An Old Man Burps

[Aetosion 2062]

His damned leg was hurting again, always the same dull throbbing pain. With a few choice words, Alaric cursed his fortune, and took a swig from a hip-flask reeking of Carrion Black, which ran in rivulets down his beard and stained his moth-bitten tabard.
 

Alaric had been born in Belvitz, Adria, on the continent of Atlas. In fact, Alaric was the second of his name. The first to bear it was the grandson of an imperial treasurer and great-grandson of a Count of Woldzimir. That Alaric M. Vladovic had been Commandant and Chancellor of Adria, as well as serving as Crow’s Eye. He served with distinction for many decades, until he was recruited as a Nauzican Brigadier. His service found him in the heartlands, in taverns with many a plump Curonite wench. Women, spirits, and exotic smokes were his undoing, and it is said that the body of Alaric was found stripped and buried in a refuse pile behind a tavern, the pungent stink of kha spice rising from his clothes.
 

Alaric I’s estate specified that, should he die without legitimate issue, his first-born son would be named legitimate heir. As it happens, Alaric’s first-born was Karl, a tall, fat, brutish young man who had been raised in the very tavern in which he was sired, surrounded by the vices of his father. At the time of his father’s death, he made a living acting as a tavern-guard, forcefully evicting the beer-sodden and broken-minded, throwing the wretches unceremouniously over the threshhold into the muck.
 

Karl’s legitimization as heir did little to warm his heart. His father’s once-grand estate had been spent away on hired women and second-rate Curonian whiskey. Only his father’s battered Belvitz Brigadier armor, a mold-covered block of cheese, a water-stained book of family history, and ledgers filled with debts awaited him in the dead man’s house. 
 

Karl sired a son to a minor lady not long after, and named him Alaric II, more as a joke than an honor. He married out of obligation, not out of love, and made it known. Alaric M. Vladovic, second of his name, did not have a pleasant upbringing. He was raised rough, a sallow-faced boy with a crooked nose, always sporting odd bruises and a dour glare. 
 

Age brought Alaric no comforts. He dreamt of battle and glory, but the years brought him only a lame leg and the drinking habits of his ancestors. The 1760s found Alaric M. Vladovic, second of his name, slumped against a statute in Haense, wearing his grandfather’s rusted armor and moth-bitten tabard, mumbling into a bottle of Carrion Black.

 

[ApplePieKathy 561]

Vesna Carrion remembers Alaric in the seven skies!

”Hmm, I remember that guy!”

“My, my. I miss Adria!”

[Arkelos 1027]