Beryl is a compact rock gnome built like a brass-bound toolbox, with broad shoulders, dense hands, and a low center of gravity that makes her seem impossible to knock over. Her close-cropped iron-gray hair stands in stiff little ridges, as if electrified by old machinery. A polished brass auditory lens covers her left eye, its nested rings faintly rotating whenever someone speaks, walks, lies, or shifts their weight. Her fingers are permanently stained with black, violet, and copper ink, while her knuckles bear pale scars from years of repairing devices in cramped shafts. She moves in short, economical bursts, never taking a step without seeming to measure it. The contradictory impression she leaves is that of a fussy clerk who could, at any moment, dismantle a locked door with her bare hands.