The Golden Depths was a place of mystery and wonder. If you didn’t live there, that is. For many of the residents, the “mystery and wonder” was simply their day to day lives: creating new things, learning new things, learning how to not do new things, and so on. The underground city, formed out of three overlapping circles, was a place of busy people and even busier machines. Where people would work, machines sometimes took their place. More often than would be preferred, however, the machine broke down rather quickly and needed to be replaced with people once again.

Waking up in the morning was something that Dizzi Glitterboom loved doing. Not because she particularly enjoyed mornings, but because it meant the beginning of a new day with new projects, new challenges to overcome, and most importantly; new adventures. Her mornings, however, always started with a sound that caused her both pain and joy.

“WAKE UP. IT’S THE MORNING. WAKE UP.” screamed the clock that sat beside her bed.

Jiggles, her mild-mannered feline familiar, was curled up beside her head as normal and mewled quite loudly at the noise from the clock, his fat grey paws kneaded at Dizzi’s cheek as he did so. With a flick of her wrist, Dizzi sent the screaming clock into silence. 

She threw herself out of bed, Jiggles jumping down beside her. They both stretched, her with a joyous sigh, and him with a lazy meow. Dizzi took the few steps to her window, looking out it with a fantastical smile as she looked out at the Golden Depths beyond. The smell of the bakeries nearby told her she was hungry for breakfast, and the noisy clattering from the smiths of the city reminded her that she had work to do.

She skipped through her morning ablutions, getting herself cleaned, dressed, and ready for the day. Jiggles did much the same, only pawing at her when he needed her to put his small satchel, or cat-chel as people liked to joke, on him. Soon enough, her three-foot-tall, rainbow-haired self was clad in comfortable but functional clothing and miscellaneous little pouches and drawstring bags hung off her belt. After dressing, Dizzi turned to Jiggles, who was happily purring on Dizzi’s pillow once more.

“Alright little buddy, let’s get this day rolling! We got some new stuff to play with and we have that meeting with the Tinkerer’s Table too!”

She grinned happily to herself.

“Are you going to lounge about again today, or will you actually help?” she teased. 

Jiggles only mewled in response, lazily stretching once more. He plopped himself down off the bed and sauntered through the door to the rest of their home. Dizzi followed him, knowing that the lump of a cat would be searching for his food before long.
Sliding into the kitchen, Dizzi called out to her magical instruments of food preparation to make some breakfast. These creations had slowly been getting better at making food, though she would sometimes have to clean for longer than she’d eat because of them, and other times there was simply nothing made by them that could be considered edible. While the magical food preparers went at it, Dizzi gave Jiggles his bowl of water and a few cat biscuits made by "Chew Time", the pet bakery.

Dizzi tapped her foot along to a melody in her head, a simple la-dee-da that played around in her moments of idleness. After a few moments, the cheery ding of her creations announced the finishing of their cooking, giving her the sight of a slightly blackened singular piece of toast with roughly three-quarters of an egg on top of it. 

She scoffed, amused at the outcome of her magical breakfast machine, and took the piece of eggy toast, devouring it quickly. She glided down the stairs, entering what she liked to call her workshop. Everyone else knew it as the bottom floor of her house, or, as a fire hazard. She drummed her fingers along various workbenches on her way out of her house, and before leaving, she turned to look at the mess of a place that it was. She grinned contentedly and blew her home a kiss before stepping out her door, Jiggles careening out ahead of her with a startlingly worried meow as if he was concerned that she wouldn’t return if he didn’t leave with her.
She giggled at her fuzzy familiar as she locked the door and stepped into the bustling streets of the Golden Depths once more.

Within several minutes, Dizzi arrived at the Tinker’s Table, the place where all Tinkerer’s meet. An unimaginative name, perhaps, but it’s stuck for over a hundred years.

The Tinker’s Table, next to the Tinker’s Turnout and across from the Tinker’s Tableau, was a dark stone building. Golden lettering lay proud above the door, reading “Tinker Tales Turn Time Towards The Thinker Trail”. An old-fashioned notion, but one that reminds every tinkerer that their time telling tales can turn them to becoming thinkers, not tinkers.
Dizzi sighed gladly as she read the familiar words, stepping through the archway towards the Table of Swiftjangles, the most important of the Tinker’s Tables. Three other Gnomes sat at the Table, and as she neared, she recognized the long beard and pointed hat of Knickle Trustouter, the bright pink shirt of Gidget Hammerkeel, and the steam flowing off the shoulders of Barnaby Leafhollow.
She never understood why a Gnomish girl was named Barnaby, though she also never understood how she always had steam coming off herself so she had shelved it on the mental tower of mysteries never to be solved.
She took a seat at the Table, opposed by the three Gnomes. Jiggles, who had jumped into her lap, poked his head above the table. 

Gidget spoke first, his gruff voice grating as he did.

“Dizzi, as you know, we asked you to meet with us because we have a task for you.”

Knickle spoke after staring at Jiggles for a short moment, a pained look on his face as he did.

“That task is one caused by a small mishap. The underground well that supplies the Depths with emergency water when the piping fails. It seems someone dropped an egg while inspecting it, naming no names. And there’s now…something…down there.”

Dizzi, shocked at what she was hearing, barely managed to contain herself.

“What do you mean there’s something down there? How did that happen?! I thought the only Well Inspectors were Floris and Jennry, and both of them are scared of eggs!”

Barnaby raised her hand to in an attempt to placate Dizzi, and Jiggles had climbed onto the table, now mewling at Dizzi and pawing at the air in front of her. Neither gave any sign of annoyance, only a sense of caring for the young Gnome inventor.

After a moment to allow Dizzi to gather herself, Barnaby then spoke.

“Jennry retired to focus on his juniper berries, we appointed two of the trainees to full status. Kalis and Bernidet, both were fantastic Well Inspectors in Training.” Barnaby took a long breath before continuing, “Kalis, however, has gone missing. We suspect that the…thing…may be the reason why.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” Dizzi asked, uncertain about the precise nature of what they were asking her to do.

Surprisingly, Knickle responded easily. 

“We want you to find out what it is. We need to purge any contamination that it might have caused, we can only filter so much as you very well know.”

Even Jiggles snapped his head towards Knickle at that statement.

“You aren’t saying…to kill it, are you?”

The three Gnomes opposite her exchanged a look that she couldn’t place before Knickle spoke again.

“No, we aren’t saying to kill whatever it is, but we do need to know what it is so we can deal with it accordingly.”

Dizzi nodded as she slowly pet Jiggles.

“I can do that. But why not ask Floris or Bernidet? They’re the Well Inspectors.”

“Yes, they are,” said Barnaby. “But you’re Dizzi Glitterboom! You’re the one who solves the mysteries! Like when Backsnapple was forging fake spoons, or when the Ponggiddy kids found that vein of firerock!”

Dizzi sighed softly but nodded once more.

“As I said, I’ll do it, but I’ll need one of them to take me down there. I might know every bit of the Depths, but the Well is one place even this Gnome has never been.”

Gidget smiled at her, speaking for only the second time in the conversation, and placed a small token on the table.

“Thank you, Dizzi, this will ensure that you can get access to the Well Inspectorate Offices and the path to the Well itself, it’ll only work for the next few days and I made it myself, so don’t think you can keep it to let yourself down there when you feel like it.”

Dizzi smiled back at him and took the token, placing it in Jiggles’ cat-chel.

“I’ll send word when I’ve figured it out!”

She nearly lept from her chair in excitement of the newest task ahead of her. She’d never heard much about the Well, only that it was vast and was taken care of by the Well Inspectors and the Well Keepers.