Skyseeker from the Deep

"You've got nowhere to go but up from here on."

"What's her problem, she simple or something? She's kinda been staring for the entire evening now."

The drunk young man was mystified by the Deep Gnome, a rare sight on the surface indeed. Skyseeker from the Deep couldn't blame him, she could make little sense from the surface world. That it wasn't full of dark creatures that would try to eat and consume her was more than enough. But how does a girl go from monkish training in the Darklands to Surface dweller? It's a story that she keeps for herself, for it is one of pain.

## Description

The most offputting aspect of the Skyseeker is that she looks like a doll, plain and simple, as a result of decades of underground living without any sun gracing her skin. She's also silent and tends to stend oddly still, people sometimes confusing her for a decoration as a result. This is not due to shyness, however: Deep Gnomes simply tend to learn to blend in, or to simply get eaten by a monster, or even worse, a Deep Dwarf. She also knows not to talk back at this point: people often assume that her kind are evil because they hail from the Darklands, but they couldn't be further from the truth.

All in all, Skyseeker is a simple girl with a simple wish: to thrive under the sky and stars.

## History

Deep gnomes are a silent, stoic bunch. If one finds it hard to hold a good conversation with a dwarf, then staying with the Svirfneblin is downright awkward and unsatisfying. This is greatly due to the circumstances of the people, surrounded from all sides by dangerous predators that would ask for nothing more than a nibble of them. As a result, most Svirfneblin end up being strong warriors, though more out of necessity than by choice. Skyseeker's no exception: she was taught from her people to manipulate her surroundings and to attune herself to it to defend herself.

Her childhood was typical for one of her kind, except that she was so exceptionally full of potential that she'd manage to both ace her Drudic classes and Martial arts defense classes, when most of her kind usually settle for one or the other. For her, it was an extension of one and the other. Communing with nature means nothing if your body is not an extension of nature, she thought. She had a loving family: her mother would make her a warm bowl of beetles every day after her training, and her father taught her what she knows today about gemcutting, when he wasn't away trading goods to Drow settlements.

Her original name is long gone. So are her people. The tragedy with living with a silent society is how isolated they are when the monsters in the dark corner them. Duergars are not different, enslaving, killing and eating Svirneblin as if they were but chatel. All that she had after a truly horrendous raid was a tunnel to freedom and a dice to hold onto, a last memento from those she grew with.

Skyseeker was strongly attuned to the elements, both in body and in spirits, to the point where she even learned to become one with the wind. But where does the wind come from? The mythical surface and its currents. The Gnomes were taken to the Darklands, but are the Gnomes to eternally be slaves of it?

Now that the Skyseeker had nothing to lose, she made her own Quest for Sky of sorts, a journey for both the soul and body to stay away from the evil that could eat her at any moment. Somehow, she survived, and emerged onto the Island of Kortos. The sun was so bright and blinding, and yet felt reassuring on her skin, as if it was re-emrbacing a lost child. Gnomes are children of the First World after all, a world full of light and colors.

When asked about who she is, and why her skin is so grey, she handwaves it as the bleaching, the terrible condition that afflicts all Gnomes: seek new experiences, or die of boredom. Well, this new adventure certainly promises to delay the bleaching for an adequate period of time.

## Personality

Though she may seem silent, simple, dim, this couldn't be further from the truth. Skyseeker is a wise girl that is intimidated by the strange world she ended up in, and its political intrigues that she finds match the Drows' in intensity at times. Like most gnomes, she's terrified of the Bleaching, and tries her best to stave it off. She believes her story mirrors and echoes Nivi Rhombodazzle in that regard, except that she sought for her freedom on the surface rather than by hiding deeper. She has a strong survival instinct, and won't let herself be stepped on as well. Friends are something she has a hard time making on the surface. Though rather trusting, others often find her stoic silence off-putting and uneasy. She staves off the loneliness by communing with nature and trying to keep exotic pets. Her current pet is a Giant Gecko named 'Fren', a Gnomish Undercommon word for companion.

## Relationships

Fren - a Giant Gecko she managed to befriend during her escape.

## Goals

Currently, Skyseeker simply hopes to adapt to surface living and become a part of this big great society.