He is spiraling outward from where they've sat in the past, mostly, with detours to avoid vents.

And - oh, there's Raleigh. Val grins at him.

"Hey! Sorry, we're over this way, usual table got nabbed by some indie seniors because Larisa and Landon are walking all of us to and from class now. How were your morning classes?" 

"Really good, I had one on zoology. How about you?"

"Fine, I guess? I had language lab first thing and then I had my History of Magical Conflicts class again, which I guess was slightly more interesting and relevant than the session on Friday. Wish it had advice on how to handle a conflict like 'rogue freshman maleficer on the loose', though." 

"Yeah, that's - yeah. Guess we'll have to figure that one out without the school's help."

"You got a buddy to walk to classes and stuff with? If your schedule's convenient for it then we might be able to fit you into our roster for that." 

"...That might be useful."

"Cool. Landon's got the schedule for it. Aaaaand here we are." 

Larisa is tiredly shoveling food into her mouth and doesn't even look up.

Cassie does. "Oh, hey. You're the kid who's borrowing my mana box for a week for reasons? Oy, Landon! That kid's here." 

Landon is a table over, talking to the Oakland junior. He glances up at the sound of his name. "Oh - I'll be right over!" 

"Cassie, can you move over a bit so there's space for both of us to sit?" He gestures for Val to sit down with them. 

Not very with it, are they. Not that he's going to give any hint of thinking that.

"Thank you."

Raleigh smiles brightly at him. "Right! Let's do some intros. This is Cassie, that's Larisa, next to her is Vanya - other side of the table is Tristan, Justin, and Killian." 

The kid introduced as Vanya doesn't look up, though the others nod or wave in acknowledgement. Vanya is small and very thin, to the point of looking almost sickly. He's very pretty, for a boy, with the contrast between his black hair and pale skin. He is also radiating a sense of intense misery.

Yeah, that's concerning, he's concerned. "It's good to meet you all. I'm Val."

The kid introduced as Tristan leans forward. He's older than Val and Raleigh, probably a junior or senior. "Lovely to meet you, Val. Where're you from?" 

He names a small town and omits the state.

Larisa thinks this is weirdly evasive of him! She's kind of suspicious!

He's...probably not their maleficer? No physical signs, no weird aura in either the creepy direction or the too-nice direction; mostly he seems a bit tense and jumpy, which isn't what a maleficer powerful enough to control the signs of it would go for. Still. She's going to be keeping an eye on him. 

Landon returns to the Sacramento table and sits down beside Tristan, opposite Val. "Hi. I understand you're interested in doing us some favors in exchange for a mana sink loan?" 

"I might be! But I don't think I've heard yet what favors you're looking for?"

"Well. It's...slightly complicated to explain." He glances down the table. "Were you introduced to Vanya?" 

"Yes! Raleigh just said 'that's Larisa, next to her is Vanya'."

Nod. "Anyway. Vanya...had a very bad time of it, last session. He's still recovering and he needs a lot of support, right now. And right now we're very stretched, thanks to this maleficer situation. We have everyone in the enclave rotating through keeping him company and making sure his homework gets done. If you were willing to take on some of that, we'd be happy to lend you mana storage for as long as you're doing it." 

"What kind of keeping him company, is it just being around or do I need to think of things to talk about?"