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Ziofera · (This post was last modified: 22-03-2014, 03:32 PM by Ziofera.)

Description:
Name: Mercédès Morrel (pronounced mer-seh-dehs)
Age: 36
Gender: Female
Height: 6'2"
Physique: Well Built
Eye Colour: Green
Hair: Shoulder length, brown, and cleanly cut
Skin: Tanned caramel complexion
Defining Feature: N/A

General State of Mind: Content

Family:
Father (deceased)
Mother (unknown)

Home:
Greenstone

Personality:
-Extremely Patient
-Kind Hearted
-Quick to Defend Others
-Loyal
-Quiet in Large Crowds
-Dislikes Attention from Many People
-Slow to Defend Self
-Prefers Work to Socialising

Detail-

Spoiler

Interests:
-Masonry
-Medicinal Herbs
-History

Skills:

Spoiler

Summary
-Expert masonry (the work itself, the tools and materials, etc.)
-Competent architecture
-Competent shield work (makeshift only, she has never held a real shield)
-Novice healer (able to identify herbs and medicines but not apply them)
-Basic housework
-Novice Mining (She only knows about coal and iron)

Items:

Misc-
Rope
Silk pyjamas
Masonry tools
Pickaxe

Books-
Sidian's Letter
[Sidian's Journal
Priestess' Diary
Thimony's Diary
Hero of Ravenna
A Mason's Guide] -Being lent to Victor
The Rise and Fall

Music:

Relationships:

Work Log:

Backstory:

Mercédès Morrel was born into a world of unrest as the troubles in the Middle Realm caused by the Xitians had already begun taking shape. As a direct result of this her town had been divided into two factions, although no-one could remember exactly how the disagreements began or if they could their stories didn’t match up. It was friend against friend, families divided in amongst themselves, and tempers were flaring. Her father and mother were on two different sides of the fight and Mercedes’ mother decided she wanted little to do with a daughter of someone she now hated. Her father, while his hatred for his now former wife was strong could not bring himself to hate his daughter and raised her.

Her father was the only mason in the town as well as one of the few in the area, and as a result was often needed by both sides as well as other surrounding towns to do work. This meant that Mercédès was taken care of by the neighbours and had to learn the various basic housework skills, but she was still to little to do a lot on her own. One would think her father would let the other side fall to pieces, but his pride in his work was the only thing stronger than his hatred. He often come back from his work beaten and bruised, so the two were often visited by the healer that belonged to their faction. This kickstarted Mercedes’ interest in herbs and healing. She would often watch the healer work and asked many questions along the way but she was never allowed to aid with anything more important than a scrape. During this time she also made a few visits to the now unoccupied library to pick up some books on the topic, coming across some books on history which caught her fancy as well. She'd take them home and read them while her father was out at work. Eventually her father had too many lingering injuries to do everything on his own, and so at the tender age of six Mercedes started to go with her father to the other side of town as well as the surrounding areas. She was still far too young and small to do any heavy lifting, but she was able to follow simple instructions and start doing the smaller jobs both at his work and at home.

The neighbouring towns were quite a distance from their own as well as each other, and each as a result was different from the other. Some were more focused on the arts, some were focused on military, some were fond of sports, some were agricultural communities, some were trading cities, and their buildings represented this. There were various different styles and many different building types to be found among them. The majority of which Mercédès had never even heard or seen of before in her life. Her father taught her about the different styles and how to go about constructing them as well as the various challenges they brought forward. He also gave her a notebook to record what she had learnt, everything from the types of building to the tools needed to the time required for each project. She even visited the libraries in the various towns and took notes based on architecture books she found. They spent time in each of the cities doing various work projects and would go back home every now and again.

Of course, when they did go back just because she was a child didn’t mean that she could escape the abuse her father received. The children belonging to the other faction could be just as cruel as the adults. Mercédès at first tried fighting back but was always outnumbered by the others, and then she tried evading the attacks and while she was more successful the numbers overwhelmed her. She eventually figured out that just lying there and taking it bored the children who would then leave her alone until the next time. This didn’t mean she escaped the attacks entirely, she still had to make many visits to the healer over the course of those six years.

Then Mercédès turned twelve, and the civil war hit the Middle Realm. Suddenly people weren’t being attacked for being on the wrong side of the town, but instead organised assaults were taking place on both sides. Shops were destroyed, people were killed, and crops were razed. Mercédès’ father was constantly working to keep their side of town standing, and Mercédès was always with him to help because everyone else was fighting, hiding, or dead. During these years she learnt how and where to take damage, and became skilled in the use of makeshift shields during the course of the fight. She was able to quickly discern what in her surroundings would work best as a shield and use it to a reasonably good effect. Years passed and her side fell into disaster, the healer had been killed long ago, the other side’s original area had been all but destroyed but they had gained a lot of ground. Now 17 Mercédès had a lot of experience with her father’s work, and she would need that experience more than ever when the other side targeted him.

They came silently in the night and took him away to their side of town. Mercédès never knew of his exact fate, but would become certain of the fact he was dead by the war’s end. Mercédès continued his work as much as she could, having to stay in the town to do constant repairs, but it was clear who was going to win the war by this point. The other side did just that, win. The few left alive were forced into various different positions. This was something almost unheard of, but the hatred ran so deep that the other side was willing to sink so low. Some were put into forced labour, the children were made to be personal servants, and the rest were either sold to other towns or kept prisoner to be executed whenever the others got restless. Mercédès was one of the lucky ones to only be put in forced labour because of her skill in masonry and was put to work repairing the town. It was a slow arduous process as there was so much to do and she was only one person. They did eventually give her assistants but they had no training and so the work was barely sped up at all.

This continued for another decade, and while many people had become restless at various points Mercédès had not. She was patient, very patient, and while she hated being forced to work everything that had happened when she was young taught her that just waiting would solve her problems. It did, because when she turned 27 another group entered town. They were from the neighbouring areas and had had finally become stable enough themselves to stop the atrocities being committed. Through hard work and no small amount of force Mercédès and the others their freedom. It wasn’t perfect, once freedom was gained the group left as they only came to put a stop to the slavery and not restore the town itself. But the town was almost back to its original form as well through the work of Mercédès and her now far better trained assistants. The next 7 years were spent doing the final pieces of repair work, building, and generally getting life back on track. She found that now she depended on the work after having done it for so long, and became slightly lost when there wasn't much left.

Many of the people who were on her side during the war had since left town for greener pastures, and Mercédès now 34 was about to take that same step. She, like most people had heard of the Forbidden Lands, and all that it could hold. So she gathered what she had and chartered a ship, wondering what her future could bring her.