<strong>Name:</strong>Oda Vladimira Krupskaya<br/><strong>Professions:</strong>Explorer / Ranger<br/><strong>Damage Capacity</strong><br/><em>Physique:</em>5<br/><em>Agility:</em>4<br/><em>Intellect:</em>3<br/><strong>Defence:</strong>14<br/><strong>ARM:</strong>10<br/><strong>Feat Points:</strong>3<br/><hr/><br/>The wood flooring creaked under Oda's boots, still flecked with snow. While Valentine busied herself with the lighting, she struck flint and tinder and nestled the spark in the cold embers of the morning's fire. The charcoal sputtered in the blackened cast-iron stove, still dark and lifeless, but when the spark finally took purchase in the grey flecked lumps, they leaped to life. Soon, blurred thermals of hot air surged from the phoenix's nest where the fire now blazed. Oda slid the stove panel shut. The workshop was hardly an infirmary, but it would heat up quickly.<br/><br/>She went to the table where the skins were cut, the trimmings of a lynx's hide still carefully heaped on the side by the sharp, wood-handled knife, standing upright, its blade half-sheathed in the wood. From a ewer she poured out some water in an earthenware cup and set it to heat beside the stove. Then she opened a glazed ceramic flask and poured out five cups of the firewater she distilled herself from rye, which she steeped in juniper aromatic pine needles to lend a playful spice. Enough titillation for the tongue to keep it distracted from the thick and rough spirit.<br/><br/>"Here," she offered the cups to Valentine and their guests, mindful of the requirements of hospitality. Regrettably, they had no bread or salt, but her firewater could keep out the cold.<br/><br/>"How has she weathered the cold, Valechka?"  She pulled off her gloves and squatted by the side of the work bench, close enough to scrutinise the girl's swept, alien features, and inked trails of the tattoo. She'd never seen a Nyss get so lost, or indeed seem so vulnerable to the elements. But Father Winter claimed all he caught unaware, and not all Winter Elves were  trackers or huntresses.