The stream burst forth from the side of the ancient volcano. It's passage marked by the steam indicating it's boiling temperature. But at the foot of the now jungle covered slope, it mixed with the cooler waters of a swiftly running stream fed by the eternal snows frosting it's cone. A bather could control the temperature of their bath by moving closer to the entry point of either the hot or cold streams. Some say Aires created this perfect natural bathing pool when he was courting the Goddess of Love.

The pool was certainly sacred to Aphrodite and only those of her sex were allowed to bath here.

"Someone to Love" was not usually the word one used when referring to the female currently enjoying the pool pleasures. A tall muscular female with long raven black hair was languishly swimming back and forth across the pool from the boiling to freezing ends. Nearby a great stallion and a smaller packhorse were unburdened and hobbled, filling up on the lush greenery. A rich saddle, weapons and body armor lay neatly pilled around a single campfire. The smell of a newly plucked pheasant roasting on a wooden spit filled the camp.

Only the most careful watched would notice the gradual movements of a small form as it inched it's way from bush to tree to bush. Slowly and very carefully inching it's way towards the black body armor and the money purse hanging from its wide belt.

Eventually a thin white hand reached out from the nearby bush and the tiny dagger in it slit the leather thong holding the purse to the belt. The hand then withdrew holding its prize.

A giant nude female body descended out of the overhanging tree right on top of the hand's owner.

"And what do we have here?" The large black haired female asked.

A starveling blond female partially clad in torn rags kicked and scratched at the sinewy arm holding her up by her unkept hair. It response the larger female threw her against the tree trunk. The smaller female bounced off the tree trunk and lay stunned at the larger female's feet.

"Nothing like at little entertainment to while away the long days travel ahead" She said to the unconscious form. The larger female then retrieved some long leather thongs from a saddlebag and proceeded to suspend the smaller female by her thumbs from a newly cut branch now hanging over the point were the boiling water entered the bathing pool.