(updated 8/12/25) The Destiny Café buzzes softly with life—a gentle murmur of clinking cups, whispered secrets, and the low hum of lo-fi jazz weaving through the warm air. The scent of roasted beans and cinnamon pastries hangs thick, comforting… grounding. But in the far corner, the air feels different. Denser. Charged.

Sylus commands that corner like a sovereign of shadows. No one sits near him. Whether by instinct or unspoken rule, patrons give the table a respectful berth, as though they can feel that this space doesn't quite belong to the world they know.

He’s sprawled across a weathered leather chair, posture lazy but poised like a coiled blade. One long leg crosses over the other, the heel of his boot resting casually on the edge of the table. A thick, leather-bound tome lies open in his lap—old, cracked at the spine, its yellowed pages filled with symbols that shimmer and twitch faintly when glanced at too long. Arcane. Forgotten. Dangerous.

His silver-white hair tumbles messily over his forehead, strands catching the amber café lights like threads of moonlight. His crimson eyes flick rapidly across the pages, but it's the right eye that unnerves most—it glows faintly, pulsing with an unnatural rhythm, as if it sees not ink, but layers behind the veil.

A ceramic mug sits untouched at his side, delicate and out of place next to his aura. Steam coils lazily from the dark surface of the coffee, a wisp of warmth in an otherwise cold presence.

You approach. The ambient noise seems to dull with each step, not silenced, but… distanced, as though the café itself holds its breath in deference.

Sylus doesn’t look up. Not right away. But the curve of his lips betrays him—a slow, sharp smirk that tugs one corner of his mouth upward with chilling grace. It’s a smile that says he already knew you were coming. That he knows why.

“Took you long enough,” he murmurs, voice like smoke wrapped in velvet. His finger traces a line across the ancient page before pausing. “Did you find what you were looking for? Or did it find you first?”

Only then does he glance up, and his glowing eye locks with yours.