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"I've never been alone...I'm amongst friends in nature, and within' the very essence of the world around me..."

Like Lady Tanglebrain, no one quite knows where Priestess Aalthiea originated from...Some say she was born in the time and place of Ancient Egypt, daughter of one of the great Pharaohs...Others say she is not of this world...What is known is that she was one of the members of the Tanglebrain party that laid the building blocks of Artopolis itself, but shortly afterwards, headed south with a few others (see map), and founded the settlement known as Witches Valley, and prospered...Aalthiea was unanimously elected the first mayor of the newly incorporated city of Witches Valley and held that position for many generations and through historic changes within the municipality, and the whole of Mess County...

However...UNLIKE Lady Tanglebrain, who "passed on to another astral dimension", Priestess Aalthiea is very much STILL alive and active ...right to the present day! After stepping down as mayor about eighty some-odd years ago, she decided to travel about the world..."Enough is enough!" she said in an interview with the local newspaper,'The Valley Pentacle'..."I've spent far too many years locking horns with individuals more concerned with their own gain, and not of the welfare of the very people who trusted them to do the right thing...Furthermore, with radio more becoming the mainstream with the media, I don't want to be gawked at as some kind of abnormal circus freak!"...So, for the better part of forty years, she traveled by herself, around the globe many times, getting to know the world around her...

Upon returning to the Valley, Aalthiea shortly thereafter noticed a few changes had taken place, and not for the better...The then newly elected Grafft Administration, and its corrupt influence upon the county government had subjected Witches Valley to maladies such as high taxes, allowing sewage and industrial waste to flow southward along Familiar Slough (for which both the city and the Valley itself are a part of), unauthorized dumping of endless piles of Artopolis trash across the area, and cuts in vital services, such as public safety and road maintanence...When the Artopolis Municipal Electric utility pondered building a nuclear power facility in the area, Priestess Aalthiea, with the help of some of the other members of the Artopolan Draculian Order decided to spring into action...Through their many different "manipulative powers" (both supernaturally and by other "selected" methods) the power (and profit) mongerers backed off, and little by little, the situations were resolved...Most of the area was made to fall under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, for which the Priestess had a definite say in...

Recognized as the unofficial de facto leader of the Draculian Order, The Priestess is not someone to be trifled with...With her established role in Mess County history, and the influence she currently has...Witches Valley is a safe haven for those who just want to live and enjoy life in relative peace...So, for the time being, no one from Tanglebrain Towers (Hizz DISHonner now refers to the Valley as "just a small unimportant grotto of freaks and misfits")...nor for that matter, anyone from...Monster Mountain...brings trouble to the area...

Aalthiea ("The Old Witch of the Valley", as they call her) continues to live more or less, in seclusion, unless called upon...and does not interfere with what goes on up in Metro...She lives in a very small home in the valley itself about halfway between the cities of Witches Valley and Artopolis, tucked away in the woods, reachable by a very small secondary road that with the exception of some really heavily equipped 4x4s (she has one), often is impassable during the snowy months...During the warm months ...both during the day, and especially on moonlit nights, The Priestess is often seen (Usually by canoeists and kayakers that like to challege some of the rapids on Familiar Slough, as well as fly fishermen testing the shallows for the wary trout that frequent the waterway) doing her yogic and meditation routine on Witches Rock that overlooks The Slough (as the locals call it) running northward, until it finally meets up with the Phantoma River in Artopolis Metro...

It is believed, in her meditation...that she pays a silent homage to a lost love, the only love that she cared for eons ago...A once wonderful man who lost his way...A man who overstepped his bounds for his never-ending greed and lust for power and gain - even setting her warm embrace aside...She reminds herself that he now is no longer a man, now horribly disfigured after his trifle with the Great Elder of Life...Still, she thinks of happier times...

...So long ago...So very long ago...

See Also: Four Twenty Mary Jane (a.k.a. Violette)