zenderael_rl | [Mal/Travis] - steampunk revolution

"No shit." He laughed again at that. "We don't want traffic either. Too bad they gotta deal with it, too."

Tyrus decided to stick with the rum. It was good stuff; he wanted a bit more of it, before he switched to a different liquor. He filled up his glass and took a sip of it, before he looked back to Malachai. He grinned over the glass's rim again. "I'll leave your vodka alone," he said. "I'm not the biggest fan, anyways. You like the stuff too much to share?"

Mal made a face that clearly said 'gross', before saying, "Yeah, that's it," with a sarcastic tone, assuming Travis was just fucking around. As he leaned to refill his own glass, he clarified, "Savin' it for Chief."

He wasn't sure for how long, but it wasn't like vodka went bad.

"What've you been up to, anyway? Aside from crashin' into shit."

Oops.

It was easy enough for Tyrus to brush it aside, like he was just fucking around. He knew who "Chief" was, too, thankfully. He nodded at Mal, grinning at him, and then shrugged his shoulders. Part of making a convincing lie, he found, was basing it in truths. Half-truths let him use his emotions normally, kept him from constructing a entirely fabricated life. It was better that way.

"I was in Instructor Kahil's class," he said. Travis signed up for that before Tyrus got here. "That was the big one. And trying to keep from growing broke before the fall semester starts, y'know?"

He didn't know, because he'd never had to worry about going broke before, and now that he had his alchemy business going, it was easy enough to make what he needed off of selling whatever concoctions he could make to help ward off illness or treat symptoms. He hadn't even gone through his savings, yet.

But he'd heard enough of his friends talk about money problems, so Mal nodded understandingly. "Shoulda become an alchemist when ya had the chance," he said, grinning. "Already got a few patents pending."

He sipped at his rum and leaned back. "What was Kahil teaching, again?" he inquired. "I was taking swordsmanship and monster tracking before the instructors got sick."

"It was basically about butchering monsters. Finding the right parts. Kind of gruesome." Kind of boring. Tyrus knew everything about that; he learned some from Nadir, but the basics were things he practiced a lot. He looked at Malachai and grinned at that, lifting up his rum, and took a long drink of it.

"Yeah," he said. "I should have." Except it would have given him away to Harriet. "I even got along with Nyx pretty well. Too bad, you know?" He shrugged again. "How were you at swordsmanship?"

"Maybe I shoulda taken that one," Mal said, musing. Might have been more useful than tracking. Well, maybe... He'd still have to find the things before he could kill them and then butcher them. "Should start looking into harvesting my own parts, though. Costs less that way." Which meant bigger profit margin.

"Pretty good, actually. More of a defensive fighter, but the dancing experience meant I picked up on the footwork pretty easily, and swords don't need a whole lotta strength behind 'em." Which was good, because he wasn't all that strong. "Could probably hold my own against some'a the less deadly beasties."

He snickered, then. "I actually told the instructor off- Anais Vallinar, a paladin- for sayin' that the kids who weren't learning so well were refusing to. She tried to punish me by makin' me her partner for defensive demos."

"I ought to learn some day. I'm an okay with a gun, but..." It wasn't quite the truth. Tyrus was a very good shot with a pistol; he used a pistol and a short sword in combat, fighting something akin to a pirate, but he mostly used his sword for defense. Special made bullets and offensive potions were his method of choice.

"You got balls for doing that, though," he said. He grinned. "I saw her walking around the halls. She could kick both of our asses at the same time."

Mal had to laugh at that. A lot of the students were afraid of her, but he just found it amusing. Sure, she was kind of standoffish, intimidating, and probably could kick both their asses at the same time, but she was also disciplined, and he didn't think she would unless they did something truly terrible.

"Dunno if it was ballsy or foolish, but she deserved it," he said, once he stopped laughing.

"I know how to use a shotgun. Keep thinkin' I should learn another gun, though. Shotguns ain't always useful, y'know?" Maybe a pistol. That would probably be easier to handle in tight situations, more maneuverability and only needing one hand. Though, that did get him thinking about ammo... He hadn't even thought to make his own since becoming an alchemist, more interested in constructs than anything.

"Yeah. Plus those things that nature goddess made." Tyrus frowned at that, looking at Mal again. He sipped a little bit more of his rum. "These seeds that were apparently getting in every Earth gun they could find. If they get over to this side, we're gonna be stuck with those really old school Zenner guns. I played a little with one once, in Bastantown's market."

He frowned. He did not like the difference between them; he had gotten used to the Earth firearms and learned to use them. It felt a little like switching to a peashooter. "It's pretty different."

Mal frowned, as well. "Yeah, I'd heard about that." He'd almost forgotten about it, actually. "Guess I should look into a flintlock, then, huh? 'less I can put something together myself, but I don't really have the parts." And he didn't have the machinery to make the parts. Course, Zen alchemists probably made their own and didn't have Earth machinery...

He'd have to think on that further. But not while drinking.

He drank back some of his rum, thoughtful. "Mm, I was workin' on somethin' else, though. Medena's here and all, an' Earth's got a lotta pollution. So I was looking into upgrading the city's water filtration, see if I could make it run cleaner, you know?"

"Flintlocks are less accurate, but more stylish. It's a rule." He paused, and felt compelled to add, "Or maybe more of a guideline."

Damn it, Travis.

"Yeah? That's a good idea," he said. "I never thought of using Zenderean stuff to try to fix that. Are you gonna sell it to them?" It made sense. Increased the bottom line and tapped into the wealth of the city's people. It was hard to resist that thought, knowing the city was richer than any one person could hope to be.

Mal had a nice buzz going, taking his time with the rest of the rum, a sip here and there. It was a good feeling, one that kept his mind off other things- his dad, whatever was going on with Duncan, all his friends vanishing on him...

Pirates were something worth thinking about, though, and flintlocks made him think about pirates. "Naw, it's definitely a rule," he said. "Just gotta dig out my pirate hat an' I'll be all set." He grinned.

He mused over the rest, shrugging. "Dunno that they'd be able to pay a whole lot, but I'd at least try to get 'em to fund it, if they seemed interested. No idea how t' go about bringing the idea to them, though..." He'd never had any experience dealing with government projects or funding or anything of the sort.

"Sounds like you have it made. Do up some alchemical ammunition, there you go. You'll go far, kid!" Tyrus said with a laugh. It was good-natured and came to him easy, especially through the growing haze of his alcohol. He fought with that very style. He looked up, tilting his head.

"Demonstration, maybe?" He was the last person to know. He would go through Upas for that -- and while he might be willing to lie to Mal, he wasn't willing to pull him unknowingly into the machinations of Bohun Upas. That would be wrong. "Just show them what you can do. Make a miniaturized model, maybe."

Mal laughed along with him. "Yeah, just started thinkin' about the ammo bit. Hadn't thought about it before." Just thinking of all the sorts of things he could do with ammo was inspiring, but, probably not something he should plan out while drinking. He might plan out something that sounded really cool but turned out to be completely inane... Like bubble-gum bullets.

He liked the idea of a model, though. A functional, miniature version of what he could come up with, complete with water sampling... Maybe... He'd have to think on it. "I'll keep workin' on the idea. Ain't got much yet. Wanna finish up the constructs first, you know? One thing at a time."

"Only way to do it," he said. He took another drink from the glass of rum, draining the rest of the stuff from his glass. He blinked his eyes a few times; even through the endurance potion, he felt a buzz starting to grow. He rubbed at his eyes. "When I'm working on some code or something, that's where I always go wrong."

Travis used to code up little video games. A couple of years ago, he tried to code up an old school, 16-bit style RPG based on their Zenderael characters. Tyrus saw the unfinished product; the part where he sent a little two dimensional sprite version of himself running around was downright unnerving.

"I always switched between projects," he said. It wasn't a problem that Tyrus had. "Never finish anything, but start a lot of things. I'm trying to fix that, though, y'know? After the crash... life's short, I guess."

He felt a flush of guilt. Travis would never have that chance, because of him.

Mal had never had that problem. Sure, he might start two or three projects at a time, but they always got done. Perhaps because he'd learned life was short while still young- his mother's passing had happened when he was only thirteen- and he was determined to do something, be someone, before his time came.

"You just gotta manage yer time. Once you got that gig down pat, yer good t' go." Though he grinned, there was a hint of sadness on his face, remembering his mother, which reminded him of the more recent loss of his father. He played it down, ignored it, and focused on Travis instead, tipping the glass towards him. "Might take some practice, but you can do it." He took a sip of his rum, then got curious. "You workin' on anything now?"

"Nah," he said, "not sense the wreck." He noticed the brief hint of sadness, but did not remark. If Mal wanted to talk about it, he could, but it felt wrong to presume the closeness to point it out. He shook his head, looking down at his empty cup and debated if he wanted another one.

"I was working on a driving game." He laughed at that. It was true, too; it was actually how Tyrus got the idea for a car wreck. "I can't quite bring myself to get back to it."

Not to mention that Tyrus had no clue how to code a game. When classes started again, he would have a very big problem.

"Eh, driving games suck, anyway," Mal teased, smirking. He didn't like driving games, actually, but he wasn't seriously going to tell someone their work sucked, unless it actually did. Driving games were fun to some. To each their own.

"Could try somethin' new. Or a side project. I got an app I made- monster recognition thing." He dug out his phone while he spoke, pulling the app up and holding the thing out for Travis to take a look at. "Not sure if you've seen it. Took face recognition software an' altered it to work with photos of monsters, then it pulls up details of the monster an' its weaknesses or whatever. I made it free, but you could put yer expertise to use in other things, you know? Just gotta figure out the market."

"No argument now," Tyrus said with a laugh. He shook his head, before he peered at the phone. He flipped through it with his finger on the touchscreen, just to get an idea of how exactly the program worked. His eyes widened at first, before they narrowed. He nodded his head. "That's like the answer to the sixty-four thousand dollar question, Mal. You could probably sell this for a lot of money. The motherload."

Mal laughed, giving a one-shoulder shrug. "It's been out so long there's probably already knock-offs out there tryin' t' make money off the idea." He hadn't looked, but it wouldn't surprise him. "But whatever. Like I said, I'm waitin' on some patents for a few ideas, then I'll be able to make a lot of cash."

He'd never expected to become an inventor. It was kind of fun, but it also meant making something of himself, something more than just an internet celebrity with a cool webcomic.

A part of him wondered if his father would be proud.

Shrugging that thought aside, Mal grinned. "Still, you should come up with something. Rethink the world with Zenderael as part of it, figure out what'll be really useful."

Something, huh.

Ambition was never hard for Tyrus. He had made a good member of Upas because he was greedy, because he wanted things. He was driven to destroy it from within now, but that required going along with them for that purpose. The problem here was that he could not admit to those designs. He wanted to leave Travis's friends out of what he had to eventually do; he did not want them involved in the way he would use Travis's life to rise through the ranks of Upas. It meant that some things he had to hide; somethings he could not admit to even in part.

It was better to appear indecisive here. Still, Mal did not want details. He could at least agree with the sentiment, even if he intended to appear to not follow up on it.

"Yeah," he said. "Sooner or later, Zenderael and Earth are gonna be one world, anyways. I should find a way to make use of that. Turn it to my benefit and profit from it. Make friends and influence people."

Another grin, perhaps exaggerated by the liquor. "Networking an' all that, yeah? Guess I should start working on that. All I been doin' is inventing shit." He hadn't really felt up to trying to be social with more than his friends, what few there were, but if he intended to be an inventor who actually had an influence on, well, anything, then he should probably start on the networking aspect.

"Guess I should design some new business cards," he mused. "Captain Malachai, Inventor. Got a nice ring to it."

"It's how you get ahead in the world." Ty said. He grinned again, then leaned back. No more booze, he thought, not yet. He was always a lightweight; the endurance potion could only do so much and rum was strong stuff. "I think you got a solid plan, there, Cap."

"Gonna need a nifty catchphrase. Somethin' people'll remember." He paused, looking into his glass. "Prob'ly easier to come up with somethin' viable when I ain't full'a booze," he said, snickering. "Anything I come up with now will probably make me groan later."

He drank back the rest of what was in his glass, and reached for the bottle, pointing at Travis with it. "You had enough?"

"Yeah, you're gonna want to think on it. And thinking isn't a good idea when you've got a little Captain in you." He looked at the rum bottle, thoughtfully. He could go slow, but it seemed a shame to stop here. He could enjoy a little more. "Nah. You go first, though. I'll fill up after you."

[Mal/Travis] - steampunk revolution

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