Alyssa and her husband were both faithful servants to the god Wee-Jas in the large village of Oakspur. One year the entire city was nearly wiped out by plague. The two priests, unable to help them all, sought out the source of this unusual disaster. It was known to them that only a few years prior to the appearance of the plague, there were major renovations of the catacombs beneath the temple. There were many additional levels built, delving into the depths of the earth. While under construction, the Dwarven work crew unearthed nine identical, unmarked, sealed coffins and brought them to the priests. The coffins were not disturbed, but were placed into the catacombs untouched. Being that the temple was built on hallowed ground and that the earth had been consecrated for the burial of the dead, there were no rites said over the unearthed coffins.
When Alyssa and her husband, Hector sought out the coffins deep within the catacombs, they were shocked to find that they had been moved. Further investigation revealed a secret exit from the lowest level into a series of tunnels beneath the earth. The exit may have only been a service entrance for the Dwarven work crew, but it frightened them to find that the dead and the temple were left vulnerable. Further exploration brought the couple eventually to a large cavern where they found a nest of vampire spawn. They slaughtered every vampire they found, torched the remains, and left as only the sounds of dying rats and flames finished the job. Days later when they returned, the cavern was empty.
The plague seemed to have passed the small city and assuming the vampires had all been destroyed, Alyssa and Hector took a brief holiday from the temple to visit the outlying villages and to see to their congregations there. When they returned late one evening, the temple had been ransacked, desecrated, and the priests and priestesses were all murdered.
A man was waiting for them. He was more beautiful then any of the most precious stones on earth. He was angelic. For a moment, Alyssa forgot her husband and her oaths to the church. She wanted to join him, to be with him, she thought she would do anything. She was startled from this enchantment as her husband�s screams echoed from the high vaulted ceilings within the temple. The man had her husband by the throat, blood seeping from between his fingers. The man�s mouth was also covered with blood. Vampire. The accursed!
The man told her that he would murder her husband and then her husband�s corrupted soul would forever serve him. He said that unless Alyssa join him to help him start anew, her husband�s soul would be damned for all eternity. She threw down her weapons and ran to his side. She watched, as her husband crumpled to the floor not yet dead but looking further and further from life by the second. The man took her and together they plunged into the depths of the earth through the catacombs, into the tunnels and finally to the large cavern where they consummated their new union. While the man lay beside her, drunk on blood, she removed the holy wafers, communion wine and her holy symbol (a stylized wooden replica of the dagger of Wee Jas with the holy symbol at the pommel) from a pouch she kept in her robes. She drove the spike of the holy symbol into the man�s heart, stuffed his mouth with the wafers, consecrated him with the wine and divine favor, and set him to burn with a torch that burned nearby. While he burned, she removed his head gruesomely with a torch and a stone.
When Alyssa returned to her husband, he was gray and labored with every breath. She held him in her arms one last time, kissed him, gave them both last rites and sacrament, and then killed them both, holy symbols in hand. She thought that they would die together and return to the service of their gods. Three days later, she awoke in the catacombs, wrapped in linen and buried with her possessions and holy attire. She felt changed. She still felt the call to serve, but she sensed a new master. Although in her heart she never stopped worshipping Wee-Jas, she now served another. She looked for her husband�s resting place and finding it undisturbed, returned in peace to the temple.
A new order of priests had arrived only the day before and none of them recognized the beautiful priestess. She assured them she had been away during the incident that nearly destroyed the temple. They gladly accepted her into their ranks, for who would ever disbelieve such a fair and humble priestess? Alyssa knew she was shielded by her new master, and began to sense that his presence had been near the temple all along; she just had never detected it. She found secret places within some of the priest�s quarters where symbols and garments were kept. Stealing a set for herself, she turned the rest over to the new high priest. The priest was convinced that the former occupants were all destroyed as punishment for allowing corruption to thrive. Alyssa never spoke of her husband or the man of beauty. The presence of her new master grew stronger just beyond the new addition of the catacombs and ended in the cavern where the vampires had been slain. Eventually she came to know the name of her new master: Nerull- the god of death.
