"Oh! What kind of clothes?"

"Any kind you have the material for. Let me see what you have?"

She fishes her sheet of fabric out of her backpack very hopefully.

Oh it's soft! And it is bigger!

She is not very good at most social interactions, but she's okay at not letting how much she values a particular item show on her face.

"What are you looking for, exactly?"

"Uh, kind of everything? I don't... have any clothes that I'm not wearing."

"I will make you three pairs of underwear and two sports bras from this material, plus an extra pair of pants and an extra t-shirt from a piece of canvas I have, in exchange for the remainder of this material. They won't stretch as much as the underwear you buy in a store, but if you let me measure you, they will fit well enough that this shouldn't be a huge problem. I don't have time now, but I will have time after dinner; you can come to my room, with an escort if you feel you need one. Is that acceptable?"

It takes her a couple seconds to process all of that. "I - yeah, that would be great, thank you so much. What room?"

"36A." Normally she'd be worried about handing this out, but THIS KID is not the maleficer. She is too incompetent to be a maleficer. "I'll look forward to seeing you. And thank you," she says to Wendy.

"Yeah no problem."

She waits until Naima leaves before saying, "You probably could have haggled a bit?" Shrug. "Having that shop class is pretty lucky though, I think. I'm Wendy, I don't think I actually introduced myself in class?"

" - oh. Yeah, I guess I could have, but I'm really just - I don't actually know how to sew, so it's already a really good deal, I think? Um - thank you. It means a lot. Do you wanna sit, or do you have a place already?"

"Legit. I'm going to try making all the things, and I know a bit of sewing, so yeah. Uh, actually some of my stuff is over there. I just figured you'd want the trade? And like, full disclosure, she gave me a couple needles for the introduction. See you in shop?"

"Yeah, absolutely!"

She goes back over to where Annisa is staring hungrily at all her metal bits, then.

"They're sorted by trade value now, approximately; that's a favor but I'll consider it an investment in you grabbing the right stuff in the future. Trading out Monday morning shop stuff for the things that freshmen normally come with is a good idea, but I'd actually mostly focus on getting good in the shop. You want to learn how to use all the tools in the shop, the part where you build high quality things is at least as hard as the part where you imbue them with magical intent and it's a prerequisite and it's easier for freshmen - you don't need mana to do it.

The thing you're building towards is something that will make people want you on a graduation alliance, in four years. Metal's a good affinity for that. Trade people for things now - shop homework help, furniture, maybe steel-toed work boots, those are nice to have and not worth bringing in - for enough resources to stay alive through the end of term, and then plan on getting really, really good at something you can turn into a graduation alliance."

"Huh. Hell, I can make some furniture. I did like fixing things, out there, and liking something makes it a lot easier to get good at it, right? It's so damn cool that I melted metal and made a knife- Though I'm getting the impression this first assignment isn't super impressive all considered."

She peers over the assembled ingots again.

"Spells get invented, right, and it's probably better to use ones from spellbooks but what if you want to do something really specific, does it make sense to try to invent a spell even if you're not very good at that? Does what you, uh, sing to your artifacts have to be spells?"

"You use incantations for artificing, yeah. Creative writing's totally possible for people who aren't specialized in it, it's just that most of the time a spell you write is going to be worse than a spell that already exists and does the same thing. It's worth at least asking the Void for something before you try to do it yourself, unless you half-know a bunch of languages which I guess a mundie might."

"Oh. I literally just asked it for 'a spellbook'. It was a good book, mind, once I deciphered the German, but yet another thing I didn't know was a thing."

"Yeah, you can be specific. Though there's something to be said for being general if you have the affordance to learn a bunch of new spells, because you're likelier to get something good if you're not asking for something narrow."

"Speaking of which, any of you happen to know German and want a spell good against incorporal mals?"

Why yes, they do have one of those, although Julian seems to have gotten up for something at some point in the past several minutes, she wasn't really paying attention. She scans the cafeteria until she sees him getting water. 

"HEY JULIAN."

aaaaaaaaaaah fuck – oh it's just Naima. And she's talking to the mundie girl from German study group? Okay. 

He makes his way back to his seat. "What's going on?" 

She gestures at Wendy. "She has a German spell that's good against incorporeal mals and wants to know if you want it."

"Hi. I haven't actually used it against any incorporeal mals, mind, but it's two lines and I've cast it and the description is promising."

"What's the description say?" 

"Translated so I don't speak German at people- For the defense against and forbiddance of malign spirits, those which can normally pass through simply material defenses. Though it does not easily kill, it will cause them great pain and drive them out of hiding, repelling such evils- He calls mals evils- from your person. Take care that you speak it only against those who truly have no material form, liquid evils may yet infiltrate your walls and you should use other spells against those."