Aelia_of_Nemedia

@kievan_of_haloga:

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as the thief saw the mysterious robed man. He was like a shadowy, indistinct figure in a nightmare, but you couldn't wake up from him. The small thief hung back, keeping Kievan between them.

<"Stygia."> She replied. A priest of Set had found himself short several cut jewels and she had even made off with several potions of an unknown lotus juice.

<You?">

@trinity-blue: The one the UFC keeps playing for their fight. It doesn't address the elephant in the room, which is that Frankie should have been the Champ after that fight.

@kievan_of_haloga:

The slender thief materialized from the smoke moments after the Hyperborean's dark master had vanished. To some the smoldering ruin of fire, dismal soot filled sky and screams would be a nightmare of terrors but to Aelia it was a dark cloak in a starless midnight.

<"I have the horses."> She said. <"This way."> She turned and led him down a twisting path through the fog and flame until they passed the smoldering embers of what was once the hall of a great chief, down a gloomy ravine of mud and ice and to a grove of pale trees, where their five stolen horses stood in the dim Cimmerian shadow.

She patted the side of his recovered warhorse. <"I trust we are even?"> Aelia asked before untying three sturdy Cimmerian roans and hopping onto the saddle of a chestnut Hyrkanian gelding.

<"I even managed to.. liberate.. some supplies."> Saddlebags, waxed and oiled for waterproofing until they were almost black hung across one of their sturdy Cimmerian remounts. <"Surely the survivors will have more than they can eat.">

Besides, what's wrong with being good at something?

Weird and eldritch.

• Doesn't know how old she is.
• Became a master cut-purse and pickpocket before she hit puberty.
• Is willing to spend exorbitantly on a good lockpicking tool and has amassed a collection of exotic picks, never knowing what she might need to disarm a trap in a sorcerers tomb or open a door to a kings treasury.
• Wants to get the heck out of Cimmeria.

@kievan_of_haloga:

She caught the dagger in her left hand, spun it about and dropped it into its oiled leather sheath without looking. <"Then we have a deal.">

Turning she vanished into the billowing smoke of burning thatch roofs, footsteps swallowed by the din and clamor of Cimmerian war cries and the deep-chested roars of Vanir berserkers.

Horse stealing was a crime the petite thief was quite practiced at; one couldn't travel from Stygia to Cimmeria without liberating a few beasts of burden for the greater good (of her coinpurse). She took her time and found five horses; hard experience had taught her to always bring at least one remount in case of a thrown horseshoe or a pressing need to move quickly. Besides, that huge Hyperborean looked like he'd wear out a destrier. She even found his warhorse, though it was hardly a feat worthy of a Pictish tracker; the huge beast left footprints deep in the mud of halfmelted ice and ash.

All horses were tied in a grove five minutes travel out to the west of the village. Then she returned on foot for the Hyperborean. She had thought of leaving him.. but he was right. This was a dangerous land and her odds of survival went way up with a huge swordsman around.

@kievan_of_haloga:

Shit. Aelia had heard of the sorcerers of Hyperborea from merchants deep enough in their cups to speak of what they ought not. She took his claim and threat at face value. None could know the ways of a witchman; to what wickedness they would sink when angered only devils and Stygians knew.

<"On horseback and at a gallop.>" She snapped off a quick retort but he raised an interesting question. Even if any of the Cimmerians survived who was to say they would agree to guide her out of Cimmeria and back to civilization?

<"But if you have room for one more.. I could be persuaded to tag along. What shakes Cimmerian dust from my heels the quickest seems wisest.">

@kievan_of_haloga:

The thief lifted her looted Aquillonian blade in both hands as the Hyperborean fell from his horse but stopped as the man rolled and rose to his feet. A quick thrust to the back of a prone man was one thing but facing the giant in single combat was suicide.

She replied in the the same language, having learned it from escaped slaves during her criminal youth (not that her adult life featured any less crime).

<"I am only doing what any sane woman who finds herself in these lands would do. Leave.">

Aelia circled until her back was to a clearing covered by smoke, keeping her heavy blade in a low guard to not fatigue her arms. <"And what of you? Hyperborean, unless I miss my guess. It is said your people are servants of dark powers..">