Iron Lords: Lady Efrideet

> *The Light was gone, but holding a sniper rifle still felt right.*

> *She marched into the City beneath a refugee's hood, took up a roost in the building with the white rabbit, and killed 216 Cabal with 199 bullets.*

> Excerpt the lore of the *Cosmos Shell*

What drives a warrior to seek a life of peace?

Perhaps it is a crisis of character, perhaps a change of heart, or maybe, just maybe, they witnessed something so profound, that a day came when they could no longer bring themselves to kill.

Lady Efrideet was amongst the [most prominent](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/lady-efrideet#lady-efrideet) figures in the tales of the Iron Lords. She was a legend in her own time, feared and respected. Yet the tales of her adventures are limited, though not for a lack of them.

Ask yourself this, what makes a legendary story of battle? The answer, I believe, is in the danger to the hero, and the ever present feeling that the odds are against them. Yet think for a moment, what if there was a hero so perfect, so impossibly precise that no matter the foe, in size, power or number, the odds were never against them, their exploits would be spectacular but every story would be the same. The hero steps onto the battlefield, then everything dies. That hero is Lady Efrideet.

[It is said that](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/items/efrideets-eye) "every time she pulled the trigger, an enemy of the City died", a feat even The Guardian themselves cannot boast.

This does not go to say that Lady Efrideet is without grand stories and legends, in a tale that has become a Tower favorite, she is said to have thrown Lord Saladin [20 miles](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/transcripts/shard-of-the-traveler-sunbreaker#lady-efrideet) down into a Fallen walker.

Lady Efrideet is not, however, a cold-hearted killer like her feats would suggest. In the records we have of her she comes across as friendly, inspirational and idealistic. This would manifest itself most clearly in her disappearance. The legends of the Iron Lords long held that [Efrideet had perished](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/lady-efrideet#lady-efrideet), though it should be noted that Lord Saladin had long [held hope that she had not](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/transcripts/iron-banner-opening-cinematic#lady-efrideet). In truth her fate was stranger. The eminently deadly sniper had found a new home, in a colony of pacifistic Guardians deep in the [outer rim](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/items/return-to-efrideet). She had given up her warrior ways to pursue a peaceful existence.

What drives a warrior to seek a life of peace?

I believe the answer lies in the deeds they have already committed, and the quality of their conscience. To understand Efrideet one must understand the burden of the sniper. To an outsider, a sniper's craft might seem cold and detached, but this could not be further from the truth. A sniper must understand their prey to succeed. As they stare down high-powered optics they learn intimate details of the being in their crosshairs. They learn how they move, how they react and, in a small way, how they think. Then, at the moment they feel like they truly know their target, they squeeze the trigger, and in an explosive impact, they watch as it dies. I believe that for Efrideet, peerless in precision, the burden of knowledge of thousands of such beings weighed heavily on her good heart, and one day that burden became too much. She who had ended the lives of so many, stood [ageless](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/items/return-to-efrideet-2) and eternal. She sought a different purpose, and she found it.

Eventually her purpose called her back to her origins, however. When Lord Saladin retired from his position at the Iron Banner to keep watch over the Plaguelands, Lady Efrideet stepped in to fill his shoes. She believed that the Iron Banner would help Guardians to discover their own [unique purpose](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/items/return-to-efrideet-2).

When the Red War struck, Efrideet once again picked up her fabled rifle for the first time in untold years. [It felt right](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/cosmos-shell#lady-efrideet). Stealing into the City under a refugee's hood, she found a perch in a building and set to work. With 199 bullets, Efrideet killed 216 Cabal.

When the Light returned, however, she vanished once more to her distant colony. She went back home.

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[Part One: Lord Felwinter](

[Part Two: Lord Saladin](

[Part Three: Lady Jolder](