Melira is called “the Fleshling” because unlike everyone else on Mirrodin, she was born without any metal anatomy. She is unique in another way: she is immune to the Phyrexian contagion.

Melira was born a Sylvok, but she was abandoned in the Tangle as an infant for her so-called deformity—a fully organic body with no trace of metal. Alone in the Tangle, the baby would have died. But she was saved by an unlikely hero: the last troll living on Mirrodin.

The trolls that populated Mirrodin during the Fifth Dawn era had been brought to Mirrodin in Memnarch’s soul traps. Many died in the battle with the Kaldra warrior. Any that remained in the Tree of Tales soon disappeared with the dawning of the green sun. Most inhabitants of the Tangle assumed they were all dead even before the invasion. But there is one left: Thrun. Thrun lives like an ascetic in a tainted area of the Tangle. He’s tattooed his skin with the story of Glissa’s innocence and Memnarch’s treachery. He feels like a coward because he’s done nothing to spread the truth about what happened years ago. During the time he lived in hiding, Thrun discovered evidence of a possible Phyrexian threat, and because of his age and wisdom, he knew exactly what the Phyrexians could do to the world. But still he did nothing.

And then he discovered Melira, an outcast like himself. Thrun adopted her, instilling in the girl the knowledge of Mirrodin’s distant past, along with the skills she would need to survive its present day. Somehow, through an accident of nature, Melira was born immune to the effects of the Spore, the gas produced by the mycosynth that enables the metal anatomy of Mirrodin’s life. Eventually, Thrun recognized the extent of her unique ability. She was not only immune to the Spore. As the Phyrexian threat spread, and she was unaffected, he realized that she was also immune to phyresis. Melira just might be the key to saving all of Mirrodin.