The Adventures of Alaric Ironclaw
Translated from the original gibberish by Brother Chuck of the monastery of St Dude’s on the Rock
The Prologue:
You’re all probably expecting a story about a farm boy who runs away to seek his fortune. Well tough, I am a barbarian warrior who had to flee his tribe after killing a man for grabbing my sack. My sack of gold, cretins. I may be a barbarian but I’m not coarse. Anyway, on with my story.....
I arrived at a small village after many days travelling south from my homeland of Vilnia. I sought out the local hostelry. You know the kind of place. An ugly serving woman and an owner with bad breath who thinks he can cook. There was the usual collection of locals talking about the weather and how the bottom had fallen out of the cow pat market. Or was it something else falling out of the bottom? Who cares? In one corner there was a mixed bunch of travellers who stood out from the crowd, such as it was. I wandered over and offered to buy them a drink. "Several flagons of your best ale over here” I called. The serving woman looked at me with a watery eye. "When I’m good and ready”, she said.
We finally got our drinks and started talking as the ale loosened our tongues. It was evident that my new acquaintances were on the lookout for some employment that offered both profit and adventure. This sounded preferable to wandering aimlessly about, which is what I had been doing, so I decided to throw in my lot with them. We made a strange sight. There was myself, a Ranger called Forest Gump, a cleric, Henryk by name and a constable called Sherlock. The strangest of us, though, was a half-orc with an unpronounceable name but he looked like he knew how to handle a sword. As we were enjoying our refreshments we heard a merchant’s caravan stop outside the inn. A mercenary burst through the door and announced, "I need good men who can fight. The pay is good and the conditions are tolerable. We start for Haven in two hours.” He then turned on his heels and left.
We looked at each other and made the simultaneous decision to join the caravan.
NOW READ ON..... | 
