Theun's sitting at one end of a table with a junior and a couple sophomores sitting toward the other end, a little space between them. An artificer's eye would notice they all have the same design of shield holder, and a social eye would notice they're subtly excluding Theun from their conversation with their body language.

"Hey, Val. Anything on your mind?"

Oh, boy. Awkward.

"Mostly wondering what you were hoping to talk about. I mean, actually mostly homework, but that's not a useful answer."

"Hah, legit. I don't have a specific agenda, I've just been trying to talk to indies, minor-enclavers, get a sense of people. You come off as... I think mostly careful, which is a good virtue to have."

"I like to think I'm careful." Is this guy flattering him or has Val managed to impress him? Well, he's probably about to find out.

"It's not one I have, I admit. Well, probably by outside standards I'm alright, but the bar's higher here. So, you know, I try to look for it in people I might make a study group or whatever with."

"Study groups are useful." Does he want to be in one with someone who isn't very careful and is being visibly excluded from whatever this group is? Probably not, but it's not impossible.

Theun's somewhat picked up that Val's noticed the social distance. Might as well let part of the reason slip, see how he reacts.

"Yeah. Some enclaves do most of that within the 'clave, but nobody else is in my year. So, you know, I'm looking outside it, mostly. I keep being a softie and helping the poor bastards who got sucked in because of Chicago, and some of them will be pretty cool if they survive the year but they're definitely not helpful connections yet."

"I'm in a Latin study group with one of those. They're lucky - to be around, not to be them, I mean."

"Lucky that they're inside, rather than out there dying to something they never knew existed? Yeah, I guess. Still seems... well. Poor bastards. I gave one a set of basic spells, a redhead named Wendy, she's used to a mundane horror show and might live."

"If they made it to fourteen they all are, but good for Wendy. And nah, I mean it's lucky for everyone else to have them around. Either they're slower than you and it'll keep you alive, or they're not and you want someone who got that way with no help on your side."

"Cold. Another virtue I don't have enough of. But you're right, of course. Though... I have my doubts about everyone who made it fourteen, to be honest, because there's also pajama girl, right? She's either the smoothest manipulator in the whole school or incredibly sheltered and lucky."

"I dunno, is she? If induction had been a day early without any warning, how many other people would've showed up in their pajamas without any luggage?"

"Oh, that part's fair, she wasn't lucky to be induct-able. But she also walked up to New York in the first hour and got a boyfriend instantly, right? And even somebody incautious like me would be massively suspicious of someone hitting on me that quick, because it's probably an exploit, especially approaching an enclaver, double especially the biggest, richest enclave in the world. But either she's incredibly innocent and such a non-threat that the boy picked up on it and let his guard down, or she's impossibly, scarily good at projecting that appearance on demand."

"Or he's realized mundies are lucky, or he wants to do things a more prepared girl wouldn't be desperate enough for, or he thinks she's cute and doesn't expect it to be a long-term thing..."

"Trust me, enclavers get warned away from that pretty hard. "Don't think with your dick" is beaten into you - usually not literally. Not to say no one goes for it anyway, but usually it's people who puberty hits like a ton of bricks sophomore or junior year, or it stays overtly transactional. I'm guessing you're your family's first who got a slot? Or just all brothers, but you'd have heard about this if you had an older sister in, I think."

"I mean, I am, but - he's got a pretty reasonable expectation that she's different. Because of the pajamas."

"Eh, maybe. They're rich enough, maybe they don't need to be as hardcore about it. From what I hear about Shanghai, they have a lot of internal dead weight and they're rich enough to carry it off... So maybe you're right."

"Being right is one of my virtues. But you're looking to help people, huh?"

"Despite my best efforts, yes. I'm... easily pissed off by unfairness. And there's a lot of it to go around. Especially for them."

"I know some folks but I think if you don't mind I'll tell you about them after they catch the maleficer."

"Enclaver maleficers are put down quick. Sometimes even by their parents, enclaves are very serious about not starting a malia arms race. Except Pisa, everyone agrees to just not count Pisa. But sure, whoever's hid for a week is scary, you're not wrong. I'm 790B, if you want to send them my way later."

"Thanks! It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that, you know."

"Yeah, it's legit, bad week for trusting anyone. Hopefully they catch them in shop tomorrow and announce it by dinner."

"Yeah. I hope that happens and then absolutely nothing like this happens again."

"By all accounts it's extremely rare. On the other hand, last year was even worse. So, fingers crossed, I guess?"

"What happened last year?"

"There were several maleficers. Some tiny Indian enclave hired a maleficer to hit a rival enclave, they poached for some reason, the targets retaliated, they killed a guy from the first one, his twin went off the deep end and maleficed his way through the entire rival enclave, just entirely wiped out everyone they had in the Scholomance, then someone from a British enclave went maleficer. Somehow this was in response but I didn't follow how; his enclave tried to put him down, but he panicked and jumped off the deep end and killed most of them, then his underclassmen figured out a way to take him out, hit him through the power sharer or something. A huge mess. A bunch of people went a little weird after that - the announcements guy started after that, and I hear he got kicked out of Seattle enclave afterwards too."

"...Wow, okay then. That sure is a thing it would be bad to have happen again."

"Yeah, that's putting it mildly. I heard last weekend there was some talk about war with the Sinosphere because someone thought Shanghai might be sponsoring an indie maleficer, which seemed like an overreaction until I heard about last year."

"Well. Shanghai."

"Yeah, they're... something. My Mandarin still sucks but I knew enough to understand the shouting."

Vague noncommittal nod.

Theun picks at his lunch, partly to keep himself from starting a rant about how they can just afford to pull dead weight and what the hell, but also it's not going to get any tastier if he keeps talking.

Yep, there sure is foodlike substance to consume.

Eventually, Theun finishes a bite and looks up. "So, anything you're good at you want to brag about, or something?"

"My affinity's shields, I think relative to other people I've put more of my prep work into actually fighting mals - for a definition of 'fighting' that includes making an opening to run away, but, you know - and I'm doing pretty well in logic class and I could maybe sell some homework for it, I guess."

"Is that Formal Logic for Spellcraft? I'm in a session of that. Probably not buying, though, I think I'll want to actually understand it for later on."

"Yeah, that's the one. Good to know."

"I'll keep you in mind if I hear anyone's buying from mine. Are you afternoon Tuesday/Thursday? I got bumped out of that session in homeroom."