Chapter 2: Into the surface lands

Dliseagh awoke with a harsh startle and the sound of distressed yells as the caravan was bumped and shaken multiple times sending it flipping over and tumbling about, crashing into the walls of the cavern which sent Dliseagh rolling out into the open halls, knocking her head off multiple rocks as she tumbled, the silence filling her ears as she fell unconscious.
When she finally regained consciousness she was in deep darkness, so dark that even her seasoned eyes could barely see in front of her. She stood slowly looking around as she brushed off her rucksack, there was no sign of her parents, the Delzons, or the caravan.
Dliseagh took a few steps forward, slinging her rucksack back over her shoulders in frantic realization checking for her cage and polyhedral artifact, confirming its presence when her hand clasped around it carefully. Sighing with heavy relief she continued to take a few blind steps forward feeling a strong hunger rippling through her. It must’ve been hours since she last ate and all her provisions were in the back of the caravan before it was attacked.
Stumbling into a wall Dliseagh could feel a cool, moistened plant clinging to the surface, which she recognized as moss. Being a farmer she assumed it was mostly edible and with her sight loss it was the best she was going to get for possibly a long while.
As she began to devour the moss in her ravenous hunger she heard a voice. A quiet, feminine voice, airy. She halted her chewing to listen, peering down to where she was holding the moss, even though she couldn’t see, assuming that it was the plant causing her to have auditory hallucinations. Taking yet another bite, she heard the voices again, louder than before, and once again she halted her chewing. Perhaps it WAS the moss she concluded, shoving the remaining bits into her mouth before she spied something out of the corner of her vision, startling her as she whipped around.
“If you’re there I’d like you to announce your presence. I’m of no harm” Dliseagh stated, her voice echoing throughout the moistened depths of the caves but not a single sound had reciprocated back leaving her with an eery, unsettling feeling.
Steadily Dliseagh began to wander towards where she had thought she spotted the figure, stopping at the mouth of a descending staircase that seemed to have been hollowed and carved from the very rock itself.
Inhaling the young Svirfneblin strained her ears for any indication of the previous voices and sounds, gaining no further speculation as she carefully made her way down the steps, descending into even deeper depths than she believed to be in now.
When she had reached the bottom she halted, her ears picking up the sound of disturbed water as her footsteps shuffled, crunching loose rock and dust under her boots.
Cautiously Dliseagh turned the corner, observing how beautifully crafted the rock was, however, none of it looked to be of Dwarven make, something she’d become familiar with throughout her short life.
Sighing in slight fear she made her way down a short hallway before her breathing was caught in her throat. The sight before her was mesmerizing.
A pale woman knelt at the center of an eye-shaped pond, collecting water in a small bucket, and brown robes hung from her body as the glittering gold and silver jewelry clinked together in her motions.
Dliseagh watched as the woman stood, reaching a height of nearly eight feet, and turned on her heels, walking up one of the many paths that created the eyelashes of the eye shape. When the woman had disappeared Dliseagh found her breath again staring at the pond in confusion as the water had also been replaced with dust and webs, and the many areas around the eye were cracked and broken. However this hadn’t disheartened the young girl as her curiosity had been struck and she hastily followed where the woman had disappeared to, making her way up the path and into a small circular room.
The woman was nowhere to be seen however but dusty books had laid strewn about, some crumbled with age and others still in tasteful condition. The room itself held many vials and instruments of alchemy and spellcraft and Dliseagh concluded that this must have been the study room of a wizard here once before and she gently ran her fingertips along with the cover of one book sadly leaving streaks of her touch in the dust. When she made her way downstairs the same woman was sitting there
once again, her back to the passage as she collected water from the once more renewed pond, and the voices of many others filled the room as they walked through the passages, laughing and chatting to one another in a foreign language.
Dliseagh watched as their hazy figures became more and more solid, her heart beating hard against her rib cage as she experienced this phenomenon, her attention pert and undivided as they all disappeared as quickly as they appeared, leaving her with the woman again.
When she stood Dliseagh watched her hair fall back over her shoulder before she turned, freezing in her path as their eyes locked. Until now the Rockseer had not noticed her and many others hadn’t either and it clicked to Dliseagh that she had been experiencing images of the past civilization here, granted to her by a force unknown. But now her mouth had fallen agape as the beautiful lady had begun speaking to her, seemingly worried and frightened for the Svirfneblin which struck her odd as Rockseer’s shunned her people often due to their chosen seclusion.
But no words were heard and the Elven woman hurriedly ran to the wall, beginning to write out the words for her before taking her water and running past Dliseagh up the same path again leaving nothing but a cool wind on Dliseagh’s face.
When the room had finally changed back to its normal decrepit and abandoned state the startled Svirfneblin turned her gaze to the wall reading out the words:
“Go little one, It’s not yet your time” Dliseagh placed her hand against the cool stone growing confused and she began to leave behind the empty home of the Rockseers, climbing the stairs again before she tried to make sense of what happened.
Licking her dry lips, her dehydration set in distracting her from her previous thoughts as she squinted, desperate to see anything in the deep dark.
It was at this point that the young adventurer began to blindly walkabout before pulling her rucksack off from her tired, bruised shoulders, reaching in to grab the wooden handle of her spade and her Tinderbox.
Hastily she ripped the hem of her shirt, wrapping it around the handle before making many attempts to set fire to the cloth, gaining success after a few tries and the cavern lit up before her. It was no different than any other part of the Underdark given that she had been able to venture out a couple of times on her own and she began to wonder where exactly the caravan had gone and if her parents and siblings were even still alive.
Dliseagh shook those thoughts from her mind, determined and set on finding them once she had reached the surface and for the first time, realizing she was fully alone now, Dliseagh made her first step into one of the side tunnels, never to look back again.