the big four and Latin. Naomi's artificing but might need help with Russian homework."

And to Connie, "She is not doing her own haggling right now, me or Amos will do that. I will check what math she's in once I've circled around and let you know - if I don't get to it before lunch is done is there somewhere I can find you?"

"Russian homework I can do for mana, especially on an upperclassman's mana budget. I will also trade for cool objects or artificing help." Comparative advantage: yay!

"Big four is not quite as clearly identifying as it seems. Spanish or Russian could be big depending on who you ask...in English I have two stimulants, some gut microbiome tweaks that are super flexible if you know biology but dangerous to fuck up, a small reflexes boost, an ice spike, cold resistance, a slight movement speed boost, and a few healing. In Mandarin there's a slight thinkfast and a spell to stop bleeding and oxygenate blood that I can't yet cast but it's a darn good one. Latin's got an envelope shield that's cheap to keep up for a long time but penalized at taking hits, a general-purpose antitoxin, fast-cast skin-toughening, an incorporeal solidifier, and some body modification spells including faster hair growth." 

"English, Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi. Four biggest by number of speakers. I'm maybe interested in the bleeding-stopping one, let's figure out what's a fair trade for that tomorrow? And I can introduce you to Naomi then so you can help her with her Russian."

"Sure, where and when? Spanish also has some concealment spells, by the way." Positive-sum trades! With upperclassmen, no less! Maybe he is not doomed! 

"Tomorrow's the weekend, so - come find me at lunch? And then we can all head up to the library after." He stands up to go,

"Sorry to cut this short but I've got six hundred more freshmen to check in on and that's not even counting the Chinese."

"Good of you! Lunch it is." If this guy's on the level then he's awesome and Alexius wants to be him in a couple years. 

Right, people do need some way to find you if you want to do business with them.  Still, she might have been overcautious with Alexius but she's definitely not giving this boy her room number.

Aaand by the time she's gotten a sentence together the conversation has moved on, convenient now but she needs to get faster at that.  "I can find you at lunch then, too, to talk math?"  Aaaand a library run, which would be great if he's on the level but tips it hard toward too good to be true. 

"...while you're here, would you mind seeing if that's something that needs dealing with?"  She points to the weird puddle at the end of the table, marked off by its double perimeter of green beans.  "We weren't sure if it was an ooze or what's left after someone killed something or, like, I dunno, a really depressed flan."

He looks it over.

"Leftover from something dead, don't touch it though, could be toxic."

He heads off to another nearby table.

Once he's out of earshot, Connie leans closer to Alexius and murmurs "That was weird- that is weird, right?  Did you get the talk about giving stuff away free too?"

"Yep. I - " have reasons to want to be targeted by maleficers, he absolutely cannot say, lest he tip one off inadvertently, " - think it's worth taking a risk over, myself, but we can't afford to forget it's a risk." 

"Yeah."  She frowns and starts disassembling her lasagna instead of eating it.  "I did come here planning to swap for junior and senior math homework, wouldn't've made sense to spend time on it otherwise, but- I don't think I like this.  We could... try and find some more kids to go with, maybe?"  She doesn't sound confident in this plan.  "Or just... decide ahead of time we're definitely not going into the stacks?"

"Reasonable. As long as we stay to the center of the library with a lot of witnesses it'd be unlikely for a maleficer to try anything. And if he tries to change our minds, that's a red flag." 

"Yeah.  I- like, it would be really normal for his friend to be waiting at a carrel somewhere?  But 's also normal to not trust that, right, so if he's on the level and just weirdly friendly he'd understand."