The day after her failed attempt at tickle torture on Albert, Isse woke up feeling groggy and embracing the second book of the ‘Mind [Detective]’ series as if it were her child.
They had read deep into the night, consuming an entire candle, and Isse had promised herself that she would try to learn the [Light] Spell just to make sure she wouldn’t strain her eyes so much. Sure, she was an arachne, which came with a much better eyesight than most other species in the world, but you try to read by candlelight for six hours straight and not get either:
1. A headache;
1. An eyeache.
Which one is worse? I’ll let you decide.
Currently it was probably around eight in the morning and both she and Siidi were sleeping soundly both in their body and in the Mind Castle, curled around each other, looking like their child-selves, their minds filled with darkness for the Dream couldn’t reach them here.
That is, until Albert walked into the room soundlessly and, after watching Isse’s sleeping form for a moment, waiting for her to wake up and look at him like she seemed to always do, realizing she wasn’t going to do any of that, reached her and, gently, shook her shoulder.
Now, Albert was a great [Spymaster], but he had one fatal flaw: he knew close to nothing about arachne. Oh, sure, he had heard the few stories that were told around campfires by the older spies, even a few from Master himself, but they were few and far between, the College attempting to do everything in its power to make the world Forget about the so-hated species. Which was both a boon and a curse: a boon because people could sleep at night lighter, not knowing about the menace that could be hiding anywhere, even in the depths of the earth under a city (which they’d done, once. That city, suffice to say, is no more. Kingdoms from all over the world sent Spells and Skills destructive enough to create a new lake in place of that city on Rodar. The place was now known as the Eye Lake, or, more commonly, the Depths of Tears), but a curse because, nowadays, few knew what to do against the arachne other than run, hide, and hope they weren’t ready to breed.
So it is quite understandable that Albert did not know that physically waking up an arachne was a very bad idea. There was a reason why the [Caretakers] always woke up the spiderlings with the Silken Orchestra’s songs and their voices.
Why?
Because arachne had a tendency to bite. A lot. Especially when they were startled. For example by someone suddenly shaking them awake.
Albert had only a moment in which his [Dangersense] spiked, a little alarm bell trilling in the back of his head, so nothing that dangerous, but still, the fact that it had even been activated was reason enough for him to activate immediately one of his Skills: [Prevent Incident].
His hand shot away from Isse as she opened her eyes and, following an instinct she’d never known was there, moved her head as fast as lightning and bit exactly where Albert’s arm had been a moment ago.
Silence… had never been broken until now, so it didn’t ‘fall like a rock’ on the room, but it somehow managed to deepen, as Isse’s eyes moved away from her shoulder and towards Albert, her face turning slightly red as she felt Siidi glare at the man.
Has nobody told you that shaking people awake is rude? she said.
Siidi, he can’t hear you.
For now.
Albert looked a moment at his hand, making sure it was still in place, before looking up at Isse and waving with it: “Good morning.”
Isse nodded dumbly for a moment, before her brain went back online completely and she answered back: “Good morning. Please don’t ever do that again.”
He chuckled: “Well, I don’t fancy getting my hand bitten off, so I’ll do just that. Still, time to wake up. I want to teach you a few things today. Something more relaxing.”
Isse pouted: “But I want to read.”
Me too sister.
“You’ll get to read later, don’t worry. For now, come, let’s have breakfast, and later, I’ll teach you the work I actually love.”
That said, he turned around, calmly walking out of the room.
Curious, Isse followed him.
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“When I first started learning the art of clockworking, it wasn’t actually to make clocks, but to open doors. Lockpicking is what it’s called.”
“I know what’s lockpicking Albert. I’m not that naive.”
The man chuckled. The two of them were sitting in Albert’s workshop in the back of his shop, on the ground floor. Against one wall were two tables positively filled with gears and springs and other mechanical gizmos, a few small gems carefully put in small glass vases. A [Light] Spell hung over the table, connected to a movable metal arm, a rudimentary lamp in a world where electricity didn’t yet exist. Adjacent to them was a series of shelves that went as high up as three meters, all of them filled with small boxes containing the [Clocksmith]’s components.
“Yes, I never said otherwise, Isse. Still, let an old man be overly dramatic, eh? When I was, oh, I believe I was eight years old at the time, Master began teaching me how to pick locks. He taught me to listen to them and to always speak kind words, no matter what. He taught me how to open a door with a single hairpin, and how to close one in a way that would make it impossible for anyone else to open it.
“After that, in my free time, he taught me how to create locks of my own. He taught me tricks to make them unbreakable, and he taught me the means to earn their undying loyalty. You see, locks are people. They are alive, or they can become so, if given enough time. A strange concept, I know, but one Master loved. He always said this: ‘Anything with enough moving parts will, sooner or later, become sentient’. Or something along those lines.”
He smiled fondly as he looked at the gears on the tables.
“I never saw one of my creations come to life. Or if they talked to me I never understood their language. But I know how to craft them, and I know how to smith the components myself.”
He sighed sadly, before adding: “Of course, I don’t do the smithing anymore. I’m too old for that, and these weary bones weren’t made for strenuous physical activity. Now I have to commission what I require from a [Precision Smith] who works a half hour away from here.”
Moving towards the table he took an unfinished clock in his hands, his long, delicate yet calloused fingers wrapping kindly around the bulbous metal of the encasement.
“I will teach you the ways of us clockworkers. I will teach you how to speak to gears and pins, how to listen to them, how to judge the stress of a coil and how to assemble it all, naturally. That way, at least, you’ll also be more believable when you say you’re my apprentice.”
He put the casing down where he’d taken it and turned to look at her.
“So, you interested?”
She was, truly, but she still felt a bit vindictive for his book theft, so she asked: “Do I even have a choice?”
Albert shook his head: “Nope, but if you’ll do this of your own volition it will be much more enjoyable for both of us. And, seeing your face, I think you agree.”
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
For a moment she tried to keep her face straight. Then she snorted: “Am I really that easy to read?”
Albert smiled: “Yes. Yes you are, but don’t worry, we’ll fix that in time. Now, come sit closer. The beginning is extremely important.”
She did just that.
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Clocks were, unsurprisingly, extremely complex.
That is why Albert didn’t start her lessons by showing her a clock. Instead, from under the table, where half a dozen drawers awaited, closed, he took out a strange looking contraption that, she recognized after a moment, was the handle of a door connected to its lock.
“This is a basic lock, like the kind you could find in the door to the kitchen.”
Isse frowned: “Are they always so big? This looks way bigger than what we have in the kitchen.”
Albert chuckled: “You’re not wrong. This one is a training lock. I made it bigger for this exact purpose.”
His hands gently placed the extra large lock in front of her on the second table, which had been freed of all clockwork gizmos only for this occasion.
Next, seemingly out of nowhere, he got two lockpicks out: they were both sort of L shaped, with one being extremely small and thin in its length, only the base large enough to get a good grip, while the other made her think that Albert had just taken a random piece of long big junk and bent it into shape.
“Where were you hiding those?” she asked, taking them gingerly in her hands.
“You’d like to know,” he said with a mysterious smile.
“...You hid them in your sleeve, am I right?”
His smile only grew bigger: “Maybe. Or maybe they were somewhere else. Or maybe I have a Skill that lets me summon a lockpick for a short while and makes them disappear once we’re done. The possibilities are limitless.”
Isse raised an eyebrow, causing Albert to smile even more: “Keep them on their toes, that’s what I was taught. If someone understands your tricks, change them. Be unpredictable. Or act as predictable as possible, to the point of incompetence, and then stab them in the back. That’s a very important lesson for you to learn.
“But not now. For now, what you will learn is how to pick a lock.”
He placed a gentle hand on the huge contraption, motioning for Isse to look closer. When she did he opened a latch on the side and let one of the metal plates that formed the whole thing fall to the table, revealing the lock’s pins.
“I know it looks bad and extremely complex, but it’s not. Locks, in general, aren’t that complex. You could learn to pick one in a day, and afterwards it’ll just the same.”
Isse nodded, squashing the feeling of uncertainty that had welled up in her when she’d looked at the insides of a lock.
“Now, normally, what you do is you put the torsion wrench in,” he showed her the big L shaped… thingy, inserting it gently in the keyhole, “and then you put in the pick. There’s many kinds of picks, naturally: this one I believe is called a hook pick, or ‘finger’ in the jargon. A good alternative to this is a so called diamond pick, which is thinner and even smaller. They’re both good for what you’ll need to do, but the latter you’ll want to use if you want to pick the individual pins. We’ll get to that in the future though.”
He began showing her what he was doing, his hands moving methodically and steadily, the gap in the side of the lock letting her see everything he did with the small implements as he moved the pick in and began gently hitting the pins upwards, moving them in place with soft, well oiled, ticks.
It was mesmerizing and, apparently, relaxing, or at least it made her feel slightly sleepy as she stared on. Finally, the last pin fell into place with a soft click and Albert turned the wrench. Isse watched in amazement as the complex metal system turned around with a clack. It was mildly satisfying to look at.
“See? Easy, right? Well, not easy easy, but doable. Want to try?”
He offered her the lockpicks and, after a single moment of hesitation, Isse took them in her hands. She fiddled with them for a moment before she could take a good hold of them, her hands slightly sweaty for no reason, as Albert clicked the lock closed and moved aside.
“Now, remember, there’s no need to rush. You won’t manage to do this at my speed, and you’ll probably find it difficult to even start. It’s all a matter of patience.”
For a moment as he said that Isse imagined herself managing to pick the lock in under a minute, maybe even faster, showing off to Albert, who’d be extremely impressed and shower her with praise. She imagined feeling the clicking of each pin under her lockpick, the sounds coming one after the other in rapid succession up until the final clack.
How hard could it possibly be?
Turns out, to nobody’s surprise, a lot.
The minute Isse spent just trying to put the torsion wrench in without it being in the way of the pick, followed by another minute of fiddling with said pick at the first pin and failing miserably, until she felt, with the curved tip, its bottom and, finally, managed to push it upwards.
“Very well. Now, on to the next,” said Albert, who was sitting with his eyes closed by her side, clearly listening to her motions.
So the next five or so minutes passed as she went looking for the pins inside the lock with her pick and, one by one, pushed them up. It felt like it took her an eternity, and she started to feel slightly embarrassed at just how slow she was being. She knew, in the rational part of her mind, that there was no reason to feel ashamed: this was her first time, after all, but the emotional side of her, the part that had started working again… properly, if she had to use a word to describe it, after her visit at the Empty Hearted’s Rest, told her that she should’ve done better.
Luckily Albert was there to encourage her every step of the way, to tell her how great a job she was doing, and to give her tips whenever she seemed stuck. And all the while, he never opened his eyes once, his hands interlaced under his chin, his head resting on them, not a single muscle twitching.
When, finally, the last pin fell into place and she turned the wrench, opening the lock, he smiled brightly, opened his eyes, and gave her a gentle pat on the back.
“You did great! Don’t worry, the training lock actually makes it a bit harder since you’re working with regular sized tools on an oversized lock, but I found out this helps a bit. Let’s try it again, and then I’ll let you try it on the kitchen lock.”
Isse frowned: “Why exactly the kitchen? Couldn’t I do this with any other lock of the house?”
He shook his head and smiled proudly: “You’d find that difficult Isse. I made the locks to all the other rooms of the house, put failsafes in there to make them much harder to pick. You wouldn’t be able to do it.”
She tilted her head to the side questioningly in that very arachne way: “And the kitchen lock isn’t the same?”
“The kitchen doesn’t hide anything.”
Which implied that the other rooms of the house hid stuff other than her and Albert’s personal belongings.
“Come on now, no time to lose. The sooner we finish, the sooner you get to read your beloved books.”
Which was all the convincing she needed to put her head down near the lock and start working on it anew.
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It was deep into the night now. Isse sat sprawled on her hammock, a book in her lap as she and Siidi slowly devoured it word for word. They loved each and every moment, and already the System had decided to award the arachne a few more Levels in their [Reader] Class and a shiny new Skill. Literally shiny. It had heard of their plight with lighting and thought it appropriate to give them something to help with that.
But right now what mattered wasn’t Isse.
No, right now who mattered was Albert.
Albert, who sat at one of the tables in his workshop, his steady hands slowly putting a very small cog in the innards of a clock. His fingers didn’t tremble thanks to one of his Skills, [Steady Hands], and his eyes sharpened slightly as he activated another, [Eye for Details]. The last one actually came from his [Spymaster] Class, but he had found a new, better, use for it in this life he’d sacrificed so much to gain.
A sacrifice he was reminded of a few minutes after putting the cog where it belonged.
A loud ding came from a pocket of his overcoat, the sound filling the room and distracting him from his work. He sighed, knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to get back to it now.
Slowly, nearly reverentially, he took out a pocket watch from his clothes. Its design was extremely elaborate, the metal of the chassis carved elaborately with a representation of a river flowing into a lake made out of glass over the face of the beautiful creation. It was made of copper strengthened with a Skill by a [Forgemaster] he’d met decades ago in Aknos who’d owed him a favor, making it more resistant and less malleable.
He clicked open the cover of the watch and looked.
The seconds hand steadily moved backwards, signaling the passage of time leaving him behind, but what mattered was the number shown by a smaller clock to the side: a clock that showed the passage of months. Currently, the hand had finished doing an entire circle and was now back on number twelve, while a second clock underneath, one with twenty numbers instead, had had its hand move backwards to the number ten.
Another month had passed. And with it, another year.
“Ten years left. Huh. Well, gotta make them count.”
And he went to bed.
Tomorrow was another day, and while the ones he had were very much counted and limited, he knew it had been worth it.