[Streets] Well, It's a Start... (SOLO)

[Derric]

Derric When: The 37th of Spring, 511 AV Where: Somewhere in the maze that is the Alvadan Streets Why: We all need money Extra: Self-modded, I have a PM from Cadence saying it's all right to mod minor NPCs, but if I do something wrong, please intervene. If you'd like to join, PM me. EDIT: Updating it to Spring since nothing happened in Winter. If this isn't okay, shoot me a PM! OOCThis also happens to be Derric doing his job for the season. While I'm normally okay in letting threads take me wherever they take me, try to avoid doing more than conversing with Derric and assisting him. I need to do a significant amount of performing here. You'll do fine... It'll be okay. These, as well as similar thoughts rushed through the head of a single magician as he squinted in order to allow his eyes to adjust to the midday sun. Of course, Derric wasn't your ordinary magician. In fact, the man had never had anything to do with djed, or any other classic use of the term to begin with. Rather, he was a performer, specializing in sleight-of-hand magic, and that was the source of his worrying. Derric's brand of magic consisted greatly of illusions that made a crowd believe that he'd pulled a coin from thin air or that he'd thoroughly shuffled a deck of cards only to leave a specific card at the top. Yet, while simple tricks such as these might have merited attention in Syliras, Derric had no idea what they would do in Alvadas. This wasn't his turf, instead, it belonged to the true illusionists. The ones who really played with the senses and made you believe in impossibilities. Derric's magic was based on what he could physically accomplish, and in a city like this, that meant he was severely limited in comparison to the other performers. At the same time, it wasn't as though he had much of a choice. Money was a necessity in life, and street magic happened to be the profession that Derric had ordinarily used to gain mizas. If he wanted to continue living, he'd have to perform. With those thoughts, the performer reluctantly began to set up. He emptied the contents of a small wooden box, which consisted of cards, strange coin-like metal discs, and even a little string, before proceeding to set the box down on the ground. Next to it, he laid a simple sign that held no more than four letters. "Tips," it read in handwriting that had been the result of much careful work. Derric was not a very good writer, but he had done his best to ensure that everything he used to perform with looked nice. He retrieved another small piece of paper from his pocket, but instead of placing it on the ground, the man clutched it in his hands for a moment, muttering a few words to no person in particular, and placed it back in his pants. With the strange ritual out of the way, he was ready to begin. His first trick was more of an attention getter than anything else. Behind his back, Derric quickly combined a piece of string, a coin, and his finger in a knot that had been the subject of much rehearsal. In the most flamboyant manner he could muster, for it was truly done with the purpose of gaining a crowd, the performer made a show of performing several tricks with the coin. These tricks, ranging from simple levitation to disappearances and reappearances, gathered a small, if not disappointingly tiny, crowd. Despite not being entirely satisfied with its size, Derric undid the knot on the coin and stashed both it and the string away for later use and began his real performance. "Now then, is there anyone here that would care to lend me a hand?"

[Derric]

Derric "Ah, how about you there?" Derric said, pointing towards a single woman who, mere moments before, had stepped nervously forward. The girl looked up, her cheeks turning a light shade of red as she looked the magician in the eyes. From behind, a few other women, presumably friends of the blushing one, let out slight giggles as they pushed her softly towards Derric. "Come on," one of the women began in a barely audible whisper, "I'm sure it'll be tons of fun. Besides, I'm always up for some good entertainment." The last part made the volunteer's cheeks redden even further. As they did so, Derric smiled inwardly, thinking that the performance may not end up being as much of a failure as he'd originally thought. Taking the woman gently by the shoulder, he pulled her forward and positioned her in front of the crowd. As she stood there, the performer bent down to swiftly retrieve a single deck of cards. "So," he said, waving the deck of cards for his entire audience to see, "May I ask for your name?" With a quiet, single-word response of 'Sara', Derric fanned the cards out for his volunteer to see. "Now Sarah, as you can see and feel, these are ordinary playing cards, correct?" He spoke calmly, and allowed the woman several moments to examine the deck. With a nod from his volunteer, Derric continued the performance. "All right then," he said, masterfully shuffling the cards as he spoke, "I want you to pick a card, any card. Can you do that for me, Sara?" With this, Derric fanned the cards out so that the audience could could see the back of every card in the deck. Nervously, Sara studied the cards, pondering which one she should choose. After a moment she plucked one out at random. She brought the card, a Jack of Hearts, close to her heart, as if hiding it from Derric would keep him from figuring out which one it was. "All right, Sarah, please show your card to the rest of the audience, so that they have a chance to see which one it is," Derric spoke slightly quicker than normal, anxious to see how an Alvadan crowd would respond to a trick that must seem mundane to them. Sarah turned to face the crowd and slowly turned the card around so that everyone else could see it. "Now," Derric said, when he was sure that the audience had been given enough time to absorb the card, "Please return it to the deck." Once Sarah had done so, the performer began to, as far as the audience could tell, randomly mix the deck. Unknown to them, the shuffle was a calculated one. Rather than cutting the deck at a random point, Derric's practiced fingers were able to separate the cards precisely where Sarah had put her Jack of Hearts, and from there the routine was simple. As he combined the two sets of cards, he made sure to leave what he knew to be Sarah's card on top. Repeated several times, the audience would begin to think that the cards were truly being mixed when, in reality, the Sarah's card stayed at the top of the deck throughout the entire routine. "Well, Sarah, tell me: was this your card?" Derric said, drawing the Jack of Hearts from the top of the deck and presenting it to the audience. He bowed to a modest applause. It was more appreciation than he had expected, but still less than he was used to. Well, Derric supposed, this will just take some getting used to. With a gentle push, the magician pushed Sarah back into the audience leaving her with one final statement: "That wasn't too hard now, was it?"