Excerpt: ...that's still pending...

Somewhere in the building, a large metal contraption clanged, banged, and chugged its way through some kind of processes. The Lord only knew what; Zacharias was not exactly known for his practicalities, or his understandable contraptions. The inventor could, when specifically requested to do so, come up with a useful, logical invention. Most of the town had at least one, actually. However, when he was not being paid to make the effort, he tended to just sort of…let his magic and his mind flow, and create around whatever popped into his head.

His entire shop, lab, and home—which were, in all actuality, one large building; it was just divided into a great many parts—were all full of bits and bobs off of strange machines that clanged, chugged, pinged, twocked, tocked, clicked, hummed, whistled, or any other variety of noises, on their way through the day. More than half of them didn’t even work.

Zacharias kept them anyway.

It was not as though he could not let him go. He simply chose not to. Who knew when he might make that dresser/clock…thing in the hall start keeping time in a manner recognized by normal human beings? Or when he would manage to make his combination coffee maker/toaster do more than fill the brew basket with toast crumbs or shoot coffee beans around the kitchen? Invention took time, after all, and no small amount of magic or skill. Things were not junk just because they did not work. Refinement was a process.

Case in point was the project Zacharias was currently hunched over in the main room of his store. What had originally been an old, beat up, brass plated tea kettle—and who on earth wanted a brass plated tea kettle, anyway? Copper was much prettier and more practical—and was now slowly becoming…something else. He was not entirely sure what. Maybe it was going to be a cash register? He really could use a new one…

He poked a slender screwdriver through the spout and tinked it against the edge thoughtfully. Yes, that would make a lovely sound when it opened, quite a nice change from the standard ding that tended to grate on one’s nerves day after day after day. All it would take was a little bit of stretching, some reforming over here, perhaps, and the addition of some moving parts for a drawer and keys…

He fell into a sort of trance, pulled down by both his magic and his logic, the two processes working together on the problem he had presented to it. He was pulled so deep into his creating and fiddling that he did not hear the bell over the door sound to signify the arrival of a new patron.

Actually, to call it a bell would be generous. Or inaccurate, at the very least. Tired of people complaining that they tended to stand around, waiting for the inventor to notice them, Zacharias had sought a way to remedy the situation. He had set himself a test, providing a variety of sounds ranging from the tiniest, softest sound of a mouse’s squeak to a ridiculously loud klaxon that could be heard across the square. He had set each of them to ring at intervals through out the night, to see which would bring him from a sound sleep.

His theory had been that he was a ridiculously sound sleeper, and if the sound roused him from sleep, it should be loud enough to pull him out of an inventing trance, at least long enough to register someone in the store. The idea had merit, but as with most things around Zacharias…well, it did not go as planned.

Somewhere towards the louder end of the range of noises he had set to wake him, and after a very short night’s sleep, Zacharias rigged a door buzzer that sounded something like a cross between a chicken squawking and a fishwife bellowing at her husband. Most of the time, this horrific sound would jar him free of whatever trance he was in. Most of the time, really, being the operative words. Sometimes, the sound failed miserably.

Like right now.

Zacharias was entirely oblivious to the fact that a man was standing at his counter, shifting very slightly from foot to foot as he waited to be acknowledged. And waited. And continued to wait. The stranger watched Zacharias with a combination of annoyance and nervousness, obviously torn between interrupting the other man’s work and the need to obtain whatever it was he had come in for.

Finally, the man sighed, shifted, and coughed in just the right combination, or Zacharias shifted out of his little trance long enough to register the world around him, or…well, to be honest, it was most likely the attentions of a small metal dragon nipping at his fingers that brought Zacharias forward and into the present.

“Ouch!” Zacharias shouted, aggrieved. “Bitsey, what have I told you about biting? I do not have time to play with you right now. And would you please go find me that pressure sensing thingamajig? You know the one…” He blinked at the dragon who had not moved, who was, in fact, staring rather pointedly at the man standing patiently—mostly—for Zacharias to notice him.

The inventor followed his dragon’s line of sight, and visibly started. “Oh! My! Lady of the Shadows, I didn’t see you there. Why didn’t the door alarm go off? I could swear I set that loud enough…maybe I should look at it again…”

The stranger managed to keep his face straight, though it was visibly a struggle. “Please, your door buzzer is…loud enough. I’m sure they heard you to the end of the street, to be honest. I…no, it is loud enough. Definitely loud enough.” He rubbed his ears ruefully, as though in memory of the ear piercing noise.

“Well. Okay, loud enough for you, perhaps. Not enough to pull me out of my trance, which is the point of that. I swear… "