Elisa crooned her neck as the perfunctory display of concern moved on, apparently arrested? No matter, the stockade wasn’t far away, she had time to focus on the conversation with the prismatic and sultry stranger. However, curiosity, interest, and obsession, mile markers on her road to damnation, they tore at her insides and branded her mind with a compulsive need to investigate, as...<br/><br/>Fresh, overlapping impressions soon appeared in the soft soil beside them, and her eyes cracked open in the moment, slender brows rising high on her subtle forehead. A scowl grew pronounced under tenting brows and a caustic ribble settled in the back of her throat then.<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(184, 49, 47)">“Ahem... if you will excuse me for a mome-...”</span>halfway through her excuse, she lept in the direction of the anomaly that was occurring before her, a deliberately heavy boot-imprint on the ground signaling a rising surge of power.<br/><br/>Her bright, intense eyes glinted, like lanterns reflecting the moonlight on a shimmering pool. Her unmoving gaze was accompanied by deliberate slow breathing, mellow, soothing eyes narrowing into viper slit-like pupils for a moment. Then they expanded; so solid, so bright, the exact lustrous color of a polished shard of sapphire, with swirls of glittering onyx black and tinges of blue rounding the edges. She kept her judgement in them, always, a burning animosity developed through a lifetime of evaluation.<br/><br/>White-knuckled, she extended an exquisite hand towards the eerie figurine. A violent gust of air spiralled her figure, sending crimson locks skyward, fingertips pulsing with a barely felt, searing impression. A swirling, disorganized parchment of see-through, arcane origin erupted from her palm, paper-thin, shimmering runes shrouding the main bulk of the beam. It wrapped the damnable little thing with an artificial cage-like construction of pure crystalline energy.<br/><br/>Her pupils dulled down as she spun the makeshift prison between her eager fingers and eyed the creature within with immense intrigue and wonderment. Her lips pursed and her vision went cross-eyed for a second, mind deeply entangled in conflicting thoughts.<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(184, 49, 47)">“Do you speak, little creature?”</span>, she cooed with a captivated undertone,<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(184, 49, 47)">“or perhaps… Hmm.”</span>She turned on the spot and meandered back towards the stranger with an effortless saunter, enthralled face halfway smeared across the panel of the box she was conversing with. “<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(184, 49, 47)">Why did they take your master away? I would like to exchange some words with her if at all possible.”</span><br/><br/>Trouble always lingered nearby with public use of magic, but things were a tad different here. She was a respected schooler and herbalist, that had assisted countless lives throughout the years. She was known to use it sparingly, and it had granted her a permit that allowed minimal usage in crowded places. Rather than another ruckus, nothing but a handful of sideways glances occurred.<br/><br/>Mere moments later, another bewilderment hit her ears, the words heavy, like a relentless jackhammering pounding away at her eardrums. Instinctively, she stowed the box away, hiding its existence in a momentary cape-wrapped stowaway. Befuddled, she took one half-assed glance at the supposedly “magical” goblet and lopped a heavy, overflowing pouch onto the counter with a metallic clang. She swiftly flipped the coin between her dexterous fingers, spun them in the direction of the blaring retailer, snatched the possible artefact off the table and then promptly, she returned to the crudely interrupted conversation with her visitor.