Tyridia wasn't very big as city-states go. It was less than a 10,000 people, most of them living in abject poverty, living under the rule of a very small group of rich merchants. Specializing in the brewing and fermentation of exotic liquors and liquers, as well as their artistic blown-glass bottles, Tyridia had an income the belied its size. Technically within the borders of Elesia, the 'benevolent' nation had left Tyridia to it's own devices, considering how few Zoids the small militia had.

Tahiri's mother was a glass-maker and her father a glass-blower, but like most of the city, lived in abject poverty. In an attempt to give their daughter a better like than they had, they sold her into bonded slavery to the Great Temple, putting the money from the sale into trust for Tahiri if she were to ever need it. A Tyridian-based sect, the Keepers of the Great Temple were incredibly wealthy, especially in terms of material wealth - gold, gems, silks, artifacts, the Great Temple had levered it's financial power to gain theocratic control over much of the city.

Assigned to be part of the house-temple of one of the richer merchants in the area, Tahiri grew up well-educated and well-cared for in the Temple, reaching the rank of Adept. Because she was not born into the Temple, she would never reach a higher rank, though she was considered well-versed in the theology, sacraments and Mysteries of her faith - which resembles Egyptian style religious practices and pantheons.

She was trained in ritual dance, and hand-to-hand combat with both bare hands and the archaic traditional Temple weapons (whip-chain, knife, sai, throwing stars, staff, truncheon, boken, whip to name a few) used for ceremonial - but sometimes very real - combat, herbalism and other forms of natural (osteopathic) medicine, meditation, rhetorical disputation and archive/library technique. She maintained contact with her parents throughout her life, and had a very strong, affectionate relationship with them. They were proud of her and what she had accomplished, and Tahiri had found that she was one those rare birds - a true believer. She felt she would have been called to the Temple even if she had been raised in the hovel her parents shared with the other dozen families who worked in the same bottle-making shop they did. Her parents taught her both glass-making and glass-blowing; arts which were refined by Temple training.

As the recent conflicts between Elesia and the Zoid Battle Commission increased, the rulers of Tyridia decided to allow Elesia to annex them - a quick, fairly smooth process, until the Elesian military forces arrived with their Zoids, and began recruiting from the locals - who flocked to the Elesian military banner. Not only did they escape their poverty, but they were allowed to pilot massive mechanical war machines.

The Tyridian recruits mixed well with the Elesian regulars, but began to tell stories of the great wealth hidden in the Temples and a palatial homes of Tyridia's ruling merchant class, human greed took over, and a both Elesian Regulars and Tyridian recruits from the city garrison used the awesome power of their Zoids to force the Temples to surrender. In a show of desperate loyalty, the remaining city militia stole Zoids from the Elesian forces and fought back. Seeing their militia begin to fall one by one defending their Temples, the citizens of Tyridia began to riot against both the Elesians and the ruling merchants.

During the chaos, Tahiri's parents were killed - she doesn't know how or by who, but a family friend told her he saw them obliterated when they were caught too close to battling Zoids. Elesia reigned in its own troops and quelled the riots, but not before Tahiri was taken prisoner by a group of Zoid pilots; she does not know if they were Tyridian recruits or Elesian regulars. She does know they all wore Elesian uniform - though by that point many Tyridians had taken service in the Elesian military. She and several other priestesses were taken at the same time, and the horrors inflicted upon them by their captors went beyond any civilized practice. They had been offered up in trade by a merchant's daughter for her freedom and a chance to escape.

For several months, Tahiri and the others were truly slaves. They served the six or eight pilots that had captured them, and endured emotional and physical abuse - until the group of pilots, calling themselves the Ice Razor Squadron, took up residence in one of the Temples, turning the former holy place into a barracks and Zoid hanger. Either through their harsh treatment or suicide, most of the captured priestesses began dying one by one.

The Ice Razors spent long hours training and pouring over information they were given by Elesian officials, both military and civilian, learning the history and government of their new nation. Amongst the propaganda was news of a complete victory by Elesia against the forces of the Zoid Battle Commission - though dark rumors spoken in hushed whispers between pilots and technician, overheard by janitors who in turn whispered to slaves hinted that some of the ZBC Zoids had escaped and were harrying Elesia's borders.

The Ice Razors showed themselves to be the best of the Tyridian Garrison during practice battles - and a few real grudge matches. As a reward, they were offered a very dangerous, mostly secret mission: to track down and either re-capture or kill a man who had suddenly and violently escaped from an Elesian Prisoner-of-War stockade.

They took Tahiri and the one other surviving priestess with them - they had kept her hidden, as much as they could, from the rest of the Garrison, excepting Tyridian recruits who wanted their chance at a priestess.

In a moment of pique, the Captain of the Ice Razors - a man whose name she never learned - taught her to drive his Gustav transport and the rudiments of operating a Zoid. He thought it would be interesting to see if she could be of more use to him than just a slave.

Somehow managing to take with them a large amount of loot from the Temple, an immense quantity of Tyridian liquor and whatever else that had managed to glean from the burned ruins of Tahiri's former home, the Ice Razors set out in search of their prey.

She doesn't remember why she decided to escape, or how she came to the decision; all she remembers of the morning after the last of her sisters had died in front of her, she was watching the leader of the Ice Razors shaving with his jade-handled straight razor. He was always awake first. The others always slept until he woke them.

She remembers going over to him, and offering to help him shave; feeling as seductive and sensual as she had since her capture.

She remembers killing him with his own straight razor, killing the rest of them in their sleep, and taking the Captain's transport and his two zoids - a Dead Border and a Dark Horn. She transferred as much of their loot as she could into the Gustav. Most of what the Ice Razors had stolen had been converted into hard currency; but they had kept plenty of temple artifacts, vestments, traditional weapons, sacraments and even several full sets of glass-blowing and glass-making tools. They also kept a substantial supply of Tyridian liquors, which Tahiri figured she could sell or trade later.

She also found their intelligence reports, and in those reports found the name and place she decided she wanted to find. She could not go home; there were no Great Temples outside of Tyridia. It was even possible, she realized, that she was the last of her order. But there was one place where a priestess of a dead religion could find a new purpose - and maybe vengeance, for her people, her gods and herself.

Her mind broken, she made her way to Twilight City, to seek out the man the Ice Razors had meant to hunt: Alistair Edward Smith.