[d&d] The Fall Of A City [8/8]

@Nem

 

He looks confused and gets closer to where you're performing.
"Sure? What are your tricks?"

 

"Well, I'm just gonna start with a little bit 'a card magic then we'll see what happens from there."
I smile, shuffling the cards, then turn my head the other way and fan them out face-up. It's a standard deck of cards, there's little-to-no logical way I could tell which one he picks.
"Pick one, keep it from my sight, you know how this goes."

 

The elf guy takes a card, looks at it, then hides it from your sight.

 

I put the cards back together into one stack, turn them over, and return to looking at the cards.
"Now I hope you like the card you chose, Ilignaro,"
I say as I shuffle the cards a bit and fan them out again, this time face-down.
"'cause you're gonna wanna remember it and put it back in the deck., don't forget ta show the folks."

 

He turns and holds it up, showing as much of the crowd as possible.

Spoiler: Tony

As he holds up this card (I assume you see him) you get the same vision from earlier today.
The business elf becomes the devilish man, desperately holding up the wrapped blankets. The crowd becomes a horde of violent abominations. Cassy appears at his back, fearing for her life. The buildings shrink to become shorter versions of themselves. The large tower still taller than the clouds. The same clouds with rays of light making their ways through become dark thunder clouds sinking into The City below.
Make a perception check for something specific, described above or not.

 

3.
I try to keep my cool as I wait for him to put it back in.

 

He puts the card back in.

 

I put the cards into one deck and cut the cards into a different order, and then shuffle them.
"Now, I, uh, hope you memorized it, because with any card trick the card you get plays out the trick in its entirety."
I try to fill the void of sound with words as I finish shuffling, then draw his attention to the deck.
"Now I'm going to do something called a sloppy shuffle, I'm gonna flip the cards all around, face up, face down, face up, face down,"
I slide the cards into my other hand as I perform a sloppy shuffle, keeping the cards close together to make them look like it's random which are faced up and which are faced down. Then, once the cards are all in one hand, I clearly show him the deck again.
"Alright, now the card faces are all mixed up, right? We've got face-to-back,"
I show him a face-to-back combination.
"we've got back-to-face,"
I show him a back-to-face combination.
"and we've got back-to-back."
I show him a back-to-back combination, then slide the top half of the cards back on the lower half.
"So what if I told you if I fan out all these cards only your card would be faced up? Would you believe me?"

 

The dude stays silent. The crowd, however, breaks out with excited murmuring and chants.
"It can't be.."
"Never!"
"Unbelievable."

 

"You all acted shocked and yet it takes but a simple snap."
I snap my fingers above the deck and fan out the card. As spoiled, the only one facing up is, in fact, the card the man pulled at the beginning.

 

Everyone screams and claps. The elf man remains still, shocked.
It's also apparent that security guards have joined in, even applauding and whistling.

Performance check?

 

"Wait, wait, wait."
My speech slows down as I put the cards back into one deck to hold with one hand.
"Ilignaro, you shouldn't be shocked."
I wave my hand a bit in a specific way.
"After all, all of the cards were your card. You guys saw, right?"
I gesture to the crowd. They were definitely not all the same card, though.

 

Everyone looks confused at each other, but remain amazed anyway.

 

"No, seriously."
I turn over the deck and fan it out, the 51 cards facing up being the same card as the 1 that was facing downwards.
"They're all the card. Well, all of them except the one that's supposed to be."
I turn my wrist and flip over than fan, and sure enough, the one card that was faced the other way is now a completely different card.

Performance: 7 + 9 = 16

 

BTW just wanted to mention, since I'm wearing my full armor, I'll stand next to the group and do my best to impersonate a bodyguard robot of some sort.

 

Most in the crowd stay silent, confused and amazed. Others fully understand and cheer, causing others to do the same.

 

"Thank you, Ilignaro, you've been great."
I nod to the man while they cheer, flipping the card back faced-down, then re-shuffling the deck.

 

Almost the entire crowd drops currency into a plastic bag someone left there for you. They eagerly return to the crowd and await anything new.

 

"Oh, gosh, so many people!"
I obviously feign worry as I put my cards away.
"I don't want to get your expectations up, I really can't do anything very ground-shaking."
I cast Thaumaturgy, making harmless tremors in the area of the crowd.