Douglass and the blonde man stared at each other, neither allowing the other to move as Daniel let go of the revolver and scooted out of reach of Douglass' sword.
Daniel's breathing was heavy, and honestly speaking he didn't want to get back up. His lungs hurt and the cut on his neck stung as he scrambled away from the two men.
Douglass tried to move to follow Daniel, but the blonde man grip on his arm stopped the attempt before it could even begin.
"I don't know what you think you're doing Douglass, but if you take another step towards the kid, I'm going to rip that rare you're so proud of right off of your back."
Douglass' resistance ceased almost immediately at those words as he turned his full attention over to the blonde man, "He stole Samuel's card, it's my right to get it back and you know it."
"And what makes you so sure that he stole it?" The blonde man said with a raised eyebrow. "Matter a fact, if I was a little more naive, I'd think you were trying to kill him before I got here, but you wouldn't do something like that, now would you Douglass."
Douglas to his credit took a few moments to stare daggers towards Daniel before reluctantly stating, "No sir."
The blonde man's bored expression broke into a grin for a moment before returning to his resting face, "That's good. Now, kid-," he said and turned to Daniel. "-did you steal Samuel's card."
A chill ran up Daniel's spine. He'd been following along the conversation, and it was rather obvious that Douglass would have free reign to kill him if whoever this was judged that he'd stolen the card.
'Do they qualify picking it up off a corpse as stealing? Maybe?' Daniel thought in a panic.
The blond man's expression broke once more into a slight grin, "I see the hesitation, and I understand it, but listen well when I say that you just need to tell me the full and honest truth of how you came into possession of that card. Lying won't help you, I have a card for that.
The blonde man pulled off his glove, revealing a small tattoo on the back of his hand that depicted a lavish king sprawled out on a throne, both of his legs rested upon the arm of the lavish chair he sat in as he watched with inquisitive eyes as two men, one in silk and one in rags spoke to him.
The visual quickly dissipated as the ink of the tattoo began to reshape itself, swimming across his skin until it reformed into readable text.
Turned From Truth
Rare
Soul
The wielder of this card can discern truth from lies, regardless of how minute or inconsequential they may be.
If the wielder of this card catches somebody in a lie, the physical abilities of the liar will be decreased by ten percent for ten minutes.
"Oh, I see what you mean," Daniel said as he gazed upon the tattoo.
"Then you should know that trying to get out of this with half-truths won't work. Anything but a complete truth will be seen as a lie, it's honestly a flaw of the card. People mix lies into their words all the time, and usually it doesn't matter, but right now it does. So speak truthfully, and carefully."
Daniel glanced from the blonde man over to Douglass, who still looked royally pissed.
'Well, if Douglass doesn't want me to tell this guy my side of the story, then that means I probably should,' Daniel thought logically.
His gaze returned to the blond man before he spoke again, "Okay so I found the card at the bottom of a cave next to a dead body, which I assume was Douglass' son Samuel. I think he'd been trapped there after the card transported him to my world. The only way into the pit that I found him in was through a small fissure forty meters up off the ground, and even then it took me three weeks of careful picking to get through it. When I picked up the card it adhered itself to me, and not long after I appeared in that loons room," Daniel said pointing towards Douglass.
"And what of his other cards?" The blond man asked, "If I remember correctly Samuel had a full deck before he'd left for the other world."
Daniel could only shrug, "I searched him, but he only had the golden card. I don't know what happened to the rest of them."
The blond man smiled in response before turning towards Douglass, "That was all truth. I'm sure you know what that means Douglass."
Douglass did in fact seem to know what that meant, and he didn't seem happy about it.
"Anton, please. That's my family's only legend. I… we need it."
The blond man, apparently named Anton, narrowed his eyes towards Douglass, "The rules are in place for a reason Douglass. I won't have wanton killing in my walls every time a good card's up for grabs. It's first come, first serve, assuming of course that the person who obtained the card had nothing to do with the previous owner's death."
"Anton, listen -", but before Douglass could speak further Anton cut him off with flickers of electricity dancing across his skin.
"No, you listen baron, the only reason I'm going to overlook this blatant display of disrespect towards me today is because I know that this is more about your kid being dead than it is about the card. It hurts, I know, but I need you to be a man here."
Douglass glared towards Anton who made a grand show of sighing, "Look, you have a fantastic card, Douglass. It's almost a legendary and you make proficient use of it, but you need to remember that my decks not full and I'd be more than willing to take it for myself if you decide to become a thorn in my side."
Anton patted Douglass on the shoulder, "So don't go giving me excuses, okay?"
With that last statement Anton clapped his hands together and turned towards Daniel, "Alright, now that that's settled you're coming with me kid."
Daniel watched Anton with wary eyes, he'd just bullied Douglass into submission, and had heavily implied that he was superior to him, but more importantly he'd implied that he had a legendary card of his own.
'Half of my legendary's utility was siphoned away for its questionably useful ability to drag its user between worlds. How strong would a legendary purely focused on combat be,' Daniel wondered. 'Well, either way it's better to go with the clear superior who doesn't want to kill me than to stay with the lacky who does.'
Daniel got up off the ground and walked over to where Douglass had dropped the destroyed revolver. It didn't look salvageable, but Daniel was more than willing to bet that someone out there could fix it if cards turned out to be half as versatile as he thought they were.
Pocketing the revolver Daniel turned to Anton, "Alright, where are you taking me?"
"You'll find out in a second, just take my hand," Anton said with an outstretched hand and a suspiciously innocent look on his face.
'Not like I have much of a choice,' Daniel thought as he took the outstretched hand in his own.
Immediately the world moved, but Daniel couldn't follow it. The one thing that did manage to register in his head was just how incredibly dark everything was in comparison to Anton and himself.
Then, just as quickly as the sensation had began it disappeared entirely, and Daniel found himself standing somewhere completely different from Douglass' garden.
They stood in the middle of a very busy, very large room. Spotless marble tiles made up the flooring and several lofty, intricately carved pillars help up the ceiling. Off to the side were several dozen people crowding around a notice board with hundreds of slips of paper tacked to it.
Pristine wooden desks lined half the room and were manned by people wearing what Daniel could only assume to be a uniform, which consisted of darkly colored fabric and a bright yellow pendant over their heart depicting a lit torch shining in the dark.
Anton ignored all of it as he ushered Daniel past the line of wooden desks and into a large, lavish back room.
A padded purple chair sat behind what looked to be an entire desk crafted from the skull of a creature that Daniel couldn't recognize. Anton walked behind the desk and pulled out the purple chair before sitting down and gesturing for Daniel to do the same in the slightly less lavish chair opposite him.
Once Daniel was seated Anton spoke, "We have a lot to talk about young man. A new legend in our little slice of heaven is always something to celebrate, but there's some ground rules that you need to know about this world. First and foremost, the next Blood Moons at the end of the month."
Daniel raised an eyebrow, "The next what now?"