Connie manages to stop reading in a reasonable amount of time and makes it to the cafeteria in time for dinner, obtains a plate of- lasagna? It's probably lasagna- and glances around for her potential new homework buddy.
"Startled is better than eaten, by a long shot. Force-net probably won't stop something puddly. Let's take a seat and keep an eye on it. If it moves, fry it and I'll refund some of the mana? Also, kind of a fire spell?" He sits, slightly closer to the puddle so she can be farther away.
"Well, don't wanna startle an upperclassman into blasting something they don't need to, if we're in range... oh, gotcha. Yeah, I can do that." Oh no he's being a gentleman. She sacrifices some limp green beans to mark just outside the edges of the puddle and three inches away, nudging them into place with the end of her fork, then joins him at the far end. (The puddle does not react to this.)
"It's, uh, a regular fire spell, I... kind of have it." God this is embarrassing. But embarrassed is better than letting somebody rely on you and be wrong about it, at least if you expect to see them or anyone they talk to again. "I mean, it always works! I've got the fire part down. But it, like, only comes in one size, so far? And sometimes it doesn't go exactly where I meant and I have to kind of- scoot it."
"Mm." Om nom lasagna. It's actually not that bad? "Should probably just ask the void for one tonight, not wait around. I've got it on the ceiling, though, and I haven't figured out- I mean, even if I ask for spells from my bed, it's not a great start to a relationship, falling six feet?"
"Oh, yeah, that'd work, good point. I was gonna be like 'what if it missed' but if it was gonna pitch it out just anywhere you'd have people with void walls getting books under their desks and landing on their heads and stuff, and nobody warned me about that beforehand. Guess it could depend if it likes you."
"From what I've heard about the void, liking and niceness seem mostly uncorrelated. It'll go, 'oh good you know three sentences of Sindarin, here's a spell written by a starry-eyed linguist.' And then preen smugly.
"Haven't heard of it playing Book Soccer, though. I suppose we take what we can get."
"-Koine Greek, sorry, not Yoruba koiné. Amharic I'm actually almost native in, just kinda rusty, my parents found an Ethiopian lady to watch me when I was little." She rolls her eyes a bit. "My brothers got Mandarin immersion preschool, but they didn't realize with me how early you have to get on the waiting list. Didn't get me a spot till second grade. ...which, yeah, if you want to pick up Amharic or do a practice group for one of the others, I'd be down, I want to get my Mandarin up to where I can actually hold a conversation and not sound like an idiot."
Mana. Trade goods. Respect. Anything resembling a plan.
If this guy's been paying any shred of attention, he already knows Alexius as The Potion Fuckup Kid, which makes a sudden offer of assistance mighty suspicious. On the plus side, if he's a maleficer looking for marks, Alexius is slightly better prepared to make him regret it than the average freshman. Not that he thinks he has much chance against an upperclassman. Won't stop him trying.
"Shop class screwed me over gloriously but the immune booster I got in Comp was right up my alley."
On its surface that sounds refreshingly unhorrible. "Mostly just a materials-starved Friday class." Also a make-and-mend spell, but his problems with affecting non-Alexius things are not really the Scholomance's fault. "I'll be fine, I have four weeks. ...you've probably already heard my flustercluck potion story from the rumor mill, that's what's really eating me. If you want to trade mana for decent personal spells or language tutoring or homework I suppose that'd help." Asking hurts his pride, but it'd be awful hypocritical of him to tout the benefits of sticking together and helping each other and then turn around and refuse help when it's offered.
"Sure, tell me more about those spells? Unless you're some sort of super-genius, in which case I have a friend who could use your help on some homework - She's a junior like me and was doing honors classes before - well she's not able to do her own work right now - anyways, I wouldn't want to dump junior honors classes on a freshman unless you're the next Browning or something."
"...does she need someone for math, actually? I can do up through calculus." She's still not entirely sure what this guy's deal is but if you run away from every opportunity you don't get anywhere, and there's a limit to how much of a problem it can be if she doesn't go anywhere alone with him, right?
"I have the advantage of potion-assisted eidetic memory for history and some literature-type homework. And languages don't care about class level. For spells, what languages are you looking in?" He repeats the eclectic litany of English, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian, Mandarin, Hebrew, and Sanskrit.
Connie shrugs. "I think mundane school does two years?" Maybe don't mention what math you're doing, actually, there might be two sections of number theory but there might not be and then he'll know where to find you.
"If you let her know- is she up for doing her own haggling, actually, or are you arranging that?" Hopefully that's a decent enough hint that she's not looking to do someone else's work out of goodwill towards men, without being rude about it?
To Alexius, "I've got the big four and Latin. Naomi's artificing but might need help with Russian homework."
And to Connie, "She is not doing her own haggling right now, me or Amos will do that. I will check what math she's in once I've circled around and let you know - if I don't get to it before lunch is done is there somewhere I can find you?"
"Russian homework I can do for mana, especially on an upperclassman's mana budget. I will also trade for cool objects or artificing help." Comparative advantage: yay!
"Big four is not quite as clearly identifying as it seems. Spanish or Russian could be big depending on who you ask...in English I have two stimulants, some gut microbiome tweaks that are super flexible if you know biology but dangerous to fuck up, a small reflexes boost, an ice spike, cold resistance, a slight movement speed boost, and a few healing. In Mandarin there's a slight thinkfast and a spell to stop bleeding and oxygenate blood that I can't yet cast but it's a darn good one. Latin's got an envelope shield that's cheap to keep up for a long time but penalized at taking hits, a general-purpose antitoxin, fast-cast skin-toughening, an incorporeal solidifier, and some body modification spells including faster hair growth."
Right, people do need some way to find you if you want to do business with them. Still, she might have been overcautious with Alexius but she's definitely not giving this boy her room number.
Aaand by the time she's gotten a sentence together the conversation has moved on, convenient now but she needs to get faster at that. "I can find you at lunch then, too, to talk math?" Aaaand a library run, which would be great if he's on the level but tips it hard toward too good to be true.
"...while you're here, would you mind seeing if that's something that needs dealing with?" She points to the weird puddle at the end of the table, marked off by its double perimeter of green beans. "We weren't sure if it was an ooze or what's left after someone killed something or, like, I dunno, a really depressed flan."
"Yeah." She frowns and starts disassembling her lasagna instead of eating it. "I did come here planning to swap for junior and senior math homework, wouldn't've made sense to spend time on it otherwise, but- I don't think I like this. We could... try and find some more kids to go with, maybe?" She doesn't sound confident in this plan. "Or just... decide ahead of time we're definitely not going into the stacks?"