[Moosh da Outlaw]

"So what's wrong?" Stranger asked as Ophelia lead the four through the temple. She lead them down a long path under a steef guardian statue, her eyes wide with worry and her legs stiff.
"Bad things!" She exclaimed, waving her hands in the air. "Bad omens, bad atmosphere!"
"Ophelia!" Charlotte said, grabbing the grubb's sholders. "Get ahold of yourself. What's wrong?"
Ophelia turned on her heel. "Bad omens," she repeated.
"What bad omens?" Charlotte asked. Ophelia shook her head and kept walking down the path. They eventually came to a large chamber built to the side of the temple. It was a tall dome-shape, and was intricately carved with winding, wave-like patterns that were painted over in a pale blue-green, perfectly matching the color of the wetland outside. In the middle of the chamber were four of the grubb seers, sitting in a circle. There heads were bowed and their eyes were closed.
They must be predicting something, Charlotte thought, but where's the fifth one?
She spotted him, sitting behind the other elders. A blanket was draped over his sholders and his eyes were red, as though he'd been crying. He pulled the blanket over his head and sniffled loudly, his body shivering. Niether Charlotte or Stranger had ever seen an elder act so sad. Cyren didn't understand why the grubbs were so important, but he kept silent, as though he knew something was wrong. Ophelia sighed loudly.
"Ever since you left, our elders have had horrible predictions. Fire, war, death... but now they can't predict anything."
"Really?" Mola whispered, awestruck. "They can't predict anything?"
"No," Minnow said sadly, breaking his trance. "No matter how hard we try, it just doesn't work."
Mola pulled a coin from his pocket. "Heads or tails?" He asked. Minnow blinked.
"Uh, heads." He said. Mola tossed the coin in the air. It bounced off the floor and started rolling across the room.
"Wait!" Mola cried, chasing after it. He stepped on the coin and looked down on it. "Tails." He muttered. Minnow wimpered and ducked his head.
"Its terrible." He whispered, closing his eyes.
"Whats wrong with him?" Stranger asked, motioning towards where Reed hid under his blanket.
"Well," Ophelia began, "he wasn't having any problems with predicting, but this morning when he woke up he started screaming... it took hours to shut him up. When he stopped screaming he started yelling at us about some plague or something, then he screamed in ancient grubbscript and fainted."
"Grubbscript?" Charlotte asked. "Why don't you just translate it?"
"I don't know grubbscript," Ophelia said. "Only elders do."
There was a short pause. Stranger scratched his head.
"Whats so bad about that?" He asked.
"Because," Ophelia whispered, "Reed's acted this way before. Only once."
"When?" Charlotte asked.
"Just a week before our water was stolen by Sekto."
She let these words sink in. Reed poked his head out of his blanket, his bottom lip trembling.
"This... could be a problem." Charlotte muttered. She knelt down by Reed and placed a reassuring hand on his sholder, looking concerned.
"Reed?" she whispered. "Are you feeling better?"
His only reply was to duck his head back under his blanket. Charlotte sighed and turned to Ophelia.
"You said he was yelling at you?" She asked. Ophelia nodded. "About what?"
Ophelia shrugged. "I don't know. He mentioned a terrible plague of some sort, 'nothing like the draught', I think he said. I didn't really get it."
Stranger sighed and sat down on a bench by one of the walls. "I think the draught he talked about was when Sekto took the water, but I don't know anything about a plague."
"Is there any way we could translate what he said in grubbscript?" Mola asked. Ophelia shook her head.
"Not that I can think of..."
Cyren's ears flicked upward. "Maybe there is way," he said. Ophelia looked startled, partially because he could speak, and partially because he sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
"How?"
"Well..." He asked, "Don't all grubb villages have a book they read for this sort of thing? Like guidelines?"
Ophelia snapped her fingers. "Thats it! Why didn't I think of it before? The Book of Ancients! You're a genius, how did you know we had one?"
"S'not important," Cyren grunted. Ophelia grinned.
"All we have to do is find it!" She said. Stranger blinked.
"You lost it?" He asked wearily. Ophelia scratched her head.
"Not exactly..." she said.
"So where is it?" Charlotte asked.
"I don't know."
There was a pause.
"That would be lost," Mola said dully. Ophelia cuffed him on the back of his head.
"We know where we lost it, but we don't know where it went." She explained. Charlotte stood up.
"Okay, so where is it?" She asked. Ophelia looked twice as worried as before. She twittled her fingers, looking nervous.
"This way," she muttered, motioning for them to follow. "I'll show you where it is, but you won't like it."