"All the more reason. Seattle likes having a town crier?"

"Apparently? Or at least they haven't made him stop."

"So - he does also have resources, then?"

She is going to spend all weekend being terrified of receiving mana storage. This is a new one. She was really not prepared for this particular source of stress.

"Presumably. But the rest of his enclave might not let him actually hand them all out to indie freshmen."

"I think we should all learn from the apparent prevalance of maleficers being ten times what we were told and not do any sex work or any mana trading or any - whatever the fuck else comes up -"

Naima nods solemnly.

"I guess his whole deal would make somewhat more sense if he's a gifted diviner, all his gossip is only the true stuff, and he thinks you're a prime recruit? But like he could just say that."

"Man, being a diviner in here who can vaguely foresee a catastrophe would suck. If that turns out to be the deal I take back everything I said about him."

"Talk about pointless affinities. This whole place is a catastrophe." 

"It is starting to sound like some moments are more catastrophic than others, though."

"Plan 'keep my head down and pray that Fortitude doesn't see me sneaking out of the graduation hall' is looking better and better."

"I was thinking this morning that unnoticeable might work if you could also fly."

"Some of the mals fly... I guess fewer."

"Yeah, it's not that the air doesn't have them but it's not as thick as the ground, you could in principle dodge."

"Of the stereotypical options I think I have a fair chance at being able to cast or at least co-cast a timespear, but flying through the maleficaria air force isn't a bad angle to consider."

Annisa is thinking about graduation strategies involving Malak!! She's kind of getting ahead of herself there, but it's nice to be appreciated.

"I do weapons. And I'll have a much better idea junior year where that leaves me, but it's a lot more fun sitting in that room trying to think of ways out than sitting there not doing that."

"Any kind of weapon? That's really flexible."

"Yep, I got awfully lucky. When I was little we thought it was just knives, and my father had me trying to extend it to swords with no luck, but then one day I got a slingshot and had it spitting little lightning bolts...turns out it's anything I can use, and the swords were just too big for me."

"Huh! Wonder what shop assignments you'll get after the generics."

"I have a long list of things that are technically sort of a weapon if you really push it and I want to see how many of them I can get away with. But that's for junior year, probably, my plan for this year is mostly for my baby's first knives to be better than everyone else's."

"Legit. The slingshot did not turn out to be practical?"

"Maybe we'll get some ideas in History of Artifice. So far it seems fairly combat-heavy." 

"Maybe it'll get to the ideas that haven't been obsolete for centuries later."

"Tiny lightning bolts are great for impressing Scholomance interviewers with but they don't do more damage than, like, pebbles. I could change my mind about this as I learn how to do more stuff but my current thinking is that ranged weaponry isn't worth it? If you're out of stabbing distance, you can and should just run, and if you're in stabbing distance it's hard to beat a knife - or maybe a shortsword, now that I'm not too small to craft 'em. The things on my aspirational list for junior year are more like - can I get in-affinity shielding if it bites, can I get in-affinity divining if it's weapons that light up in the presence of enemies, can I get mana storage better than the lousy average if it's a mana-storing dagger..."