Riley is glad to find a table not populated by an enclave yet. He might be getting in with the Manchester enclave, but that will take time. He doubts he'll make any progress before Saturday. For now, he needs some more independent friends. Following Virgil around won't work for long- the kid needs more help than Riley can give him, which means he can't afford to care right now. Maybe if they're both alive in a few months.

This guy is sitting alone, but he isn't completely oblivious. He'll take it.

"How do you do? I'm Riley. Riley Finn. Mind if I join you?"

"Not at all! Alexius Marcus, Jacksonville not-quite-an-enclave-but-don't-tell-them-I-said-so." This guy is extremely polite for a Scholomance freshman, huh. Well, no reason to discourage good manners, this place needs all the help it can get. 

A girl who's been dithering with food on her tray spots the pair, and sits down next to them. "Hey, I saw you across the cafeteria. Nice to meet you, I'm Hannah!"

"Hey, Hannah. Nice to meet you, Alexius. How were your days so far?"

"Boring." She doesn't elaborate.

"Surprisingly good! Met non-terrible people, acquired potion supplies from downstairs, and didn't get eaten by mals yet! I'm alchemy-track with a secondary focus in languages, hence the excitement over supplies." 

"Alchemy all the way here, it's legit my passion. What've you been brewing lately?"

"Another alchemist! Two, even better. I'm looking forward to brewing new potions, instead of the same few I've been making for years. What about you guys?"

"I'm looking to experiment too. I've got a really good focus potion down, along with the standbys - anti-poison, and so on - but I want to synthesise some more fun stuff."

"Eidetic memory potions! For today I'm setting up a little brewery in my room so I can sell a few potions at breakfast tomorrow. I have a few other recipes but nothing nearly as useful. My affinity only helps me if I plan to drink the potion immediately, which limits my options somewhat. Eventually I'm going to be recruiting collaborators for larger batches, but that'll be a while." 

"Nice! And you, uh, Riley?"

"Memory and focus both sound useful around here," says Riley, who doesn't know what 'eidetic' means. "My interesting ones are for stamina and speed, and strength. Great for ending fights with mals, obviously- outrunning them, or scaring them off. And you can pull some tricks for building mana, if you pump up your strength higher and then exercise on the comedown."

"Nice, nice."

"Oooooooohhh. If you ever want to swap recipes or collaborate, Riley, you let me know. All of those dovetail perfectly with my affinity. Same for you, Hannah, focus sounds great. Though anti-poison might be awkward for me to brew whilst poisoned. Maybe if it's a mild or slow-acting toxin."

"Maybe we can trade samples once I get my own alchemy lab set up."

"Sounds promising! Riley, your potions seem to have a theme going, some kind of enhancement or combat affinity?" 

"Something like that. Are either of you selling yet, or are you waiting until you've got a setup here?"

"I'll be setting up this evening, probably. Been scraping together ingredients because my parents didn't know about the focus potion."

"Planning to set up a little sales corner tomorrow at breakfast, if nothing goes too horribly wrong. Focus potion have some kind of ugly side effects or something?" 

"No, my parents just never quite parsed that I'm ADD."

"I don't have enough to sell yet, but once I brew a bigger batch, you guys are welcome to trade before anyone else gets their hands on them. How does your focus potion work, Hannah? Can you pick out any of how it works?"

"It produces a state of controlled hyperfocus lasting up to eight hours. It was a real bitch to formulate so you wouldn't lose pheripheral awareness, but I don't want to be eaten while studying any more than the next person."

"I'd offer to keep an eye out for spells or potions to help with ADD, but it sounds like you have that covered already. And very nicely, too, well done. Doubly so if it plays well with the memory potions." He munches thoughtfully on scorched kabobs. "Any long-term plans besides the potions?" he asks, aimed at both his tablemates.

"I've thought about making some recreationals to sell on the side. I know how, it's just, can I spare materials."

"Looking forward to being a sophmore," Riley says, suddenly wondering how his brother is feeling.

Materials: always a problem. "Why sophomore in particular?" 

"My younger brother should be coming in next year."

Not that that's guaranteed, per se- but he knows that Dr. Walsh will secure a slot, somehow.

His jaw tightens. "...I understand." Little sis would have arrived in junior year. 

It does put a bit of a damper on conversation.

"I'll check out your sales corner tomorrow if I can make time," he promises, and otherwise, Riley is content to eat in silence.

"So, what are you two planning to do before you graduate?"

"Revolutionize the performance-enhancing potion industry," he deadpans.

"Hey, that's my line," he chuckles. 

"Someone's a big long term planner. What about you, Hannah?"

"I..." shit she kind of walked right into this didn't she, "Would like to actually live a little." There that's sufficiently vague. "Maybe find love. Or, well..." She smiles. "Curfew and homework can't keep me down forever."

That was definitely vague enough. Alexius has no idea what she's getting at, but he can at least see where she's coming from. "No reason we can't enjoy survival, yeah? Speaking of, it turns out that sufficiently difficult games can build mana at a decent clip, if either of you want to help me start a poker group or something." 

"Copy that. I can look for more players."