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Chapter V: The Minotaur's Rage

Immediately everyone turned towards the Hobgoblin. He was the only one left alive. Surina and Maragh ran towards him as Bardryn healed Asteron with Bahamut's help, but he managed to avoid being hit. What's even worse, he had positioned himself so he could unleash his mightiest spell. Only Maragh still stood after a wave of force exploded from the Hobgoblin's staff. He had seen the danger coming and he'd prepared himself. Asteron rose to his feet, enraged, and let go of a horrifying roar. Meanwhile, Surina had nimbly stood up and had started attacking the Hobgoblin with a storm of attacks from her swords, but she didn't manage to land even a single blow. I tried to help myself by using my frost spell to slow him down, but I could not keep him from running away. But as the Hobgoblin turned tail, his fate had already been decided.

Maragh had managed to cut him in his leg, and the Hobgoblin was bleeding heavily. As he turned around to cast another spell, a lance of light pierced his chest, and he screamed out in pain as the lance dissolved. Bardryn had shot the magical spear, and she had hit target. Furthermore, the spell had invigorated Asteron. The Hobgoblin looked at the Minotaur in fear, and tried to cast another spell at him, but the Minotaur simply shrugged the effect away. His eyes were red, and vapour was spraying from its nose. The Minotaur had gone in an all out rage.

Asteron charged the Hobgoblin, and his big hammer hit the Hobgoblin in between the shoulder blades. Dazed, he tried to walk away, but his legs wouldn't work the way he wanted to. I thought I should stop Asteron, but Bardryn held me back. 'You might want to turn away; this is going to be ugly.' And it was indeed ugly. Asteron threw the Hobgoblin to the ground, flinging it on its back. 'Please, have mercy!' the creature screamed in fear, trying to crawl away, but Asteron smashed one of his hooves on the Hobgoblin's ankles so it couldn't go anywhere without dragging the 330 pounds weighing Minotaur with it. A scream of pain and fear erupted from the Hobgoblin, but it was useless.

Afterwards, I wish I had looked away.

Asteron first flung the staff of the Hobgoblin away with his hammer, breaking one of the creature's wrists in doing so. It then continued to stomp the right leg, on which he had been standing, with his hoof, breaking every bone in it. I noticed the other party members looking away, but I just couldn't. After Asteron was done with that leg, he continued on to the other leg. I felt sick watching the Hobgoblin going through that much pain, and I felt like killing the creature just for being in so much pain, but I knew I wouldn't have survived it if I did.

That was still not enough for the enraged Minotaur. It continued crushing every limb, after which the Hobgoblin didn't even scream anymore. It was making a sickening sound of utter agony. Slowly, Asteron was starting to come to his senses. Looking down on his victim, he grabbed his hammer with two hands and brought it down on the Hobgoblin's head. Suddenly, everything was awfully quiet.

Everyone was silent. Asteron hadn't turned around yet, and the other party members were looking at each other as they didn't know what to do. I think maybe half an hour passed without anyone moving or saying anything. A Minotaur's rage is not something a Minotaur is proud of entering. It's the feral, wild, mindless behaviour all the prejudices are about, and by raging they only acknowledge that they are indeed as wild as feared. Asteron was the first to move. He moved away from the body, back towards the others. There Bardryn finally spoke. 'Okay, let's loot the bodies. It may not be the greatest thing to do, but it will be necessary if we want to become successful adventurers. It is the best way to make money and to find magic items. Asteron, you take a break, Surina and Maragh will search the bodies, and we'll let Gash identify anything magical we may come across.

It took a while before we started to move. Asteron moved away from the rest of the team, and I waited until anything magical would be given to me. Unfortunately, they had nothing of that kind on them. They had made some good money, though, and we collected a total of about 200 silver pieces and a big jade.

Once that was done, we buried the bodies, and took the leader's staff with us a proof that we had slain them. We left for the city, and everyone was quiet. We had done our job, but something told me we weren't going to celebrate it around the table with a pint in our hands.

After we collected the bounty we each went a different way. I later heard that Bardryn had drunk in the tavern, Maragh had been learning new coin tricks and Surina had been cleaning her weapon. I myself had been studying my magic and my rituals again, and I wrote in my journal.

I never learned what Asteron did that night.