Coming Clean – Blog Part 7

“And so,” The Tale Teller said, pausing only for a moment to take a sip of ale, “Jack, after completing his first mission, returned with the thieves and was warmly and coldly welcomed in equal amounts by all of them, but welcomed by all nonetheless. Rook taught Jack thief-script and all manner of other things that one requires for being a thief.”

  “Such as?” Garesh asked.

  The Tale Teller gave him a disapproving look before answering him, “Such as how to hide in shadows better, how to better deceive someone and how to truly disguise yourself as another and make it look believable. That sort of thing.” “Oh and how to better fight with knives and your fists.”

  Garesh put his hands up in silent apology before nodding and saying, “Thank you. Please continue.”

The Tale Teller did just that, taking a swig of ale and signalling for a refill first before continuing…

Jack told me he ran many more missions of the sort, as well as some odd jobs here and there. The details of such things are not crucial to the story, but just know that he got into a few close scrapes and on more than one occasion being able to ride a horse was what got him out of trouble. The other thing of note is that he wasn’t at the workshop nearly as much these days. George naturally, was worried by this and started to pry into his whereabouts after a short while. Jack however through experience in the job had indeed become as good at deception as Rook had hoped he would, and therefore George didn’t uncover anything with his more pressing questions.

“With this taken into consideration we shal carry on… Yes?” Garesh had raised a finger and looked like he had a question he wanted to ask.

  “You said just a second ago that… that Jack ‘told’ you he ran many more missions. I thought Jack was just a fictional character, no?”

  “Oh Jack is real alright. I met him when he tried to pickpocket me. I was intrigued by his mechanical beetle that he’d tried to use to steal my silk scarf. So I questioned him on it and then took him someplace safe and fed him. After a while he began to open up and was willing to tell me his story; Which I think you might agree, is a rather fascinating one,” The Tale Teller replied with a smile.

  “Oh wow. Ok, I didn’t realise that. Go on then, what happens to Jack?”

Well… Jack ends up using up a lot of the money he earns in his thieving to make more silent clockwork tools for him to use as scouts. In the end his scout drones were more like flies than beetles, their size being the same as the end of your finger, made with very intricate clockwork.

At first all they did was fly in through a small gap, then fly back and a light would flash if anything larger than a mouse that was living had been detected and if not it wouldn’t flash at all. Handy and all as that was, Jack being a bit of a perfectionist was determined to make it better and spent a good quarter of his total funds for the clockwork falcon on making a mask that read visual data from the bugs, basically allowing him to see through their eyes whilst wearing it.

Slowly but surely however, even with these ‘unexpected’ costs, Jack had managed to gather together a rather large sum of money. Towards the end of the process, around the time when he first met me, he had gotten impatient. He spent what money he had on a few of the parts, rather than waiting and buying in bulk. This meant that he could start to make progress on his falcon, which he did. It also meant however that overall the project would cost more, due to Jack not getting a discount on the parts for purchasing so much.

Once these parts were purchased, he dedicated almost three solid weeks to his falcon. He made huge progress, and it got to the stage where he couldn’t hide the fact that he was creating something ambitious from George. So, with roughly three quarters of his falcon assembled, it was time for an explanation. It was also subsequently time for a reckoning, as George was far from happy when he heard what Jack had been up to.

  “YOU DID WHAT!?” George roared, causing a minor earthquake.

  “I…I,” Jack stuttered.

  “You did work for the thieves guild, the RUDDY THIEVES GUILD!” and so the earthquake continued.

  “Look, I’m sorry I got fired and I needed funds for the-” George cut him off.

  “I told you NEVER to use your inventions for stealing or to cause harm. DID I NOT?” Jack remained silent, “HAVE I TOUGHT YOU NOTHING!?”

  “No sir, you’ve taught me many things. Such as what it is to have a family… However small it may be. You taught me to be kind and caring, simply by leading by example. And I’ve squandered it all away…” Jack said sobbing slightly, the words “I’m sorry,” clamming up in his throat but not quite escaping.

There was a long silence then. It was the kind of silence nothing dare disturb. The birds were silent. The noise of factories muted entirely by the large oak door of the workshop, which was uncharacteristically slammed shut. Only the ticking of clockwork dared intrude on the silence that filled that room. Even it seemed shy at first, dulled somehow by the raw emotion that shimmered in the air like a haze, a bit like moisture during a heatwave. Then, as the silence dragged on, the ticking clockwork grew bolder, punctuating the silence with rhythmic clicks, as second by second it ripped the silence to shreds.

  “I’m sorry,” Jack said in earnest, opening the oak door with a slight creak as he did. Jack looked over his shoulder as he left; Before turning away and striding out of the emporium proper, head hung low, a criminal convicted.

Just before the emporium door closed, he glimpsed George storm out of the workshop teary eyed. He hit something then and there was an almighty crash. Jack judged by the long line of explititives that followed, that George hadn’t intended to break whatever he had struck at in rage. The little bell on the door rang then, and the emporium door thumped closed, signalling an end to the confrontation. Looking like a wounded animal, Jack skulked off to his little hiding place on the rooftops and slept in small bursts, restless. ‘Does George hate me now? How will I get fed?‘ these were the kind of questions that roamed his mind like a feline predator. Every now and again it would pounce on it’s prey, what was left of the emotional part of him, and jolt him awake.

In the end he gave up and tore into his last ration of salted bacon, waiting for the new day to come…

The next day did come of course, as that’s what days do. The air seemed clean and clear. It held a certain crispness, the kind that makes you smile at first, but inevitably ends up making your nose run. It was in this state of snivelling that Jack approached the door to the emporium. He’d tried running over a few of the things he would say to George as way of apology, but nothing came to mind. He decided to simply rely on instinct when he met him. Unlike his greedy mind, his instincts hadn’t led him astray. Not yet anyway.

The little bell rung as per usual and nothing out of the ordinary seemed to occur when he opened that door. Jack felt like it should of, but it didn’t. So he decided that if that was what was expected, then he would do nothing out of the ordinary either, and so he strode up to the counter and pressed the other small bell on the desk, demanding service.

George’s head popped out from the workshop door. He saw Jack and smiled. “Oh Jack…” he said, before running over and enveloping him in a massive bearhug. Jack could have sworn he heard one of his bones snap, but he didn’t mind. This was the sign of a new beginning, and he welcomed it with open arms…