Stealth

Agent

If you happen to catch a glimpse of Brona Valerivicus, which is rare, as she is often using some form of Illusion magick to conceal her identity, you might consider yourself lucky, or maybe not.. However, during one of those quiet moments in her life when she is relaxing in some run down inn, sipping on a mugful of hot apple cider, one can see through the array of magick, and when that happens, one must take precaution in approaching her.

Brona is a bit on the shorter side for an Imperial, standing in at 5’4, she attributes this to her stunted growth during childhood. In regards to her figure, she is rather slim, which helps her move around without making much noise. Her shoulders are broad from time spent wielding her bow, as well as the continued use of athletics and acrobatics.

When it comes to a matter of clothing, Brona wears simple clothes, as she’s busy redistributing the wealth to the poorer folk, and doesn’t have the time or care to divulge in fanciful tastes. For that matter, a simple linen tunic, a pair of leather trousers, and a hooded cloak is more than enough to satisfy her.

She won’t deny it, the fact that men find her attractive, or that she has an approachable face, as her mentor once put it. Her hair is a soft, dark brown color, while her eyes are cool storm-grey. She has a soft jawline, though her chin is round with a slight cleft. As in her choice of clothes, Brona prefers a simple appearance, meaning, she keeps her hair worn in a single plait, and opts to forgo makeup, leaving her to rely on her good looks.

As for the most noticeable facial features, Brona possesses a faded scar on the right side of her chin, where she fell out of a tree as a child. Other than that, her brows are thick in width, but fair. Her nose has a slight hook to it, as she also suffered from a broken nose as a result of a fist fight in her childhood days. If anything, she possesses the common characteristics of an Imperial.

If one happened to ask Brona where she stood in the world when concerning her views, she would tell you that she stands in the shadows, meaning, that there is no white or black areas, but varying shades of grey. To her, there is no right or wrong, only what is moral, or immoral. But even then, she commits acts that contradict her beliefs. Some may call her a hypocrite, or even a heretic, but that does not faze her. She does what she must to stay alive.

Asides from her Robin Hood-esque persona, Brona is a soft spoken woman, who prefers to keep to herself. She has no need to interact with anyone else, unless they are in need, or if they are her mark. She is concerned with the well-being of her family, and has, and will continue to do anything for them. To her, family is everything, and while she is not religious, so to speak, when it concerns the worship of the Nine Divines, she does maintain a small belief of fate and destiny.

As a vigilante, as she calls herself, she prefers to target the rich who are selfish with their wealth, and are openly disgusted with the poor. In this case, she has no problem in robbing them blind. When it comes to stealing from the rich, although she prefers to call it “properly redistributing wealth amongst the people”, Brona has several ways of taking their money or other items of value. However, she always uses some form of Illusion magick in her tactics. As such, she can intimidate, seduce, or even rely on her physical skills of stealth to take from them, for this, she is dangerous with her way of words. Some would say that she has a silver tongue in speechcraft.

Because of her choice in craft, Brona doesn’t have any friends, only “acquaintences” or “contacts”. She finds it particularly difficult to open up to people about her inner emotions, and prefers to switch topics when discussions become too serious. For this, some might say that she is a bit immature in her ways for refusing to address serious matters. Yet, this is simply a defense mechanism, for she would rather deal with it internally, than express her concerns or worries externally.

When it comes to her flaws as a person, Brona suffers from a saviour-complex, where she believes that her crimes as a thief, make her a hero, or saviour to those in need. For the most part, this is true, however, those that she helps, are rather afraid of the repercussions of the law if they were to discover how they came into sudden abundance. Brona is also a bit of an idealist, and views herself in a heroic light, and believes those that she helps, should be grateful for what she does. Not to mention that she is also paranoid in the sense that she is constantly worrying if the Imperial guard is going to come around any corner and slap her in irons. Another glaring issue with her, is the fact that she is illiterate. Asides from this, Brona’s deepest fear as an individual, is not leaving a legacy behind, and being forgotten in time.

Born in a run-down shack, as is common in the Waterfront District of the Imperial City, Brona lived a hard life, her early years filled with an ever present gnawing hunger. Her parents, Arcantina (mother), and Palentius (father), did their best to feed and care for their four children. As the oldest child, a heavy burden fell upon Brona’s young shoulders. She was left to ensure that her younger siblings were taken care of in their parents absence. As farmhands, Arcantina and Palentius travelled every morning to a cabbage farm on the outskirts of the Imperial City, they were lucky to make it home before dusk. The pay as a farm hand was meager, and having a full stomach every night was a pipe-dream for the struggling family. Asides from Brona, she has two twin brothers, Garius and Marcellus, and a little sister, Oriela. While Brona shares a two year difference in age with her brothers, the age difference is greater with Oriela, that being five years difference.

Garius and Marcellus did their best to mind Brona, but it was hard to do so when their parents weren’t around. She often chided them for playing tricks on the guards, or picking on the other children living in the Waterfront. By the time they reached eight years in age, and Brona ten, the boys’ interests turned to fighting with broken tree limbs. It was then, that Brona had to turn her attention from the twins to focus more on Oriela. She seemed to be a sickly child, for every change of the weather, she developed a cough that they could never seem to be rid of. As time passed, Brona carried on with the charge of taking care of her siblings, until the day her mother fell ill with Droops. With her mother unable to provide income, the greater lack of funds put much stress on Palentius, as well as Brona.

One day, as an entire month and a half had gone by, with still no medicine for her mother, Brona decided to take it upon herself to acquire the funds, and ventured inside the city walls. At first, she spent the entire day in the Market District, sitting on a bench, begging for alms. Of course it was hard for a young girl of fifteen to earn money, for the sympathy at that age was little to nil. As the hours ticked by, she began to grow impatient and irritated at the fact that she had not been given one septim. While her pleas for help were ignored, the dwindling sunlight drew people inside to the warmth and safety of their homes. Crestfallen that she would have to admit defeat, she rose begrudgingly to her feet, when she caught sight of an older Dunmeri man strolling away from the market square. His robes alone suggested that he had some coin about him, for there were intricate knotwork around the hems of his robes. Desperate to obtain even one septim, Brona darted to her feet and followed after the man. She tailed him through the streets, not realizing that the man was intentionally leading her in circles until she ended up in a dead end alleyway. With the man at the end of the alley, he turned suddenly to confront her. She had nowhere to hide, and decide that the best course of action would be to confront him head on.

With trembling hands, and tears in her eyes, Brona reached to the pouch at her hip, and retrieved a rock. She took a hesitant step towards the man, and was surprised to see a smile cross his lips. She had it in her mind, that she would threaten him with his life by knocking him out, but as soon as that smirk appeared, she lost every ounce of confidence in her body. Brona sank to her knees, saddened with the fact that her mother’s health would continue to deteriorate at this rate, possibly face the inevitable approach of death. As a wave of stinging tears blurred her vision, she could only see a grey blob of the man step towards her. Hastily, she wiped away the tears, and struggled to get away from the man, in case he meant her harm, but a cold, iron-like grip kept her in place.

“Dear child...why do you cry?” His voice came, soft and gentle like an early morning breeze across Lake Runmare.

“My mother is sick, and she might die. We have no money for her medicine. I have begged all day for alms, but none have given me a second glance.” She mustered through a lump in her throat. Surprisingly, the hand on her shoulder softened.

“It would do you well to come with me. Perhaps I can help you after all. What is your name, sweet girl?”

“Brona, my mother calls me Brona.”

“I am Runil Devani.” In a twist of fate, Brona’s life turned around, some may say for the better, and others may say for the worse.

Later that evening, as Runil brought Brona back to his home, a small house just outside of the Arcane University, where he proceeded to pour her cup after cup of tea. Therein, he asked her about her parents, her siblings, where she lived, what she desired in life, and numerous other questions. When her eyes began to grow heavy with sleep, Runil set up a place for her to sleep in front of the hearth fire. By the time morning came, Runil woke a sleepy Brona from her slumber, and escorted her back to her parents home in the Waterfront District. There, an ashamed Brona, who thought her parents would surely punish her, listened in silence to the conversation her mother and father held with Runil. As the conversation drew to a close, she felt deep inside that her parents would exact some kind of punishment for behaviour, instead, Runil proposed a question to them. How would they feel if he took their daughter under his wing as an apprentice? At first, Palentius exchanged weary looks with Arcantina, who with her pale skin, and drooping eyes, looked as if they would both say no. That is, until Arcantina gave her husband a heartfelt squeeze of the hand and nodded. To this day, Brona won’t ever forget the words her mother uttered to Palentius.

“Let her go. She has the best chance of all us to have a life.”

Over the next several years to come, Brona resided with Runil in his home near the University. While she was an unofficial member of the university, as long as she remained in Runil’s company, she was allowed on the premises. In the beginning of her lessons, Runil taught her simple things that did not pertain to magick, such as how to cook a simple meal, how to properly maintain a house, and even how to boil water for clothes, and how to wash them proper with lye. One would think Brona would already possess these skills, but as her early childhood would prove, she was ignorant in most areas. The next step in her lessons were discovering her strong points in magick, if she had any that is. Through each school of magick, Runil tested her, and in each school, she failed hopelessly, until they came to Illusion. There was one glaring aspect that held up her learning process, and for the life of him, Runil could not think of a way to work around it, and that was, her illiteracy. As a mage of any kind, it was dire to know how to read, especially when learning new spells.

However, one path around this most successful. He discovered that if he read aloud each word in the spell tome to Brona, she could recite them back to him as he pointed to each letter on the page. This would take time, surely, and time it did take, for it slowed her learning process greatly. While she could recognize and read letters in the spell tomes after Runil pronounced them aloud, she never caught the hang of reading other books outside of tomes. So, together, they stuck with her reciting spell tomes from memory to teach her new spells. To his delight, Brona had a hunger in her belly to learn all that she could from him. Years passed again, and practicing of the spells on a daily basis became commonplace for her. Yet, she never forgot about her family, and when she could, she found time to visit them.

After five years in Runil’s home, Brona happened upon an uncanny situation in the Market District one evening. As she was heading through the square, on her way to the Waterfront, she noticed a box of crates outside of Divine Elegance, a high-end tailor shoppe. Curious to see what the crates held, Brona checked the square to make certain that no patrons or patrolling guards were present in the area, and cast an invisibility spell about herself. Working quickly as the seconds ticked by, Brona lifted the lid on the crate, and discovered several bolts of fine velvet that came from Anvil. A sudden wave of disgust overcame her, and as the spell wore off, she smuggled one of the smaller bolts onto her person, and made off on her merry way. In her mind, Palonirya wouldn’t miss a bolt of cloth amongst all the other finer items of value in her store. That evening she stayed the night over in her parents home, eager to see how Garius and Marcellus had grown, and how Oriela had turned into a beautiful woman. They relished in her visits home, and they were excited to hear and see of the new spells she learned.

The next morning as dawn broke across the eastern horizon, Brona slipped away from the house, and made her way down to the docks. There, she looked about for wary guards, and also one particular in person, her own father’s childhood friend Caresi. He was a dockhand that helped in unloading shipments with arriving ships, but he also dabbled in selling stolen wares. Those who had stolen goods to sell brought them to him, and he in return, brought them to the Bloated Float Inn. There, Ormil sold them to newcomers for a higher price. Together, Ormil and Caresi split the shares, Ormil takes 70% and Caresi gets the remaining 30%. It’s not a lucrative business by any means, and the wares that are brought to the Bloated Float are limited in supply. When Brona finally located Caresi on the docks during a break in between unloading shipments, she cornered him, and revealed to him the stolen bolt of fine velvet she had stashed in her parents home. At first, Caresi wanted nothing to do with it, he didn’t want to take the blame for Brona if he were found out, so she set off to find Ormil. She had a hard time convincing Graman to let her inside, and to let her speak with Ormil. Eventually the orc relented and shooed her inside, saying something along the lines that she was worse than a fly on dung. Once inside, Brona pulled Ormil to the side, and relayed what she had told Caresi. Hesitant at first, Ormil too, relented, simply because he understood the value of such fine velvet, and if he couldn’t sell it, well it would make a nice early-birthday present to him. However, Brona knew that she needed a cut of the share, and with that, Ormil arranged a new setup with Brona. If she brought him her lifted items directly, the split would be 60-40. To this she agreed.

For the next three years, Brona made it a habit to take a stroll around the city in the evening, looking for wares that were easy to access. With the wares that she brought Ormil, she took the extra money and gave it away to her family, a form of repayment for letting her stay with Runil for the past eight years. In the following year, when Brona turned twenty-four, Runil approached her, and told her that he had nothing else to teach her, she could remain in his home if she wished, so that she could have access to the University, but she decided to take a different path. Brona was filled with piss, venom, and vigor as they say, so, she set out across Cyrodil, eager to put her knowledge of illusion to work. In Bruma, she spent a month playing the part of a traveling bard, her famous act consisted of making herself disappear, only to reappear in a tree, or atop a roof. However, during that space of time, Brona was collecting items, or rather heavy coin purses from the gathered patrons in the crowd. When she reappeared, they erupted into applause, marvelling at how quickly she had appeared in a different place.

In Anvil, she waited outside in the nearby woods, watching merchants travel to and from, their carts heavy with wares. Here, she would tail them from a distance, and when they made camp for the evening, she would rummage through their crates, sifted through their pockets, and make off with their goods, all before they awakened. Now, Brona was no ordinary thief, for through her travels across Cyrodil, she met many poor folk like her own family, and to balance the scales, she would pay them a visit, giving them the money she had pocketed. They were grateful, and a bit hesitant at first, for they had only exchanged a few words with Brona.

And so, her travels took her from Anvil to Bravil, to Cheydinhal, Leyawiin to Chorrol, and Skingrad to Kvatch. She targeted the wealthy that felt they were above the poor, and over time, she learned other tricks of her trade. She became bolder through the years as she picked up a recurve bow, along with a set of two short swords. For a year and a half, Brona focused on bettering her skills in this area, that way, if she were to encounter sticky situations, like she had when she was travelling through the Great Forest. A group of brigands discovered her camp when she was out hunting one morning, and had rifled through her belongings. When she broke upon the clearing where she had camp, they chased her down, only for her to slip away into the many towering trees of the forest.

Through time, she learned many useful skills, such as how to barter for goods, how to pick locks on chests tinkling full of coins, how to bandage her own wounds (to the best that she could), how to wield her short swords, and she became pretty good at firing her bow, not the best, but she was decent. Now 33, in recent days, Brona was on her way back from Anvil to the Imperial City to visit her family when she stopped in Kvatch for a rest.