Nia tags along down to the snack bar with a trio of Spanish-speakers from Argentina who don't really want to include her in their conversation but don't mind her accompanying them on the walk. Her tokens are in her pocket but she might hold on to them, it depends.

She waves cheerily at Nie Huaisang rather than hazard a guess that he speaks anything she does.

He waves back. "I hope you speak English," he says to her cheerily, "because I'm pretty sure you don't speak Thai or Cantonese."

"I do speak English! It would be hard not to growing up in England, went the reasons."

"I'm sure you could. Experimentally-minded enclave that only speaks Latin and doesn't let the kids leave the enclave, maybe."

"Not an enclave. Swahili at home, Spanish at school, English all other places."

"Good spread." He eyes his chocolate suspiciously. "Do you think you can get food poisoning from chocolate?"

"If it has mold on it? Not if it has just wizened like a forgotten fruit, I think. You might save it for when very hungry?"

"Right, but then it's going to get older, and maybe more likely to poison me. --I guess we don't have mold."

"Cheat the mold away!"

"Good idea." He tries to pull mana from any lifeforms present in this chocolate, and doesn't get any.

"Hmmm," she says, peering at the vending machine. "I should possibly save tokens in case the food is all eaten by maggots every meal for a day, but perhaps spending only one..."

"--I'm going to make two more attempts and see if I get something tastier and less suspicious."

He gets a Snickers bar without a date and a package of oatmeal raisin cookies two years past its expiration date. He sighs.

"I will wish you excellent luck!"

"Do you think the best strategy here is to eat the expired things because they're only going to get worse or the unexpired things because they won't give me food poisoning?"

"Sell them to people who spend less time on thoughts of food poisoning."

"Good idea." He pockets the two pieces of expired food and eats the Snickers bar. "Not bad."

Nia puts a token in. She gets a foil pack of beans and weiners, dated 2012. "I will have a fun surprise opening this when next very hungry," she remarks.

He slowly waves his fan. "In retrospect I really should have memorized food expiration dates."

"Maybe a spell for it would come out of the void for you?"

"Or something that helps me figure out whether it's expired. Maybe I'll get my clavemate Yanli on it, her affinity's food."

"That sounds very good for this! Does she have a spell for charming vending machines?"

"I don't think so, she mostly does alchemy."

"She could branch out! Sell a guaranteed good snack for an extra token to keep herself. Bury herself in Mars bars."

"Oh, she wouldn't though, she's a soft touch. People would go tell her how hungry they are and she'd give it away for free."

"...she must have a lot of boyfriends."