Daniel's Ascendance - 4

"I promised to relate my story to you, yesterday. Now I will tell you how I started from almost nothing to the man you can see today," Midas said to Daniel,  who was seated across him in the tastefully decorated chamber they occupied.

" I started out like every young man in this town - with virtually no property to call my own but a strong desire to work and prove myself. I was apprenticed to a blacksmith and my intention then was to learn as much as I could from him, so I could strike on my own quickly. My master often traveled to other towns to acquire rare metals for ornamenting the less noble metals in his forge. On one of these trips, we were ambushed at night by bandits on our way back to Otapiapia with the precious metals. This event made a big impact on my psyche because I was the one on watch duty when the attack happened and I seemed to be at fault for the vulnerable condition in which the bandits met us.

I felt a lot of guilt initially, but I later decided not to blame myself for an event that was entirely beyond my control. I had worked very hard during the day, so it was quite understandable if I couldn't consistently maintain the required level of alertness for a watch duty. Even if I had managed to detect the presence of the bandits early enough to forewarn my companions, there was very little we could have done, as we were outnumbered and outmatched. Needless to say, my master was cross with me. Though,  I suspect he knew within himself that his anger had little basis even if he never showed this.

I have often heard that every cloud has a silver lining: well, the silver stolen from my master definitely clouded my life with lines of trouble. On getting back to town,  I noticed my master treated me differently from other apprentices and it seemed I had permanently incurred his ill will. I resolved within myself to leave him but I had no idea how to go about doing this." Midas said, pausing for a while from his monologue.

"I hope I'm not boring you; I warned you the tale would be long," Midas asked when he noticed Daniel had not moved a muscle from the time he started the story.

"No sir. Your story is quite interesting. I haven't moved because I was paying absolute attention," Daniel replied hastily, not wanting the story to end.

"Alright, that's quite okay. I continued with my master like this while contemplating what to do.  I could think of nothing until one day when I went to deliver a new axe head to a lumberjack. The burly look of the lumberjack seemed to remind me of something but I couldn't exactly place what it was... until he spoke. Then I remembered - the bandits!