Marian is awake, or at least most of the way there; her night's sleep was not exactly the most restful, despite the sheer exhaustion of having been bumped from the middle of the night to midday and being up another twelve hours. Not to mention the rest of the fucking bullshit that her life has devolved to. 

She was also pretty unhappy to wake up still in her horrible tiny dorm room, with the scratchy school-provided blanket. No monsters, at least, and she successfully discovered it was possible to pee into the void wall, so that's a thing. 

She's sitting on one of the cots, after poking it very thoroughly with her magic knife, and trying to work up the courage to leave the room in search of coffee. The knock on the door isn't the most welcome interruption, but eh, at least it'll get her moving for the day. 

"Come on in!" she calls out. "Door's unlocked." 

"Good morning," says the short kid who comes in after that, who peers around the room and above the door carefully before entering. "I don't need help, but I am looking to make a deal of some kind, honestly. I can't really afford to not. But I can be polite and fetch food. Can I set these down somewhere?"

"- Yeah, uh, sure, we can use the other cot as a table. Thanks! ....No chance there's coffee out there? I guess I can at least try to get the," stupid no she should be friendly to the magic school, "the really neat void wall to give me caffeine pills or something." 

He sets the two plates down. Produces utensils from a pocket. Checks the ceiling vent again.

"Coffee and caffeine's kind of a luxury item, someone was offering some earlier but it'll go kind of fast. I do have some coffee grounds and dry tea but I'm gonna use them as barter goods. I also have about ten pounds of pills ranging from antibiotics to vitamin B6, and a very efficient lighting spell."

"Oh, wow! What've you got? ...Uh, and I'm assuming you'll want something from here, what were you hoping for?"

"A lot of things! My mom chose the varieties and put them all into minimal-weight packages, I have a list I'll dig out in a sec. I'm not entirely sure, honestly. Stuff the Void gives you but you don't need, to use for alchemy and artificing, maybe? Spreading my good name as a guy who knows how to get all the things to those who come for help would be worth something." He shrugs.

"The void isn't perfectly reliable - I think it's more likely to give me things when I need them urgently for something specific? I - hmm, I'd be delighted to trade you some bags of IV anesthesia drug and IV antibiotics, neither is likely to be useful in the next couple days and they have a shelf life, but someone mentioned they might be useful as alchemy ingredients, and you're more likely to meet older students than I am, if you're, uh, networking like that." 

"Huh. Yeah, that does sound like the base of some healing potion... What'cha want for it?"

(He starts eating some of his (slightly soggy) waffles and bacon.)

Marian pokes at her own food. It's very slightly worse than hospital food. Which is saying something. She's hungry, though. 

"Uh, could you dig out your list and show me? Vitamins sound great," she can give them to fibromyalgia girl, in case her problem is being made worse by terrible nutrition, "but I'd want a mix of that and something more valuable, probably." Vitamins are cheap, she's about to say, except that of course that doesn't matter in here. 

"Sure, sure." He produces his list, handwritten in tiny lines.

It reads sort of like 'things on WHO essential medicines list that are stable in pill form', with more emphasis on stimulants and emergency use.

Marian reads carefully through the list. 

She will take five pills of this bog-standard oral antibiotic and she wants some stool softeners and laxatives, and some anti-nausea meds, and some Benadryl for allergies, and some benzos for next time a kid inevitably has a panic attack, and she will take ONE dose of Ritalin - for herself, to get through today - 

In total her carefully-considered requests come to about thirty pills. "Seem fair?" she asks him. "It'd be for these two 100ml bottles of propofol and these two bags of antibiotics - uh, to be clear these IV drugs would be way more expensive than those pills in an actual pharmacy, but I'm taking into account that they're also less broadly useful here and that you'll need to find an alchemist who can do something with them." 

"You're the nurse, I'll take your word for it. As for the relative price shift, yeah. Imminent death changes one's perspective. Would you like a light spell as well? This whole place is depressingly dim."

"Wow, yeah, that'd be lovely." She stifles another yawn. "It'd help me wake up, at least. Sorry, I think my body is still really confused about time zones." 

"I can do light really cheap! If anyone else wants to brighten up their rooms or could use sunlight therapy. This'll take a while, I wanna do one that'll stick for a day or two. And long ones are more efficient. It has a switch."

He turns in slow circles in the center of the room, making hand motions and chanting odd rhymes. One section is, "And by the power of dawn I call thee, the torch of life shine forth, and by my will I proclaim thee, let all that there is be seen, and by design I command thee, dawn and dusk answer to my whim," and here he draws a small circle on a piece of scrap paper with a pen, "Light and darkness answer to my call, a marking circle shall control them all..."

After a while, he finishes with, "And by these words I bind thee: Let there be light!" With a clap of his hands, the ceiling lights are suddenly at least three or four times as bright.

Marian lets out a squeak. It is, however, a delighted squeak this time. 

"That's so cool! Wow! ....I think it maybe hadn't sunk in all the way that you're really magic? A girl did wards for me yesterday in exchange for lessons in medical stuff, but I couldn't actually see the wards so it felt sort of fake? Man, just, wow, that's so cool." 

"Oh, this is nothin'. Good wards don't look like much, it's true. Flashy is a waste of power. And you can't feel it, I could tell there was a ward the moment I walked in here. Magic sucks a lot of the time, but it's also amazing."

"....Yeah, the monsters trying to eat you and scissors turning evil and stuff sucks. - Oh, by the way, would you be in the market for tape measures? For some reason the room came with six of them and I really don't even need one. If they're not turned evil then you could probably trade them to other people, since that's your whole thing?" 

"Uh, I'm a little skeptical of random tape measures the Scholomance provided, except shit I shouldn't have said that it might've heard me. Eh, let me take a look, if it's good come back tomorrow and make the lights stick for the rest of the week for one? And put the switch on a wall instead of that piece of paper next time."

"Makes sense. Uh, they're over here." Last night Marian found the energy to empty the top two drawers of the cart and instead spread everything out on the open shelves, where at least mals can't slip in and hide so she only has to poke things in case they're disguised monsters. 

There are six. They look like hospital stock, more than school supplies or hardware supplies; they're matching and white and clinical-looking. 

"Oh, I don't know what I was saying, these are pretty little ribbons, who aren't going to strangle me at all. Every artificer needs a variety of measuring tools, my ruler just isn't flexible enough. Let's see..."

He compares the markings to said ruler, then fusses over them for a bit before picking one at random. "Don't worry, I'll take good care of you. You can tell a craftsman by his tools, you know."

Awwwww. It's cute how people interact with objects here. 

"I bet they were trying to be good for the last nurse," she says. She pats one of the other tape measures. "She must've had to work so hard, and you were probably trying to help, weren't you? ...Hmm, I think I'll keep you." Oh no the others might be jealous. Marian pats them as well. "Don't worry, though, I'll find homes for all of you. And, uh, if you get lonely you can always visit, students are welcome to come by here anytime, right?" 

The tape measures do not answer. Marian feels a bit silly. 

"Of course, I still need my ruler for a nice straightedge, but. Here, let me dig out your pills. Then I have to go find someone who wants IV drugs or hope I can use them in alch lab myself."

"Great, thanks!" Marian goes to collect said drugs. "- Oh, right! I forgot I had a bag of norepi too. Uh, it's a -" pressors are always hard to explain to people with no medical background, "- it's a drug we use in intensive care to treat people who're in shock? It could actually be really useful for savings someone if they're badly injured, it helps stabilize their blood pressure long enough to treat them. It's already mixed, though, so it won't stay good forever. I might as well toss that in for you and maybe someone can use it in alchemy and make, like, a potion that treats shock?" 

"Might as well! Alchemy stuff can get pretty metaphorical, someone will have some use for this stuff, I'm sure."

"I hope so!" And Marian will cheerfully exchange bags of drugs for pills.