I remember brief moments of my previous life; walking beside my father Tibidoc through the forest, watching him in his workshop, learning to read and the amazing world to be found between the covers of a book.

My mother Melsany died when I was very young, I can't remember her. My father never really got over her death. At least she never became a slave.

The dwarves put my father to work cutting gems and silversmithing for one of the dwarven nobles, he had always had an incredible talent at making beautiful things. I worked as a maid in the same house, so I got to see him fairly often.

I seemed to be forever in trouble, I lost count of the number of times I was beaten for clumsiness, or for being caught in the master's library reading a book. I know my father rescued me from worse punishment sometimes, he watched over me and the old dwarf was so greedy for his crafts that he gave him a looser rein than some of the others.

He saved me at first, when the lord's son first took an interest in me. He had taken a fancy to me and wanted me as his personal "plaything". My father refused to work if I was given to him. They could beat him and starve him but they couldn't force him to work and so the old lord told his son that I wasn't available, he was still greedy for more crafted items that my father could make for him.

Eventually, however, the old lord died and his son took over his estate. He had always been disgruntled about failing to get me earlier and he held a grudge against my father. He banished him to the mines and told me that I would now serve him.

My father unbeknownst to me had seen this day coming and that night he told me that he had made arrangements to set me free through an underground contact he'd made. I was scared of going out on my own, afraid of being on the run but I didn't want to stay with what the young lord had planned for me either. I was hidden away on a merchant's caravan leaving that night.

Just before I left my father handed me a small black bundle. It turned out to be a baby panther, my father had stolen him from a travelling circus in town, he thought I would need someone to protect me. I named him Tiernus.

Once the caravan reached its destination they had no further interest in me. I was frightened and I missed my father very badly. Tiernus and I began travelling, earning the odd bit of money for food, never staying long in one place in case we were tracked down.

Eventually I decided to go to Ahrayyah, I had heard tales of it being a place where gnomes were permitted to live without molestation, as the people there did not support slavery. We took passage on a ship headed there.

And now I find myself here, with no idea what to do now. Deep in my heart I know that someday I must go back and rescue my father, but as yet I have no idea how to accomplish that, no idea how to make anything better for my people.

I learn what I can of my chosen craft, the arcane arts having drawn me since I was a child, and having learnt wherever and whatever I could since then.

But the fear of capture is always in the back of my mind, and with Tiernus as my only companion I long to also find some people whom I can trust enough to become my friends.