Elydria Lathauae

Elydria is an Ichtish reef elf who formerly served as Inspector Prime of Salentis. She has met both Princess Rentara Floquet and Queen Jillian Floquet herself, and conducted investigations for both of them. She is most well-known for her investigations into The CreeperJack.

Elydria is mostly retired now, but occasionally accepts work as an independent consultant, if the case interests her. She is a known associate and friend of Nyakeshi, and through her, Elydria occasionally accepts assignments for The Sephket. Elydria is extremely well-connected and highly regarded throughout Sennzia by many important figures, but the general public has little to no knowledge of her or her accomplishments. That suits Elydria just fine, as it allows her the relative anonymity to continue her work without the restrictions of celebrity.

Elydria Lathauae was born in Thrannasirren, an Elven “Reefdom” governed by her uncle, Omarren Hadrilin and the Council of Seven. Elydria’s birth parents, Sethamon Lathauae and Yasmine Hadrilin, separated when she was a child and now live in different, distant locales.

Elydria’s father, Sethamon, was rarely present when Elydria was a child and she sees him even less now. Elydria is aware of siblings from him through many different women, though she has no strong relationships with any of them.  Elydria was warned long ago not to dig too deeply into her father’s business. Elydria has observed evidence suggesting that he may be involved in war profiteering, espionage, and criminal enterprise on a terrifying scale.

Elydria’s mother, Yasmine, recently married a surface elf named Danallus Candlevine.  She now lives with her husband in a forest enclave, far from the reef. Though Elydria has never met Danallus, she did investigate him. Her investigation confirmed that he is a good elf, well respected in his enclave and treats Yasmine well.

Uncle Omarren never married and had no children of his own.  He has always treated Elydria like his own daughter, lavishing her with presents, usually in the form of complex puzzle-boxes. They would often play games of riddles, trying to outwit one another.  When Elydria became old enough to seek higher learning, Uncle Omarren leveraged his diplomatic connections with the surface world to secure her acceptance into a renowned surface university.

It was while attending Gravemore College that Elydria found her calling. A young, human woman and student named Denise Hennesy was found murdered. The student body was gripped with fear for days before a second victim, Marlene Kennedy, turned up dead under similar circumstances. Surface investigators could not seem to solve the case.

Under the threat of a serial murderer at her school, Uncle Omarren begged her to return to the reef.  Elydria refused, claiming that a murder mystery was just like solving any other puzzlebox, except that women’s lives depended on her doing so. She immersed herself in the case, inquired about the state of the victims’ injuries, followed the clues and remained objective.

Elydria began to suspect a human male student named William “Billy” Cunningham, whom she had never met.  The clues all seemed to point in his direction. He had a connection to the first victim, Denise, and a history of abusive behavior and violence.  Billy had few close friends, if any, though many people knew him.  Several people claimed to have heard Billy talking to himself out loud at times.  A few people said there was something “not right” about him and that if it did turn out that Billy was the killer, they wouldn’t really be all that surprised.

Elydria eventually decided to find and follow Billy, if only to prevent him from striking again if her suspicions turned out to be correct.  Under cover of darkness, she watched Billy’s dormitory and saw him leaving late at night.  She used stealth to hide.  The campus was in a panicked fear, so many girls were not traveling at night, and if they did, they certainly did not travel alone.  There were some, though, like Elydria herself, who did not surrender to fear.  She followed Billy as he wandered, seemingly aimlessly, through the small town surrounding the college. 

Elydria believed he was out looking for a victim.  Billy had no clear destination, and he briefly walked closely behind several women traveling alone, but paused and turned away whenever they met up with someone.  One of them embraced a lover, another met up with a group of girlfriends.  Billy did not get close enough to harm anyone until he came across a middle-aged woman begging for pennies near an alley.  Billy stopped and rummaged through his pockets as if he were looking for coins to offer.  Instead, he pulled out a knife and said, “I’ve got sumthin’ for ya, luv.”

Springing into action, Elydria shouted for him to stop, which caused Billy to look back at her, make direct eye contact, and then turn and bolt down the nearby alley.  The beggar woman was safe, but Elydria knew that she needed to catch the killer or he would simply find another victim.

As she turned the corner and Billy looked back at her, Elydria saw him stomp his right foot three times on the ground in front of a door in the alley, then he knocked on the door twice with his left-hand knuckles, then with his right hand he opened the door by its latch, turned around and sort of fell backwards through the door, as if falling backwards onto the ground.

Elydria arrived at the open door seconds later, only to find an empty ground-floor laundry room inside a 4-story apartment building.  No one was inside, and Billy could not have possibly gotten up and ran down the interior hallway that quickly.  He had simply vanished into thin air.

Elydria repeated Billy’s motions and fell backwards into Sennzia.