"How much do they make?," Luca asks.

"The two suits were a couple weeks of production, well-fed, but that included enchanting time, which we wouldn't be doing at first."

"Poisonous?"

"I didn't ask, but I doubt it, she'd have mentioned. Had a good patter down."

"Hmm. I might be in." A couple other heads nodded.

The conversation turned to Oria's thirst for coffee.

"Seriously, a graduation spell just for grounds?"

"Hey, you try kicking the habit when there's crappy coffee available daily and decent coffee never. I put that into one of my letters home - don't let the cousins get used to it."

"Well, at least you got something lasting out of it."

"And I can trade it on, a little. Maybe for a snake to keep."

"It'll take more than that."

"Oh, not you, but Niccolo is as thirsty as me."

He looked up, smirked, and inclined his head a bit, silently conceding the accusation.

The conversation wanders, gossip and other maleficers to keep an eye on and people who've shown particular antipathy toward them and who's likely to ally with the seniors (and therefore whose family or enclave is a good choice to work with).

Eventually it gets back to the spiders. Eight people want them - all the juniors and sophomores, Teresa, and Niccolo.

Luca raises the thought before Teresa can: "Do we want to trade a spell or two rather than a pile of mana?"

"I considered that! They were most interested in something really good for incorporeal mals, offense spells with graduation-tier mana efficiency, or a poison check that doesn't have gaps. They have an obscene number of languages, but the overlap I had was English, Mandarin, Arabic, Latin, and both kinds of Greek. I forget most of the rest, Spanish was on there and some Indic and Slavic languages."

"I don't know any single comprehensive poison check, but Uncle's standard plus the one Oria got from Auckland catch everything between them. And some ooze mals."

Niccolo replied, "I'm not sure we want to be trading enclave spells to freshmen, even minor ones."

Oria added, "I doubt they'll accept malia, do we actually want to build that much mana and then give it away?"

Niccolo nodded, "Point. Familiars would be useful. But I'd be happier trading enclave resources if we could breed our own long-term."

"They're not categorically opposed to parting with some females as well, but the price would be higher. Assuming they survive a year or two, the premium should drop, since they won't be worried about competing with us reselling."

"Okay, that's reasonable. Does mean we need to stay in their good graces - they're indies, do they know our reputation?", Niccolo responded.

"Yes, and they were specifically looking to trade with maleficers, spiders fed on grubs are a pretty good malia source."

"Interesting."

"That plus their resourcefulness made me want to stay in their good graces anyway, they seem like potential allies worth cultivating."

Luca nodded thoughtfully.

Niccolo frowned, but then also nodded, "I'm onboard. The two poison spells, or else Tiresias's Banishment for ghost mals."

Teresa looked around the table, and everyone interested seemed onboard.

"All right. I'll look them up tomorrow and confirm the deal."