[center] [img]https://i.imgur.com/PVXYWf6.png[/img]   
[img]https://i.imgur.com/qAakc1A.gif[/img][/center]
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[color=7DBC89]Race:[/color] Yuan-ti 
[color=7DBC89]Class:[/color] Rogue Arcane Assassin
[color=7DBC89]Location:[/color] The enchanting bathroom
[color=7DBC89]Interactions:[/color] [@princess] Phia [@Oso] Talis 
[color=7DBC89]Mentions:[/color] 
[color=7DBC89]Equipment:[/color]  [hider=Full Equipment List]🌸 A finely crafted katana
 🌸 A concealed dagger laced with paralytic venom
 🌸 Throwing needles coated with different poisons
 🌸 Black silk combat outfit reinforced with hidden Mithril chainmail
 🌸 Soft-soled boots that allow for near-silent movement
 🌸 Smoke bombs and illusion charms for quick escapes
 🌸 A set of forged documents under multiple aliases
 🌸 A tea set and an assortment of teas
 🌸 Incense[/hider]
[color=7DBC89]Attire:[/color] 
[color=7DBC89]Gold Balance:[/color] 80
[color=7DBC89]Injuries:[/color] None currently, but has numerous faded scars on her body

[img]https://i.imgur.com/phiFSQQ.png[/img][/center]

As Talis began to speak, Meiyu murmured a few soft, serpentine syllables beneath her breath. Her fingers made a subtle, almost graceful movement in the air, casting a quiet veil of soothing arcane energy around the dying girl–a muted spell meant to dull the fear, the pain, the desperation.

[color=7DBC89]“Calm now,”[/color] she whispered, [color=7DBC89]“Let the fear drift. Just speak.”[/color]

And Talis did.

As the girl laughed–a breathless, pride-tinged sound–Meiyu’s eyes tracked the motion of her hand sliding into her robe. When the crystal emerged, faintly pulsing, imperfect, unique, Meiyu went still.

Her breath caught, soft and precise, like a blade stilling before the strike.

The heartbeat of light in the crystal called to something deep and silent within her. Something ancient. Her gaze sharpened, lashes lowering slightly as she stared at the artifact with reverence and hunger braided together.

[color=7DBC89]“Good girl,”[/color] Meiyu whispered low, almost to herself, the words curling from her lips like smoke. [color=7DBC89]“That’s it.”[/color]

Even as Phia poured her soul into comforting the girl, Meiyu’s attention remained riveted to the crystal. She heard the ache in Phia’s voice, the raw anguish in every word, but her eyes did not leave the artifact. She noted the way Phia's grief threatened to consume her, saw her spirit fraying with every desperate word she offered the girl now fading in her arms. But Meiyu remained still, laser-focused, reverent.

Magic hummed now, thick and old. The crystal hovered. Chose.

Meiyu’s breath caught as she studied it, the artifact’s glow reflected in her serpent-bright eyes. The hum threaded through her like a chord strummed against bone–resonant, wrong, familiar. Questions bloomed fast in the dark soil of her thoughts: What power nested in that light? Was it sentient? Could it be bound? Was this what the Devil had come for or was it more than even she knew?

She let her gaze linger a moment longer before it drifted downward.

Talis was still.

The girl’s chest no longer rose. Her hand had fallen. Her spirit… gone.

Meiyu’s expression didn’t falter, but a cold stillness settled behind her eyes.

Then she looked to Phia, noting the elf’s labored breathing, the slackening in her limbs, the final collapse of someone who had poured out the last of herself into the fading light. The grief on her face was raw, carved deep, but Meiyu only acknowledged it with the faintest flicker of thought.

And then, silent and poised, she turned back to the task at hand.

Her fingers hovered near Talis again, not to comfort this time, but to search. Her movements were respectful, efficient. A final check, though the girl no longer clung to life. She rifled through the folds of the robe and pockets, seeking… anything else. Anything missed. Her hand moved with precision, never disrupting the moment’s sacred air.

She found a pressed flower tucked in a wax-sealed envelope over the girl’s heart, simple and unassuming. A memento. Sentimental, not magical. There was a locket too–brass and silver–its painted miniature revealing the soft features of a woman who might have been her mother. Meiyu’s gaze lingered a breath longer there, registering it but not dwelling.

A folded paper, too, with words written at the top, "Dear Arin," followed by nothing. Unsent. Unspoken.

And then, the purse. Eight gold. Unremarkable.

Only after cataloguing these pieces did she return her attention upward. Her gaze lifted to the crystal once more.

Then, finally, she reached for the crystal. Not in haste. Not in greed. But in wonder.

With fingers like silk and steel, Meiyu extended her hand toward the artifact, eyes gleaming with something terrible and beautiful. [color=7DBC89]“Let’s see who you really want, then,”[/color] she whispered.

And touched it.