Annisa doesn't desperately need anything from the alch cabinet but she is glad someone's thinking strategy and his strategic thinking seems fine.

Malak can smell a gathering of competent people from a mile away.

Actually, she's just been watching the doors waiting for a group of misfits (non-anglosphere non-chinese non-enclavers) to get together for a supply run. She's already been for paper and pens (and a couple protractors!) but she might wind up artificing track and getting a chance to grab some well-behaved tools early would be great.

"Hello, I'm Malak, call me Malik if you can't hear the difference between Al and Awl. Are you hitting the workshop?"

"Yep, probably alchemy and then artifice. I'm Dennis. You want in?"

"Yes, please."

"Cool." One more tagalong shouldn't hurt them, not at this stage, and she looks like she's from somewhere else and it'd be good to have some friends in various somewhere elses. He leads the group out to towards the workshops, figuring he can continue this conversation on the way even while he's eyeing EVERY VENT and EVERY CORNER and EVERY LIGHT. "So... Malik, where are you from? Me and Owoye are from Lagos, Ghassan's from Dubai, Annisa's from Surabaya, and Lidetu and Yetnebersh are from Addis Ababa."

He does not really expect her to remember all of that, but the more she remembers the sharper it suggests her memory is.

What a good lookout! Ghassan is incredibly appreciative that someone else is watching for mals. Today's the first day, so it would be particularly embarrassing to be murdered when there should be very few of them still alive and kicking. This- doesn't look like a friendly group, so he'll stick with a neutral expression and try to look useful.

Ideally he can meet an alchemist who can do something with poisons; Ghassan does not want to specialize in something that his affinity gives him a slight edge in at the expense of pursuing something where he has any of the relevant intellectual skills. None of these people seem likely to volunteer information, so best to just make the contact and work on using them as resources later.

"Are you considering artificing, Malak? It seems we have a nice mix."

Over-familiar, could risk implying that he thinks he can rely on them, but he thinks his demeanor will help suggest that he's trying to feel out their capabilities- which is more smart than it is stupid. Hopefully. Ghassan is used to playing signalling games on a stronger shared base of assumptions; Dubai's could be completely incompatible with whatever is going on in Lagos, Surabaya, or Addis Adaba.

"Istanbul, city not enclave."

What in the world does he mean by 'we'? They are a bunch of freshmen doing a supply run on orientation day, not an alliance. Maybe he's... trying to build a sense of group identity? A little rude, but it would be much ruder of anyone else to explicitly correct that point, so he's got everyone giving the appearance of tacit agreement which reinforces that group identity... Well, she's on to him, that is not going to work on her.

(Also, he's doing it when he doesn't know anything about her skills or affinity other than that it might be artificing, which suggests that he's desperate, which suggests that he's got an affinity for basketweaving or something similarly useless inside the school.)

"I am considering artificing, yes." she says, putting that tiny bit of extra emphasis on the singular so that anyone paying attention knows that she knows that this isn't some big happy family. Happy families don't exist, especially in the Scholomance.

Oh, are they doing subtext. Annisa can usually keep up when people are doing subtext but it's harder across cultural lines; she knows how Americans talk, sort of, at least from television, and she thought she knew how British people talked but then Edmund wasn't that, and she isn't sure she's reading Dubai or Istanbul right at all. 

"I'm doing artificing," she says. "My affinity is weapons. If the stockpile has alchemical silver or finishing acid or mercury, I'll swap you for those; I'm not very fussed with alchemy otherwise." In Annie's dialect this conveys 'I'm an independent, but I'll trade on equal terms; I know exactly what I'm doing here'. Hopefully it conveys something similar to everyone else.

Malak doesn't seem interested in solving his problem, which is just fine by him. Nissa...Aninsa...why didn't all of them provide a pronunciation guide so he could remember their names more easily! Dennis and Owoye from Lagos, Ansa from Surabaya, Malak from Istanbul-the-city...Addis Ababa, he hopes he doesn't need those names anytime soon.

Nissa from Surabaya does weapons and sounds competent. Ghassan needs to convince her that he has something to offer and they should get along swimmingly. To that end...well, he has a spell prepared if they run into anything that needs paralyzed.

"I could choose either creative writing or alchemy. My affinity is poisons, but it would have been a waste not to train in writing my own spells with my other talents as they are."

See, that is how you get people to want to be in a group with you, say 'my affinity is weapons'. And have it be true, of course, but nobody is going to be dumb enough to falsely claim they have such a useful affinity when everyone's got years to check it.

"Weapons is handy. Mine is stealth. I would probably be languages track but it turns out all the good spells for hiding things were written by people good at magically hiding things. At this point I'm mostly looking to grab tools from the workshop. I expect to work mostly in wood and fabric, if anyone finds some wenge come find me and we'll work out a fair trade."

Annisa should definitely be writing this all down but not in front of everyone. She'll just have to wait until she gets back to the cafeteria and then write it all down. Ghassan, Dubai, poisons, Malak, Istanbul (city), stealth, wood and fabric esp wenge. Dennis, Lagos - shoot, did he mention his affinity -

"Anything very fast-acting that works on mals, Ghassan?" Do you have useful skills in here or just sketchy skills that will make it hard for enclaves to accept you for fear of their reputations?

(Malak has noticed that all the most impressive people she's met so far are girls. She has no idea why this might be, but it's certainly going to make it easier to never be alone with a boy if she never has reason to associate with one.)

"I have a poison that paralyzes some mals."

Out of five kinds that he's tested on. Honesty isn't the winning strategy, though.

"I have one that could be fatal, which I developed later, but I would rather have Orion Lake test it, first."

Who is that and why does he seem to think she should already know?

"Uh huh."

"How about something you can use like a ward, smear it under your door so they go around."

"I have one paralytic, one that affects the blood, in animals- no idea what it would do to mals. I could use an alchemist to help me refine them. My strength is creative writing, and I would not want to waste my talents if I can collaborate instead."

That's probably not too pointed or too wide-eyed and optimistic. Ghassan hopes so, anyway; otherwise, he's lost a chance at collaborating with Nissa (?) from Surabaya, who seems like she could be good source of tools to trap his room with. Mal-specific poisons, ideally, though he wouldn't mind something nasty happening to would-be thieves.

"Well, if you come up with an alchemical ward I'd be in the market for that."

Dennis is picking up everybody's names and affinities and cities without really trying, which is partly because he's had one-on-one conversations with everyone except Malak and partly because he's got a good memory, it's one of the things that his parents said would serve him well in here.

"I'd be interested for looking into something like that, I'm gonna do alchemy. Though why not do both, if you're good at both?"

Because not everyone is a genius, Dennis.

He doesn't say that. Can't really think of a lot of things to say. He should think of something.

Malak can do non-alchemical wards to simply hide a room. She does not mention this since their efficacy is directly proportional to their rarity and she doesn't necessarily want to hand them out to everyone here. She can always talk to Annisa later in private. That reminds her, though -

"Oh, I also can do some work with, ah, animal products. I don't plan to use that much since I think the school won't be very forthcoming with supplies, but if anyone finds a vat of lamb's blood - " or a stack of human faces but she's pretty sure if she says 'I could really use a stack of human faces' it will send the wrong message " - or such in the alchemy lab I would trade for that too." Even though she'd probably have to bribe a senior a ridiculous amount for a freezer or something, because a vat of lamb's blood is NOT going to keep.

"What do you use them for?" 

There, at least he's said something and it wasn't something idiotic.

"Oh, nothing in particular? Just some of the things I've looked at before I came here were older spells from when animal sacrifice was more common? Like priest-wizards would sacrifice a pure white bull for malia and then use the hide or bones in a protective vest or rod or something, because they've got a bunch of ritually-charged animal parts just sitting there. The malia part's not actually necessary, we know that now, but a lot of the old books have a ton of patterns for artifacts made from the thigh-bone of a pure white calf that has never seen moonlight or something like that, which happen to work nearly as well if you just use a perfectly normal animal thigh bone."

While this is technically true she has no intentions of wasting time on a thigh-bone protective rod. She has a very particular use in mind for lamb's blood, and could probably make reasonably good decoys out of other animal parts, but if she spells it out for them she can't use their ability to figure it out as a test and it will be harder to identify which if any of the others might be clever enough to collaborate with.

"Huh. Okay, I'll be on the lookout for animal parts."

He keeps considering bringing up his affinity, since everyone else is doing it, but wind is kind of a stupid affinity unless you happen to be friends with Dennis, who is really into the idea of air-tight containers that prevent mals from getting in by preventing everything else from getting in, too. Which, like, cool that Dennis thinks he's cool, but nobody else is Dennis. So he's just gonna shut up.

What do you need lamb's blood for. She's heard of it. Where did she hear of it.

...what if she raises an eyebrow knowingly at Malak despite not knowing where she heard of it.

Then Malak will give her a small smile and raise an eyebrow back.

(Whether Annisa has actually figured it out or is just pretending doesn't matter that much, she'll figure it out later. And she was planning to trade with Annisa anyways, this test is really for everyone else.)

"What's lamb's blood in particular do, warding stuff? Angels of death pass you over?" asks Dennis, who does not realize that there is any kind of test, possibly because he is not looking at her because he's still constantly eyeing things and trying to decide whether there are mals behind them.

...well, yes, cool, Dennis passes, Annisa passes, everyone else fails by virtue of giving no indication they even noticed the test until Dennis went and blurted out the answer. Sigh. (This is OK, it's not like "can put two and two together to figure out what a stealth-affinity and lamb's blood adds up to" is the only metric on which she's evaluating people. For example, Dennis has just lost points on social awareness and gained points for his very thorough lookout job.)

"...Yeah, actually, that exactly. Your guess is as good as mine whether the one I've got was used in the exodus story or just inspired by it." She can make her hide-a-place-from-mals ward work without lamb's blood, obviously, or she wouldn't be selling it to people, but the blood does make it stronger and last longer.

"Huh, that's cool."

They reach the supply closet. Dennis spends a while checking corners and behind things, but there doesn't seem to be anything obviously hostile in here, and they do have the Lagos upperclassmen to blast anything that does show up. 

"At least there's still some stuff in here. ...about a third of it even labeled, looks like, but I guess we can't have everything."

Haha, that's it, the Biblical story. She still doesn't remember any details but now she at least knows where to look it up, and Malak thinks she's a clever person who catches references to Biblical stories.

(Annisa's family isn't religious. It's wise if you can swing it, of course, since if you have faith God is looking out for you then in some sense He definitely is, but Indonesian Muslim wizards don't send their daughters to the Scholomance and relatedly they have died out.)

This is fine. Ghassan will stick close to the Lagos enclave, trying to make small talk with Owoye: what's your affinity, what track are you thinking, etc. There's a limited list of topics, but they also have to find supplies and watch for mals. It won't do to get complacent, because the first day is easier than anything they'll face after.

He does try to take whatever alchemical supplies Dennis doesn't seem interested in.

There is not actually a vat of lamb's blood, and Malak doesn't expect to do any alchemy outside of assignments, so she mostly goes for tradable goods. She does find some mercury and call Anissa over to split it.

"It'd be a bit hostile to just take all of it before you noticed it when half the reason I want it is to trade with you." Subtext: This is not the last transaction I expect to do with you and am prioritizing goodwill over short-term advantage, but I'm doing this because I've calculated it to be in my best interests rather than because I don't understand what game we're playing. You cannot easily take advantage of me and it is not in your interests to try.

Annisa is not going to look too delighted about this, if she appears to be taking it as a friendship gesture then she'll come across as the kind of idiot who thinks people are here to make friends. It is some other gesture. A 'you seem valuable' gesture? Does she seem valuable? She has the good affinity, and she pretended to know the Biblical reference. 

She takes her half of the mercury. Is saying 'thank you' seeming too delighted, because it suggests she thinks she was randomly done a favor, or does not saying thank you suggest that she somehow failed to notice having been extended a gesture. 

Time for indirection. "I hear wenge finds its way to the generous." I was done a favor, on the assumption I'm competent enough to do you one back, and I will, if we see the thing that you mentioned wanting, and I did remember what that was.

"Perhaps! Though I have not found that God is always so immediately rewarding to the righteous." Message received, but I won't blame you if the school doesn't deliver us my favorite rare wood today.

Annisa is fun to talk to. Probably because Malak was taught to expect everyone at school to talk sideways, and nearly everyone else she's met so far has been bafflingly direct. (Or, conversely, so incredibly subtle that Malak has missed any trace of the subtlety.) She knows it's a bad idea to base any decisions about who to coordinate with on anything so insignificant as social compatibility, but it's a nice plus on top of someone who already has an incredibly useful and complementary skillset. (And hey! She's also planning to work with Naima, who is incredibly awkward.)

"Perhaps sometimes God's reward is that His anger is elsewhere." That's what happens in the Passover story, right. Annisa hopes that's what happens in the Passover story. It's right there in the name, isn't it? That God passes over the houses that put up lamb's blood? And it could also be taken to be a comment on this mal-free supply cabinet. But maybe it's offensive? Probably she should read the Bible if she plans on speaking in it. 

She takes an armful of stuff so this uncertainty isn't conspicuous.

Well those two are having an extremely baffling conversation, but you know what? They don't look like it's a stabby conversation, so that's fine.

At this point he's mostly taking vials of stuff of the shelves at high speeds, some of it labeled and some of it not, and passing like two thirds of it to Owoye while sticking the rest of it into his own pockets. The place hasn't been totally raided yet, but he sure doesn't want to bet on that being the case the next time he comes down here, especially since he is, like, an actual alchemist.

Occasionally he calls out about stuff that seems cool but that he's pretty sure that he, personally, has no particular use for. " - hey, I found an eye? I don't think it's a human eye. Anybody want a probably not human eye?"

"If you don't mind, I'd love one."

This doesn't really make him seem less sketchy, does it. Ghassan considers that a plus.

"Cool." He hands over the eye. "If anybody sees, like, dirt, just some totally normal looking dirt, I could use some dirt."

"I will keep that in mind."

Ghassan looks for more alchemical supplies, and also normal dirt. Who needs normal dirt? He really hopes he can get on Dennis' good side, even if the girls are performing some kind of impenetrable politicking; he would really like to have an alchemist in his back pocket. To that end...normal dirt.

What does that mean? Malak is pretty sure she was following Annisa before that comment - 'Thanks, I'll try to pay you back' pretty much - but now she's... offering to ward Malak's door against mals noticing it? That seems backwards. Malak is missing something. What is she missing. Is that... a threat? 'You did me a favor so now I won't kill you, I'll go kill someone else?' No, that doesn't make any sense, unless - Annisa is fun to talk to, is that what they mean when they say Maleficers can be weirdly charming? OK, no, hold on, if Annisa is a maleficer she's too smart to go around threatening people she's not even planning to kill on day one. Oh curses, this pause is getting awkwardly long, she's got to say something, something noncommittal -

"Indeed."

 - OK that was maybe too noncommital, Annisa probably knows that Malak has no idea what she's talking about anymore. Damn! Is it maybe just a straightforwardly theology? She knows Indonesia is Muslim but doesn't remember anything beyond that, maybe they're all Shia? Is Annisa even religious?

Wait, did Dennis just say he found an eye? She wants an eye!

...curses, he already gave it to Ghassan. OK Malak, have a bit more situational awareness so you don't miss the next eye being handed out.

Oh no! There has been a subtext miscommunication but Annisa is pretty sure Malak at least does not feel confident it was Annisa who messed up. One option: be more direct, hand her some stuff and say 'I just mean this closet's got no monsters in it and you should grab yourself some more stuff' - but that's dumb, there's a reason Annisa doesn't say things like that -

- aaaah - 

Better to say it and have Malak think Annisa isn't super cool than not say it and have Malak confused, probably???? Also she should still be watching her hands while reaching into corners, she still could lose one on the first day -

A desperate survey of the rest of the room and she finds some woodstain, which is vaguely relevant enough to Malak's interests that she make herself start the interaction up again. "I just meant that I have determined there aren't any mals in here and you should relax and grab yourself something," she says with a smile, like the misunderstanding was totally on Malak's part and not Annisa's fault at all even though it's totally the exact opposite she's pretty sure. "Here, wood polish."

 - OK yeah Annisa saw right through that. Obviously. Annisa is smart, she probably also knows not to decide who to work with based on social stuff. Which is good, because even though Malak has made a fool of herself Annisa will still want to work with her because their affinities complement each other well.

"Oh. Thanks. You're right, there aren't any mals here."

Oh wow she's just really determined to dig herself deeper. Time to CHANGE THE SUBJECT.

"Hey Dennis, you good here? Ready to hit the workshop?"

"Yeah, one second - " is that a shark tooth, he wants that, uh that's some kind of crystal and he'll grab it and figure out what that is later - "Okay, we're good. Artificing's probably actually more important in terms of having stuff that's useful for life in general, so - yeah, let's." 

OK cool they can go to the workshop then she'll be looking for cloth and wood and Annisa will be digging through the metals and they won't have any reason to talk until Malak's fuckup is less salient.

Oh no she meant to make Malak feel less worried but instead she made her MORE worried! Why is she so bad at this! - focus. Get stuff from the workshop. You're an artificer, act like it.

Cloth. OK what've we got. Uh. Weird crinkly reflective stuff, which is the exact opposite of what Malak wants in every way. Some bog-standard jersey-knit cotton which puts a floor on how bad things can get, and could be handy for mana-building craft projects even if she finds something better. Here's some light gauzy stuff, that'll probably be good for something even if she's not sure what yet. No velvet, which is what she was hoping to find. Nothing more exotic. She does get a sewing and embroidery kit, and thanks God for them.

For woods - no wenge, which is not surprising in the least. She does grab some nice smoothed softwood boards and a couple of knotty sticks and a chunk of walnut that is not a convenient shape at all and will be a huge pain to work but is plausibly worth the trouble.

Annisa works in metals, mostly, wood is less useful for weapons. Though it has the advantage that she can work it without magic; she's only ever done knives with her father doing practically all the work. She can take some of both? But she shouldn't look indecisive, ugh. Metal, ordered by how nice it looks, hopefully her instincts are good even though she doesn't think affinities work that way, some wood just in case, tools have mostly been picked over but there's a hammer, sure- 

Dennis is not actually incredibly interested in artificing but he's, like, kind of interested in artificing? Like, how can you not be interested in magic stuff. He picks up some nails and some glass beads and the scrap of reflective fabric that Malak passed over because it reminds him of SPACESHIPS. Hmmm, he should probably be thinking some about what he actually wants to make, maybe some - hey is that sealant? He wants sealant. Anyway. He's gonna want... plant pots, potentially? He's gonna grab some clay.

His collection of stuff is pretty eclectic, but he's not really bothering to think about how that comes off. The primary point of this is to get stuff, not to show off his stuff-getting skills.

Malak is at this point pretty laden down and should probably take some of this stuff back to her room which, tragically, presents its own challenge. In particular she needs to:

1. Go to her hallway safely and

2. Figure out which room is hers while

3. Appearing to be taking a sensible amount of precautions, i.e. not going alone and

4. Not further embarrassing herself by admitting to Annisa that she didn't get her room number and

5a. Not insulting Annisa by specifically requesting one of the useless boys for company instead of her and

5b. Not being alone with one of the useless boys (...Or Dennis who seems, like, a normal amount of competent)

It's quite a puzzle. She's not sure how to solve this and has a sinking suspicion that the conditions that have to give are (1) and (3). She is reasonably hydrated and capable of taking care of herself in the face of first-day mals.

Annisa will make this dilemma worse by saying "I'm 255A, anyone headed back in that direction?"

Well, the short-term good news and maybe long-term bad news is that that is on the opposite side of the school from Malak's best guess of where her room is.

"Sorry, I'm the other way."

"159B, I think that's close?" He looks up and does some mental math. "Yeah, I think that's the same hallway."

"All right." She should invite Malak to eat dinner with her. If she says it like a statement then maybe it won't come across like she's begging for dinnermates and instead like she thinks they obviously are sizing each other up as allies? But maybe that's too presumptuous - indirection. Indirection time.

"I'm delighted to have acquired both some scrap and some leads on people who trade fairly. If you're not far too stealthy for that perhaps I'll see you at dinner."

- oh that was friendly. She must not have messed up that badly.

"I suppose that depends on how much you're paying attention. I know I'll see you."

She can't think of a response at all so she just smiles and shuffles away with her books. 

Suc...cess??

Success! She thinks. Maybe.

Well, she is going to split off from the rest of the group and go find her room so that next time she meets someone cool she doesn't have to awkwardly dodge the question whenever room numbers come up. And without calling too much attention to the fact that she's going off on her own.

(Actually, finding the room - 565B - turns out to be easier than she'd feared, because in her dehydrated stupor she had forgotten to even close the door. There are some small blobby mals inside but she has a knife and can deal with them without even burning mana.)

Thank you, God, for sparing me the costs of my errors, and for watching over me and keeping me safe on this first day.

She unpacks her bag and organizes her artificing materials, then puts the mice back in, singing them back to sleep. (She still needs to hand the mice off to Safiyah, she doesn't have a place to keep them herself.) She opens all her drawers (checking for mals, which there aren't except for a very determined agglo that has refused to relinquish one of the hinges.) and leaves them open. She doesn't have time to disassemble them now and if they're closed when she gets back she'll know there's something inside. She locks her door and heads off to dinner.

Artificing is easier. Ghassan just grabs a few things he knows Dubai might want. Speaking of his enclave...

"Can Lagos make a room for a few more during dinner? Dubai has some artificers who would love to rub elbows with another enclave."

Who wouldn't. The answer will probably depend on how much Lagos wants to preserve its reputation.

"I think we're eating with Ethiopia and Zanzibar, it's gonna be pretty full between all the grades," he says, looking up at the Ethiopian kids, who are honestly weird in that they have not said a word that wasn't quietly to each other this whole time. 

(The Ethiopian kids don't actually acknowledge him; looks like they're helping each other look through pieces of metal. He sort of has some doubts about this whole 'pretend that all of Sub-Saharan Africa minus Johannesburg is the same enclave on the inside' plan, but also it might keep him from dying? So he's not gonna be the one to break it up.)

"I understand."

If there's nothing else anyone wants from this supply run, Ghassan supposes he should rejoin Dubai for dinner.