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| - Born in a small cottage nestled between Southshore and the Azureload mine, Iphito Mercer was the youngest of three daughters. Her mother, a paladin and servant of the Light, was absent during much of her youth and so her oldest sister, Nemhain, was tasked with her upbringing. Iphito’s father, once a proud warrior of the Alliance, had retired his sword with the birth of Raemi, his second child. He set aside his dream of becoming an alchemist, (for the best really as he had more heart than talent,) and went to work at the Azureload mine to supplement the sale of his herbs and provide a steady income for his family. Often the three girls would accompany their father on his herb gathering forays. To Iphito, it became a game; “Sivehweaf!” she would exclaim, toddling up to the plant and crushing the leaf in her grubby fingers. Time went by and the girls grew older. Raemi rarely joined the herb gathering expeditions anymore, opting instead to stay in Southshore and play with her friends while the family was out. Nemhain grew adept at gathering but Iphito had no talent for herbs, recognizing only the simplest such as silverleaf, mageroyal and the like. On one such expedition, when Iphito was about three, she picked up a stick and poked her father in the belly with it, gurgling the challenge “On gawrd.” He smiled down at her, picked up a ‘sword’ of his own and tapped it against hers. From that day forward, Iphito and her father engaged in mock battles as Nemhain went about her task. On her fifth birthday, her father presented her with a little wooden sword and shield. ‘Iphito’ had been carved on the hilt and the family crest was burned into the buckler. She spent her days thereafter terrorizing the little boys of Southshore, her tiny cries of “The enemy is upon us!” echoing off the walls of town hall. Time and again her father would return home to a smiling Iphito, sitting on the window sill, blood dripping down her chin as Nemhain scolded her behavior while trying to work her healing to staunch the flow. Often dinner was interrupted by an angry banging on the door, the parent of whomever she had ‘played’ with that day, child in tow, looking far worse than Iphito. One day, shortly after her eighth birthday, her father’s tolerance had reached its end. “Little one, it is time for you to learn self control…” Her father gently pried the little wooden sword from her hand and removed the shield from her back, setting them both on a shelf above her cot. “I’ve let this go on far too long as it is.” The next eight years were spent in study. Each morning after breakfast, Nemhain would hand her a book or some parchments to read. She was casually quizzed during supper; asked to discuss historical events, recite the odd bit of poetry, spelling, grammar and the like. Afternoons were spent with Raemi at the market, presumably learning her numbers, in actuality watching her sister flirt with the town boys, beguiling them into buying her whatever little trinket caught her fancy that day. Her father added his own lessons each evening. He forbade her from touching a weapon, even the little wooden sword, until she could prove to him she had learned to control her volatile temper. He advised her of the hazards of glory seeking, telling her stories of his youth and the young warriors he knew who had become so blinded by bloodlust they had forgotten what they were fighting for, loosing themselves in the process. Her father’s words and deeds became the foundation upon which Iphito’s sense of honor was built. One day, shortly after her sixteenth birthday, her father presented her with a small bronze dagger. He gripped her shoulder tightly and when she looked up at him, locked his eyes firmly on hers. “I believe you are ready, Iphito. I know your mothers temper still burns in you but you’ve shown you can control yourself and I am proud of you. You’re getting older, growing up, and it’s time you start earning your keep.” He chucked her chin gently and smiled. “You’re to take this,” He said, handing her a large bundle of herbs, carefully dried and packaged, “To your grandfather in Brill. The blade is only for self defense, should you need it and you won’t if you keep to the roads. Understood?” Iphito made many such trips over the next few months, sometimes to Ambermill, often to Brill, and occasionally to merchants in Lordaeron. On what would eventually prove to be her last errand for her father, she was sent again to Brill to deliver a bundle of icecap for the apothecaries in Lordaeron. Deciding it made more sense to deliver the herbs directly herself, she hastily made her way to Lordaeron, hoping to gain a little extra time with her friends there before making the return trip home. She never wondered why her father had spent so much time in Alterac these last few days gathering the elusive herb or why they were suddenly in such great demand. Or, for that matter, why she had been instructed to go to Brill instead of directly to Lordaeron; she could not have known the valuable rare herb was needed to fight some strange new sickness that had recently besieged the city. She returned home that evening exhausted. Every inch of her body ached and she could feel a fever coming on. She sat down to dinner with her family as she did every night but her food went untouched. Father asked what the matter was as Nemhain gently stroked her brow. Soon she was tucked into her little cot where Nemhain took up station next to her. The fever was swift, burning through her with fierce intensity. She lost consciousness often and the passage of time became a segmented blur. She awoke sometime later; dazed, disoriented and weak. The space before her was black as pitch and she shivered despite the blanket tucked securely around her. Where was Nemhain? It was so cold… so dark… had the fire been let to die out? Or had the fever finally burned the vision from her eyes? She struggled with the blanket, briefly trying to free her arms, but it was no use; it had been tucked around her as tightly as a death shroud. Iphito woke sporadically as time wore on. Each waking found her weaker, less herself, the death that was not death tore her mind, ravaged her body, stripping her down to the basest of instinct. Hunger gnawed at her belly, a primal hunger that would not be denied. Shrunken and weak she tore her way from the cold womb of earth, clawing her way to the surface. Feed. Instinct drove her forward. FEED. She lurched to her feet in search of sustenance. FEED. Her first days in this new reality were an orgy of blood, flesh and bones. Eventually sated her mind began to assert itself; who was she? Where had she come from? Seeking answers, she returned to her grave in Brill. Taking the name carved into the headstone as her own, Iphito Mercer set out in search of her past. It was this search that brought her to the Elder, to the Tears. Though she still keeps a sharp ear out for whispers of the Mercer’s fate, she is learning to come to terms with her new reality, taking comfort in the warm embrace of her new clan.
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