User:Joshmaul/Euphrati Velade

"'Time has the unexpected side effect of making one change one's mindset to fit the circumstances. Or, you could say, I used to believe in the Dark Lady... then I grew up.'"
 * - Euphrati Velade, Forsaken monk

Euphrati Velade, also known as Euphrati the Corrupted, is a former Deathstalker. Resurrected by the House of Whitehair to act as a bodyguard, Euphrati was cast out of the House shortly before the Shattering by its overly-pious patriarch, Master Taeril'hane Ketiron. Returning to Lordaeron, Euphrati became the personal assassin of General Varan Metheius, commanding a small portion of Sylvanas' forces in the invasion of Gilneas. As time went on, however, she distanced herself from Metheius and became the eyes and ears of her father, the powerful Forsaken shadow priest Sekhesmet of Stratholme.

In time, however, Euphrati refused to commit murder for her father, who she believed was only loyal to himself rather than to the Forsaken, and thus turned on him. He, in turn, sentenced her to true death - the highest penalty in the Forsaken empire. However, Sekhesmet was eventually slain by Saavedro of Stratholme, and the sentence was never carried out. Deciding to stand with Saavedro against Sekhesmet, Euphrati trained with the pandaren monk Ting, Strong of Stomach, who travelled to Tirisfal as a trainer for Forsaken specializing in the pandaren fighting arts. With Saavedro's death and Sekhesmet's eventual return, she now sees him as a traitor to the Forsaken, and seeks to carry out the same sentence he imposed upon her...

Biography
Euphrati Velade is the only child of Sekhesmet, through his relationship with Amberlie Velade, one of the ladies-in-waiting in the court of King Terenas, born in 577 (Stormwind calendar) at Sekhesmet's home in Stratholme's Elders' Square. Her father had been High Priest of Stratholme for three years by this point, and was still a very energetic and active man, though somewhat old (he was 45 when his daughter was born) to be a father. Her mother died when Euphrati was four, and she was raised predominantly by her father in Stratholme.

Sekhesmet, a very pious man, had wanted Euphrati to become a cleric, like him. But Euphrati trained almost exclusively in the use of the blade. Sekhesmet realized that he could not force her, and thus encouraged her to do what she was good at. By the age of sixteen, she travelled to Quel'Thalas often to train with the Ranger Corps. Though the elves were mistrustful of humans, a member of the Convocation of Silvermoon named Kel'theris Whitehair had become good friends with Sekhesmet, and spoke on her behalf. Over the next several years, Euphrati gained a reputation for never being defeated, and often fought in tournaments put on by General Aedelas Blackmoore, the overseer of the orcish internment camps, who had established a dueling arena in the courtyard of his fortress of Durnholde - well enough away from the internment lodges in the lower courtyard. Blackmoore - in brief moments of sobriety - praised Euphrati on her skill and her lethality, possibly thinking of recruiting her into his plan to overthrow the Alliance. His intentions for her were unclear, but - because of what happened next - they are now open to speculation.

Shortly before Thrall escaped from Durnholde, Euphrati was travelling with Kel'theris and his son Ordevaas - one of Sekhesmet's apprentices - through the Thalassian Pass, heading back into Lordaeron on the way to Stratholme, when they were ambushed by angry humans who had been defeated by Euphrati in the dueling ring. One of them was Artimus Devaneaux, a nobleman from Lordaeron. Attacking from behind, Artimus - wearing a hooded cloak and mask - plunged his long dagger into Euphrati's heart, killing her instantly. Ordevaas - a seasoned fighter - killed several of Artimus' men and wounded the nobleman's right leg, leaving him with a limp that would plague him for the remainder of his life. However, the treacherous man managed to escape. Euphrati had only been thirty-two years old when she died.

Sekhesmet was horrified and grief-stricken when he received the news. Taking her body into the Tirisfal Glades, Sekhesmet and Kel'theris buried her in a quiet cemetery outside of the village of Brill, where she would spend her days in eternal repose - or so they thought.

Resurrection
Euphrati lay quietly in the graveyard in Brill for nearly a decade after her murder. She missed the "historical events" that happened during that period, most especially the Plague of Undeath that killed thousands in Lordaeron and resurrected them as part of the Scourge. Even her own father, by that time in his eighties, had succumbed to the Plague, and was risen from his grave. But Euphrati - despite not being a victim of the plague - would not be allowed to rest easily, either...

Lord Kel'theris, now known as Decibelius, had survived the destruction of Quel'Thalas at the hands of the Scourge and become one of the blood elves, and now sought to rebuild his power base. A mage of some repute, Kel'theris was also known in dealing on the side with rather...unsavory elements. Kel'theris intended to reorganize his inner circle by recruiting people who had been in it in the past. Deciding to resort to even darker magic than warlocks wielded, Kel'theris beseeched the Death Knight Settra, who had become one of the Forsaken, to take Euphrati's long-rotted corpse from her grave in Brill and resurrect her at the Shadow Grave, in the village now called Deathknell.

Settra agreed and - with utmost secrecy - travelled with Kel'theris to Deathknell with Euphrati's body, and descended deep into the Shadow Grave. Laying her on the floor of the crypt, Settra intoned a powerful spell of reanimation that would restore Euphrati's soul to her body, and bring her back to life to serve. Upon her resurrection, Euphrati was horrified and disgusted at what she had become, and angered at Kel'theris for resorting to such evil. Kel'theris calmly explained his reasoning, and managed to calm the agitated undead. As quickly as he was able, the blood elf lord brought her up to speed on what had happened - but made no reference to her father - and commanded that once she completed her training in Deathknell, Euphrati was to travel to Quel'Thalas via the orb of translocation in the Ruins of Lordaeron, which would send her to Silvermoon.

Father's Love
Upon hearing of what Kel'theris had done, Sekhesmet - now a shadow priest - was outraged, saying that Kel'theris had no right to end his beloved daughter's peaceful rest. The two clashed in a contest of arcane mastery, but Kel'theris was still too weak against the shadow priest's rage, and Sekhesmet easily defeated him; it was only the intervention of Ordevaas, whom Sekhesmet trusted with his life, that kept the priest from killing his erstwhile friend.

After defeating Kel'theris, Sekhesmet encountered his daughter while visiting Silvermoon. Despite the apathy felt by most members of the Forsaken when dealing with people from their former lives, Sekhesmet maintains the close bond with his daughter he had in life. With a new world and new enemies to combat, Sekhesmet vowed to watch out for his beloved child for as long as he was still moving...and as the Forsaken might say, eternity is a very long time.

Joining the Deathstalkers


Though she was serving in Quel'Thalas, Euphrati was approached by members of the Deathstalkers, the elite guard of the Dreadlord Varimathras. Mennet Carkad, one of its members in the Undercity Rogues' Quarter, instructed her to retrieve a letter of introduction from one Astor Hadren, who wandered the road between Lordaeron's ruins and the Sepulcher in Silverpine Forest. At the bridge north of the Sepulcher, Euphrati ambushed Astor and defeated him, taking the letter of introduction from his corpse. Upon returning to the Undercity, Mennet sent her to Andron Gant, to whom Astor was delivering the letter. Andron gave Euphrati a ledger from his bookshelf, which she brought back to Mennet immediately.

Upon perusal, Mennet saw that the ledger revealed information pertaining to the Syndicate, a band of rebels from the fallen Kingdom of Alterac who plagued travellers in the Alterac Mountains and parts of Hillsbrad and Arathi. Mennet ordered Euphrati to deliver the book to Varimathras himself, who rewarded Euphrati for her dilligence with a special blade.

Slaying a Deathlord
With the death of Dar'Khan Drathir at the hands of Euphrati's master, Kel'theris, the Scourge's main power base was broken. But months after Dar'Khan's death, an unusual elf arrived from Lordaeron. His name was Lor'revan Kethlir, the son of Anasterian's court chamberlain, and he was a member of the Council of Deathlords. Baron Rivendare - the head of the Council - had instructed Lor'revan to take over and place someone he could trust in command of Deatholme in the event of Dar'Khan's defeat. Before returning to Naxxramas to make the transition to Northrend, Lor'revan set his lieutenant, the necromancer Nelanith the Deranged, to replace Dar'Khan at the Tower of the Damned, naming him Deathlord of Quel'Thalas.

Nelanith had formerly been Kel'theris' chief advisor and had disappeared when Silvermoon fell. With his fate now clear, Euphrati met with Ordevaas, by now a powerful Blood Knight Master, at the Sanctum of the Sun. With his father down in Stranglethorn Vale, Ordevaas issued the order for Nelanith's execution, which was seconded by Magister Kaendris. Aided by one of Ordevaas' fellow Masters, Euphrati slew Nelanith and took his head back to Ordevaas as a trophy. Ordevaas and Kaendris awarded her with a Dawnblade dagger, a gift from Lord Efanis before the fall of Silvermoon - before Efanis cast his lot with Kael'thas so absolutely that he betrayed Quel'Thalas and all life.

Sekhesmet's Treachery
With the fall of the Lich King and the subsequent deaths (or apparent deaths) of Ordevaas and his chief lieutenant, Taeril'hane Ketiron, Euphrati became her father's chief assassin, and Sekhesmet often assigned her to the command of his puppet Deathguard general, Varan Metheius, while he served as chaplain to the Deathguard forces in Gilneas. It was around this period, in what became known as the Cataclysm War, that her faith in her father began to waver; he had begun a descent into madness and selfish desire for power. Sekhesmet, however, suspected nothing, as he began his personal war with Saavedro and commanded Euphrati to go and assassinate Saavedro's ally in Stormwind's cathedral, High Priestess Genevra Stoneheardt, and her husband, Commander Narnicka Stoneheardt.

Euphrati instead went to Saavedro to warn him. Upon her return to Lordaeron, she was attacked by her father's shadow powers. Condemning him as a selfish powermonger, Euphrati refused to carry out his will any further. Without hesitation, Sekhesmet condemned his own child as a traitor to the Forsaken, and sentenced her to true death - the highest penalty that could be inflicted upon the damned. Leaving the work to be done while he attended to his ongoing war with Saavedro, Sekhesmet departed for Northrend. However, with the aid of those who opposed the demented priest in the Forsaken ranks - including the very men assigned to execute her - Euphrati disappeared with the skill of a practiced assassin.

The Winds of Change
Euphrati returned to Deathknell in Tirisfal upon learning of the arrival of a strange creature teaching new martial arts - a pandaren, recently arrived from the Wandering Isle. Deciding to take up the pandaren fighting arts in an effort to hone her abilities as well as bring her spirit into balance for the struggle against Sekhesmet to come, Euphrati began training under the pandaren known as Ting, Strong of Stomach. Initially trained as a Mistweaver, a practitioner of the pandaren healing arts, Euphrati began to focus more on the fighting arts of the Windwalker - more in line with her original training. She became proficient in the use of staves and spears, as well as blades. After working on her technique in Deathknell for a time, she went to Undercity, to the master pandaren monk trainer, Ao Jian. It was in this capacity that Euphrati journeyed to Pandaria, as part of the ongoing "rush" of forces from both Alliance and Horde.

It was during this campaign that she learned that her father had been killed by Saavedro on the summit of Mount Neverest in Kun-Lai. Believing that his threat had been ended once and for all, Euphrati immersed herself in the culture and history of the path she had chosen, wandering throughout Pandaria to become a Lorewalker, learning about not only the history of those who remained in Pandaria, but of Liu Lang and the genesis of the pandaren of the Wandering Isle, those who had come to the Undercity and other places to teach their ways to both sides. As part of her training, Euphrati journeyed to the Temple of the White Tiger, east of Neverest, and became an adept of Xuen, the patron Celestial of the Windwalker.

Euphrati participated in the liberation campaign in Orgrimmar, battling against Kor'kron soldiers who had been corrupted by the Old God Y'Shaarj, the progenitor of the seven prime Sha who had despoiled more than half of Pandaria. With the downfall of Garrosh and the ascendancy of Vol'jin, she returned to the Undercity...where she had a strange vision, showing a diminutive figure dressed in rune-embroidered robes reading from a tome written in black demonic speech, resurrecting a man shrouded in shadows. She realized that she was seeing an image of Sekhesmet's resurrection, and recognized the location as being in Northrend. She set out to Northrend to investigate, but found only the remnants of the ritual. Returning to Lordaeron, her visions now led her to Sorrow Hill, the cemetery outside Andorhal, where a meeting was to take place. She hid in the bushes outside the caretaker's house, and watched a human in dark concealing robes step out of the tomb of Uther...where he was met by a male pandaren wearing the headgear and insignia of the Shado-Pan.

The pandaren, who was identified as Yatiri Stormwatcher, seemed to be under the control of the man, who broke the spell with a gesture. Yatiri realized that the man before him was in fact Sekhesmet; Euphrati saw that the vision had been true after all. Yatiri attacked him, but despite his efforts, Sekhesmet defeated him with his mastery of shadow magic, then slashed his throat with his jeweled tol'vir khopesh before leaving to find something "worth investigating." Emerging from hiding, Euphrati knelt next to the dying pandaren and held his hand so that he would not die alone, and promised that she would put an end to her father once and for all. She then took his massive clawed gauntlets and quickly fled before the Alliance forces at nearby Chillwind Camp investigated...