Editing Ataulf Sachs (section)

===The House of Smiles===

Ataulf Sachs was born into a patrician family that was anxiously anticipating an heir. Initially excited at the perspective of finally getting a son into the family, geront Etzel Sachs was profoundly disappointed when his wife brought him a perfectly healthy child. Although his spouse suggested to conceal the boy's lack of beastial features by having him wear a pair of fake horns, Ataulf refused to go along with this charade and ordered for Ataulf to be brought into the House of Smiles. The boy was brought up there together with other normal children, without any knowledge of his family. The scarce education that they received was only aimed at teaching the kids to act in a civilized manner to the amusement of the visitors, yet the teachers quickly noted the affinity for learning young Sachs displayed. Eventually they started bringing him old books and journals just to bet on how quickly the boy will finish reading them. Ataulf cared little what books he received, for all of them helped him to escape from the grim reality of his life as a sideshow freak; yet he especially enjoyed the manuals on ancient biology and genetics, considered utterly worthless in Lusopolis. As he saw the illustrations of men, women and their body organs, he slowly came to realize the simple fact that the beastmen successfully managed to forget: he was a normal human, they were the monsters.

His sad existence came to an abrupt end when he was in his early twenties. One day, terrible panic took over Lusopolis: the agitated citizens were running back and forth, not sure what to do. From overhearing fragments of conversations, Ataulf managed to deduce that the valley was attacked by a band of giant warriors wearing armour that even five men struggled to lift. Apparently, they were greatly weakened by the heavy dose of radiation they received when crossing the mountains and the city's militia managed to bring most of them down; yet some managed to escape and scatter throughout the valley. Always a quick thinker, Ataulf immediately realized that the general panic offered an excellent opportunity for him to escape from captivity. Taking his closest friends with him, he waited until the guards were sufficiently distracted and sneaked out from his prison. He knew the city map well enough from the journals he's read, so escaping from Lusopolis was a trivial task for him and his followers.