Ghassan doesn't find this topic of conversation particularly sad; the fact that most of the people in this school will die is the background radiation of all of their lives, and speculating about the habits of the big enclaves and how they might be cheating them is a fine way to spend dinner.

Eventually, though: "Did you mention your affinity, Lysander? -Ghassan Al-Maroun, I don't think I've said. Mine is- sometimes inconvenient; poisons."

"Oh, poisons, what fun," he says, before he remembers that actually this is terrible because this is real life and not a video game or a training exercise and the vast majority of the easy practical applications of poisons in the Scholomance are, you know, murder.

"...I'm sure you'll be able to find lots of ways to use it usefully, that's what we're here for, right." he adds, mildly apologetically. I am not accusing you of being a murderer, promise. "Mine's hard to immediately summarize," because he's not actually entirely sure of this, they spent too much money bribing medical professionals to pay a real diviner, "but basically, it's like, little fiddly things? I can cast mend-and-make on things too small to see properly with the unaided eye, I'm good at fixing modern electronics, I don't lose track of even large numbers of very small things until they actually leave my line of sight, that sort of thing." 

This perhaps explains why the scythe-like blade of the sharp side of the hammer on his to-be-filled tool belt has a series of variously sized holes punched in it, fitted with magnifying lenses. Daria might be the only one in this conversation who has a good view of it right now that's not blocked by the surface of the table, although it's not like he hasn't been carrying it around all day. 

"That's an interesting one! It sometimes feel like mine's a little like that, my wards turn out better the more details I work into the anchor." She gestures at her elaborately embroidered sleeves.

"That does sound useful," he says, managing to sound mildly impressed rather than insanely envious.

"I wonder if you could design traps- I have a paralytic that works on mals. We should collaborate on something."

"Trip-wards with poison sound very useful, I'm in. You'd just need to modify a detection ward..." She's not going to mention in public that it'd be her first ward with any kind of offensive capabilities.

"Ooooh," he says, delightedly admiring the embroidery. It shows off a degree of fine motor control and attention to detail that he has great respect for, and also it's very pretty, which doesn't not matter even if it matters less than not dying.

He's not going to volunteer to be involved in crafting projects, not yet. He's for fixing things after they start working and then, inevitably, subsequently stop. It seems good to have such collaborations maybe happening here, though; a little tiny bit of the social credit perhaps accrues to Berlin, that way. 

"One of my problems historically has been testing my poisons, but if you could set up ward traps that could be triggered without us being in danger, we could expand my portfolio of targets."

"I don't have a huge surplus of materials for experimenting, but I'm definitely interested in theory. - oh, I wonder if my affinity will take the poison as an anchor, or at least part of it."

"We should test it out. I didn't bring any with me to dinner, obviously, but we should talk shop after we have our schedules."

"Let's talk after dinner, I'm down that way in 263A. Unless Dubai has a library room?" Kiev traditionally shares with St. Petersburg and Novgorod, but while she's on her own she doesn't want to push her luck bringing in new people.

"Ah. We," he only glances at the other freshmen before focusing back on Daria, "don't. Dubai has...acquired more slots than it knows what to do with. We're up-and-coming, you see," he says sardonically.

Oh no, they were talking about experimenting with wards and now they're talking about politics(??). Come on, Dasha, you can handle this. "I'm sure you'll establish yourself soon." Was that insulting? She has no idea if that was insulting. He was the one being sarcastic about their abilities, probably he won't be insulted?

Ghassan takes it in stride.

"That is the hope. I'll stop by your room after dinner, then, and we'll work on testing after I decide how much lab work I want to personally put in."

And then that's probably enough talk about poisons for dinnertime. Ghassan will make some small talk which doesn't mean anything- mostly about the food and gossip about Shanghai (a safe topic, as opposed to whatever might be the case with Chicago, though he's wondering about that too).

Small talk! This is a skill he has. He will help.