Chapter 17

Foundation of One 

Rare

Physique

Timer: 0:00

The wielder of this card can increase the effectiveness of a single trait pertaining to their body by a significant amount. 

This chosen trait may be swapped with another trait of the wielder's choice once every thirty minutes.

"Why are you giving me this?" Daniel asked Alexander after he finished reading. The man in question was busy stretching not too far off from where Daniel stood with a level of flexibility that was honestly surprising.

"Isn't it obvious?" Alexander asked while bending over to touch his toes. "You're going to take me into that other dimension so I can kill Firgrax, and I can't exactly have you passing out on me while I'm in there just because you can't hold your breath for ten minutes."

Daniel didn't respond for a moment as he processed the information, but eventually he decided to just ask the obvious question.

"How did you know you can't breathe inside of Limbo?"

Alexander simply scoffed in response as he sat on the ground and began to stretch his legs, "Well I just watched one of my men choke to death while the specter flung him around like a ragdoll."

Daniel stared at him with surprise, "You can see into Limbo?"

Alexander simply shrugged in response, "I can see most things when I put my mind to it. You probably could too."

Before Daniel could ask what that meant Alexander jumped to his feet and commanded two of the scaled men to retrieve his armor.

Which gave Daniel the time to look down at the disembodied arm that the redhead had so nonchalantly tossed his way. The tattoo on the arm had ceased to be and in its place was a card with a silvery sheen stuck onto the creature's arm like wet paper. Daniel gingerly picked up the arm and flipped it over and found a bronze card stuck to the arm in the same way the silver one had been.

He hadn't gotten the chance to see the image of the card, but given the description it didn't exactly strike him as something that he wanted.

Seen by Crows

Common

Taming

The wielder of this card can see through the eyes of any crows within a square mile centered on the wielder.

Daniel didn't exactly know how he felt about being 'hired' to take a madman to go fight a ghost, but a rare that synergized with Flicker Between Worlds was hard to pass on, especially when he doubted Alexander would just let him walk away from the situation. He'd just seen him cut off a man's arm to retrieve the card and he didn't want to go and give him any ideas. 

Though, there was something about the arm, and by extension the scaled men surrounding him that did strike Daniel as strange. Jonathan had said in many words, with more than a bit of thinly veiled racist undertones, that only humans could have more than one card, and these things clearly weren't human. So either the incredibly religious man was wrong, or something else was going on here. 

'Honestly a coin toss,' Daniel thought as he finally noticed that Alexander had begun to take off his clothes.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Alexander, to his credit, didn't seem the least bit embarrassed as he stripped down to nothing but his undergarments and allowed the scaled men to bring him forth shimmering, multicolored armor.

Daniel could only stare at it slack jawed as the components making up the armor became obvious. "Are those cards?"

Alexander grinned wildly in response, "Pretty smart, right? They're practically indestructible, and they're flexible as all hell. Have a smith forge them into some chainmail and you have a set of mostly indestructible armor."

The scaled men put the armor onto Alexander piece by piece, and Daniel could only stare on slack jawed at the insane display of wealth. As far as he knew there were five card rarities. Common, Uncommon, Rare, Legendary and Fabled, with Bronze, Iron, Silver, Gold and some unknown metal, each corresponding to the five card rarities. 

And he could see Gold in that man's armor.

But that wasn't what truly caught Daniel's eye. Alexander was facing away from him as his servants put on his armor, and Daniel could clearly see the tattoo etched onto his back. Gold ink shone on the man's skin and shimmered in the image of a goat headed demon grasping wisps of light in one arm while its other was midway through lifting a handful of them up to its open maw.

Something about it was a tad disturbing, but nevertheless Daneil took that brief moment to burn that image into his mind. He'd come to realize since coming here that there was meaning in the pictures the cards display. It was a rather obvious statement, but like many obvious things it could easily end up being overlooked. There were clear hints in the tattoos, with the most obvious being its golden coloring, but plenty of more subtle hints were hidden in the images itself.

The wisps could be anything, from something symbolic in the image, to the literal color gold imprinted onto his back, but there was more to be learned from the image. If he assumed the demon to be representing the wielder, which he found likely, then Alexander likely gained something from consuming some kind of resource. Whether he had to consume them in the traditional sense or not was anyone's guess.

Once the tattoo was fully covered Daniel moved his attention to the armor. It was intricate, surprisingly so. He hadn't pegged the scaled men as creatures capable of that kind of fine workmanship, but he'd been surprised before. 

The shine of Bronze and Iron covered most of the chainmail, but the odd spot of Gold covered many areas that Daniel was fairly sure held the man's vital organs. An iron helmet was set upon Alexander's head, and despite Daniel not seeing any cards inlaid in the metal Daniel was fairly sure that there were more cards hidden somewhere in it.

"Why do you only have one card when you have options like this? Surely some of those cards would make good additions to your deck." Daniel couldn't help but say.

Alexander simply snorted in response before turning back to Daniel, "I would, but I'm having relationship troubles and little miss perfect has declared that I'm 'no longer human' and that I'm 'above all this'."

Daniel stared at Alexander and silence permeated the space between them as he tried to understand what he'd just heard. 

"...alrighty then," Daniel slowly said. He hadn't been expecting an answer that… wierd? Honestly, he wasn't quite sure what that answer was, but it was certainly an insightful look into what was going on in that man's head.

"Go ahead and add that card to your deck," Alexander said while putting on a pair of padded leather pants. 

Daniel glanced down to the disembodied arm that Alexander had given him with a mix of disgust and intrigue before eventually peeling it from the dead man's arm. Specks of blood stained the surface of the card, and after a moment of thought Daniel turned his attention back to Alexander. Even if he didn't approve of the way this man treated his subordinates, he was undoubtedly powerful. As were the creatures under his control. Working with him was obviously the best option for the moment. Especially if he could leverage them to get back to the city.

"How do I use this?" Daniel said with the silver card lifted up in his hand.

At first the group seemed confused at the question, but after a moment laughter broke out among the scaled men.

Alexander though, didn't seem to share in the joke as he stared at Daniel with inquisitive eyes.

"You don't know? Has that town of yours gone so far downhill that they've failed to teach you even that much?"

Daniel thought about how to respond, but was cut off before he was even given the chance as Alexander spoke again, "Show me your card."

Daniel hesitated, but was cut off before he could do a single thing as Alexander spoke, "You're not from this world are you?"

Alarms went off in Daniel's mind as he thought over how to respond to an accusation like that. This could be extremely dangerous depending on Alexander's temperament and he needed to answer it very carefully.

"What do you mean by that?"

Alexander smiled, "I mean that you're like me, a wayward soul, a crack in this planet's rules, a traveler, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Just place the card on your arm and want it to be in your deck. It'll bond with you after you do that."

Daniel eyed the strange man curiously, but followed his instructions, placing the silver card next to his Legendary one and willing it to join his deck.

It glowed for a moment and burned slightly, but almost instantly turned into a shimmering silver tattoo depicting a muscular man sitting with his legs crossed and his eyes closed as dozens of monsters moved to attack him. The monsters depicted closest to the man were somewhat discernable, with Daniel able to make out a flaming skeleton creature and a rat-like monster dripping what he assumed to be poison or acid charging alongside several others that he could somewhat distinguish. The rest of the creatures rushing the man sort of fell into the backdrop, becoming a blob of shapes that quickly became unrecognizable.

"Your first instinct may be to use the card on your lungs. Don't, the effect will be great, but it will be far too targeted. Have it boost your blood instead," Alexander said once the card had finished branding itself to Daniel's arm.

Not seeing a reason to not follow Alexander's direction, Daniel willed the card to affect his blood and almost immediately felt strength flood his body. Blood was important to the body, but this felt like a good bit more than what it should've given him. Though it was magic, so he wasn't all that surprised.

Alexander's gaze shone with something that Daneil couldn't quite make out, but it was gone in a flash as he focused on properly fitting his armor to his body as several scaled men equipped bright red boots to his feet.

"What now?" Daniel asked. 

Alexander didn't speak for a moment as he stood up and took a longsword from one of the scaled men before several others poured a liquid that Daniel couldn't recognize all over his body.

"What now?" Alexander laughed. "Now you're going to take me to wherever Firgrax is so I can kill him."