"I was on a dig in Egypt - an archaeology dig, I mean." She explains. "My team and I were exploring a temple, a weird hieroglyphic on the wall - it seemed almost like a pictoral representation of an extrater-, never mind. We were looking at the illustration on the wall, when the floor collapsed beneath our feet. The four of us were trapped in a small pit - the walls of the temple blocked our comms signal, and we'd strayed too far from our original search site for a rescue team to find us."
She's quiet for a moment, before continuing. "We opened up a sarcophagus - trying to distract ourselves from our oncoming deaths by doing some research, and that's when I found it." She mimes the motion of her throwing her lasso. "There, next to the mummy of an ancient queen - an old rope lasso. We worried it would break if we tried to use it - thousands of year old rope isn't known for being sturdy, but we were desperate. My friend was the first to try it - threw it around an overhanging ledge, and tried to haul herself up. The rope came loose, and she broke her neck." She closes her eyes in sadness. "After rations started going dry, my professor went next. He threw up the lasso - it seemed sturdy, and he went up. Then it came loose again, and he fell."
The villain looks down at the floor, as the tale comes to its end. "Then there was just two of us - me and my lab partner. He started making moves on me, and I thought 'hey, why not? I have a crush on him, and we're going to die anyway'. I came...and then the next thing I knew, his hands were around my throat. The rations would last longer with only one of us, he told me as he choked me - it was him or me, and it might as well be him." For the first time, the woman chuckles. "Then, next thing I knew, the lasso was in my hand - and it wasn't rope anymore, but gold. I felt power rushing through me - it felt so good, and there was this voice, telling me I had to live. I socked my partner in the face, then tied the lasso to the same ledge that killed my friends. I was up in seconds." She looks T'yala in the eyes. "My partner begged me to throw down the rope, that he was sorry. I turned and left him there."
"So..." She crosses her arms. "That what you were looking for?"
(Sorry if that's too much backstory.)