Masozi has been mentally tracking his sense-of-presence of all the students in a ten-yard radius, and so he’s not startled. He’s doing a quick visual sweep of the room at fifteen-second intervals anyway, so the next time he looks up from the blueprints, his eyes pause briefly on the approaching student and he gives a fractional nod of acknowledgment, I see you, and then goes back to studying the school layout. Plausibly the student isn’t here to talk to him and just also wants to look at the blueprints, so he takes a polite half-step sideways to make room for him.

When addressed, he looks over, just a tiny bit visibly surprised. “Pleased to meet you,” he says, in polite bur strongly accented English. “I think I’m managing, thank you. My name is Masozi.”

"It's a pleasure," he says, sounding honest enough. It is a pleasure- if he's right about this one, he could use the extra eyes to keep lookout.

"My name is Ghassan," he says in differently-accented English. "Where are you from? I'm from Dubai," he gestures at the Dubai kids, who are now trading amongst themselves. It won't help- despite how much money Dubai sinks into its prospects, their survival rate is abysmal for their region. They need contacts, and favors that are worth something. This indie kid won't know anything about that, though; it might instill some confidence, that he claims to have others on his side. He wonders how much of his paranoia Masozi comes by honestly, and how much was trained into him.

"Talk to anyone from New York yet?"

"- I met Orion Lake - I saw a mal and told him about it and he killed it with fire." Frown. "Where's Dubai? That's not in America or in England, right?" 

-an indie who doesn't know much geography, but who helped kill a mal on his first day? Ghassan had just assumed that New Yorkers did whatever he wanted, but apparently this Orion Lake takes marching orders from indie kids.

"Dubai is one of the world's most popular cities. We're a common tourist destination. That doesn't make it any easier to kill mals, but it is a nice benefit. It's in the United Arab Emirates, west of America and southeast from England. Where are you from? I don't recognize the accent."

"I came with the Johannesburg enclave but I'm from Malawi. I travelled there when I learned that this school was a thing, and then they had space." 

And he is not going to dwell on that fact or the reasons for it or the part where he could, theoretically, maybe, have done something and then those kids would still be alive.

"Dubai has an enclave?" Maybe that means this student will also be more prepared and will have advice. He seems - harder-edged, though, than Lucy. Less likely to be willing to trade advice for nebulous goodwill. Masozi will tread carefully here. 

-not an indie, then. Can't let anything show on his face, though; this kid is paranoid and Ghassan needs allies.

"We do. We're one of more modern enclaves," he says with an easy confidence. He can talk like he thinks Dubai is the greatest enclave in the world, even though that's entirely bluster. Besides, he wants to persuade this guy that he has something to offer over the New York and Shanghai enclaves.

"Some enclaves rely on old spells, never letting any new ideas in. Dubai encourages innovation. I'm planning to write my own incantations, instead of relying on languages like the enclaves that favor tradition."

"That's clever of you," Masozi says, trying to sound less confused and uncertain of himself than he feels. "What languages do you speak enough to do spells in them? I have Chichewa and Zulu as well as English." 

(Masozi has only the faintest of ideas how knowing a language leads to learning spells in it - this is a school but he has only vague ideas of what schools are like, too - but he does know it's important.) 

His eyes turn to scan the room again because you can't just not do that even when you're in the middle of a probably-important conversation. 

Yup, he was definitely right about this one. Ghassan wants this one in his corner.

"I speak Arabic, English, and Hindi. I know some Persian, but not enough that it's helpful and not dangerous. If I can follow the creative writing track, I won't need to worry as much about breadth. If you just learned this school 'was a thing'...pardon me if it's rude to ask, but are you sure three languages will be enough? How much do you know about the school's tracks?"

Masozi sifts rapidly through his memories of all the conversations he's had or overheard so far, and then tries to sort based on context for which things are probably 'tracks'. 

"...Artificing and alchemy are two of the tracks?" he mostly-guesses after a five-second pause, though he spends that completing his room-scan so it looks less like he's stalling. "And then I think one of them is about learning more languages. I think I can learn lots more languages now that there are people here who speak different ones. Back home there wasn't anyone to learn Arabic or Hindi from. ...I'd trade you, if you want? I could teach you Zulu and Chichewa." 

"Artificing, alchemy, and incantations. You can learn incantations by looking up old spells in other languages and using those, or by writing new spells of your own. If someone says 'language track' or 'creative writing track', that is what they mean. I have three- maybe four- languages, and the maybe is what could kill me. Knowing too little of a language to learn spells is dangerous. The school assigns spells to language track students in whatever languages it decides we know. It expects you to study, and punishes you if you don't. If I receive a Persian spell, the school might just kill me if I can't learn it. I am going to avoid language track unless I meet someone fluent in Persian.

I don't think I can use those languages, but I could use your instincts. You are the person who found a mal that nobody else had seen, correct?"

Nod. "It was hiding in the ventilation grate. That one." He points. "Someone else would've seen it if I hadn't, I think, I just saw it first." 

"-first rule of the Scholomance, boast about your strengths and hide your weaknesses. People will only help you if it helps them- we all want to survive, and only some of us are blessed to be New York. Someone else might have seen it, but if you would have seen it faster, let everyone know that."

...He's pretty sure that he'll usually 'see' mals before anyone else does, but Masozi is less sure he wants to explain why, just yet. 

"A lot of people here don't seem like they're being careful enough," he says instead, very neutrally. 

"What you have here, my friend, is a skill. Everyone who isn't in the New York enclave- or maybe Shanghai- will want to use it. I want to use it, too, because I want to live. What I can offer you is knowledge, and, if I guess right, the ability to talk to people as though I don't find it off-putting."

That's a gamble, really, but if Masozi is as unprepared for schmoozing the enclaves as he seems to be, it might pay off.

Masozi is mostly kind of confused by this! He's still trying to wrap his head around the significance of people coming from enclaves or not. Honestly, the kids who he managed to pick out as from the New York enclave were - except for Orion Lake - almost all very unimpressive, on the evidence-of-being-careful front. They have nicer clothes but he thinks his will last fine until he can find a way to get or make new ones. 

He nods, though. "Well, I don't want to die and I don't want you to die either. I'll keep a lookout for mals and I can warn you too if I see any?" 

Nod.

"It is smart to travel in groups. Why don't we meet up before we leave the cafeteria?"

"All right. ...Oh, by the way, the girl called Lucy - her, over there - has breeding spiders and is going to be trading spider silk clothes and maybe spider babies. If that's useful for you." 

He's no alchemist; maybe if he has any new spells worth trading, he'll consider it. Either way, Ghassan can try to talk to her. Making connections never hurts.

"Thank you. It was a pleasure to meet you, Masozi. I will see you again soon."

It's stupid to feel hopeful just because he met someone sufficiently paranoid (he's probably likely to turn on Ghassan, if he plays his cards wrong), but he does. Dubai's record to stand to improve. He heads off to mingle again.

Masozi isn't sure what to think of Ghassan, but it seems useful in general just to know more people's names. And Ghassan clearly wants something from him. Useful to note. When people want things from him, it's a lot easier to nudge their minds without them fighting back. Not that he's going to do that unless he has to. He remembers the looks he got, before. 

He goes back to memorizing the school blueprints. They are conveniently supplied with schematics of the ventilation and plumbing, which means he can memorize exactly where he has to look out for mal entry points. He's already planning the best route to the library from here.