I Swear it Works!... this time {Nicholas}

[Michael Mosley (AWAY)]

Michael Mosley entered the lobby of the building that technically housed MAGI corp. Even to the half-elf's eyes, it looked like a little umbrella factory. Which fascinated MM a little, and he always took a couple of free samples.

Today the intellectual carried an impressive box with him, which caused most of the workers to stop and stare. Most of them knew MM from his rather frequent visits. Which explained why they were casually moving as far away from the box as they could.

Micheal hummed to himself as he strolled up to the head receptionist's desk. The receptionist, a kindly middle aged woman whom Michael regularly charmed, looked up from what she was doing. Her eyes instantly went to the box, then to the man holding it.

"How does that one explode?" she asked.

Michael cringed, setting the box on the desk. The secretary edged away from it, eying Michael.

"Come on, they don't all explode," he protested, tapping the box. He glanced around, then leaned in, "It's an awesome new invention."

"Of course it is, and it probably explodes."

"It doesn't explode, I promise," Michael stated, placing his hand over his heart. He grabbed the edge of the desk with both hands and leaned over conspiratorially. "It's amazing, and Nicholas will love it."

The secretary looked doubtful.

"You know how the tongues charm only works on spoken language?" Michael's voice had dropped an octave, and slouched down, "Well, I've come up with something that does the same thing: for written languages."

Now Michael's wheeling tone along with the promise of an invention that could actually help people, had started to convince the secretary. She glanced over at the appointment book.

"Yes, I've got an appointment," Michael stated waving. Suddenly, his eyes widened and he turned, looking towards the entrance. "Is that Chancellor DeInnes?"

The secretary, surprised, got up and started craning her neck.

"He just went that way! I swear!" Michael stated, pointing. As soon as the secretary looked, he lunged over to the appointment book, a pen in hand. He quickly scrawled "MM" on the appropriate time spot. He lunged back just in time for the secretary to return.

"Must have been someone else. I hear he has lookalikes. You were checking my appointment," he offered, smiling and pointing.

The secretary looked at him, then at the appointment book. Her eyebrows arched, and she looked up at smiling Michael.
"That's you're handwriting."
"Is not."
"Dean Mosley..."
"Haven't we gotten to the point you can call me Micheal?"
"Dean Mosley..."
"How about MM, that sounds a little more formal?"
"Dean Mosley..."
"Look, this is amazing! He'll want to see it..."

[Nicholas J. Traptory]

Nicholas had a knack for timing, if it was good or bad nobody would know. Just in that moment he descended not from his private elevator, but the stairs, dressed in his unusual 'work' uniform. He started to walk towards a T-Grid transporter when he caught sight of Michael trying to worm past his secretary.

And he was carrying a box. Nicholas sighed, honestly the guy meant well, but his creative spirit was a little confined. He could make useful things, but he didn't think he'd ever make something truly exceptional. He figured he might as well save his trusted secretary from Michael's never ending attempts to hit on her, so he walked over and tapped his shoulder.

"I'll handle this one personally Marie." He said rather jovially as he pocketed the odd looking gun-like-contraption he was toting around. He had wanted to get the chance to field test his new prototype, but it looked like that would have to wait.

"So Michael, what insanity have you loosed upon the world today?" He asked with a smirk, his eyebrow rising.

[Michael Mosley (AWAY)]

Michael smirked, more than used to Nicholas's skepticism. Sometimes it seemed like the MAGI head forgot that occasionally Michael did invent something passably useful. Heck, the Dean of the Academy regularly did maintenance on teleporters. Just because he also had a tendency towards creating rather explosive inventions...

His eyes went to the gun-like contraption, disapproving, "Gee, I didn't interrupt you from blowing anything up did I?"

He smiled, eyes twinkled, and grabbed the box, nearly shoving it at Nicholas. Still, the academic kept it in a death grip.

"Thing's amazing," he promised, "and actually useful. Though I don't see how people couldn't get use out of machine that sent out waves of nausea... My students liked it well enough."

The grin remained. Of course the students liked it, it meant they could fake sickness long enough, and legitimately enough, to skip class, yet be fine moments later. Shame the prototype broke and the only way to fix it was to vomit a lot on it.

Which Michael had opted against.

"We should probably go to your office or something, wouldn't want the wrong ears to catch wind of this baby," he patted the box.

[Nicholas J. Traptory]

"I swear Michael, one day you will have to take the proper channels to meet with me. Some day..." He couldn't entirely remove the humor from his voice. He liked Michael alright, but boy was this guy stubborn. He had a determination that was admirable, and most inventors needed that, but he made things just to make them, he didn't think about how they could be useful.

You could get something amazing out of that, but you were gonna get a lot of trash before you got that one amazing piece of tech. Sweeping his arm around he beckoned to the private elevator to his office. "Well come on then, if you are really convinced that this one is a good piece of technology. But remember the rules Michael, one piece of tech every fifty days. After this one you have to wait until I'll look at another one. So you still sure this one is the great breakthrough you think it is?"

The elevator had reached the top floor, and the doors opened into Nicholas' office.

[Michael Mosley (AWAY)]

Michael waved off the comment. He'd been fairly good about the fifty days thing before, well, a little good. It had been 40something, but who was counting?

"Alright, the private elevator," Michael commented, hefting the box and walked towards it. Yes, he knew exactly where the private elevator was. "And why should I have to use proper channels? I'm a big important person, you know."

He shot a grin at Nicholas.

"And I don't have any other going projects right now. The Journal recently accepted another one of my articles, and it's been taking some work getting it ready for publication," he shrugged, causing the contents of the box to shift. It sounded heavy. "Add on the whole 'Dean' thing and the fact that I'm still teaching courses. Leaves very little time for improving the quality of life."

He'd managed to say all this before the elevator doors opened onto the private office. once there, he strode straight for whatever it was Nicholas tried to use for a desk, and set his overlarge cardboard box on it.

"You're going to like this one. I combined the theory behind the Tongues charm with some basic retinal scanning," he explained, opening the flaps of the box. "It took some jury-rigging, but I managed to figure out a way to make the charm operate through the optical centers of the brain as opposed to the aural ones."

He finished moving the flaps, and reached in.

"Unfortunately, this is just a prototype, so it's kinda awkward looking."

It looked... like a helmet.

There was a round disk that obviously was supposed to somehow go on top of a person's head. Hanging off the disk were a pair of goggles. Various wires hung off it, leading from the goggles to a hanging power pack on the back.

"A mess, isn't it? I'm figuring you guys have access to better parts and can work with the aesthetic," Michael waved his arms at the device, "appeal of the thing."

He smiled again, looking over at Nicholas.

[Nicholas J. Traptory]

Nicholas had to stop and think about this. If he was really able to do that, it was certainly an interesting invention. But...

"A problem occurs to me." He said. "When someone speaks it is more then words that come out, body language and tone can dramatically change what someone says with the same words. That is why the Tongues Charm works, because it is able to decipher all these clues, mixed with the persons brain activity to pull this off. But with written word the person who wrote it might not be there, they might even be dead, perhaps the information written is coded? Now, that doesn't mean it's a bad idea." He said pacing, more thinking aloud then anything else. "We could use the magick to make it analyze the written word into a form human technology can deal with, then compare it to a bank of well known common languages and send back the results through a special lens so it appears to the person with the item as if it was written in their native language. If that was the case we might be able to condense it into the size of a pair of goggles or some such, that would be perfect, in theory it seems simple enough..."

In truth he was so lost in his own thoughts he wasn't responding to Michael anymore.

[Michael Mosley (AWAY)]

Michael nodded along impatiently. Like he hadn't thought of most of that himself. After all, the Tongues spell worked mostly on reading intentions and mental thoughts. Applying it to the written word had proved immensely challenging, to say the least.

"It doesn't always translate one hundred percent," Michael admitted, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "And it doesn't do so hot with codes, I've found out. Some of the more basic ones it cracks no problem, and it really does get most languages. However, the prototype has some issues with syntax and semantics. My computer didn't have to necessary stuff to really act as a medium, I'm sure you've got something."

He shrugged. Really he was just hoping to get another successful invention out on the market. Hopefully one that would actually help people. He did realize as he explained that he had essentially just made what could end up being an ultra-code-breaking machine. Which it might end up... which would suck.

[Nicholas J. Traptory]

"Got something, of course we've got something." Nicholas said, not even considering it an issue worth debating. "The question I pose to you is, what potential applications do you believe this item will have? Hell, I'll prolly produce the design anyway, but I like hearing from the inventor. What do you want this little gadget to be used for?"

It's always good for an inventor to know what is going to happen with his work anyway. It's just foolish to deny that this seemingly simple device could have potential military applications.

Not like Nicholas really liked war, but if that was what people wanted the technology for, that was fine. He simply made progress, what the leaders did with it was not for him to decide.

[Michael Mosley (AWAY)]

Michael rubbed the back of his head. Nicholas had to know that the scholar rarely thought out what use his things could have until the last possible second.

"Well, it should make translating ancient texts easier, though it would still take some doing, what with syntactical shifts and all," he shrugged, "and it also lets people communicate via email and what not regardless of the language they use. Saves a lot on interpretors."

He sighed.

"And of course it could most likely be tweaked for code, for military operations. Not to mention the fact that it makes using a secret language pretty much pointless..."

He looked over at Nicholas. "I'm sure there's other stuff to, that I'm not thinking of..."

[Nicholas J. Traptory]

Nicholas nodded when he talked about military applications, at least he understood.

"I tell you this as an inventor, if you give this invention to me I can't promise the technology will not be used to hurt people. An Inventor must always be ready to see his inventions used for the wrong reasons, it's just the reality of the world we live in. So do you think you could live with your inventions possibly resulting in people's deaths? This is the first really good piece of technology you've brought me, so it's time for this question, do you think you can continue to invent, knowing that your intelligence may hurt or kill hundreds of people?"

[Michael Mosley (AWAY)]

Michael shrugged.

"You know, I kinda figured that out on my own," he admitted, smiling sadly and looking over at the machine. "I mean, it's not like that's a death ray or anything. It's just a translation device. Sure, people could use it to hurt and/or kill people. But it's just as likely to save more. In fact, probably more likely."

He shrugged, looking over at Nicholas. "And my intelligence probably already has hurt hundreds of people. Don't you remember the vomit machine?

[Nicholas J. Traptory]

"So you are gambling on the idea that this invention will save more lives then it will kill, is that right? Ok then, I suppose I can take that answer, for now. But I don't want to hear you cursing at me the first time you hear the report of a war won, and a city destroyed thanks to a 'miracle decoding machine'."

He picked up the item and looked it over. "Remember, you sought me out, and I did warn you. Now for a more interesting question, why do you keep building this stuff? I mean, it seems that you are driven more out of curiosity then out of any real determination."

[Michael Mosley (AWAY)]

Michael shrugged, "That's probably it."

He glanced over at Nicholas. "Seriously, wars are going to happen. If they finish sooner because of the machine, that's a good thing."

He sighed, lacing his hands behind his head and looking over at the box. Why did Nicholas have to make things so complicated? Couldn't he just sell it to intellectuals who wanted to read books or something?

"It's interesting for me to see what I can come up with. I've been twiddling around with stuff since I was a kid," he shot Nicholas a look, "and some of it turns out semi-useful, thank you very much. It's not my fault I can't remember how I made a forgetfulness machine. Or where I put the blueprints."

He waved it off.

"Anyway, if my curiosity helps make one other person's life easier, than I'm good."

[Nicholas J. Traptory]

OOC: Agh, sorry for the non-post, having a hard time responding to this.

IC: Nicholas nodded. "Well I suppose the respect I owe you as a fellow inventor will put this one out on the market. We'll touch it up, condense it a little bit, and I'll send you the first prototype to check your approval. The target audience is a bit small for my tastes, but you never know what new technology can open the doors to. So then, how about a drink to the future of a new invention then?"

[Michael Mosley (AWAY)]

Michael nodded, grinning.

"Sounds like a plan to me," he responded, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. He glanced over at the translator.

"You really think there's that small of an audience for that? I thought it was really cool..." he trailed off, shrugging. "Oh well. Hey, does this mean I don't have to wait like a month before I submit something else?"

He probably would anyway, but he wanted to check, in case he got excited.