A Trouble With Names
Ch. 1
The shop was littered with trash and trinkets, floor space was sparse. Vin stepped over what she thought might have been a spoon at some time, except for now the part that would have been meant to scoop separated into three prongs that died off into the familiar spoon shape she was used to. She could hear the clatter of swearing and a constant mixture of raucous crashes long before even entering the little shop. But her head had begun to nag at her with a small throb upon entering the home of noise. Vin saw a heap of gizmos and what-cha-ma-call-its stir with each profanity that was slung dangerously through the air, breaking windows and whatnots. The living pile was behind what may have once been a front counter, but now served as a damn between the two rivers of garbage, and resting atop the counter was a single golden bell. There was a sign next to the bell that started “Warning” but the rest of the sign was buried in trash that Vin really didn’t care to touch, with or without some type of leaden glove.
She struck at the bell lightly, and it gave of a quiet, almost deaf ring that for some reason seemed to itch at the sides of her brain. The garbage pile paused for a moment or so, as if listening for whatever quiet sound had just, well, sounded, and than quickly resumed its numbing barrage of curses. Vin struck the bell again, more fiercely (as people tend to do when they strike a bell twice) and her head lurched with its shrill cry. The pile stopped swearing again, but this time continued to stir silently. Vin, now being an angry customer, raised her hand impatiently to strike the bell with a great deal of might, despite the migraine that the tiny shop seemed to be creating, when a hand, scraped bloody and cut by little gashes, wearing dozens of paper-cuts and watches (well, Vin had no idea what they were, being this entire thing is supposed to have a semi-medieval setting to it), shot from the pile of swears and grasped firmly onto Vin’s wrist before she could strike the bell again.
This, simply put, was how Vin met Jack. He arose from the pile he had been searching through, much like the stereotypical zombie from the grave, his black hair frayed about, his clothes torn and patched (and then torn again), and his entire body and manner seemed wholly disarrayed. His eyes however, were cold daggers of green (sharp one’s too, he used them to butter toast sometimes).
All too humbly, all too softly (and then once more so Vin could actually hear it. Well, he didn’t repeat that last part), he said, “Don’t ring it again, I never got that bell to work right. Now, how can I help...? Ah! My invention!” And just as quickly as he’d noticed her, she’d been quickly swept from his attention. Jack leapt rather nimbly at first (until he tripped over the counter and started to flounder about) towards the broken spoon, collapsing upon it. He then raised the thing in the air, brandishing it as if it were some holy item of power and luster (which it wasn’t) while uttering a sigh of the profoundest joy. And then, just as quickly as he had arisen from the first pile of junk, he dove into yet another drift, muttering wildly about finding his cereal.
Vin, being rather patient, considering the circumstances (her being a bitch and Jack being insane) called out now. “Excuse me, sir, sir?”
“Wmrrf?” The newly animated stack of scraps replied.
“Um.... I was told I could find some help here. Sir? They said I could find whatever I needed here. Sir?” Well, Vin thought, I am being rather nice for once.
“Mmj Jrk, plf tmee foo.”
Fine, Vin thought, she never really enjoyed being nice anyhow. This time, she no longer attempted to be silent, and she hollered in full voice. “Hey, buddy! Get the hell out of the trash and talk to me already! I’ve been waiting for five minutes at least and you’ve just been ignoring me!” All the smaller trinkets rattled with Vin’s vociferous voice, and one of the walls went as far as fainting, well, it collapsed. The man, who was rather quickly startled by this display of power, popped up as quickly as lightning, sending dozens of his gizmos flying. In one hand, he still gripped the broken spoon, in the other, cereal.
“Thank you, now, I came here looking for a Master Jack, tradesman of all kinds. They said that you knew how to... Hey!” She began shouting again. “Are you even listening to me!?”
His eyes darted about, as if frisking the room. “Hey, buddy!”
The eyes darted back to Vin. Ok, she thought, he might be a little insane. “Oh, hell,” he began, as if just realizing she was really there, and not just another hallucination (which he hadn’t realized just yet, but he at least thought she was a rather long hallucination)”I’m jack, pleased to meet you,” his voice was cheerful and whimsical. “Drat, have you seen a bowl lying about by any chance? No? Ah well, be with you in just a moment... Glory to the god of the semi-transparent ghost of my uncle, the bowl!” He lunged for the object in question, which, lay very obvious atop a larger mountain of junk. The second he had it, he darted off into the back, and returned a moment later with milk.
“Sorry about the wait,” Jack said to Vin, hunching over the now filled bowl. “But my stomach got the better part of my sanity, I got the worse. Besides, one just can’t live on carpet moss for too long.”
“Yes, yes, now, I need help. I need to find, carpet moss?” Jack gestured at the floor with the broken spoon, and than quickly began to eat his breakfast. Vin had merely assumed that the floor, or, where she saw any, was just green by nature. Well, it was green by nature, but in a sense that nature grew in rather thick clumps on Jack’s floor. “Ugh, you mean to tell me you’ve actually been eating that? Mister, you are a nut-job.”
“We prefer sanely challenged.” Vin was just about ready to give up and leave the store at that time when a new voice piped in.
“Hey, Jack. What the hell do you think you’re doing? I’m not going in there!” The voice sounded as if someone had taken the most annoying voice in the world, and than squeezed it between two fingers to make it even more detestable.
The madman’s reply was angry, but firm. “Yes, you are.” Vin looked about the room, hoping to discover the creator of the voice, and after an unfruitful search, decided it must be some assistant who was very good at hiding (that or insanity was contagious).
“No, I’m not! Why don’t you go stick your head into some mushy cereal?” Whoever he was, he was very good at throwing his voice, and was very annoying.
“I didn’t make you for talking, I made you for eating!” Jack’s face was getting red, as he continued his argument with whomever.
“Yeah well,” the voice never got to make its point, as it began to scream “Oppression! Oppression! Oppress...” And was cut off, to Vin’s personal horror, as the man shoved the broken spoon into his cereal. A second later, after lifting some food to his mouth and eating, the voice returned, and Vin went bug-eyed (she got better). “Yick! Jack, that’s disgusting! And close your mouth when you eat!”
“Mff, grff wff.”
“Eww, Jack! Don’t talk with your mouth full, especially in front of that creepy customer in the white mask. Geez lady, you ever heard of a thing called a veil? I mean come on! That mask is so...” And once more, spoon met cereal.
Vin was getting very pissed off, as she often did. “What about my mask?” She asked dangerously. This was kind of like one of those ‘Do I look fat in this’ questions.
“Uh, er, forgive my creation, he didn’t come out right, no offense. Um. Your mask is lovely, absolutely... um... retro?”
Lucky for Jack, Vin’s attention was on something else that had just caught her mind, and not being angry. “Creation? What do you mean creation! What the hell is that thing?”
Jack brightened up noticeably (altering the dim room with him) and drew himself into the air, puffing out his chest, waving the spoon madly saying in a booming announcers voice. “This is my greatest creation yet! My genetically spliced, super fork-knife!”
“Yick! I hate cereal. Well, as I was saying, about that cruddy mask...” And again, fork-knife met cereal. Apart from the blinding rage, which was all consuming, Vin was partially intrigued.
“Er... well, I made a mistake somewhere. I wanted something that could always be used to feed one’s mouth, but, well... It kinda never stops feeding you words... He won’t shut up really...”
“Cute. Really cute. Now, can your help me or not?” He nodded mindlessly, for he had no mind and was indeed nodding. “Good. I’m looking for a god-finder...”
“God-finder?”
“Yes, you know, someone who seeks out gods and finds them. I would like to find the gods who made naming a joke.”
“Is god-finder a trade?”
“Well, according to the laws of trade as set out by the god trade agreement of ‘24 section D, yes. Why?”
“Well, because I can do it than, but, err... um... I’m not going to be the best at it, I won’t be the worst either, I assure you.” Naming had become a joke when the gods decided to have a bit of fun by playing a rather large prank on the human race, well, one of many large pranks really. The gods decreed that people don’t make names, rather, names make people, catch phrases are reality, figures of speech laws. Turning a phrase actually required that one pull out a phrase-turning crank, and actually turns a phrase by raw muscle.
“I still have no idea what you’re talking about....”
“My name is Jack. And I’m one of the named. Jack of all Trades, Master of None. I can do anything that can be called a trade... but...” his shoulders slumped. “No matter how hard I try... I can never master anything.” The gods applied names to phrases, phrases to names, and both to people. So, for instance, in Jack’s case, he really did know something about almost everything, but never would he be able to know everything about something. “So, you need an um... er... what as that again? I’m not all that great at remembering things.”
“God finder,” Vin replied, grinding her teeth. “I need a God finder, and I will pay you three hundred gold for the service. One fifty to get us there, One fifty upon return.” Jack’s eyes widened at the amount mentioned, which could buy him even more useless junk.
“Um, well. Jack the god-thinger at your service. And very nice to meet you miss?”
“Vin.”
“Vin? That’s it, what an inventive way to dodge the whole naming...”
“Its short for Vinegar, I’m one of the named as well. When can we leave Master Jack?”
“What, er... of course... leave... Three minutes?” Vin’s blue eyes widened behind her mask, much like Jack had only a few paragraphs before. Jack smiled, being alright at noticing things, and noticing that, he snapped his fingers as if in response. A backpack, as if a member of some lost army, marched out of a pile, and into the center of the room, opening its top, and removing a fife from within itself. It began to play a simple marching tune. Then, as if responding to the call of the fife, hundreds of pieces of travel equipment, food, and other supplies and junk, marched out of their respective mounds, and climbed a rope ladder that a butter knife had thrown over the top of the bag, to get inside. Vin watched, rather amazed and a tad bit confused, as the backpack consumed a good quarter of the room. During this strange procession, Jack began muttering in the strange words of magic, enlarging his fork-knife to the size of a walking stick and then waited for the bag to fill. When the procession stopped, and the fife was placed into the bag, Jack saluted the backpack, which saluted him back, and then slumped back into lifelessness. “Sorcery and wizardry, as well as most other forms of magic,” Jack said happily. “Are also trades. Ready to go?” She was. “Then should we start off?” She nodded.
“Um, Master Jack?”
“Yes Miss Vin.”
“Why didn’t you just do that in the first place and have your bowl, thing, and cereal come to you.”
Jack’s eyes popped (which was very painful) and he began swearing madly about wasting two days in search, and led the way out the back door where, he seemed to forget why he was even upset before, took a deep breath, heard a bell ring, and went ghostly white.
“Oh great god of the half-transparent spooky being of my long twice dead three times removed uncle! The bell!” Jack moved so quickly that he stepped on his own feet, hit the ground, and then dragged himself back inside the shop. Vin of course, wanting to see what new insanity had just reached Jack, and hoping maybe for a laugh, followed.
Inside, was a man, on the floor, grasping at his head firmly, and rolled into the fetal position. Jack scooped up the bell and dropped it into his bag, and turned on Vin. “Uh, Miss Vin? Can we leave now... please... quickly?”
She barely heard him, her eyes were glued to the backpack (which took them a minute to pry them back off) where the bell had just been placed. “What is that thing? Really?”
“Well, it’s a bell, kind of... er... well, I made it because I could never hear the old bell, so this one was made with a louder ring, well, it was supposed to be made with a louder ring, so I could hear it better. Only problem is, I can hear it better, but only when I strike it... you see, usually, when a bell rings, it’s the bell shaking and what not... for this bell... um... its not the bell that rings.”
“What are you talking about you madman?” She was always angry it seemed. “I heard it perfectly, it gave me a damned migraine!”
“Well, yes, it would.” Jack sucked in a shaky breath. “The bell may not ring, but, the person ringing it does. You see, I guess the god’s decided that to hear a bell better, it would be best if it rang in your head, something like a ringing headache I think.”
“You mean?”
“Yes, it’s the person’s head that rings, not the bell, and it’s still so damned quiet.”
To Chapter 2
I will be back later for the crit, but for now... WOW! I love this! Next chapter, next chapter!!!
