"How... charming?"

"I mean, it's the Scholomance, it's better than the alternative but it's not fun. --The Scholomance's survival rate is one in four and the survival rate spending your whole adolescence in the outside world is one in twenty, approximately."

"I have never heard of any of this before in my life."

"Presumably you wouldn't have if you're an indestructible void-dweller!"

"We normally get lots of news from Earth! Since we can conjure arbitrary material objects! And are sometimes summoned!"

"--Summoned? By who?"

"...humans! Like you! You summoned me."

"Yeah but I've never heard of anything like you before! Which, like, makes sense probably if it's some kind of enclave secret, except there's no enclave in the world who would sacrifice that resource to get their kids out on graduation day, when you have to go through the giant horde of mals!"

"It hasn't been a secret since 2006. Billions of people know how, even if most of them don't do it personally."

"--I've only been in here since 2019, and anyway the freshmen would have mentioned that."

"Probably this is an entirely different universe from the set I'm accustomed to, with similarities, such as English, and dissimilarities, such as the Monster Manual."

"...I...don't know what to make of that. Okay. So, uh, thank you very much for breakfast, and even more for leaving my room last night, do you have like--plans, priorities, things you want in trade--you told me how to send you home and did not suggest I immediately do that and leave you alone forevermore, which suggests you would like to be here for a while, we sure could use some material objects."

"I don't really need stuff, since I can make stuff. Home is well sorted, I don't think anyone there needs me, but here, uh, yikes, looks like you could use me, virtue is its own reward and all."

"Being that generous isn't safe for us students here but, uh, you survived last night, so thanks I appreciate it. Anyway, just because you can make anything doesn't mean you know everything to make, even if you can do all the artifices and potions you want that doesn't mean we couldn't trade you--okay probably you can't use spells as spells but some of them are good poetry."

"I could use some native-guide-ing. But also making things is like... free, except in attention? I don't have to ration it."

"Yes, but anything you give away is something you didn't trade for something that could keep you alive. I'm not arguing with you, it's just the mindset most of us have in order to try to claw our way into the surviving twenty-five percent. Not that as many of us in our year have died as most years, we have Orion Lake, his affinity is mal-hunting or something bullshit like that. There's a surprising amount of bullshit going on this generation!"

"...okay, well, maybe I will throw a party and disabuse people of the notion that I need to be plied with gifts in exchange for pancakes."

"--I have no idea how the vast majority of the population of the school is going to take you but, like, be forewarned that people here are paranoid as fuck and not necessarily going to trust you no matter how many pancakes you ply them with. My instinct is to introduce you to my friends first because they're somewhat selected for being decent, that or I'm prejudiced in their favor, but if you wanna do something else I will one hundred percent follow your lead."

"...kids are presumably dying on a fairly routine basis here? Can you like, test my indestructibility against magic a little bit, I can replace my wing if something happens to it, and if I'm good I don't want to hesitate just because it would look slightly more locally normal to be tentative."

"Ironically that is also a reason to introduce you to my friends first because I don't have much in the way of non-physical killing-stuff spells but El does."

"...okay, sure."

Lucy leads him along an arced hallway, down a spiral staircase, down a straight hallway, and down some more arc. 

She knocks on El's door. 

"It is EARLY," El yells through the door.

"It's IMPORTANT," Lucy yells back. 

"It had BETTER be," snaps El, but she opens the door.