Alex still has a headache, even after taking the full work period to recover. He couldn't really relax, not in his room with his clavemates all present, and not in class with both his sister and Zed nearby. He certainly won't be able to here, when they're both halfway across the school, and he's got to watch his own back. Hell of a way to start the first day of classes, taken out by a potion-induced migraine first thing. 

He almost feels bad for Alexius - the guy seems well-intentioned, and pretty devastated by what his potions had caused. It's only an 'almost', though, because he'd seen how Zed was affected. 

He tries to put that out of mind - he only has so much focus right now with his head still aching. Best to put it all to use in paying attention to class after he'd essentially missed this morning. He looks down at his desk, finding a textbook had appeared there while he was simultaneously thinking and checking the room, and he flips it open and gets to reading. 

Ribo walks into the class with very little idea what to expect but eager to find out. She does a cursory check for danger before selecting a seemingly safe seat.

Alyona's been looking forward to this class all day. This stuff is her jam.

The lack of any sort of projection equipment is surprising, but the podium and microphone are neat. Maybe they're going to be doing readings?

As she takes a seat, she asks the room at large "Has anyone safety checked the podium yet?"

"I haven't at least."

Alyona looks warily at the podium and hopes that if they are going to be going up there to read aloud that she doesn't have to go first.

Lissa blinks at the podium as she enters, glancing over to see if anyone else has any idea what exactly it's for. With no conclusive answers for now, though, she takes her seat first, after taking a moment to nudge it and make sure it's not a mimic. Although she blinks when someone mentions safety checking the podium.

"Um, I guess I can do that?" she offers.

"It should be safe, it's still the beginning of the semester but it's good to be in the habit of checking."

Well, if no one else objects, Lissa will get out her Swiss army knife and go poke the podium lightly, arm extended as far as she can to keep her distance.

Alex looks up as she gets close, hand going to his sword's hilt. 

Is he supposed to check? There's probably not that many mals roaming the school yet, but it must be good practice. Things will be bad by Monday morning, anyway. Virgil stays in his seat, though, and starts reading.

It looks like they'll be analyzing poetry. Rhythm, meter, scansion...Virgil sighs, closing his eyes. At least he'll get some good incantations out of this class, even if his brain does give up the ghost because he's forcing it to pay attention to poetry.

"Yeah, even if it turns out to be safe, it's good to establish a baseline of what 'safe' looks like, so that if something about it is different next week, we'll know it's not safe then."

As she gets closer to the podium, something long and slinky uncoils from its surface and lunges at her, and she yelps and slashes at it, knocking it to the ground but not quite injuring it.

"There's something!" she yelps, looking torn between stomping on it and retreating.

Alex is up on his feet, sword drawn, pretty much immediately. 

"Anyone recognize that?" He asks of the room, stepping forward.

Ribo stands up but doesn't answer, she doesn't recognize it.

"Looks like an immature rhysolite, maybe?"

"-maybe, yeah. Acid spitting, but if it's immature it might not have that yet, still watch out." 

He approaches with some caution, blade at the ready, so he can get in range to strike it. 

Lissa backs up in a different direction so that she doesn't get in Alex's way. A sword's definitely a better weapon than a knife here, after all.

"They have it," he warns. "Not strong enough for bones, but it can chew through flesh. Can anyone kill it from a distance?"

Virgil could fire off a magic missile, but it's not going to kill it in one go, just draw its ire. It's a great spell if you can cast it thrice; otherwise it's just a goad for a rampaging mal.

"Maybe. I have a basic scorcher. Might need a followup hit if that doesn't cut it, though." He keeps closer than anyone else and readies himself to dodge if necessary. 

If no one who's more capable of killing a mal wants to volunteer, Virgil will ready his magic missile spell. It has a short casting time but a brutal mana requirement for a mal-zapper. It won't wipe him clean, but it's a bigger chunk that a spell like that deserves. It's too bad walking through life depressed isn't an infinite mana generation hack.