The little Princess Sythera was given every luxury and nothing was denied her; as a result, by a very young age she had become extremely selfish and jaded. She enjoyed controlling and corrupting others and pushing her very broad boundaries, as her servants and nannies were all too aware. Always the keen manipulator, however, she made certain that her doting father was unable to conceive that his precious girl could ever do anything wrong.

When the girl began to blossom into womanhood, the King became unwilling to allow her to marry, as he could find no man worthy of his blameless daughter’s hand. Meanwhile, Sythera secretly took lovers, always more lovers, continually growing more and more depraved in her quest for a new thrill. When men lost an interest for her, she began delving into forbidden pleasures of womanhood. Of course, the ladies of the good and just kingdom of Damara found even the insinuation of the act reprehensible, but the Princess always had a means of coercing them, and those few who wouldn’t be either coerced or silenced disappeared mysteriously.

By the age of nineteen, the precious, angelic Princess Sythera Dragonsbane had become a sinister seductress, a master of deceit and a force to be reckoned with, but she had yet again begun to grow bored. It was around this time that her father, the King, first heard some of the unsavory rumors circulating around the kingdom about her. Not one to take idle gossip very seriously and blinded by his love for his daughter, he did not once imagine the talk could be true, but figured that perhaps she was in need of good council.

He enlisted the aid of a good and kind, respectable and upstanding priest to help watch over his beloved girl, to lead her down the proper path, give her comfort, and protect her from evil. It wasn’t long, however, before the beautiful seductress had the clergyman wrapped around her finger and trapped in a tainted web of lust. Swaying him from his sacred vows was fun at first, but not enough to last; there always had to be more. She led him deeper and deeper into depravity, experimenting in illicit pleasures of the flesh that grew in perversity with each passing day, from sadism to bestiality and not much missed between. All the while, he would report back to the King exactly what he wanted to hear; his daughter was free of blame and pure as the driven snow.

It was a year after their first meeting that she was introduced to his final, and her ultimate, pleasure; the unholy worship of Orcus, the Demon Lord of the Undead. That she enjoyed the cannibalistic rites, and came to prefer the cold embrace of an undead lover over that of the living was no surprise; what shocked even her was the true reverence she had come to feel for her chosen deity, and her dedication to the Cult. Her quest for pleasure had been fulfilled, but her hunger and subsequent quest for power had just begun. Princess Sythera began training in the priesthood of Orcus and soon became a Cleric of the Undead Demon, reveling in and drawing power from her vile delights.

It was at that moment that the priest who had willingly and happily followed her from one erotic adventure to the next came to realize just how far he had fallen and regret what he had done. What started as fun pleasure seeking had become too serious and he wished to redeem himself and help save her from the Demon’s corruption before it was too late. This would not do. The pure and virtuous daughter of Dragonsbane had to protect her secret, so she seduced the unsuspecting priest into one last ritual, where amidst their pleasure she slew him as a blood sacrifice to Orcus, thereby selling her soul into his service.

Back at the Castle, the great manipulator played the King like a harp, putting on quite an exquisite show as she carried on about how the priest had been so consumed with lust for her that he tried to force an encounter, and when he came to his senses he was filled with guilt so great that he fled into the night swearing never to return, so as to avoid the temptation.

Content now with her lot in life and intent upon her direction, she devoted her time, money, body, and influence to the worship of the Demon Lord, and the diabolically evil Cult grew and prospered under her care. This could not last. Eventually, the organization came to the attention of the good and honorable Paladins of the Realm…

On the evening of a full moon, several of the Knights invaded the underground place of worship, slaying the living followers and destroying the undead. The first man into the main temple area was none other than Sythera’s noble and righteous brother, and it was there that he found her, naked in all but blood and engaged in sexual congress with the dead atop a pile of skulls.

Her father, the King, became angry at the accusation and refused to believe the account. His darling daughter continued to claim innocence, saying that she had been captured by the Cult and forced into the despicable situation in which she was found against her will, but it was only a matter of time before the truth would come out. Many living followers of Orcus had been captured that night, some even Lords and Ladies, and all having nothing to lose, pointed to the “Priestess Sythera”. During a detailed search of the den, more damning evidence was found including the undead corpse of the unfortunate, betrayed priest. It was this discovery that finally encouraged King Dragonsbane to look upon his daughter with the eyes of a Paladin. The eyes of the brave and noble King glazed over with tears as he saw the mark of pure evil upon her and at once realized the depths of her depravity and deception.

All survivors of the Cult were slain, as the law demanded, but the brokenhearted King still loved his daughter so dearly that, as vile and corrupt as she was, he could not bring himself to order her death, but instead declared her banished forever.

The sun shone brightly in the sky above the good and just kingdom of Damara on the day Sythera was led out of the realm. Birds chirped happily as the King read a statement of her wicked deeds and proclaimed sentence. Boos and cheers filled the air as the proud Cleric of Orcus, the former daughter of the King, was led through the courtyard and rotten vegetables pelted her fine funerary garments and splattered against her pale flesh. Death’s Consort, the most evil of criminals, reviled throughout the Realm, was going away for good… or was she?

As the small party went to pass through the castle gate, she turned and all fell quiet. “When I return,” she said, “you will all wish that he had killed me, for death will be too good for the lot of you, and death is with me.”

This is not the end of the story, but rather the beginning, as the former spoiled, pampered, and jaded Princess is left outside of the only world she has ever known to seek revenge on the people who dared cast her out…

Sythera’s Rise