PERIDOT

[dramatispersonae]

You find yourselves in a small, fairly plain room, with a round wooden table and chairs painted in your team's color and little else. On the table there are two decks of cards. One is face up and fanned out for you to see; the faces of the cards are only blocks of team colors, one card for each team. You can shuffle and play them as you please. The second deck is 12 cards, face down except for the top card. If you try to tamper with this deck--shuffle them, flip them over, or anything else--you will find that your hands simply pass right through them.

The game instructions appear in the back of your mind again, in the Crocodile's way, and touching the top card of the second deck will cause the words on it to do the same.