Lucas Shaw
The Maze didn’t frighten Luke. Tweren’t much that did. As the only child to a cross-eyed preacher’s gilly, the notion of fear wasn’t one that blossomed on your plate much. Oft times, there were too many other boggarts to deal with to waste more than a back thought on speakin’ siss-a-ninny.
Simple truth of it was that Lucas Shaw learned to fight his way out of most constraints that harrowed the younger sort. Knuckles leading the way was often a sound tactic, until he had the means to manifest hot lead that is. Pistols were all well and good, scatter guns a sight better, but the projectile weapon of choice for Luke was the rifle. Something about a length of stock and a pairing of sights that sang true to his heart, can I get an amen. There was little arguing with a man that could knock you from your horse near on half a mile distant without batting an eye. No, sir. Rifles were scarce, and those who used them even more so. To find one that excelled at such a talent? Well, that was god sent, and Luke made sure that everyone knew it.
Maze dragons were another matter altogether though. Those scaly bastards were crafty and knew how to outfox a posse of men without so much as losing a wink of sleep. Care had to be taken when dancing the mortal coil with such as the maze dragons. They was a special breed, and even Luke knew to respect the boundaries that were in place when a dragon came to light.
He had even taken to crafting a special kind of ammunition for the serpentine predator, something with a little extra kick. He was a little up in his oats, and up in his drink as well, when he decided to run his first real test of the explosive ammo he was packin’.
The Maze walls rattled with the ratcheting echoes of his reports, and history would tell, what little of it there was remaining, of the night that Lucas Shaw set the very water aflame with his dragon-shot. The world that was would never quite be the same once those stories criss-crossed the walks of civilized man, not that there was much in the way of civilization this far out in the wastelands.
But the tales would be retold.