Mwari Chronicles

Chapter 3

Hamanymu Mulengu always knew that he was one of the lucky earth ones. He had made it out of Armageddon with his father, mother, siblings and a few extended family members still alive. A far better fate than the horrific ends that billions suffered in that month of hell.

He still dreamed about it, the great eye which took the moons place and the whispering shadows that tore men and women limb from limb like one would with paper. There was much more, so much more that he would never forget, no matter how much he wanted to.

And upon their arrival in Valon, they had been amongst the first to ditch the earth district for the High Veld. It had been a tough decision to make, the district might have been a suffocating cage, but it was a cheaper and more predictable existence than the uncertainty of the other provinces.

Moving a extended family of twenty to the High Veld was a risk and they definitely felt the sting. The housing was more expensive and the jobs in the farms and small towns were certainly not as instantly rewarding as the back breaking factory work in the earth district.

They had been forced to move about the cities of the High Veld until they finally settled in the much cheeper and smaller township of Old Kasaka. There they finally found stability and in truth, none of them would have made it out there if it wasn't for the kindness displayed by the Valonians in the High Veld. Many of the large farmers willingly cut off small pieces of land from their farms and gave them to the earth refugees, allowing space to settle, grow their own goods to feed themselves.

Hamanymu would right now be farming and working at the families transportation business, pumping more money into the families construction on their land. However, his father unintentionally changed that by managing to get employment under the Lord Parliamentarian of the High Veld as part of the Research and Community Development Committee.

This had been a blessing in that it brought in more money and respect for the family but it also forced everyone to push for jobs which were much reliable and supposedly respectable. Hamanymu had through serious trail and error managed to find employment under a N'anga, those wizards of Valon who studied Mwari and its relationship with the natural world and in truth Hamanymu found them no different from earths scientists of old.

They all wore great flowing robes and carried staffs that crackled with concentrated pure Mwari and yet the N'angas lost a bit of that mystic sheen when you across Bio Crafters, Metal Smiths, Storm Seers, Geo Crafter and many more.

Unfortunately for him, rather than finding an opportunity under a N'anga who was on the cutting edge of discovery, Hamanymu found a madman. Balder Thorn looked like a caricature of a evil wizard, he had the traditional flowing mane of hair with a bald head which still had a few strands of hair that stubbornly refused to go away as did his robe which was two sizes too big for his boney frame.

Thorn had since the first day that the ink on their contract been applied sent Hamanymu into the deep wilds of the world to bring him ingredients from trees, insects and living beasts that being Jrods inhabitants were abnormal in strength, size and behavior.

He had fought everything from Elephant Frogs, Elder Crocodiles, Crimson Mambas, Titan Grofs and even the blood curdling Ghost Spiders. All for minor trinkets and experimentions which the Nganga didn't bother to even explain to him.

Hamanymu always felt his blood boil when he heard Thorns usual response to his questions. "Because my boy, mine is to order and yours is to do whilst being paid handsomely might I add."

When Hamanymu signed up, there had been close to thirty assistants, and now there were only five left. Were the four thousand Keld per month not a good salary, he would have joined the others in fleeing after the second time Thorn sent him off into a Ghost Spider nest.