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Marcy checks in with the other Bostonians in the cafeteria. They do a little trading around of gear, enough to make it clear that they're working together but not enough to reveal too much of what they've got. They can sort out the really valuable stuff in someone's room later. Then they spread out, looking for anyone who seems interested in demonstrating a high competence to antisocial behavior ratio.
semper-fidelis
This young man looks to be doing something similar! And he's making his way towards Marcy of his own volition.
"Hullo!" he says. "I'm Edmund Pevensie, London - yourself?"
have-the-temperament
"Marcy Park; I'm from Boston. Splitting languages and artificing; you?"
semper-fidelis
"Creative writing. What d'you mean you're splitting, that's new and interesting."
have-the-temperament
"I mean I'm really good at languages and my affinity is better for artificing so I'm going to take as many classes as I can manage in both. Creative writing is neat." She does a handstand for a few seconds and then flips back upright.
semper-fidelis
"Isn't it just. I'm a quick study with languages but when they tried me on linguistics as a kid I put every word root I could find in my mouth at once so they stopped that smart quick. Creative writing's safer."
have-the-temperament
"Haha, yeah, I hate not getting to think about etymology. I'll probably pick up German sometime this year. What'd you end up with?"
semper-fidelis
He looks evaluatingly at Marcy, leans a little closer. "French, Greek, Latin, German, and I've been working on Japanese; we'll see if I can manage fluency or if I have to take it out before the school hands me something I can't handle. My affinity's memory. So - it's safer for me than it should be."
have-the-temperament
"Oh, I know Japanese! Does the memory affinity help with both retaining stuff and forgetting stuff, because that's very cool. Mine's projectiles."
semper-fidelis
"Yeah. Remembering and forgetting. It's a good one. Projectiles is great too, though, I see what you mean about artificing."
have-the-temperament
"Yeah, I love it. Hey, can I ask you a hypothetical question? An actual hypothetical question, not an immediate request for a favor that I'm trying to pretend is hypothetical."
have-the-temperament
"Okay, so suppose there's a powerful alien that can predict what people will do with perfect accuracy, like it's never been wrong. And it likes to play a game of showing people two boxes. One box is clear plastic and has, like, three full mana crystals in it. And the other box is black, but the alien says it put twenty full mana crystals in it, but only if it predicted that you weren't going touch the clear box. If it predicted you were going to take the clear box then the black box is empty. And it puts the boxes down on the ground and disappears. Do you take the black box and ignore the clear box, or do you take both boxes? Assume the alien has played this game with a hundred people and never been wrong or lied or played any weird tricks, everything is exactly as it appears for once. What do you do."
semper-fidelis
Edmund considers this.
"Black box alone," he says eventually. "Whatever game this alien's playing, it's good at it. And... it's like a promise, isn't it, deciding you'll take the black box."
have-the-temperament
She gives him the most genuine smile he's seen from her yet. "Yeah, it's a lot like a promise. What's your room number? I'm 429A."
semper-fidelis
"656B. - I think if some alien actually did that I'd have a lot of questions for it. And I'd be pretty well pissed off, actually. But I like the spirit."
have-the-temperament
"Yeah, it'd have to be a really weird alien. My second cousin Kevin's really near you; I'll tell him--" something tries to fall on her head and instead falls on her dagger--"that he should talk to you about going to meals." She flicks mal gunk off the dagger onto the floor. "The more the merrier, or at least that's what these sacs à merde seem to think."
Here Ends This Thread