Jack Makes Trouble And Laughter – Blog Part 5

“So Jacks standing in front of the recruiter of the Thieve’s Guild. What happens?”

He joins of course. They find him more than eligible. All the tinkering with tiny pieces of clockwork and his magical capabilities were more than enough to get him in. All the recruiter was looking for was someone who could pick pockets and/or locks. Jack could do both. With lock picks and with magic, and dare I say with style.

The recruiter found him seemingly trustworthy and Jack became one of the few who got a commission straight away. He was to report back at seven o’clock precisely and a job would be waiting for him. It had all been so easy. Jack wasn’t aware of his somewhat special situation and just accepted it with a nod.

Feeling confident, Jack decided to test his thiefly abilities. He pickpocketed three hefty pouches worth of coins and placed them in his little hideout, before heading to the castle at the top of the highest hill in the town, where his little princess lived. Many letters had been exchanged in the period between, I simply skipped over this as they were short and held nothing meaningful. I feel that it is important to mention this is the case however; For it makes sense of what happens when he arrives.

He reached the nine foot high garden walls. He was kind of new to the whole pickpocketing business, only doing it when he absolutely had to previously, but climbing walls was like second nature to him. The garden wall was made out of stone, but unlike the main walls it wasn’t sheer and smooth, rather it was stone piled on top of stone and was easy to climb. Jack cleared it in two swift movements.

He landed behind a bush on the other side in a crouch. He looked between the leaves, but the bush was too thick to clearly see, so he risked poking his head up above it to scout the area out. It seemed clear with the exception of two people walking down the central pathway. One of which was the princess. Well that’s handy, Jack thought. The other, was a boy, perhaps three or four years Jacks senior.

The boy seemed to be speaking and Clarrett seemed to just be nodding along uninterested in whatever he was saying. His arm was around her waist and for reasons Jack still wasn’t entirely sure of, he didn’t like it. She started to scan the rosebushes, clearly bored. Jack looked about one more time before making his presence known. She looked up and saw him. She seemed puzzled for a split second, then she grinned. As Jack headed over towards the pair, Clarrett pulled the boys arm off her and pushed him away before running over to Jack and hugging him exclaiming, “Jack!”

She had hugged him whilst his hands were still in his pockets, so his arms were pinned to his sides and he had to awkwardly pry her off him slightly just to return the gesture.

  “Sorry,” she said, letting go of him, blushing.

  “It’s ok,” Jack said laughing and putting his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him.

Jack also noticed then, his heart shaped clockwork locket around her neck. It was a simple enough design, simply making a sound when it opened. The only hard part in it’s creation was finding a bell small enough to fit into the edges of it, as the inside was hollow, and the surface was the clockwork itself. It looked impressive he had to admit, but it was pretty simple. ‘She doesn’t need to know that however‘ Jack thought. The idea was that the letters they exchanged would be exchanged inside it. She clearly didn’t pick up on the idea as she never sent it back. He’d just thought she’d lost it. He said as much too.

  “Lost it! Don’t be ridiculous. I just liked it too much to risk sending it back. Someone might of taken it or something.”

  Jack smiled, “Aww. I’m honoured.”

  “What? It looks nice.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Better now that you’re here. Don’t say it to his face but he’s a bore,” she said tilting her head to indicate the boy still on the path, whom looked horrified and a little stunned.

  “Yeah. Whilst we’re on the topic… you should probably give him an explanation as to what just happened. He looks a bit confused.”

  She looked at the boy then back to Jack, “Oh yeah, he does doesn’t he?”

  “Come on then. You can introduce us. I’m sure he’d love that,” he said looking at her with a smirk.

 She responded with one of her own…

“So they’re in love?” the man from the mountain asked.

  “I’d say so John, no… Garesh.”

  “Second time right. How’d you know my name?” Garesh asked, seeming genuinely mystified.

  “You have that look about you,” The Tale Teller replied, smiling at the man’s bemusement.

  “John is my middle name as well by the way,” Garesh added as an afterthought.

  “Ah, that would explain it. I’m usually right first time,” The Tale Teller said.

  “And so you were, depending on how you look at it.”

  “Why yes, I suppose I was. Now please don’t interrupt me in my telling of the story again.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “It’s alright. You may do so when I indicate it’s ok to do so, but only then. Interruptions bug me you see.”

  “That’s understandable. I’ll stay quiet for the remainder. How, may I ask do you deal with children then? If you don’t mind me asking? For surely a story teller tells some stories to young-uns.”

  “With children it is expected, so I don’t mind it as much.”

  “Ah! I see.”

  “Besides. They have such wonderful and vivid imaginations that at times they’ve been known to actually add to the story with their interruptions,” The Tale Teller replied, smiling at the memories of some of the more wacky additions given to his collection of stories specifically for children. Once a fiercum Dragon had been reduced to only being able to fart fire instead of breathing it. The hero in that particular telling of the tale had ended up defeating the dragon by plugging its sphincter with a boulder. Before cutting its head off, naturally.

  The Tale Teller cleared his throat and took a sip of ale before continuing, “So where were we? Oh yes…

“Jack, this is…” the boy cut her off.

  “Laurence Buckingham. And you are?” he asked, looking him over with great scrutiny.

  “Jack,” said Jack.

  “Jack whom, may I ask?”

  “Jack, the artificer,” Jack replied.

  “Hence the grease.”

  “Oi! Laurence, don’t be so rude!”

  “Sorry my darling Clarrett. I didn’t mean to offend. I was simply stating a fact, so that you don’t get covered in it,” he said in a voice so sickly sweet and sarcastically poisonous, that Jack almost gagged.

The princess was about to reply with an equally guarded and snide remark, but Jack got there first. He however, unlike the princess, was not well versed in the way of political speaking and said things simply how he saw them, “Stop being a prick. We can get along just fine if you’re willing to cast off your silly little illusion of power and rank and talk to me normally. If not, then just fuck off would ya. Nobody likes an arsehole who doesn’t even have the decency to be blatant about it.”

The pair of them were aghast after the fourth word. By the end they were both looking at him open mouthed. They stood there staring at him for a good few seconds, till Jack had had enough. “What?” he asked.

This induced a very different reaction from each of them. Laurence stormed off red faced, seemingly in a fit of rage. Clarrett however, she just started laughing uncontrollably…