Daniel and Alexander found themselves back in the real world seconds before the swarm of limbo monsters could reach them, and immediately the scaled men swarmed towards Alexander, carefully removing his armor and using healing cards on his wounds.
Upon Alexander's helmet being removed, Daniel couldn't help but look away. His left eye was gone, alongside a good chunk of the skull around it. The fact he was still alive was surprising, and the fact that he'd continued fighting so effectively after receiving the wound was more so.
But it only took mere seconds for the half dozen scaled men working on him to restore the eye, bone and flesh that surrounded it. It formed at a visual rate, knitting together seemingly from nothing.
"What was all of that? Why could you talk in there. No, why did you talk in there", Daniel asked as the scaled men worked to remove Alexander's armor.
One of the scaled men tried to shush Daniel, but was waved off by Alexander as he turned to face Daniel. He had a smile on his face that Daniel found unnerving. It was less bright than it'd been fighting the spector, more shaky.
"Why shouldn't I be able to speak and breathe when I want to?"
"What?", Daniel said in exasperation. "I get that you probably have a card that let you do that, but you called down a hoard of monsters on us. If they'd gotten through that barrier of yours any earlier I would have had to leave you. And I'm assuming these guys wouldn't have been very happy if I'd come back without you."
Daniel could still see the madness in Alexander's eyes, but there was also a flicker of sanity as he took a deep breath and sighed, "I didn't mean to worry you like that. You would've been fine if I'd died in there. Firgrax killed me the last three times we fought. It hardly would've been surprising for me to fall."
"What, he killed you?"
A soft chuckle escaped Alexander as he spoke, "I am cursed by the Blood Goddess, goddess of the moon and eternal conflict. As is the specter, Firgrax. We fought for her amusement, and her amusement is ours. My men wouldn't have faulted you if I fell."
Daniel slowly nodded, "I see."
"Though commitment to your task should be rewarded," Alexander said. "You didn't leave me in there. So I'll reward you with the great secret of this world!"
Alexander leaned in towards Daniel. At this point the scaled men had already reclothed him, but blood still drenched much of his body. Especially around the eye that he'd lost. It marred his face, and slowly dripped down onto the fresh clothes that he wore.
"We don't need to follow the rules."
Daniel watched the blood dripping down Alexander's face and carefully spoke, "What do you mean."
"Cards don't say everything they can do. A lot of it is left unwritten, implied. Normal people need to spend years with their cards to find these hidden caveats, it's a tedious and long process, but we're not normal people, we're travelers."
"The hidden caveats in the cards come to us easily. Some people think that we even make the caveotes. That our belief changes the very makeup of the card itself, but that's not quite right."
Alexander grew more frantic as he spoke. He was like a philosopher preaching his truth as he spoke, "It needs to be logical. It needs to make sense, at least to the user. The higher level the card, the more wiggle room you have, but no changes made will work if you don't believe they will."
With that, Alexander leaned in and whispered quietly into Daniel's ear, "The cards are the easy things to change. The world around you, that's the more difficult of the two. No doubt can exist in either, but true belief is needed for you to change the world around you without the use of a card."
Alexander leaned back and shrugged his shoulders, "But you'll only be able to manage minor things without a card to back it up. Stuff like dodging an attack that you probably shouldn't have, dealing more damage in an attack than you should have, moving faster than you should; that's all possible, but the inverse is also true."
Alexander grinned, his long red hair matted with blood as he faced Daniel, "Self doubt, fear, panic. These will all work against you. I've bled out from wounds that shouldn't have killed me, and I've been killed by monsters that weren't my equal simply because I doubted myself. Being a traveler is a double edged sword. You need to be careful or you'll get cut."
Daniel took a moment to process all that information, and began to formulate some questions, but wasn't given the chance to ask any of them before one of the scaled men waved his hand in a circle, drawing a smooth silver line through the air that formed into a portal.
With the portal's formation Alexander stood and gestured for Daniel to do the same, "You've helped me today, and I'm always willing to lend a hand to a fellow traveler. Come join our feast, and afterwards I'll give you passage over to Anton's city."
He didn't wait for a response before walking through the portal as all the scaled men quickly began to follow.
Daniel watched the swirling conjuration for a moment, his thoughts going astray.
'If I can influence cards as effectively as Alexander says then it would explain why Anton was so invested in me. I'd thought it was because I had a legendary card, but this just makes me doubly valuable. So why'd he let me go outside the city at all? I know I wouldn't have let me come out of the city if I was in Anton's position,' but now wasn't the time. Daniel forced himself through the portal before the one conjuring it had the chance to grow annoyed.
Upon stepping through Daniel was surprised by a rush of cool air. He was standing outside on a cobblestone street, and in every direction that he looked tall mountains encompassed the horizon.
In the immediate area stood intricate buildings. Many of which had gemstones and gold inlaid into their exteriors. Marble pillars held up expertly carved ceilings, and in those carvings, Daniel could make out Alexander's figure in many of them.
One building even had a statue of the red-haired man holding up what Daniel assumed to be the moon. The statue depicted him covered in numerous cuts and he looked to be mid yell. He was covered in blood, and whatever stone the moon had been carved from was a bright scarlet red.
But Daniel wasn't given time to think over what it signified before one of the scaled men motioned for him to follow.
So he did, he was their glorious leader's guest after all, and judging from the architecture, his sway here was rather vast. The odds that he was being led into some kind of trap was minuscule.
Though he did start to grow a bit apprehensive when he saw where he was being led. A large plume of smoke had snaked its way up into the sky, and his guide was leading him straight towards it.
"And where exactly are you taking me?" Daniel asked.
"Lord Alexander has wished for you to see the punishment of Jrek. One doesn't go against the Lord and escape with but a single death."
'Well that's ominous,' Daniel thought as he steeled himself and followed the scaled man. Wherever he was being led clearly wasn't going to be good. He vividly remembered the madness in Alexander's eyes. What kind of leader could he truly be?
The answer to Daniel's question revealed itself when he and his guide turned a corner where they could see a large house just as ornate as any other in this town completely engulfed in flames. It wasn't normal fire, that much was evident by the half dozen scaled men surrounding the structure. It was clear they were coaxing the flames with their cards. The question was why, and the answer was obvious.
"Daniel, my boy!" Alexander yelled from closer to the flames. "Come join me for a moment."
Daniel watched as the flames flickered over the house, and he could smell the distinct scent of burnt meat. It reminded Daniel of the time his father had shot a boar while he'd been out burning tree limbs. The pests would destroy their crops for nothing more than the fun of it, so it hadn't really been much of a choice at the time, but he'd decided to just toss it onto the burn pile instead of dragging it off into the woods. It'd stank to high hell. It had something to do with burning the hair on its body.
The smell from back then and the smell from right now weren't unsimilar, and he had a rather vivid idea of what was burning, but he asked anyways because Alexander clearly wanted him to.
"What are you doing?" Daniel said as he walked up to Alexander.
The tall red haired man didn't respond at first, seemingly content to watch the flames rise and fall before eventually speaking, "They were once human, you know."
Daniel's eyes narrowed, "What?"
"That's why they can hold multiple cards," Alexander said, not taking his eyes off the flames. "That part of them stayed."
A loud crack echoed out as a section of the house caved in and Alexander sighed a tired sigh. His demeanor was changing, Daniel wasn't sure why exactly but it was like he was coming down from a high.
"When I found them… I was in a worse state. I hadn't been in this world long, and I had no powers to my name. I'd died over and over, and I was markedly more… feral. These people were humans captured and warped to fit the standards of the dragon Avarice. I killed it of course, and freed these people, these draconians."
The fire suddenly surged, and the draconians who'd been coaxing the flames finally seemed content with their work as they turned to leave, but Alexander stayed, his eyes shimmering in the light of the fire as he continued to speak.
"They are marred with his greed. If I'd left them to themselves, they would've imploded in on themselves. Fathers killing sons, the strong killing the weak. So I didn't leave them, and this is the result. When one of them disobeys me or commits a crime, their lineage is erased. That's the solution I came to to stay their greed. Their kin keeps them from committing anything too heinous, if only to save their own hides."
Daniel rubbed the hilt of his father's knife. He didn't know how to feel about this, didn't know why he was even here to see any of it. So he asked. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Traveler's are rare, and while I can see through the madness of the Scarlet Moon enough to see the wrongness in this, I can also see its necessity. I just can't find it in myself to care. I needed an army and they needed a leader. This is just the solution I came to."
"That didn't answer my question. Why are you telling me?" Daniel asked while taking a step away from the flames. The heat was too intense.
"These people worship the ground I walk on, and I rarely get the chance to speak to normal humans. Let alone other travelers. I suppose I just wanted to talk to someone even remotely relatable."
With that said, Alexander turned and began to walk away, "Come, boy. We still have a feast to attend."
But under his breath, quiet enough that Daniel knew he wasn't meant to hear, Alexander muttered to himself. His tone was somber, but by the end of his statement he'd grown sharp enough to cut.
"I would've been a hero. I really would've. If it wasn't for her."