Does he need a weapon license for one of those, then, or can he just get one anyway?

He does not need a licence for that, no. But he does not have enough money for it anyway.

… So is there any chance any of them happen to want gold or gems or something? Jewelry?

Can he make them into pretty things?

He can in fact make various things of jewelry, yes, or he can 'carve' or 'sculpt' the gems or gold or whatever into pretty things, but he's not super artistically inclined so if they could, like, suggest pretty things that they'd want to buy that would be appreciated?

Well they need to be original pretty things, if they're like the pretty things other people make then people can just buy them off other people.

So they continue to not be materially scarce, okay, got it.

Anyone know about things like drugs where there might be supply and demand? Not recreational ones, please – valid choices like selling to hospitals, that sort of thing. He can make things if he can picture them. Not technology. If people have blueprints and want buildings – he's assuming not, since there's no construction – or if people want him to help them sculpt something with more ease or something like that, he can do that?

...what's wrong with recreational drugs?

He's personally not a fan of them. In societies less– material-scarcity than this, they often result in people getting addicted and/or abusing them. He'd rather use that as a fallback if they're really sure there are no other things, and he's pretty sure there are other things he could do, seeing as how he was able to help the hospital.

People are very confused about this 'addicted' or 'abusing' thing, like, how is that anyone's problem, how is it any different than video games...? And yeah there are other things but like drugs in general aren't super easy to make so he could make them and that'd be cool.

… He'd like to know more about what drugs they have and what side effects there are before he decides to make them, and he's still not super happy about doing it.

He might go talk to some sort of authority in the city to check this information.

They have a much larger range of recreational drugs than Theo is used to, including lots of versions of drugs he knows sans terrible side effects like "it is possible you will die randomly when you use it for the first time" or "this will slowly destroy your airways."

The authorities are as baffled as the general citizenry by his reticence to provide recreational drugs.

… He's not sure he can actually verify that these drugs are as described without side effects, so he thinks he'd like to stay away from them for now. Let's just say he has a history with them being of much lower quality and with horrible side effects and he is not sure how to confirm these are of higher quality, plus he does not consider them anywhere near immediately necessary unlike the drugs for the hospital.

Are the weapons within his budget, assuming he gets a license, or should he try to sort out some other way of making money before he sets himself too much on that path?

Anyone he talks to is very bewildered by his stance towards recreational drugs but yes he can go sell exclusively non-recreational drugs for the hospital if he's so strongly against people having fun.

He will not get a licence today, it will take a few weeks, there are hundreds of thousands of people in Zanarkand.

Oh. Lots of people. Fun.

Doesn't matter too much, then, he'll probably just leave here soon-ish and hope he's able to return when he next tries.

Does it seem like he'll be able to get anything useful out of here in the next day or two, if he tries to find some sort of job? Is it plausible he'd get enough money to buy the AI…?

Unless he goes the artistic way and creates very pretty and original things or provides other forms of unique entertainment it is very unlikely he will get enough money for a good enough AI system.

He is nnnot particularly artistic, unfortunately, and is probably unlikely to remember any statues or anything in sufficient detail to get them looking pretty.

This is… extremely annoying. It feels like such a pathetic failure to be unable to produce artwork that could get him something that could end up being useful against Sin. Especially when he has a whole other world to cheat from by using stuff from there.

He can do some pretty necklaces? With some designs and patterns on them? But he really doubts they're 'pretty' and 'original' and he feels like he is failing to be a 'proper' angel here, ugh.

They will still pay him for his drugs, though (is he sure he doesn't want to do recreational? like, why, what does he have against harmless fun?), and some people suggest there might be some artists who would pay him to save them the time needed to actually put the image in their mind's eye to reality (kinda hard to do when apparently literally everything in Zanarkand other than the water and the air are magical).

Someone makes a pass at him, mentioning he's pretty (and exotic) enough to do sex work.

Pause.

He hadn't actually considered that before but if the rates are relatively good then he might actually be up for doing that.

In a society where the only scarce resource is time and people mostly do things they find personally fulfilling, sex work actually pays rather well, especially with the cool wing aesthetic going on.

(So does he wanna go out with the person or...?)

You know what, he actually does!

Oh cool! They weren't expecting that to work. What does Theo like to do?

He likes a lot of things! He hasn't seen a whole lot of the local architecture in-depth, though, and he doesn't know much about the history of the place, so if they want to go walk through a park or look at some pretty buildings – probably not a museum, but maybe a museum – that could be fun…

Yep they can totally do that look this is Zanarkand architecture it is very pretty there is lots of water wanna make out?

Oh, you know what, he does! Keep in mind he's a visitor and all so he might not be used to the local customs and also might be gone shortly.