Hayriah is a rival of some note in the hunting of treasure, her business in the undercity bound up with Nazif's perfumery stall. She goes clad in the expedition dress of the old-fashioned adventurer, and carries a commanding presence and an air of authority that shows plainly in her every dealing. She leads a body of armed men, asserting her mastery and exacting compliance from all she meets; and her rivalrous temper declares itself in the shrewdness with which she pursues whatever is of value, as when she undercut another party's bid.
Her doings have bred no little tension, others being eager to outrun her to their ends. She is known within the city's networks, and holds some measure of influence, or of notoriety; and her business is tangled up with the ongoing struggles for power and the competition amongst them, above all in the wake of the Ghost of March's doings.
Set upon by Sidra al-Najjar and her companions, Hayriah sought to learn who they were and what they wanted, insisting they surrender whatever they had lifted from the site. She would have divided the party, ordering her men to march them off into a larger chamber whilst she made ready to clear the ground; and, showing herself willing enough to come to blows, she advanced upon Sidra with a staff crackling with purple fire, much after the manner of an Eldritch Blast, and by her art compelled Jean-Zera Mongé to let fall his weapon.
Of late Hayriah met her end, having stepped into a Moonbeam conjured by Miray, whose ruinous light killed her outright; and after her death her body was further savaged by a vampire that manifested soon upon it. Among her effects were found a quarterstaff and a satchel holding a memoir of some worth attributed to Mehmed II. Following her death, a letter from Jean-Zera Mongé noted that Hayriah was "no longer in the picture" — the sense being that her part in a certain treasure job had come to its close, and that Jean-Zera now stood as the sole source of what was worth knowing; yet her name in the hunting of treasure was such that it may sway the rivalry among treasure-hunters still, even in her absence.