Masozi heads over to the group going for supplies, and then...lingers on the outskirts, sort of following them out of the cafeteria, because he's not quite sure how to ask about going along with them and being a lookout. And he doesn't really know any of these kids at all, yet. 

He glances around to see if he can spot Orion Lake. 

Yep there he is. Scanning the ceilings and peeping around corners ahead of the rest of the pack.

He has also been spotted. She does not give him a hard time about following them out of the cafeteria, but when they start going down the stairs she decides this has really gone far enough. "We're not going to the library or back to the dormitories or anything," she says, "we're going down to the senior dorms, and you don't really want to go there without an escort."

Yes, exactly, which is why instead of going by himself he's following them! 

"I can help keep a lookout," he offers. "I'm good at spotting mals - I pointed out out to Orion before so he could kill it." 

"The reason there are ten of us is so there are lots of lookouts, and we've got enough. We are going to another student's private dorm room, and he hasn't invited everyone in the whole school who wants to go exploring, just me and Zeke and Orion and Silas and people we can vouch for."

"Who are you, besides someone who tipped Orion off?"

That should be enough like a rebuff not to annoy Julia, who is currently their only connection to an enclave that did not just go boom, while also not being actually enough of a rebuff to burn unnecessary bridges with this guy she doesn't know. 

It'll be a little annoying if he can't even go in the dorm room, but he's not even mainly trying to get supplies, right now, just to get more of a sense for the school than a map alone can give him. 

"I won't go in their room then," he says to Julia, with a shrug. Also there are ten of them but most of them aren't even a little bit careful, and Orion is good but Masozi doesn't think he has the same talent for seeing mals, just killing them. 

"- My name is Masozi," he tells whoever-it-is who's asking. And then slips ahead past Julia, before she can say anything. "Hey, Orion! Want me to be in front and look for mals for you? I'm really good at spotting them." 

"- we're probably not even going to find anything. Do I know you?" What if he knows him and has forgotten his name, his mother made it clear that was very rude.

"I don't think you do. Look, kid, other people are as dangerous as mals, if you can't trust them. We don't trust you. Go away."

Masozi isn't offended at all. There are a lot of kids here and he can't be especially memorable.

He ignores Julia, though, since he doesn't have a better response for her inexplicable stupidness. He just addresses Orion. "Masozi. You didn't meet me for very long - remember the mal in the ceiling, the shimmery gas one? It was Lucy who came and got you, but I saw the mal first." 

...And apparently it's useful here to impress people, rather than staying unnoticed as much as possible, like he's always done before. 

He stretches out his not-looking as hard as he can, in all directions. "...There's something hiding at the bottom of the stairs, I think." He points. "Little one, though, s'probably not very dangerous."

Except to kids like THIS who aren't even LOOKING WHERE THEY'RE GOING and if they don't let him come he might just have to sneak down after them anyway because he doesn't want anyone to DIE on their FIRST DAY.

Orion blinks and charges down the stairs.

There's an - indeed quite small - corkscrew-y looking critter, apparently made of several bits of warped metal, smushed right up into the shadow in the corner where the last stair on the landing meets the wall. 

Well, it's not much but he stabs it anyway. Comes back up with it impaled on his knife.

"You can sense mals? Is that your affinity?"

"....Yeah. Guess so." That's a good way to not tell them about the part that will make people alarmed, and maybe it's more believable as Actual Magic than just pointing out that unlike most of them he looks where he's going. That's not in fact how he spotted the corkscrew-thing this time, but he normally wouldn't be trying that hard to feel for minds that far ahead, it burns a lot of mana. 

"You just want to trot around behind us telling Orion where everything is, and you understand that you are not invited to the dorm room?"

Masozi is still confused about her level of hostility, but going with them is better than not going with them. "Sure." 

"Cool. You're in. Don't come within ten feet of me. If you make yourself useful for three weeks I will personally acquire you some clothes that don't smell like garbage."

And she resumes her rudely interrupted journey down the stairs.

Following ten feet behind her makes this a lot more work, but Orion at least has the sense to go slowly and pause in especially risky places, and there really aren't that many mals around yet, especially not big ones. 

Mostly just by using his actual eyes, Masozi manages to spot some eyes watching the approaching students from another ventilation grate, and giant-mutant-moth thing wrapped around a burnt-out ceiling bulb, both before Orion sees them first and reacts. 

Wow, there are a lot of monsters around here. She's glad she's with a group this big. 

Her brain is silently singing, don't you know, you never split the party, clerics in the back, keep those fighters hale and hearty, the wizard in the middle, where he can shed some light, and you never let that damn thief out of sight....

She doesn't remember the rest of the words. Probably not gonna find them out any time soon. She's, uh, sort of the least wizardy person here? But she's still sticking as close to the middle as she can manage without looking weird.

Rebecca is as close as she can get to hanging off Zeke's arm without making it hard for him to move around and react if anything tries to land on his head, or hers.

The pair from Chicago seem reasonably content to stay at the back and keep their eyes peeled against being snuck up on from behind. 

Lysander is rather getting the impression that there will be approximately zero (0) opportunity to show off his cool moderately magic hammer with Orion Lake within shouting distance. That's all right; he's really just here to carry heavy things. "Don't worry," he murmurs to it, patting it fondly, as one does, "there will be plenty of things to fix soon enough, which I'm sure you'll do wonderful at because you are the best, yes you are." Low enough not to annoy the enclave kids, of course. Good minions are quiet. 

Zeke quietly thinks that Julia is being kind of mean but he definitely isn’t going to mention that when it might compromise Enclave Solidarity! Instead he cheerfully rambles on to Rebecca about every other thought that he’s ever had in his life, a category which includes the fact that she is pretty and cute and good and the fact that after they do this he’s going to paint his room ORANGE.

Vernon is politely on the edges, like a good little maintenance freshman. This puts him near Masozi, actually. It's not like anyone else wants to be near him (except Orion Lake, who doesn't count), and this sort of unwanted spot is what maintenance folks are for. The guy's obviously a maleficer from the outset, which probably makes him approximately as dangerous as the supply run itself? In theory, anyway.

In practice, he's confused. Who bullies their way onto a rather dumb supply run with enclavers who are making it as clear as possible that they don't want him here? What's he getting out of this? It's really unclear!

This confusion is not enough to stop being more wary than 90% of the freshman here, eyeing vents and dark corners and whatnot, because you don't actually trust your safety to someone else, but. It definitely does niggle at him.