The Priestess

"The Priestess," an elf, was a member of the 40 Lashes, a religious order dedicated to Calistria, the goddess of lust and revenge. Little is known about her past, but at some point she made her way to the Eastern Wasteland, where she encountered Pezzack Ingor, and took him under her wing as a student of Calistria's teachings.

The two traveled the waste for a few years, and the elven woman declined to ever tell Pezzack her true name, only ever referring to herself as a Priestess. Cold, efficient, and aloof, She taught the tengu necromancer the values of revenge and the pursuit of one's individual goals, and was narrowly obsessed with obtaining her own revenge - though the matter of what this vengeance was for and who it was against she never said. She eventually departed while Pezzack was asleep one day, and she was never seen again by the cleric. Pezzack was tracked down by Takashi, another member of the 40 Lashes, who told him that the Priestess was in danger and was last seen in Durkheim. Her personal whip, the 13th Lash, was gifted by Takashi to Pezzack, who instructed the cleric to travel to Durkheim and find the Priestess.

#### Reunion with Pezzack, Past, & Pursuit of the Queensguard

Upon arriving in Durkheim, the party were conscripted by Kastille to search the underdark for the Priestess - with the elven woman having apparently disappeared there on a personal mission. Unbeknownst to the party, Kastille had also already sent one of the Lashes own - Nastalia Einar, on the same mission. The party would eventually find the Priestess in the ruins of Volazyrris after encountering the returned Queensguard and a restored Zyara, who were intent on openly campaigning across the underdark and against the surface through their machinations with the Underhive.

The Priestess revealed that she had once been the lover of Zyara after leaving her homeland of Sol after the rebellion, and became a member of the Queensguard herself - but had grown increasingly disillusioned with the state of Zventhos, as Zyara became corrupted by the Black Maiden. The Priestess had unwittingly earned the ire of a jealous Triz'ztari, who schemed with Lucian de Lamperouge to arrange a massacre of Zventhos soldiers at the hands of the Knight of Kings' army - sending the Knight false intel that a trap was waiting for him at a supposed peace summit organized by the Priestess. Zyara believed Triz'ztari's claims, and had the Priestess exiled from Zventhos. She would survive the Collapse - finding and trying to kill Lucian at one point - but failed to best him - with the vampire remarking that she had "earned her misery," as he had. The Priestess would come to join the 40 Lashes during it's founding in the post-war world.

The party would find her while underway in an Orrukov expedition, in the midst of her pursuit of the reawakened Queensguard, assisting her as she traversed the ruins of Zventhos, slaying them one by one before capturing Triz'ztari and bringing her to Zyara to confess her crimes. However, Zyara, while regretful, was intent on fulfilling her perceived duty by the drow of Zventhos, regardless of her personal feelings or failings. While powering herself in the Black Maiden, the Orrukov Captain Jurza Setrov injected Zyara with the underhive's Matriarchal Strain to create a Hive-Hybrid creature, with the intent to transport it back to the surface - this having been the expeditions true, secret mission. The party slayed Jurza while Zyara was consumed by the infection, killing Triz'ztari. Despite the Priestess's insisting to try and merely capture the infected Zyara so she might try and cure her, the party killed the creature.

#### Banishing Jubilex & Death

Somberly, the Priestess told the party that the apotheon blood of Zyara's that had been injected long ago into the blood of the Queensguard may be the only thing capable of purging the underhive and their Demon Lord progenitor Jubilex from the underdark, in their central hive of the volcano Draxyz-Vyz-Aeryn. With Zyara and the others dead, the Priestess was the only one left with the apotheon blood necessary to banish the presence. The party arrived at the volcano, defeating the true physical body of the Matriarch. The Priestess made peace with Pezzack before facing the manifestation of Jubilex - her death and consumption by the Demon Lord successfully destroying it's presence in Zventhos, destroying the underhive with it - and finally freeing the realm from any influence of the Queensguard.