The sun was gently shining down on a caravan resting in the desert, looking peaceful in the early morning. The strange peaceful quiet made Vincie want to sleep in. He & the others hadn't gotten to sleep much for the entire trip. Luckily, these slave traders were from a high class company and had iron clad rules in place. Otherwise Vincie didn't know how they would have fared on this long desert trip.
Most slave traders perform kidnapping, rape, & murder daily. The company Vincie was sold to buys orphans and street urchins straight from the kingdoms they visit. Criminals too. Surprisingly enough, they didn't pick any up with this batch. They were supposed to be heading to the oasis pit stop in the morning, a vital part in the journey to the slave company.
But slave traders are slave traders. No mater how high class the company they will all do somethings similar to lower class ones. Food being regulated and slaves being put to work are normal after all. However, being kids in age from 3-4 up to 11-12 that labor they had been doing had them all exhausted.
The kids had thought, "why couldn't they have picked up some criminals this time too?"
Groggy from still needing sleep, Vincie forced himself to get up. If they lazed around for too long the slave merchants would beat them awake. A futile endeavor, he thought, as it damages merchandise. Standing up, Vincie had a look around. The kids had all been allowed to go to bed early that night since they would be making a vital pit stop at the oasis next.
The other kids on the same wagon as him were still sleeping. Five girls & seven other boys, making thirteen together. Vincie started waking the girls up so that they would wake the boys. Less fighting started that way.
Monica the eldest girl at 11 was his first target. After Monica it was Stacy, Jewl, Marina, & Pepper. After asking the girls to wake up the rest, Vincie walked outside to head to the other caravans with the rest of the slaves.
"What the...." where were the slave trader & merchant's caravans?
Whatever.
Continuing on Vincie woke the kids in charge of the older groups and then headed to wake the youngest up himself. Usually the smallest kids under 5yo wouldn't be put to work, but their caravan was unusually large and had mostly children slaves.
After waking everyone up Vincie & the other leading kids Monica, Grimm, Ashley, Jacob, Marnesi, Pont, & Rissa started directing chores. They had to sweep out each of their caravans, beat the mats & rugs, care for the animals, and start breakfast.
Vincie, seeing everything going smoothly started looking around for the slave merchants again. If they didn't show up, he was going to destroy all the slave contracts & collars.
Looking around where the lead caravan wagons were, Vincie was shocked. There were strange swirly marks and giant black feathers everywhere.
Collecting the feather Vincie figured out what happened. They had a visit in the night by some sand worms & Rocs. Sandworms are Rocs favorite food. Generally humble creatures that don't disturb others, sandworms often follow messy caravans that leave garbage all over that they can eat.
The lead caravan wagons always had some kind of fruit or vegetable scap lying around if not some bones. Since himself & the others had been allowed to sleep early, no one had cleaned that places garbage up tgat night leading the oh so friendly sandworms over. A fully mature sand worm would take about 3 or 4 fully grown rocs to bring away.
That's more than big enough for a single wagon to "accidentally" get brought along. Vincie decided to head back and have breakfast.
"Hey, everybody eat up those f@$!ing misers aren't here!" vincie shouted so all could hear him.
"f@$! me are serious?" jimm a 9yo kid says.
Jimm was a street urchin from Cruzhal kingdom who got caught pickpocketing on busy streets.
"Yeah, looks like those trashy bastards got spirited away with a small sandworm last night by some rocs!"
Vincie had smug grin on his face before getting himself some food. All the other kids started cheering and quickly got some food for themselves too making it look like a party.
Folowing his meal Vincie went to the stationery wagon to destroy all the slave contracts, spells, & collars. Seeing him move off on his own he was followed by Monica, Grimm, Jacob, & Jimmy. They were thinking of asking him how he knew that the slave traders & merchants were really gone.
"Wait for us Vincie!" Monica shouted as they chased after him. Jacob, the fastest, was the first to catch up.
"Ah, Vincie," he gasped, "would it kill ya to wait geeze."
"What for? We gotta hurry, in case any of them escape from the roc's nest and mak e it back!"
"How do you even know if they got dragged away by rocs?" Monica glared
Vincie grimaced, be fore pulling the feathers out of his shirt. " Look here, didn't i wave these at you guys already?"
"Eh, did something like that happen?" jimmy said as he tilted his head.
"Didn't it?" Vincie tilted his head back. Shrugging his shoulders he said "Never mind, maybe it didn't i was too excited anyways"
"what are you in a hurry for anyway?" Grimm asked calmly.
"Ah! I almost forgot! I'm going to destroy those slavery equipment!"
""""What!?""""
"Wha? Don't you pay any attention? Or do you all need your ears fixed?" Vincie sighed exasperatedly "I'm gonna destroy those things for our safety! I don't know about you lot, but I'm not going to be a slave if i can get out of it!"