"Yeah. We figured out my affinity pretty early - well, we thought it was just knives, but we knew I was artificing. Had my father working very hard to get me capable of doing swords - "they're just big knives, girl!!" and then one day I got a slingshot and had it holding a little shock-spell by the end of the day. Has to be a weapon I can use, turns out, and I was too small for my swords."

Aww, that's cute. She isn't oblivious enough to say that.

"Huh. Can you persuade it that your book's a weapon because you can wack people on the head with it or something?"

"That's one of the things I want to try in here - well, not books, giving a book the opinion it's also a weapon sounds like a great way for it to eat you once it gets sick of you, but - can I get shields if they've got a little bite, can I do something for detection or warding if it's also usable as a weapon - I never got it at home but we were saving for my induction, by then, and didn't have much play money on top of that." They were approximately penniless. Annisa's pretty sure her father was routinely going to the airport and robbing tourists with mind control; when he didn't additionally come home with fancy tourist food, they lived on rice. She's absolutely never in a million years going to admit that. 

"Yeah, a book was a bad example. I wonder if you can do needles or something, sewing is kind of attacking fabric? - probably not, that sounds stupid now that I've said it."

Annisa has a plan for graduation and it's for her and her allies to be equipped with JETPACKS that are a weapon in the sense where they burn every mal chasing them as they soar towards freedom. She does not say that, because you're not supposed to get that far ahead of yourself. "It's a much nicer position to be in, trying to think of utility applications of a combat disposition, than the other way around," she says. "The other Surabaya kid has 'wood' - we can sell him our desk scrap - and was very grouchy about figuring out ways to kill things with splinters and arrows when his affinity clearly wants to be building fancy furniture for a living."

"At least wood isn't a rare material, imagine having dirt or something in here. Mine stretches pretty far - I've gotten almost divination spells out of it, 'you're a good ward that tells me about danger even when it's far away, aren't you' and then I read something like ten books on special relativity and at the end of it I had something that'd ping me in advance. It's pretty stubborn about not being a weapon, though, wards-that-bite haven't worked great for me so far. That's what I want to work out in here." That's not a lie exactly but she doesn't think it's going to work, even the very obvious applications like wards that throw mals back into the nearest wall came out more expensive than she'd really expect them too, if they were properly in-affinity.

"Warn you in advance! That's convenient." She's tempted to say 'look, stick to what you're obviously good at and make us safe and I'll make you some fantastic throwing daggers' but that's way, way too much of an alliance for the first day and the fact she's even tempted suggests she forgot to pack all her good judgment. "Are you selling that?"

"It'll be expensive and I went materials-light and mana-light on this one so it'll take me a while and I don't want to start while we're settling in. Ask me again in a week. I can sell you one that makes the usual warning spells cheaper right now, though, you need to power it up but it's less than half the mana."

"What do you want for it?"

"I'm not sure what you have, I'll take a month and half's worth of mana for your ward spell if you don't have a better offer. The ward should last you at least the semester unless you're really careless with it." She'd gone to the bazaar with her father every Saturday when she eleven and bargained for vegetables and fresh fish and honey and eventually she stopped stammering and it was more of a waste of time than a benefit, but she's never been good at it and she's scared that it shows.

Not an awful offer, since with a good ward spell she'll never be woken at night and she's not all that likely to get eaten in the first month and a half, but she tries to look slightly disappointed. "Well, I'll be building the mana anyway so I'll give it some thought."

That means either yes or fuck off and she isn't sure which. "Well, let me know."

"Sure thing. Want to head back and sweep our rooms now? I'd like to have the furniture all disassembled before night and I have no idea how long it's going to take."

"Sounds good. I've got a multitool that should probably do the trick, are you good or do you want to borrow it?"

"I have a Swiss army knife but if you've got better I'll borrow it and spot you something next time it comes up; it's not really big enough to be ideal."

"I'll show you when we get there, we can see which one works best. Hopefully none of the screws get stuck, my cousin says that happens sometimes."

"Oh, that sounds not fun. All the more reason to start early, I guess?"

"Yeah." They're out of the cafeteria by now, so she shuts up and keeps watch for mals.

The first week of school there's supposed to be not that much lurking. Of course, it doesn't take all that much to kill you, if you're stupid. She holds her knife tightly and twitches at everything; there's a little sticky thing that looks like a sea urchin in the corner of the ceiling, but that's probably better avoided than dealt with.

She holds her left hand to the dart in her pocket and her multitool with the little knife out in her right. It was a gamble, but there'll be a chance to make a proper knife in her classes, and if not she'll trade an classmate for it. There's something moving behind a grate after the spiky ceiling mal, but other than that the walk to their rooms is uneventful.

They get to the rooms. Annisa has been spending all her spare thoughts trying to think of what to say once we get to the rooms. "If we clear out yours first," she says as soon as they reach them, as if just thinking of this, "you can ward it and we can set our stuff down before we do mine." It's the only obvious asymmetry between them, that wards are easy for Daria.

Should she specify that Annisa owes her a favor? Probably since they're neighbors it won't be worth the effort to negotiate every small thing, as long as the balance is about even? She wants her cluster here, which is the most useless thought she could be having. "Sure, makes sense." She opens her door a crack, stands well clear, and looks inside for any obvious mals once nothing jumps out at her.

Annisa will help. There shouldn't be anything, not only a few hours after the dorm rooms were created anew in the void, but you can't count on that.  She opens Daria's drawers with her dagger, pokes tentatively around inside them.

Dasha checks under the bed and around the drain. Her pack should light up if there's a mal in it but that's stupid to count on so she check that too. "All clear. Do you want to go grab your Swiss army knife, see if we can parallelize? I think we can do one side each."

"Sure." And she'll get her Swiss army knife, carefully combing through her pack for mals too.