Sloane trailed the men at a distance, robe pulled over mouth to hide her breath, and green eyes flicking between each of them and about her surroundings carefully. She counted three for now; it didn't take many men to haul her few belongings from her shack she called home. It was a [i]secluded[/i] home, but these buggers didn't seem to take the point. 

The three stopped, and she counted two more--they must have agreed to meet at this location; they even had a small camp prepared for the night to follow. With narrowed eyes, she looked around again and retreated behind the cover of the tree beside her to contemplate her next moves. Three? She had been confident she could confront, as a woman or a witch. Five large men with arms and armor, however, made her anxious; and she hasn't spent her life looking for immortality just to throw it away over a few material goods. Some were personal and irreplaceable, though, and if she wanted them back she'd have to be smart or walk away now. 

As she gazed about her environment--heavily wooded, a frozen river to the East--she listened. It seemed that they were going through their prizes and deciding on who gets what. This would give her time to figure just how dangerous these men were and, if she needed one, time to formulate a plan.

What she learned quickly was that they were mostly illiterate; the one that could read couldn't fully decipher the texts she owned. He didn't seem an idiot--just unaccustomed to magic and medicine. They had fun going through her clothes--private and otherwise--and they debated the actual worth of the decorations they found, too. The jewelry is what they seemed most interested in past that, and if they played with them too long, she knew they'd discover their magical qualities. So it was time to act.

She retreated from her hiding spot and moved away from where they made temporary camp. Out of sight and hopefully ear shot, Sloane started changing: she unsheathed the dagger at her her thigh and held it in her mouth as she lowered her bag to the ground. She took off layers of clothing until she could move freely and dropped them beside the bag. From in her bag, she retrieved a cooking pan and a smaller bag of her gold--valuable, but heavy. She tied the gold at her belt, kept the dagger in her mouth, and held the pan in her hand as she loosely donned her cloak.

Before she left her bag, she kicked lightly at it, adjusting its position so it was a blatant target and returned to her hiding spot...where it was oddly quiet. [i]Shit,[/i] she thought; had she been discovered? She peeked out just as the silence was broken by their excited shouts. One of them held the sun in his hands: an ethereal blade and a gold chain at his neck with the same glow. She rolled her eyes and hid herself again.

From her purse, she pulled a coin and watched them fawn over the man's new blade. She drew in a long breath and finally throw the single coin, not staying in place to here it [i]ding[/i] off one of the men's helmet. Eager to test his new toy, the one with the glowing sword moved forward, the others hesitantly following at his back to investigate the source of the coin. As they approached the south, she waited from the west until a couple were out of her sight, lost in the thick forestry. 

While it was typically smart of the armored men to investigate, it probably would have been best to either stick together or split up the better armored guys in this case. After all, they didn't see the threat. "'Ey, we found something!" It must've been the guy with the sword--it was practically a torch so her supplies were easily found. But that was her cue: she stepped out from the brush and whacked the man before her in the head with her pan; however, he was meaty and big. Her heart skipped a bit when he didn't go down right away, but he was stunned as he slowly looked to her and she followed up with a second, hard swing. He dropped, his sword falling beside him and his friend turned on her.

"Hey!" he snapped, more so to alert the others than to scold her. He swung his blade at her--he was fast. However, she pulled her cloak off to meet him; it fell over his eyes and he missed her, so she swung the pan up and at his nose. She heard a crack and then he dropped, but the other three were coming at her and she quickly retreated far back into the brush. 

They returned to their fallen allies, and the larger and literate one crouched to lift the cloak with a scowl. He dropped it again and looked around. "How the hells...?" he wondered as he stood again to his full height. 

Then, from the tree tops above, Sloane dropped onto him, the force allowing her to stab the dagger though his helmet and the top of of his head. The two of them collapsed and she rolled forward, standing to face the last two men: both wielding two handed swords. Both were coming at her--until she spoke a word as old as the Elvish language and not only did the ethereal sword dissipate, but their campfire went out as well. So she brought her pan up to meet the solid steel. She grunted at his strength and stumbled back into the other as he scrambled for his sword to replace the magic one. 

He stood his ground, but Sloane fell to the ground and turned onto her back just in time to block the sword again. She kicked his arm aside and threw the dagger into her attacker's throat, leaving only one more as she scrambled up to face him. She was mostly out of tricks, but he stood alone, the last remaining member of a group of five armed men against a woman who blew his sword out of existence. While she wielded only her dented cooking pan, she hoped he'd back down.