There he is, trudging back from the dinner line with a heavily-laden tray. Some of the contents look...questionable. Not toxic, just, singularly unappealing. He spots Connie, blinks, and quirks a faint smile. 

Connie heads toward him, glancing around for tables with space open.  "Hey again." 

That one's near a vent but not too near and the weird puddle is on the ventward side?  Probably the other end is okay?

He spots the weird puddle too and pauses. Damn, he doesn't have a generalized mal-zapper yet and knives might not work on an ooze... "You got a way to fry that if it turns out to be hungry?" he murmurs. 

"Um.  I have a force-net?  And kind of a fire spell but it's hungry and I don't want to startle people... could throw something at it from over here?"

"Startled is better than eaten, by a long shot. Force-net probably won't stop something puddly. Let's take a seat and keep an eye on it. If it moves, fry it and I'll refund some of the mana? Also, kind of a fire spell?" He sits, slightly closer to the puddle so she can be farther away. 

"Well, don't wanna startle an upperclassman into blasting something they don't need to, if we're in range... oh, gotcha.  Yeah, I can do that."  Oh no he's being a gentleman.  She sacrifices some limp green beans to mark just outside the edges of the puddle and three inches away, nudging them into place with the end of her fork, then joins him at the far end.  (The puddle does not react to this.)

"It's, uh, a regular fire spell, I... kind of have it."  God this is embarrassing.  But embarrassed is better than letting somebody rely on you and be wrong about it, at least if you expect to see them or anyone they talk to again.  "I mean, it always works!  I've got the fire part down.  But it, like, only comes in one size, so far?  And sometimes it doesn't go exactly where I meant and I have to kind of- scoot it."

(He is also following the strategy "put the person with defensive magic between the ranged person and the foe"). 

"Huh. Well, better than no fire at all, I suppose. At least you know its weaknesses and can adjust." There's a touch of bitterness in the last sentence. 

"Oof, fair enough.  Long's I don't land it on something flammable while I'm adjusting."  She pokes at her lasagna.  "I'm hoping one of my classes next week has a more usable mal-zapper, though, like you said a knife doesn't work on everything."

"If you get one I'll trade you," he mutters around a mouthful of Mystery Meat. 

"Mm."  Om nom lasagna.  It's actually not that bad?  "Should probably just ask the void for one tonight, not wait around.  I've got it on the ceiling, though, and I haven't figured out- I mean, even if I ask for spells from my bed, it's not a great start to a relationship, falling six feet?"

"Hold a pillow up so it has a soft landing?" He mimes a supplicating gesture skyward. 

"Oh, yeah, that'd work, good point.  I was gonna be like 'what if it missed' but if it was gonna pitch it out just anywhere you'd have people with void walls getting books under their desks and landing on their heads and stuff, and nobody warned me about that beforehand.  Guess it could depend if it likes you."

"From what I've heard about the void, liking and niceness seem mostly uncorrelated. It'll go, 'oh good you know three sentences of Sindarin, here's a spell written by a starry-eyed linguist.' And then preen smugly.

"Haven't heard of it playing Book Soccer, though. I suppose we take what we can get." 

"That's sure true."  She stabs her lasagna a little more forcefully than necessary and glances over at the puddle again.  "Oh, we should swap language lists probably, if you wanna trade spells later, so we know what's useful."

Well..."I have English, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian, Mandarin, Hebrew, and Sanskrit." It's no longer as much a source of pride as it was this morning, considering he can't share. 

"English, Spanish, Amharic, Mandarin, and Koine and modern Greek but those don't really count as two whole languages, I just didn't want to risk getting modern spells and tripping myself up."

"Koine, huh. Good idea. Amharic is a new one too. Maybe we should swap tutoring sometime. I'm at least secondarily language-track." 

"-Koine Greek, sorry, not Yoruba koiné.  Amharic I'm actually almost native in, just kinda rusty, my parents found an Ethiopian lady to watch me when I was little."  She rolls her eyes a bit.  "My brothers got Mandarin immersion preschool, but they didn't realize with me how early you have to get on the waiting list.  Didn't get me a spot till second grade.  ...which, yeah, if you want to pick up Amharic or do a practice group for one of the others, I'd be down, I want to get my Mandarin up to where I can actually hold a conversation and not sound like an idiot."

"Hey!" sudden upperclassman????

"How have your first classes been?"

"Hi...?"  WHY do upperclassmen keep TALKING to her.  "Uh.  Fine, I guess?"

"Great! Are you settling in well, is there anything you're short on?"

Mana. Trade goods. Respect. Anything resembling a plan.

If this guy's been paying any shred of attention, he already knows Alexius as The Potion Fuckup Kid, which makes a sudden offer of assistance mighty suspicious. On the plus side, if he's a maleficer looking for marks, Alexius is slightly better prepared to make him regret it than the average freshman. Not that he thinks he has much chance against an upperclassman. Won't stop him trying. 

"Shop class screwed me over gloriously but the immune booster I got in Comp was right up my alley." 

"Sorry about the shop class, what assignment did you get?"

This is not less confusing. 

"Are you, like, running a store, or...?"  What do they even have that Rando Upperclassman would want.

"No, I am not running a store. I'm just - talking to all the freshmen, making sure you all know you're not alone in here and that you can ask people for help if you need it. And offering help in case you already do."