Timothy made his way to the quartermaster's office where he met a middle-aged man with a sun-tanned complexion. Obviously a local.
"Darn, I completely forgot, I should have asked Reem to come with me to translate..."
Timothy then talked slowly to the man when telling him what he waned.
"I need water... WA-TER" He said pantomiming drinking water from a waterskin.
"Water, yes of course sir. With this heat, I recommend taking two skins along with you." The man answered with perfect English, but with a slight middle-eastern accend.
"You speak English?" Timothy asked astonished.
"Yes, the master feels it is important if people can understand each other." Simply answered the quartermaster.
"Master? Oh, you mean our benefactor?" Timothy replied while thinking this was an odd way to refer to the man who was funding this whole expedition...
"If that's what you want to call him, sure." the middle-aged man replied as he handed Timothy his waterskins.
"So, I take it that you are breaching the tomb today."
"Yes."
"Then I suggest you also take this, for your own good." The middle-aged man then handed Timothy a small stone.
Timothy took it and examined it. It seemed to be a small sculpture of a scarab. It looked ancient.
"Hum, gee, thanks, but I'll also need some flash—" he said looking up back at the quartermaster, but the man had disappeared, leaving Timothy alone in the store, hung mid-sentence.
"Is this some sort of joke?"
Almost as to answer Timothy's question, another man stepped from behind a pile of crates, to greet Timothy, an older man, also a local from his looks. The elderly man then addressed Timothy in a dialect of Arabic Timothy did not understood.
"I'm sorry, where is the man that was here before?" But Timothy's question only seemed to confused the elderly man who obviously did not spoke English.
"Hum, never mind..." Timothy sheepishly said as he pocketed the stone scarab and left the quartermaster's office making his way back to the group.
"What was that all about?"
Last edited May 12, 2024 6:07 pm