On the surface, everything seemed as normal as ever, but anyone could tell that every member of the town's guard was very tense, Gauron most of all. Was he nervous or excited? Perhaps both.

At the time my mother’s belly was huge and it seemed that it wouldn’t take much longer for the birth. Both my parents would constantly mutter under their breaths about the timing of the possible attack on the town. Gauron could constantly be seen meditating in his room.

Finally, the day came, and my father rode out to meet with messengers from Lord Theres’ army. I found Gauron meditating in his room once again. He was wearing a light armor with strange patterns on it. His great axe, Severance, sat on his lap, connected to his right wrist by a heavy chain that was roughly twice Gauron’s height in length.

“Are you sure you don’t need to do maintenance on your gear?”

I asked him innocently.

“No, most of the special gear you find in dungeons don’t seem to ever age, rust, lose their power or anything else. Even though I was taught by my father all that I needed to keep my armor maintained, it’s been many years since I last needed these exact skills… The last time I did… It was the last time I had to kill other people.”

His face became filled with a sense of loss, as if he remember a very painful memory. I was overcome with curiosity and couldn’t help asking.

“So you have killed before.”

He winced at that, I felt kind of sorry, as I didn’t mean to hurt him. I apologized.

“You don’t need to. It’s just, I was always told by my father to be considerate to other people, more than most would consider reasonable. The powerful shouldn’t trample the weak, that’s the attitude of a tyrant. He would say. Imagine his reaction to discovering that his son had become a killer. He never let me tell him the whole story. We were tired from exploring the very first dungeon of our lives, when bandits assaulted us. What else could I do but fight for my life and that of my companions? It was all we could do not to die, and by the end of it, all of the surviving members of my party, including me, had become killers. The hero has sired a killer. People whispered, and my father disowned me, finally fulfilling the tradition of the Minotaur race, to abandon their young so that they can grow strong by themselves.”

I couldn’t help but stare at him in amazement, unsure of what to say, as I had just been told something quite incredible.

“Uh, are you sure you should be telling me this, it just feels kind of too important”

He returned me a blank stare, as if he wasn’t sure about what was happening.

“I… Oh, I am rambling, I see, I’m sorry.”

His eyes were downcast, a glint of disappointment in them. That was a very delicate situation. Perhaps he was much more nervous about this than I first thought. Perhaps talking about his past eased him somewhat? And, to be honest, I was so very curious.

“Don’t mind me, if you want to let it out, please do. I will just listen to you. My mother says doing this helps.”

He smiled.

“You are your father’s son. In this case, a good man sired a good boy. Not in my case. I told your mother that I would always help our son, but you’re not my son anymore, more than that, you’re definitely not HER son anymore. He loved her, more than anything, and she loved him. How much they loved each other? Let me put it this way: She was a human, small even by human standards and with a health worse than average. Though she did not fight, she was an important part of the group of heroes which my father belonged to and which eventually defeated the Tyrant Teldarion. Bearing a minotaur’s child is rough even for a healthy human woman. I never had brothers or sisters, and she died not too long after giving birth to me. As for my father, he was the accomplished son of a powerful minotaur chieftain and he abandoned everything he had in minotaur society twice: When he left to save the world, then once again to marry my mother.”

That was quite the fairy tale, really.

“Wait, didn’t Teldarion die more than a hundred years ago?”

Gauron’s face was uncomfortable at the mention of the tyrant’s name.

“Well, I’m sure that you know that minotaurs live roughly triple the time of a human. Also, don’t say that name near me. There are bad memories associated with it. My father flew into a rage anytime someone carelessly mentioned it.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, before they saved her, my mother was a slave in one of the Tyrant’s many castles. Apparently, the commander in charge of the “liked” her and let’s leave it at that. There’s a reason her health wasn’t too good.”

The conversation wasn’t going in a very pleasant direction so I tried to change the topic, and…

“Wait, so your father was angry because you killed people who attacked you? Don’t tell me he expected you to let yourself get killed?”

Yeah, that wasn’t much better either, what can I say? Young, stupid, awkward and a few other unflattering adjectives were things that described me pretty well back then. Unfortunately, the only thing I’ve shed since then was my youth. Ah, but I am diverging a bit too much now. Back to the story.

“No, he expected me to stop them without killing them, since I was so powerful, or so he wanted me to be. Even now, I don’t think of myself as powerful, it’s just the things that I carry.”

With that, I remembered my conversation with Chirene.

“Oh, so what do you have for fighting people?”

At first Gauron seemed suspicious, after all that’s not the kind of thing that a child should take an interest in, still since I had spoken so innocently, he answered me.

“See this fabric that I’ve installed on Severance? It is very, very good at absorbing blood. Then, there’s this ring here.”

He pointed to a simple golden ring with a small stone on it. At first it seemed to be a ruby, but when compared to the real thing, one could see that its red felt wrong somehow, also, it seemed to have something weird swirling inside.

“Huh.”

There was a tinge of disgust in Gauron’s voice when talking about that gear.

“Let’s just say that since I have a very high endurance, there’s no way for any opponents to take me down, as long as I keep killing. I might bleed like anyone else, but that won’t make much difference if I can replace it. As for this leather vest, any arrows won’t stay in my body for too long, and even though the wound might bleed… It shouldn’t be a problem. I really did find some disgusting things in the Bone Pit.”

So that’s what Chirene meant when she said that she thought he could do it. But was that really enough? There was also something bothering me.

“Can’t you use these in a dungeon?”

Gauron shook his head.

“Monster’s blood is useless for the ring. And for projectiles, you really want plate in a dungeon. If you get wounded in a dungeon, especially in the case of projectiles, chances are quite high that you will get poisoned, and even if you have an experienced healer in the party or raid, you can’t guarantee immediate treatment. Unless you’re very good at dodging things, I wouldn’t recommend anything but plate if you’re on the frontline of a dungeon party or raid.”

“I see.”

Right as we finished this conversation, we heard a door slamming.

“It seems Saul is back.”

We saw my father enter the house, and he wore an absolute haggard face. My mother asked weakly from the chair where she sat. She had to ask, even though we all knew from the tension what the answer would be.

“So, are we okay?”

My father gritted his teeth for a moment before giving the answer.

“It was no good. They gave us until nightfall to gather all of our surplus food, meaning all of our food, and present it at the town’s entrance. And even then, I don’t think our safety is assured. Damn them.”

Gauron let out a heavy sigh that started everyone in the room, he clicked his tongue.

“Saul. Prepare the guard to take care of any stragglers.”

He was stopped by my father at the door.

“Gauron, are you absolutely sure? They’re almost two hundred , and I am pretty sure I saw two that looked like mages. We can give you support.”

Gauron put a hand on my father’s shoulder and gently pushed him aside. He was shaking his head the entire time.

“They are at the north east road, right?”

My father called him once again.

“I know that I asked you to stay for just such a situation, but, why?”

Gauron didn’t turn his back as he answered.

“Saul, it might not have looked like it to you, but I was a broken man after that wipe. You took a bet, I know that. I don’t know exactly how it was supposed to work out in your head, or if you felt you were just using me somehow. But know this, the fact that you took a bet on me means so much, you have no idea.”

The great and almost legendary adventurer, who would have guessed that he had such self-esteem issues? Who cares, he’s a good man.

“Still, are you completely sure about this?”

“I’m going to perform a complete Bloodlust Ritual. Tonight, nobody will be safe if they are near me, not even you. Wait until dawn to come for me, better later than sooner.”

Then, he left. At the time I didn’t know about the Bloodlust Ritual. It’s Minotaur racial ability, similar to what Charm and others are to a succubus. Unlike magic, it cannot be learned by anyone but a specific race and requires no chants. In the case of the Bloodlust Ritual, it is a simple physical enhancement ability, brought about by a series of breathing exercises and meditation. The longer the ritual goes, the stronger it is, but the more it saps the sanity of the user. That is the simple price minotaurs pay to use it, self-control. Therefore, complete Bloodlust Rituals are only used by a minotaur that is alone.

This might have come late, but really, sometimes Gauron is quite a scary man. The sound produced by the chain connecting his wrist and axe felt so ominous, like a force of nature walked the world.