Alavin Fernir - Dining Hall
Alavin had expected the carriage ride to take long enough for him to do some reading. As it turned out, it had taken long enough for him to do rather a lot of reading. Having finished the study he wanted to do by halfway through his trip, he'd taken to meeting the carriage's other passengers. Alavin liked collecting acquaintances. It was an Alavin thing as much as a summoner thing. People were, simply put, interesting. Especially in a place like this. There were countless stories to hear. So he'd introduced himself and made nice with the others in his carriage, switching to Commune to speak with the nervous Britannian and trading a few key phrases of Verdant with the Wastelander for some basic knowledge of Waster speech. It was an interesting time for him for certain. A Verdantkin speaking with a Wastelander? It was practically unheard of. But Alavin was, as always, intrigued. And hungry for knowledge, he turned on his most charming smile until the Wastelander was sure he wasn't going to try and murder her and her family and actually managed to learn something about their culture. It was certainly a change of pace.
It didn't take long for everyone to transfer from their carriages into the grand dining hall. Alavin looked around the room with a grin. He'd eaten in communal halls before, but coming from a melting pot of a city, any time he found himself in a room this grand, he had usually been sent there to charm old benefactors into funding the school's most recent development. This turn of events didn't disturb him too much. He'd been aiming for Stahlhiem since he started summoning. Oh, there were teachers in the Verdanthome, but where Alavin had come from, he'd been lucky to get a summoning teacher at all. He'd known he would surpass Master Ikeri sooner rather than later, and Stahlhiem was the only place with a true magical culture that Alavin could truly immerse himself into. If he'd given the teachers a push into agreeing Stahlhiem was the best place for him, then was that really a bad thing?
Spotting the other first years, not hard when they all looked about to wet themselves-from nerves or excitement, either one-he made his way over and glanced around the older groups. There was a sea of faces, of all races, all ages, and all power levels, from the staff to the students. All languages tripped across the room, echoing in his ears, and students were doing everything from yelling to reading, to stuffing their face with chicken and firing bolts of energy at a friend three tables away. He gave it three months before he had a name, school, and background for every face he was seeing. The first years were as good a place to start as any. He took a seat next to a large bird-like creature-presumably a beastman. Taking a piece of bread with his long fingers, he grinned at the boy feeling the girl's wings. She didn't look the most comfortable. He laughed lightly as he took a bite of the bread. "I take it you are both new as well?"
