Sszulriq moves like a coiled spring and smells faintly of ozone and pickled fungus. She is small even by derro standards but carries herself with an intense, twitchy purpose. Her skin is pallid with blue-tinged veins that shimmer when she excites an invention. A lattice of tiny burn scars crisscrosses her forearms—each a trophy from failed experiments she traces with a fingertip when thinking. She favors one goggle lens permanently cracked and replaced with a polished lens of some unknown glass that twinkles with inner light. When working she hums in irregular rhythms and leaves behind a thin trail of sparkling dust; when upset, she clenches a set of brass tools between her teeth. Contradiction: though her workshop is a chaos of arcane components and dangerous contraptions, she is meticulous about lining up spoons and jars by size and staining each jar's lid with a neat dab of colored wax.