Mephala was apprenticed to a goldsmith and jeweler in a relatively small village in a temperate region of Faerun, and was reasonably happy there—the townsfolk were slightly wary of her as they would be to any tiefling, but were mostly cordial and eventually warmed up to her as she proved to not be a threat. The biggest impediment to her general contentment was the head of the local militia, a man named Viktor, who seemed to be both disgusted and intrigued or strangely attracted to/by her, and expressed his desire for a relationship. She did her best to avoid him and was distantly polite when she couldn't.

Things changed for her when a young half elf came to visit the village; while the two weren’t “official” they became very close, much to the indulgent contentment of the goldsmith and his gossipy wife, and very much to the consternation and anger of Viktor. One night, while Alexus was busy playing the local tavern for his continued room and board, Viktor cornered Mephala alone. He confronted her about her burgeoning relationship with the wandering entertainer, angry that she had been putting him off and turning him down with platitudes. At the end of her patience with the whole situation, she finally told him outright to get bent, which he did not take well.

During the struggle that followed, two things became clear: first, that Viktor was not actually human, and second, that Mephala was a sorceress. She caused a point-blank explosion of fire that severely injured them both, but which allowed her to escape. She staggered off into the woods, and her shock and pain convinced her that whether he had survived or not, it would be impossible for her to obtain a fair trial or prove that Viktor was not who he was claiming to be. Mephala's face and chest remain scarred from the confrontation, and her voice is now gravelly and rough from damage that never healed quite right.

Mephala spent several years wandering aimlessly, trying to work up the courage to return to her home; she desperately missed both her apprenticeship and the village as a whole. Eventually, she came up with a plan: earn enough money to import an impartial investigator and lawyer or judge to her village, far enough from the scene that there would be no chance that they were already in Viktor’s pocket. To that end, she began to take on various adventuring jobs, which had the additional benefit of honing her sorcerous skills. The first several jobs—clearing out packs of gnolls or kobolds, escorting a merchant from points A to B, and the like—went reasonably well, and she began to grow confident in her skill.

Her first venture into the less legally-acceptable side of adventuring on the mortal plane was also her last; she joined a mercenary group with the intention of stealing a precious artifact from a noble in Waterdeep. The night before the heist was to take place, the entire group was stolen away to the Nine Hells by Azmodeus, and commanded to fight for the entertainment of his hordes of devils. She did her best to avoid the conflict altogether while hoping for the opportunity to persuade her erstwhile companions not to succumb to the desire for bloodshed. It did not work out in the way she had hoped; all her hiding managed was leave her as one of the final conscious contestants. Though she did her best to save what group members she could—after all, who said that it had to be a fight to the death?—ultimately, the last fighter got a kneejerk Hellish Rebuke to the face. Azmodeus then announced that she would not be considered the victor if the others weren't dead. Frozen with dread and indecision, the fire from the rapidly-shrinking arena walls ultimately made her choice for her, and she was declared the victor. Azmodeus granted her his "blessing" as promised by letting her live, but he did not return her to the mortal plane, and she was forced to find her own way out of both the arena and the Nine Hells altogether.

Leveraging both her minor fame and infamy as both the champion of Azmodeus' arena and a mortal who had displeased him, she found temporary work as a gladatorial healer, speeding up the convalescences of the devilish fighters who were the more usual combatants. The arena master came to rely on her ability more and more frequently, and eventually began taking her with him on the occasional gladatorial interludes to the other circles of Hell. She refused to partake in the fighting itself, despite his repeated hints that it could be a way for her to leave his service. Her conviction to not re-enter the arena finally broke when, on an exhibition tour at Mahadi's Wandering Emporium in Avernus, one of the prizes offered in a bracket-style tournament was passage back to the mortal realms. One of the eight teams of mortals had come into the tournament with a tabaxi wizard who was already severely wounded, and Mephala quietly took her place. Both Loorg the bugbear and Pennic the halfling began to suspect something was off about "Fish in the River" when her injuries ceased impeding her once the fighting started, but it wasn't until the semi-finals that the deception was discovered. By then, it was far too late for the team to back out, and they barely clawed their way into the finals—Loorg was killed and Mephala gravely wounded before they were declared victorious. Deeply upset at the deaths of his comrades, Pennic left Mephala to the fate of the gods instead of killing her when they were returned to a random location in the mortal plane, as "thanks" for helping him escape Avernus. Mephala barely managed to keep herself from bleeding out; she has several unhealable scars from that final battle, her right leg remains significantly weaker, and she is prone to a heavy limp on that side.

Upon returning to Faerun, Mephala found herself at a loss—she'd been focused on surviving the Hells for so long that, while she still longed for vengeance and to return to the relative naieve happiness of her apprenticeship, she felt that she was too changed to actually be able to properly fit herself back into that lifestyle. Amassing what wealth she could from small solo adventuring jobs, she avoided any group projects that might lead to another jaunt in some arena. She continued to disguise herself as Fish in the River in areas where tieflings were less common or looked at with suspicion.

There's more stuff here, but I haven't written it yet. Oops!