Derek had not returned to the hall but went back to his room. He was in no mood for celebrations. The only matter on his mind was how to rescue Maria from the Nathifa family. After nearly an entire day of pondering, he finally came up with a plane roughly in his head. But he knew he would not be able to do it alone. And so, this resulted in the small meeting in his room. Naturally, the meeting attendees were Tiny, Aesir and Madeline. Lydia was most definitely not invited. She was Bastet's acolyte. That alone spoke volumes of where her loyalty lay. Derek did not want a situation where he was snitched to Bastet because of a careless trust. The only people he could truly trust with his back turned and eyes closed are those currently in this room with him. Since Derek came back from the Red sea, he had become a lot more sensitive to runes. Although he could not control all runes, it was basically not an issue to sense their presence. He had noti

Along the way, introductions had already been made. Derek carried Aesir over one shoulder while Tiny carried Madeline and they followed the Monopod."Come along, just a little further. We are almost there." Old man vis urged as there went through a large area of vegetation so thick it appeared dark under daylight. After they passed through, Derek could not believe his eyes. This was not what he expected. When old man Elvis invited, he thought at most he was going to see a village of 20 to 30 monopods. But by the estimate of his sight, he could have sworn this was a village of at least several hundred. There were houses everywhere made from or within the trees. There were children playing all around, mothers cooking outside and even a group of Monopod men that hopped by carrying a live boar tied to a long stick. This was a thriving community. According to Lydia who was unsurprisingly the only one with a phone, they were somewhere aroun

 The Central Mesis Humus as the name implies is a farming ground. But Humans were not the only kind of mortals being farmed here. In general, the lives of mortals serve as anima for Writers. But unlike humans that could only produce anima, some races had other usefulness. Like the Monopods, there had a value that other creatures did not. Items such as scrolls that held powerful runes or runes cast need some special ingredients to hold their power in place. The leg of a monopod was a special one. It had far more use than this, but using it as an ingredient for scrolls was a major one. Monopods have been hunted and used until they became an endangered species. More like Elephants or wild cats. A Writer of noble blood had inherited a small group of monopods from his father and had brought them to Earth, the Central farming ground. This was where he reared them. Old man Vis remembered how his people suffered. Their numbers were neve

 While Old man Vis had gone to take care of his guests, Derek was fed continually with water from a big bowl. The monopod feeding him the water could not believe his eyes. This guy had already finished about 12litres of water and he was not stopping. He had thought of just giving up about 6 litres of water ago but Derek had reminded him that Old man Vis said that he could have as much water as he needed. And so Derek consumed nearly 80litres of water before he stopped, feeling better and refreshed. He could also feel that Hayaa had woken up early from her nap because of the poison and was now helping him push it out through the wound old man Vis had made on his chest. If only old man Vis knew that Derek and water had moved from worse enemies to best friends, he definitely would not have let him come close to so much as moist from the air.The monopod looked on in surprise as the dying man that Old man Vis had said he should look after or kill

"Who is Bishop Gbolan?" Derek asked. Farna saw that she had gotten Derek's attention and made effort to stop her shaky voice in other to explain.The Grootslang were not just a secret cult or organisation, they also considered themselves a church. Just like any organisation, there were rankings. From the lowest in rankings, there was: Member, Errand, colt, priest, Father, Bishop, ArcheBishop and lastly Pope. But even this was not an exact explanation of the hierarchy. As the saying went, "In any organisation, appointment was always better than rank." The organisation still had posts such as knights and their own ranking system that translated in its own form of power and authority. The post of Bishop of the region was left vacant because of lack of an appropriate person to man the position. One of the Father ranked was then appointed to temporarily occupy the position. He was known to be the strongest and most ruthless in the region. Even though it was cl