Board Thread:Roleplay/@comment-33863482-20181126140001/@comment-26892768-20181128164514

Luckily, that issue regarding a missing archaeologist might be solved soon enough.

Currently walking towards the docks is the famed archaeologist Moby Nixie, who, for the time being, has switched out of his usual white, gray, and black suit for a blue shirt with a pink floral pattern, cargo jeans, sunglasses, and flip flops. He's also carrying a good amount of luggage. Following close behind is his daughter, Marina, who is glancing around the city.

"Are you sure this will work?" Marina asks, looking around at the various pedestrians.

"Of course! I hardly make an appearance in public without my suit - I doubt anyone will suspect I'm anything more than a tourist with a guady fashion sense." Moby remarks, looking forward. "Besides, this should be relatively quick. All we need to do is rent out a ship that'll be big enough for me to store and use my equipment, and perhaps pay a little extra to keep the crew quiet about this whole thing."

Marina nods, still idly looking around, and then pauses when she notices a small crowd around the corner. She raises an eyebrow, wondering what it is, but just keeps walking, not wanting to bother her father. However, Moby's noticed as well, and has stopped walking to turn towards the crowd. "Now, what do you suppose all the fuss is about?"

Gesturing for Marina to come with him, the two approach the crowd, allowing them to hear the figure in the middle of it all.

"...watch as I take the human body beyond anything nature intended!" Slick, dressed in his usual - and only - outfit, casually twists his torso to the left...and proceeds to keep going until his torso faces the opposite direction as his legs, drawing gasps from the crowd. In front of Slick is a tattered fedora with various amounts of coins and dollars in it.

Marina, however, is less focused on Slick's unusual amount of articulation, and more on how thin he is, and how poor of a state his clothes are in. "Poor thing...he has to present himself like some kind of animal just to get by."

Moby doesn't initially comment, looking the young man up and down and taking in the nearby surroundings. Then, after a moment, he puts down his luggage and pulls something out of one of his pant's pockets. "Well, let's give him a real trick to impress the crowd, shall we?"

He clears his throat, and calls out to Slick. "Do you have any other tricks up your sleeve?"

Slick, naturally, turns around to the voice, grinning as he holds out his arm, grabbing it by the elbow. "Of course, my good sir! Observe, as I-"

"Oh, the tricks with your body are interesting, but I'm more interested to see if your mind is as flexible as your body." Moby then presents what he pulled out - a standard deck of 52 cards. He grins at a stupified Slick. "You don't need to shuffle - the deck's shuffled already. I was planning on playing a game of cards later, and, as you can see..."

Moby holds the deck up and flips through the cards. "Absolutely no cards are missing. Interested?"

Slick, having paid close attention to Moby's card flipping, looks at the man carefully for a moment, before grinning. "Of course..."

He takes the cards, pulls the top thirteen cards off, and presents them to Moby. "Pick a card! Any card..."

Moby chooses one, and grabs it from Slick's hand.

"Is your card..." Slick takes a glance at the cards in his hand, then looks back at Moby with a wide grin. "The jack of diamonds?"

"Why, indeed it is!" Moby presents the card - it is a jack of diamonds. "Well, consider me impressed! Give him a round of applause, everyone!"

Sure enough, that gets the crowd to clap. Slick hands the deck of cards back over and turns to the crowd with a grin on his face, turning his head and seemingly observing the entire crowd...but only looking at Moby, who leaves, leaving some money behind.

What the crowd doesn't know is that the deck wasn't shuffled. Slick realized it when Moby flipped through the cards. Whoever that was essentially just gave him some free business...perhaps that guy could be worth looking into.

Especially since he seems familiar somehow. Like Slick's seen the guy somewhere before...