"Do we know you?" says one of the girls, but another girl elbows the boy next to her in the ribs and says, "Not yet! Hi! This is Sean!"

"H-hi," says Sean around a bit of green bean that he nearly choked on when elbowed.

Introducing someone before you introduce yourself is...kinda odd. Fortunately Alexius does not have the problem of who to introduce first. "Alexius, pleasure to meet you. I've been going around looking to scare up some trades - spells, homework, languages," potions that don't work, "et cetera." 

Elbow Girl gets up, carrying her heel of bread with her, and heads for the bus station, leaving space for Alexius. Sean gestures awkwardly at her vacated seat. "She wants me to meet more people," he says.

Not one to pass up an opportunity, Alexius takes the offered seat. "It's a good policy, here." And in general, really. "You never know who's going to be an important ally later - or just someone you'd want to trade with." 

"Yeah, I know she's right."

"...when I was younger, I had a lot of trouble talking to other kids. My parents made me socialize - part practice, part being surrounded by kids who don't believe in mals - and for a while, before the mana spurts started and I had to be sequestered away more thoroughly, I promised to meet at least one new person every day. I hated it - my affinity is myself, see, and that's no accident, I still have trouble understanding how other people think - but damn was it worth it." 

"Every day! Wow. Poppy's getting on my case now because it's the beginning of the year, I think she'll back off later."

"It's good that she's looking out for you. What's your affinity, if you don't mind sharing?" 

"Water. It's good for out, but..." Shrug.

"But what? That sounds useful, actually. You could trade people for protection in the showers, keep oozes out of the faucets, detect impurities, ward off toxic or corrosive solutions, and maybe even store up enough for a nice mal-clearing flood during graduation. There are shrinking spells, I've heard; maybe they work on water storage? Not to mention all of us are mostly water. Ever tried any spells to staunch bleeding?" 

"I mean, you mostly hear about it being used for reservoirs and stuff, but I guess some of that sounds good. I don't think blood counts as water though."

"Oh, purity matters. That's interesting. Do you want to do some tests in the lab to see how pure? I'm doing alchemy, we could join a brewing squad. I bet you could do something with aqueous solutions." 

"I mean, I can cast out of affinity like most people, I just don't expect it to help me with things that aren't water."

"True! I have a harder time than most casting out of affinity, so I just sort of got into the habit of going, 'how can I play to my strengths here?' I figure, everybody can do the things that everybody can do, you know? But there are going to be things you can do better and those are where the mana's at, so to speak." 

"I don't think I'm better at hardly anything than most people. It's not even that uncommon an affinity. But I'm an enclaver so that helps, I guess, as long as they don't, I don't know, kick me out on behalf of Ennis's mum for falling behind in Latin or something."

"Well, we are freshmen, it's hard to really outshine most mages yet." Not that he doesn't plan to, Friday's debacle notwithstanding. "Latin's a good choice to learn, I bet you'll find some useful spells once you've got it down." 

"Yeah, it's one of the standard Manchester ones. All our old spells are in Latin or some kind of Gaelic or French. Though some of the newer ones are Hindi, since, like, colonialism."

That is one way to put it, huh. "Got any interest in trading spells? - with permission for enclave spells, of course. As you might expect, I've got some good personal ones." 

"I'm not supposed to trade enclave ones till junior year. But I have some that are commoner. Generic wake ward, generic zap, generic shield. And some water things, one for moving water around - range of like five feet, one mass of it at a time, has to be at least a drop, can't be more than your mass and kind of sucks mana if you get bigger than a bucketful. One for boiling it, if I ever come by some tea. One for freezing it."

"Ooo, another shield would be neat, especially if it has different strengths and weaknesses than mine. I have an ice spike I traded from another student, you might like that one, and an envelope shield that's easy to maintain but not very efficient per attack. Trade you zap for zap and shield for shield? I wouldn't mind a water-mover too, for fiddly alchemical solutions and such. I also have...hmm, a generic antitoxin, a small reflexes boost, a stimulant...? Or fast-cast skin-toughening, or an incorporeal mal solidifier that I probably can't cast yet but you might." He likes offering people spells that make them more likely to survive. For...selfish reasons. Yeah. 

"I don't think solidifying mals is watery so I probably can't if you can't but the antitoxin sounds great - it's a spell not a potion? I thought antitoxins were a potion thing."

"It's sort of alchemy-adjacent, I suppose. It's a kind of transmutation spell, it turns a bunch of common toxins in the caster's body inert. It's cheaper if you know exactly what you're neutralizing but it works even if you don't. I wouldn't necessarily trust it against some of the nastier magical or mal toxins, or, like, drinking pure mercury, but it'll save you from, say, food poisoning or lesser mal bites, maybe a young numbing scorpion." 

"I think I want that one. In case any young numbing scorpions are hiding in my shoes some morning."

"My thoughts exactly! Three for three trade, then?"

"Sounds good!" Sean has some paper. He starts writing his out. "Mine are all English."

Alexius writes his down. The ice spike is in English, the shield and antitoxin in Latin. "Ice spike takes a chunk of water, freezes and flings it, fast and sharp. I can't cast much more than a cupful but in theory it could scale up, I think. I have a bunch of common poisons memorized for the poison spell, it's not necessary but it does help and it's generically good to know what might kill you in the Scholomance. The library probably has books on different compounds or I could trade you some tutoring later. The way you work the knowledge in is to focus on the specific thing you want to neutralize when you're casting the spell, and it'll hone in on that particular molecule. If you don't do that it'll just use some combination of 'stuff that you don't want in your system' and known poisons the spell's already primed to look for." In fact, a number of those toxins are part of the Latin chant: finitum solanum, etc. 

"I don't actually... have spell competence in Latin yet, it's going to be my first one to pick up here. I guess having something concrete in mind to figure out is a good way to start."

"It is! Do you want help with Latin?" It's one of the few Alexius learned pre-memory-potion, so he even knows how to teach it to those without one! 

"I could sure use it!"

"I can trade tutoring for mana - or homework help, later, once we know more about what our classes send our way." 

"I'm a little worried Paige will get on my case about using mana for that. It's just really embarrassing to ask other Manchester kids - we mostly had one on one tutoring, see, they don't know yet how bad I am at things."

"We can deal in amounts a freshman can generate on their own. Or figure something else out. Lab buddying maybe, it's hard for me to watch for mals and brew at the same time." It's even harder to try to artifice but he's not sure he wants to expose that weakness to all of Manchester just yet. 

"Oh, lab buddying would be good."

"So, we set aside some work period or free time next week, lesson one is the Latin spells and branching out from there. Then we lab buddy later in the week...I have lab Tuesday morning and presumably will know what sort of assignments and materials to expect, maybe we meet Tuesday afternoon for languages and figure out lab plans from there? Trade hour-for-hour?"

"Sure, that sounds like a plan."

They've mostly been talking fairly quietly but Ennis looks up at the phrase "lab buddy". "What are you brewing?" he asks.

"Well, that depends! I'm going to need to do some testing because my affinity is wonky with potions - it actively fights me unless I plan to immediately drink and benefit from the potion as soon as I've finished, and in that case it helps a lot. It's easy to tailor potions to me but they don't always work well for others." Learned that the hard way, didn't we. "I'll probably try some basic dyes or cosmetics recipes first, they seem easiest to measure and least likely to cause harm if they don't work." He's not going to give anyone else a potion until he's damn sure how his affinity is affecting his craft. 

"You have to drink it? - Ennis Reilley, cosmetics."

"Huh, that's neat. Maybe you can recommend me some recipes? My affinity is myself. I can do just about anything efficiently as long as I'm the only target, kinda bad at anything else. Alchemy," when I can get it to work, "is something of an edge case because I can brew larger batches than I need." 

"Interesting. I have recipes for various things, yes, tentative early takers on alertness eyeshadow."

"Maybe you could lab buddy with us?"

"Sure. I have a Monday lab slot, so I expect to have more ingredients than class time."

"Yikes, I heard Monday's rough. Morning or afternoon?" 

"Morning, but before lunch, not first thing."

"Not terrible. Yeah, I'd be happy to group up for lab work, curricular or otherwise. And I'll trade spells or recipes if you've got 'em. I can probably do a decent job at cosmetics if I wear them myself." His affinity would probably even make them look good on him, not that he minds looking silly in exchange for superpowers. "I'm happy to take an occasional guard shift, too, I have some good defensive options." 

"If you aren't used to wearing makeup I also know how to put it on people."

"You know, I'm honestly not sure if my affinity would help me there? It might, for magic makeup. But yes, that'd be appreciated. What else could we make? Mal-repelling perfume? Stealth cream? Eau de mundane? Healing balm?" 

"I have an in-progress recipe for injury concealer - it does painkilling; I want it to also make the injury less conspicuous to mals - and chapstick that makes you less thirsty. I'm not actually sure if I can do perfume particularly well; I've stuck to visible applications so far."

"Huh. Well, once we start getting into major projects we might want to collaborate. Could be productive." 

"I'll look forward to it. Sean, is there anything you're going to want to brew or are you just trading your lookout services for something -"

"I have Tuesday lab, so I might have an assignment by then? But mostly lookout."

"First or second period?"

"Shop first, then lab." Sigh.

"Hmm, mine's first thing Tuesday morning." He sympathizes with that sigh. Friggin' Friday shop class. 

"Yeah, but it went pretty easy on me for math and history so I decided not to mess with it to get the morning slot gone."

"Reasonable. Don't poke a sleeping dragon and all that. Are there any trades you did make?" 

"Nah, but I should have swapped out of detective fiction. It's got just one other kid in it, I wasn't expecting that."

"It seems odd that the school even offers freshman-level classes to that small an audience. Who's the other lucky kid?" 

"His name's Basil. New York but he talks with a London accent, it's strange. Said it was to help people tell him and his twin apart."

"That's one way to distinguish yourself, I suppose." Alexius remembers he has food and sets about reducing its quantity. 

Between bites, "This school has strange priorities for what we need to know, doesn't it? Detective fiction. It's fun and all, but I don't see our survival depending on it." 

"Well, I'm not complaining about the coursework, it's mostly reading stories and it looks like there'll be spells in it. Forensics and stuff. But yeah, me and Basil are going to alternate doing the homework probably."

"I suppose forensics could come in handy. The fiction is case studies in its use? Good that you and Basil have a plan to save time, that's good thinking."

"More like, if Poirot knew this simple French incantation, what would have happened, discuss. Poirot is not a wizard."

"Huh. Leave it to the Scholomance to teach spells via classic novel fanfiction." 

"I guess you could think of it that way! Maybe there are wizard stories later but they might just as easily be, you know, mundie fantasy."

"'How would this simple finding spell have changed Sauron's plans? Discuss.' Now I'm almost sad to be missing out." 

"If you want copies of the assignments you might be able to get extra lit cred for them? If you want that?"

"Hmm. I'm not going for valedictorian," he'd considered it, as a not-quite-enclaver in need of showing off, but ultimately decided to spend his time elsewhere, "so extra credit is not really all that helpful. I would totally swap for useful spells, though." 

"The first Poirot one is a handwriting analysis spell. Not that useful."

"...and now I'm trying to come up with uses for a handwriting analysis spell in the Scholomance. Enforceable signed contracts making long-term deals more feasible? Doesn't help if the other person dies but you could pledge stuff as collateral, I suppose..." 

"I guess if someone managed to lose their assignment you could find out whose it was and give it back to them for a bounty?"

"Maybe! Not really something we'd want to do often, what with how it makes people want to steal assignments and sell them back...I wonder if you could figure out who wrote a good spell the void hands you, and ask for more by the same author?" 

"Oh, that's a good idea!"

"Hey, if it works let me know and we can start a research project. 'Collected Works of Obscurus the Wise, Volume One.' Might even get you out of a final." 

"Who's Obscurus the Wise?"

"I dunno, hence the placeholder name Obscurus." Note to self: Sean may be slightly literal-minded. 

"...oh. I don't have Latin, I'm doing Latin next."

Maybe Alexius should be a little more careful about Latin root words. Some people actively avoid them, maybe? But they're just so numerous! 

"...you mentioned! That might be a good candidate for the handwriting trick, if it turns out to work, I bet a lot of wizards who wrote spells in Latin wrote a bunch of them. Once you're spell fluent you'll have a lot to choose from." 

"It was customary for a while for spells to be written in Latin even after it was no longer the vernacular," agrees Ennis.

"Harry Potter: more accurate than it has any right to be." Wait, was Rowling a mage? That would explain so much. Probably not, though; there aren't many mages who would write books about a nice magic school experience. In retrospect, uh, should not have said that. 

"I don't think that's actual Latin and also they're all too short - I mean there are a few spells that short but not many."

"I actually do have one that short, but yeah, most of them aren't. Kind of a pity, really, it makes casting in combat that much more difficult." If Alexius wants to be in a fight at full strength, even assuming he can afford the obscene mana costs, he needs about five minutes' prep time. And even that is barely enough to mildly challenge an average sophomore, according to the combat instructor back home. 

"What's your short one do?"

"Skin toughening! Good for not getting chewed on. Very handy if you have a chunk of mana for an emergency and don't have a shield up, or for layering defenses." 

"That does sound handy to have in fast form."

"It's one of my favorites. Very good oh-shit-button that scales up nicely." Pun intended, hah, it's for crocodile skin. "You can do whole-body or just the part you're sticking in the possibly-mal-infested cupboard." 

"Does it work on contact poisons?"

"That...is a very good question." He thinks on it while he eats. "It would probably keep out most mundane contact poisons at least long enough to win the fight and have a shower, probably not forever. Magical stuff might absorb anyway depending on the magic. It basically puts scales over your skin, gives it a much thicker nonliving layer, so it would at least take longer for any poison to reach the bloodstream." Alexius is shaky on animal biology, he mostly studied human anatomy for his affinity. "Fortunately, I have the antitoxin for dealing with poison." 

"A fully generic one?"

"It's a spell, not a potion. - Ennis has Latin already," Sean adds.

"I'll probably get a variety of potion antidotes too, given my affinity's interaction with alchemy, but yeah, this one's a spell. One of those scalable flexible ones. It turns toxins inert, works most cheaply if you know which toxins, I traded it to Sean a bit earlier." 

"Maybe when we do the enclave swap on Saturday you can throw it in the pool," Ennis says encouragingly.

"Yeah, I guess I can."

Well, it's not strictly speaking good for Alexius, but he feels good anyway. He did know enclaves swap spells among themselves - well, the ones with their act together, anyway - so it isn't news. He can still swap with the other enclaves and a lot of what he has is fairly basic right now anyway. 

"- sorry, I should maybe have checked you were okay with retrades? I am."

"If I get something really good I'll bargain folks for exclusive trade deals, but not for spells this basic. I doubt I could enforce banning retrades anyway, especially retrades within an enclave. Have at it. If anyone asks where you got 'em, though, send 'em my way. I hope to do a brisk business in personal spells." 

"Sure. Do you want me to give out your room number or just your name?"

"Just name's fine." With the number of alchemical reagents he plans to store, it's probably best not to advertise his actual room. He'll share it as needed, it's not really feasible to keep it secret indefinitely, but no sense inviting trouble before he's prepared to punch it. 

Sean nods. "Alexius... What's your last name?"

It would be sort of rude to insist on "the Great", here, wouldn't it. Oh well. "Marcus."

He'll leave off the Jacksonville bit for now; they're currently vying for the title of Most Loudly Condemning of the Stupid Freshman. 

"Heh, that's what I named my, uh, abacus."

That gets an involuntary chuckle. "Abacus Marcus, or Marcus Abacus? Very important, see." 

"It doesn't have two names. It's just Marcus, an abacus."

"Ah, I see. Well, there aren't that many named abacuses in the annals of history. So Marcus needn't worry about being unambiguously legendary himself." 

"I think most of the other kids in the abacus class named theirs too as a best practices thing but I was first to announce it so probably none of the others are also Marcus."

"Ah, abacus class, of course. They always seemed a bit awkward to me, but in here it sure beads the alternative." He delivers the line with as straight a face as he can manage. "I hope Marcus is a tool you can count on." 

Sean actually giggles at the joke.

Haha! Success. Alexius seizes the opportunity to polish off breakfast.