Marcus arrived at a busy ship yard filled with people all working on Zeff's restaurant ship which was at least double the size of the original. Marcus studied it for a while before he realized it was probably more than double with the amount of money they all invested. Not only was it bigger, but it was filled with upgrades the original never had and also included top of the line kitchen equipment along with massive storage capacity for ingredients.
It still had its expandable battle platform along with a hidden dock for a couple smaller supply ships which the first one never had. The other feature it boasted with its increased size was a hotel for guests. Marcus wasn't sure if it would be used much, but if he ever visited the place he would definitely steal a room for a few days.
After Marcus was done studying the ship, he moved towards the dock foreman's office to find the man. He was a grizzled, barreled chested man with massive arms who kind of reminded Marcus of a gorilla. Well until the man flashed a friendly smile and asked in a bubbly voice that didn't fit his body, "Marcus! It's good to see you… Did you come by to check on the ship?"
Marcus smiled back at the man as he extended his hand and said, "It's good to see you too, Francis. And I actually came to get another boat commissioned."
The man took Marcus's hand and shook it as he said, "I told you last time, just call me Frank."
"Why, when Francis sounds so much better. It would be like me asking you to call me Mark or something… It just doesn't sound right."
Frank pounded his chest with one hand as he said, "Because I'm Frank the Tank! Not Francis the Tank."
Marcus shook his head slightly before he said, "Alright Frank, whatever you say."
Frank nodded before he waved towards his desk and some chairs as he said, "Take a seat and then tell me about this ship you wanna build."
After Marcus took a seat he pulled out a couple rough sketches as he said, "I want you to build something like this."
Frank frowned as he studied a ship design he'd never seen before and after about a minute he said, "I don't think I can build… This ship."
"Why not?"
Frank pointed at the ship's base as he said, "Well for starters how is this even efficient for carrying anything. Sure it would float and probably be really stable even in rough weather, but you would lose all carrying capacity."
Frank quickly pointed at another section of the ship as he added, "And these little fin things here, why would the ship even need them? They could easily get caught on something in shallower water."
Marcus nodded as he said, "With the ship's build and lack of carrying capacity, it will have almost no displacement unlike a normal ship."
Marcus pointed to the fins as he said, "Those will sit about as deep as a normal ship's kneel if not higher."
"Why even have them in the first place?"
Marcus smiled wide before he said, "Because what's one of a ship's main obstructions in its speed?"
Frank rubbed his chin for a bit as he mumbled, "Weight, hull design, and sail count most of the time…"
Frank's eyes widened as something clicked into place and he said, "It might work. But with only one sail you would never get the proper speed…"
Marcus smirked as he said, "It's a pretty big sail for such a small ship. And besides, look at the other designs underneath."
Frank pulled out the other designs underneath and frowned as he said, "This would be incredibly complicated to make…"
"But is it possible?"
"Maybe…" Frank said and after a few moments shook his head as he added, "But I'm not sure if I could pull it off."
"Why not?"
Frank pointed at the design as he said, "It has too many parts and could easily break down. You would also need something powerful to even move it."
Frank waved to the power plant on another page as he said, "I can tell this thing would never work to power everything else and I'm not even a proper engineer."
"Don't worry about the power source, I'll handle that myself as long as you make everything else…" Marcus said before he glanced at the designs and asked, "Could you make the design simpler and stronger?"
Frank studied it for a while before he nodded slowly as he said, "We would just need to make everything out of metal, but it would add a lot of extra weight."
"I'd like to keep the weight down to an absolute minimum if possible."
Frank nodded as he studied the crude, yet complicated gear design before he said, "I'll have to talk with a couple people and see what we can remove to save weight."
"Go for it, I'm honestly not even sure if what I made would even work correctly…" Marcus said as he studied the gearbox he drew from foggy memories before he added, "Honestly if it won't work, just scrap that whole thing and just make it a single gear ratio with the bigger gear at the power source."
Frank nodded as he said, "That would probably be best."
Frank then pointed at the single main sail design as he added, "What about this? Why is the sail like that anyways?"
"It's so it can easily be used by a single person."
Frank studied it for a while longer before he shook his head and said, "It won't work properly. You would need to have…"
Marcus cut him off as he said, "These were just rough ideas I had. If it won't work, figure out what will work and we can test it."
Frank nodded slowly before he pulled out a note pad and a pencil before he asked, "In that case, tell me exactly what you expect this ship to be able to do and I'll work on a proper design. Once it's done we'll make a smaller version to test with, since I'm not completely sure about this ship design as a whole."
Marcus nodded before he said, "Sounds good to me."
About an hour later Marcus left the ship yard with a smile on his face. He talked with Frank for a while before the man started sketching a proper design for the ship. The plan was to build a very small ten foot long version to test with and then scale it up. Once all the kinks were worked out, they would build and test the larger version. If everything went correctly, Marcus's new ship would be done in only half a year or so.
With nothing better to do, Marcus decided to wander around the city as he looked for some type of music store. It took a little while but after asking for directions he was pointed to the only one in town. It wasn't near the main area of town, but it wasn't in the poor area either. Just a few streets over from the main road, Marcus found a decent sized music shop.
As he entered inside he was greeted by graceful piano music and after a moment a voice said, "Just a moment, I'm at the best part."
"Alright." Marcus said as he followed the sound to a piano that was being played by an elegant looking older woman.
He waited patiently for her to finish before he clapped as he said, "That was lovely, what's it called?"
"Thank you dear… I haven't finished it yet, so I haven't given it a name." The woman said as she stood up from her seat.
She smiled at Marcus and held out her hand as she asked, "My name's Jasmine, what can I help you with young man?"
With the way she presented her hand, Marcus took her hand and instead of shaking it, he kissed the back of it before he said, "I'm Marcus and I wanted to see what you have for guitars."
"It's a pleasure to meet you… Please follow me this way and I'll show you what I have in stock." Jasmine said as she started to walk towards a corner of the store.
They passed a few different sections before they arrived in an area with only guitars. It had mostly acoustic guitars but Marcus's eyes were drawn to a handful of what looked like electric guitars and one of them looked very familiar. He stared at them in surprise for a few moments before he pointed at them and asked, "What kind of guitars are those?"
"Oh, these just came in a few months ago. Apparently they're a new type of guitar from the Grandline. But you need something called an amplifier and a speaker box for it to be used properly." Jasmine said as she pointed over to a couple of black boxes stacked on top of each other.
"They came with a few other components, but I personally don't know how to use them unfortunately."
Marcus glanced over everything in that area and noticed cables, what looked like distortion pedals and a few other things. After a few moments he asked, "Do you mind if I try it out?"
"You know how to use them?"
Marcus nodded as he said, "I've played something similar before, but I'm not one hundred percent sure it's the same thing."
Jasmine waved towards everything and said, "If you can get it to work, be my guest. I'd love to hear how it sounds. The person I bought them from didn't know how to use them either."
Marcus moved over to the amplifier and speakers first to check them out, he found connections for everything but power which made him frown. He looked at the front and found a power switch so he flipped it and it turned on with a low hum. Marcus turned towards Jasmine as he asked, "They don't need external power?"
"The vendor I bought them from said the power source is internal and recharges when not in use. It's supposed to last up to ten hours of continuous use… At least that's what he said, I've never tested it and he didn't know how to use it himself."
Marcus frowned as he asked, "Then how do you even know if they work properly?"
Jasmine smiled as she said, "I deal with him a lot and he's never sold me anything that didn't work."
Marcus nodded as he turned the machine off and was half tempted to open it up and check out how it worked. But after a few moments he gave up on the idea because he would have no idea what he was looking at. Marcus then spent the next ten minutes connecting up one of the guitars to the amplifier along with a couple of distortion pedals. Once it was ready he flipped on the amplifier and strummed the guitar as a very familiar sound filled the air.
Jasmine cocked her head slightly and listened closely as Marcus started tuning the guitar and after a few moments she said, "It's not bad… Different, but still close to the sound of a normal guitar."
Marcus finished tuning the guitar before he pointed down and said, "That's because I haven't used the distortion pedals yet… At least I think that's what these things are."
Marcus stepped on one of them and the sound changed instantly to become a lot more like the electric guitar from his memories. The main pedal was pretty large with six buttons, a few dials and a pedal on it. Marcus played with it for a few minutes until a very distinct sound filled the air and he smiled like a kid who was just given a piece of candy. Marcus stood up and adjusted the guitar before he said, "I'm gonna play a bit if that's okay."
Jasmine smiled and took a seat on a stool nearby as she said, "Be my guest, this new guitar model is becoming very interesting."
Marcus started to play Voodoo Child while he messed with the distortion pedal and whammy bar on the guitar. For the entire song he just closed his eyes and let his memories take over. Once finished he heard clapping and opened his eyes to see Jasmine with a bright smile on her face. She stood up as she asked, "That was certainly different and new, but I really liked it. We're you playing a song?"
Marcus removed the guitar and switched off the amplifier as he said, "It's called Voodoo Child."
Jasmine said the name to herself as she thought it over before she said, "It's a good name and I think it fits the song."
Jasmine then pointed at the equipment as she asked, "What do you think? Are you interested in buying this set of equipment?"
Marcus nodded as he said, "Definitely, I also wanted to see what kinda music books you had, along with some extra sets of guitar strings."
"Great! Let me show you what I have in stock." Jasmine said as she went into sales mode. By the time she was done, Marcus had bought an entire set of equipment for the electric guitar he played that was cherry red, a few sets of strings and a handful of books. He also helped set up another electric guitar for her, so she could easily show it off to anyone interested.
As for getting everything back to the ship, the equipment came with a small cart to move it around. So Marcus carefully loaded everything on the cart, and tied it down with a bit of rope before he headed back to the ship very satisfied with his day.