The Vagrants

Chapter 7

MARNIE

I slept like a log last night. Twigs were digging into my back and I had to chase after a bird that flew away with my tool belt. After I got it back I cleared away anything under my sleeping bag then decided to watch the night sky while listening to the sounds of nature around me. At midnight I heard two voices talking, later on I realised it was Evelyn and Jefferson. Their conversation went something like this "What are you doing?" Came Evelyn's voice. "Just stuff." Jefferson replied. "What kind of stuff?" "Regular stuff." "And what exactly is that regular stuff?" "The kind of stuff you don't need to know." "Ookay..." Evelyn sounded suspicious but it didn't sound like she wanted to know what he was doing. It was more of an I-know-you're-up-to-something-and-I'm-going-to-find-out suspicious. After a while a pair of footsteps were heard going back.

When morning finally came, we all woke up and packed up whatever we had lying around. I used some of my water to put out the fire we had going in the night then helped anyone that needed it. Once we were done we started moving further. Everyone looked like they had a rough night, all but Cameron. He was smiling happily and talking to Jefferson about who knows what. "Cameron, how was your sleep?" I asked. They all looked at me like I actually cared, I just wanted to know why he was fine. "It was good, thanks for asking. I had this crazy dream and you guys were there. We were walking and then we found this weird type of building-" He was cut off by Evelyn "Yeah, we don't care. She was just wondering how you slept so peacefully when we all slept so...crazy" Cameron looked annoyed that no one cared about his dream, but soon his goofy grin was back on his face. "It's just good to know that I can sleep around people who care so much and would do anything to save me." "Care so much? I would sell you away for a piece of grass." Evelyn said. We all laughed and continued walking.

A few minutes later I saw some type of wall a few metres on my right. I held my arm out in front of everyone, stopping them from moving forward. "Do you see that?" They all turned their heads to find out what I was looking at. Without a word, Maikki moved slowly towards it. Jefferson put a hand on her shoulder, trying to stop her but she just shrugged it off then kept going forward. We all looked at each other before we decided to follow after her.

The place was different to anywhere else I've been. Four buildings made of bamboo were lined up facing our direction. They were painted grey and had small carvings of people walking around doing different activities on the door frame. All of them were various shapes each one to a different groups liking. The first one was small with a roof made of sticks, bottles and tubes were seen through the wide windows, and the pictures were of people sitting crossed -legged with their hands over people lying on the ground. It was a good place for a Healer.
The second one was tall with a roof made of stone, it had spears lined up against the outside wall and through the open door you could see a stuffed moose head. The carvings were of people raising weapons while raging forward towards a disarmed team. Obviously for a Combatant.
The third one was medium sized with a straw roof and had grease running down one of the walls. There was no actual door, just an empty doorway. Through the space we could see chests, shelves, and work benches with hammers, nails, and wood scattered all over them. It was for a crafter.
The last one was wide and had two stone pillars holding the front of the wooden roof. It had two big windows on each wall that you could see tubes, microscopes, and books through. The pictures on the doorframe were of parchments and quills with people leaning over them. Clearly for Sages.

We all moved to the first building, then the third, then the last. They all had different golden statues in the far corners with writing in an ancient language. It was when we lastly went into the second building when we figured out who the statues were of. Evelyn was staring up at the Combatant statue, looking like she remembered something about it. "Wait a minute. Evelyn, stand beside the statue." Maikki said. Evelyn walked over and stood side to side with the statue, confused. Now I understood, the others clearly did too. "I figured it would be. The statues were of the first four Vagrant.". The golden statue was of Chaz.

Jefferson rummaged through his bag then brought out a thick book. He handed it to Cameron "This is a translator book. It makes sense that the plaques in three versions with the first languages they were taught. Gujarati, Kazakh, and Greek. They must have written this before they learnt English. That is a Greek dictionary, Cameron, look it up while I take notes." Cameron started flipping through the book while Jefferson started writing something down and sketching the writing then folding the paper and stuffing it into his pocket.

Cameron looked up then pointed to a sentence on the page "It means 'If you seek help, seek me out, my dear Combatants' It must say the same thing in every different building apart from the group names." I suggested we leave so we could keep moving on, but at that time we heard a twig break.

I took a look out side and stood in fear. It was the monsters.