"English, Mandarin and Lojban. What about you?"

"- Uh, I'm native in English and French - well, Canadian French - and fluent in Mandarin. I picked up Spanish and Italian and Portuguese after that, since they're, um, not that different from French. I can read Latin and Greek but, uh, not sure I could have a conversation in those, not like I ever had a chance to practice." 

"That's a good mix as long as you know them well enough to learn spells."

....She's not worried. 

Probably it would sound really stuck-up to say that, though? 

"I - guess so? I think if I'm willing to work hard I can handle spells in all of those." 

"That's good then, I know some people take on more than they can handle but it sounds like you didn't make that mistake. What's your affinity?"

"Healing!" Shannon beams about this. Maybe healing isn't the most useful affinity but she does definitely feel that it's objectively the most interesting. 

"Oh cool, that's a useful affinity, people need healing a lot in here. You might want to talk with the nurse at some point. I also have some of Mother's spells and at least the diagnostics might be useful to you if I can translate them into a language you speak, or as part of a collaboration if you want to test a spell or potion."

"Neat! Yeah, that seems worth discussing. And I'm totally planning to talk to the nurse at some point, I just - figured it'd be more useful to her once I have more spells so I have anything to trade her." 

"That makes sense, hopefully this one will last longer, I heard that the last one died in less than two months."

"Yeah, it seems like a rough gig, being the only mundane in here!" It seems VERY UNFAIR but probably saying that will make her sound naive and idealistic, neither of which are good survival traits in the Scholomance. "It'd be smart to try to keep her alive as long as possible, though, I think? Like, she's the only adult in here at all, she's going to...know some things we don't, just from having life experience, plus she'll know all sorts of medical stuff." 

"From what Mother has said the Scholomance suffers from a deficit of cooperation. Not that she'd actually say that. It's hard to change that though because some of the stuff in the graduation hall is almost impossible to kill so cooperating doesn't really help there and that bleeds into how people act the rest of the time."

Shannon blinks at her. 

"Uh, my understanding of tactics is that - even if you can't kill something, you can still distract it or hold it off better if you've got a group working together? Is that not true with really powerful mals, or something?" 

"As Mother tells it surviving graduation is about momentum. If you stop to hold off a powerful Mal it's more likely you'll be fighting more than one before long. That's why alliances are usually small."

That sounds stupid. 

- saying that out loud would make her sound even stupider, though.

"Right. That makes sense." 

"You don't have to agree with everything I say. Mother said what she said to convince me to prioritize myself at the expense of everyone else. It's possible she lied or distorted things."

"Uh, right. It does - seem like that's sort of how things are done here." Which sort of makes sense but that doesn't mean Shannon has to like it. 

"I'd like to change it, I'm just not sure how."

"Mmm. It - seems hard." She giggles a little, even though it's really not even slightly funny. "And I guess the prerequisite is, you know, not dying in the first term." 

"Well, hopefully we can both do that. On a less heavy topic what projects are you working on at the moment?"

"I haven't properly started anything yet - I need to make a run to the alchemy supply room before I'll have much in the way of reagents to work with. I think first priority will be making up a gallon or so of my mouthwash potion - it keeps your teeth in perfect condition without needing to brush them, and it's quick and easy to make, I just couldn't spare the weight to bring in any." For herself. Raleigh is set for the next six months, if he sticks to 5ml once a week. 

"That sounds useful, I'll have to think about trading for that. I expect a lot of people didn't bring toothpaste or else ran out."

"Yeah! That's part of why I prioritized inventing it. I could probably muck with it a bit to get a toothpaste consistency, but why bother, if you can skip the actual annoying brushing part and, like, needing to make a toothbrush last four years. ....Huh, though I wonder if an artificer could make a magic toothbrush? Probably not the highest priority for healing-related equipment, I guess. I do want to talk to the nurse about what sorts of potions she thinks would be handy." 

"I'm not sure how much she'd know right now. You might be better talking to an upperclassmen about what kind of healing people usually need, though maybe an upperclassmen has already talked with her."

"Maybe! Yeah, I should ask her. Uh, do you actually - know any upperclassmen? I guess I could ask for an intro to the Sacramento enclave older kids but I haven't actually seen them around anywhere." 

"I've said hello to a couple but they didn't seem interested in long conversations. Being associated with an enclave is definitely an advantage there."