Chapter Text
Muirenn Gravelheap was a young svirfneblin woman who grew up in a small settlement deep under the Sunset Mountains with her own kind, secluded from the outside world. Her craft was fishing, for she enjoyed the alone time and the quiet. One day, seemingly like any other, she set out for work. A good pace up the stream of the underground river that passed near her village, she sat down and sunk her fishing rod in the rippling stream.
A few hours passed without anything biting, which was unusual. Muirenn was debating whether or not she should go back home for the day, when suddenly a low rumbling emerged from behind one of the nearby cave walls. Before the gnome could react, the stone gave way with thunderous noise, throwing dust in the air. Quickly she dropped her rod and hid between a group of stalagmites, waiting for the view to clear. Then she heard voices. Drow voices. When the dust settled she made out the group of male dark elves. „Raiders.“ she thought to herself. Groups like these would scout the nearby caverns ever so often to try and capture astray deep gnomes and other creatures to take them back as slaves back to their cities. But rarely had they dared getting this close to the village.
„Coming here was a stupid idea, Jevan.“ said one of the men. „You know the matron mother doesn't want us to go this close to the settlements.“ – „Shut your yapper. I am the one in charge here so we do as I say.“ replied the tallest of them. Something about him seemed … off.
Before the first drow could respond, he continued. „What do we have here?“ He pointed at Muirenn's fishing equipment on the ground. „I do believe we found ourselves a deep gnome. Scout the cave, it must be nearby!“ Muirenn was understandably terrified and didn't dare to move, too afraid to give away her position. Just moments later a slender black hand grabbed her by the silver hair and yanked her up. The sudden pain made her cry out loud when the drow dragged her out into the open.
„I found it.“ he exclaimed, rather uninterested. The man who appeared to be their commander walked up to them and grabbed her by the chin. With his blood red eyes he mustered her young face. „Hmmm... yes, she will do. I shall interrogate her. Alone. You lot return to the camp.“ – „But Jevan, this–“, one of the other men tried to reply, but he was cut off before he could finish the sentence.
„Did I stutter?“ The commander still had his gaze fixed on Muirenn and his voice was strangely calm. Even by drow standards, this man was ghastly. The gnome was so scared, she couldn't even move and just stared back into his eyes. The other man gulped, visibly intimidated as well. „As you wish … come on guys, let's move.“
While the group turned back towards the newly opened passage in the wall, the commander spoke again, his gaze still locked with Muirenn's. Though this time he spoke in the tongue of the svirfneblin: „I will spare your life and eradicate these creatures for you, if you promise me you will do something for me in return.“ The young gnome blinked her large silver eyes at the stranger in confusion. It was like she had just broken out of a trance. „... creatures?“, she slowly replied. Jevan smiled and gestured at the men who were stepping back into the tunnel they had come through. Still confused, she nodded at him.
What happened next was barely comprehensible to her. The drow commander suddenly turned into a black mist and troupe's screams echoed through the cavern. Blood splattered on the ground and the rocks as the raiders dropped to the floor all at the same time. The mist gathered between the corpses and it slowly took the shape of a drow again. Muirenn was cowering on the floor, letting out a silent scream as she looked upon the horrifying scene in front of her. Still half made of smoke, the commander stepped towards the terrified gnome. She crawled backwards until she found herself pressed against a stalagmite, the now fully materialized drow towering above her.
„We had a deal, girl.“
„Please don't hurt me!“
„Do not worry, I need you alive.“
„... why?“
The stranger looked at her with a grim expression.
„Because you will carry my child.“
Several tendays had passed since Muirenn was ambushed by the drow raiding group. The morning sickness had started. Of course she had hoped that all of this had been but a bad dream. She wasn't married and if anyone found out she was pregnant with a drow child … if it even was drow … the thought terrified her.
„I will know if you abandon my offspring. If you let it come to harm, you will die by my hand and so will everyone you love.“
She wouldn't be taking that chance. Instead she decided that the safest course of action was to leave the Underdark. And so Muirenn prepared for the long and dangerous trip through the endless caverns in hopes of finding a safer place to stay.
Several more tendays – maybe even months, who could really say – passed till the pregnant woman made it to the surface. It was nighttime when she stepped out of the tunnel into the forest known Reaching Woods. What a strange place it was. There was no ceiling? The ground was soft? No echo? And the strange smell. She had heard stories of the surface but still everything about this place felt fundamentally alien to her.
The sunlight was probably the biggest shock to her and let alone how much it hurt in her eyes. She didn't know the plants or the animals, there was no protection for her. Soon she made home in a small cave unfar of the river, for at least the fish she could trust. Things were hardly easy for her, especially once her belly started to grow to an impractical size. But her will to stay alive – and to keep the unborn child in her alive – somehow kept her going.
And so the day came where Orla was born. Much to Muirenn's surprise Orla didn't look at all like a drow. Instead she looked like any other svirfneblin child she had ever seen. Skin the colour of rocks, eyes and hair of silver, a big round nose … part of Muirenn was angry that her daughter looked so perfectly ordinary. If she had known beforehand, she wouldn't have had left her home. She could simply return home now, but carrying a newborn through the Underdark would have been certain death for both of them, so she decided to stay in the woods. At least until Orla was old enough to travel.
The years went by rather eventless. Muirenn made sure to keep herself and Orla hidden from the occasional surfacer that made their way through the forest and raised the tiny girl to the best of her knowledge and skill. Despite everything she loved her daughter dearly. Together they learned the ways of the forest and Muirenn found her faith in the Father of Fish and Fungus, whom the surface gnomes knew by the name of Baervan Wildwanderer.
Orla grew into a rather resourceful child herself. Soon enough she would be the one teaching her mother a trick or two. The girl was so in tune with the forest that she somehow managed to teach herself to shapeshift and to call forth the magics of nature. She had taught herself the ways of the druids. But her life among the plants and animals, away from civilization made her … strange. Orla only rarely spoke and often she acted more like a feral creature than a gnome. But the strangest thing about her was that with every passing year she ended up looking more and more like her mother. And not simply in the way how all children look like their parents, no, she turned into the spitting image of Muirenn when she was her age.
Muirenn often missed her home in the Underdark, but she also couldn't bare the thought of taking her daughter away from the forest both of them had become part of. And living on the surface certainly had it's benefits. Certainly, the forest had it's fair share of dangers and monsters (and most importantly the dreaded sunlight), but once Muirenn got adapted to it, it was much safer than her former home had ever been. So she decided to stay here indefinitely or at least until Orla was old enough to care for herself.
But things rarely go as planned. Fifteen years had passed since Orla had been born when they came. Muirenn had noticed their arrival long before they could strike. The black-clad strangers clearly weren't apt at tracking through the wilderness and gnomes knew well how to hide. But it didn't help. They found them anyway. They had specifically come for them. No. They had come for Orla. How did they know about her? How did they find her?
Muirenn would never learn the answers to these questions, for just moments later her body was laying in the freshly fallen leaves on the ground. She had been hit over the head with something heavy and blunt. As her vision got blurry and she heard Orla screaming and crying for her while the strangers dragged the girl away. Blood was running down Muirenn Gravelheap face and into her eyes. She blinked a few times, each time a bit slower, each time her lids feeling a bit heavier than before. And then she closed her eyes forever.