The middle card calls out to you the most. You reach out and pick up the card; it’s made of thick, heavy cardboard. Your fingers have barely closed around it when you feel an odd sensation, as if your gut was being pulled out of you. Your vision wavers; everything goes dark.
When you open your eyes again, you’re not backstage any more. You’re on the edge of the stage! The curtains aren’t drawn, so you take a moment to admire the vast room before you, which stretches out into the darkness. Somehow the card teleported you here. You look down at your hand, but the card has disappeared. A shiver runs down your spine: this is real magic you’re messing with, not some hat tricks.
The floor beneath you is made of solid wood beams, dark brown in colour, and is marked by circles and crosses made of tape. In the very centre of the stage is a large circle marked in bright red tape. Clearly something important happens in the middle, although you don’t know what.
To your right is a set of stairs leading down to the seating area, except there are no seats. The whole bottom floor of the theatre is a standing area, enclosed in one solid dome of glass; this is The Pit, you realise.
On the other side of the stage—the back—is a familiar curtain. The backstage room, and the magic table, are on the other side of the curtain.
Where do you go?
A.M. Harte 