Nothing. All the arnaphen sacs were ruptured.

  “Hey,” Zanas said brightly, “at least we have the tentacles.”

  Indeed, four complete tentacles were attached to the fragment of the corpse. Though, unfortunately, this fragment wasn’t the one with the monster’s core.

  “Won’t do us any good without the gas.”

  “I disagree. It’s plenty big. I’ll wear it as a disguise, then attack High Priest Guy.”

  “They’re going to notice an arnaphen in their midst.”

  “Are you sure? That seems unlikely.”

  “Yes.”

  “If you say so. But we can use the tentacles. You have a weapon against them now.”

  Ashinaro shook his head. “They’d kill me before I got the chance. And you, as weirdly strong as you are. Vershik is a Sovereign Champion. The shade was only a Greater Champion, and that single hit broke your arm. Imagine what a Sovereign would do.”

  “That was uncomfortable.” The skeleton’s broken arm had healed quickly and was whole now, though Ashinaro hadn’t noticed how long it had taken.

  However fast he could heal, it wouldn’t be fast enough to take on a Sovereign Champion. While they were both in the same echelon, there was a world of difference between a Greater Champion and a Sovereign. And Vershik would have other priests aiding him in the ritual. Who would all be Champions.

  Ashinaro slumped back in the chair. “It’s useless. We can maybe create a distraction to disrupt the ritual, but without the gas they’ll easily catch us. We’ll be lucky if imprisoning us is the worst they do. The Ritual of Return is sanctified, and they won’t take kindly to having it ruined.”

  “What about the two arnaphen we led here?”

  Ashinaro shook his head. “Getting into the treasury would take more effort than getting into the ritual. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they were destroyed in the battle.” The sounds from outside had subsided, and he’d heard the Ripper returning to the guardhouse not long ago.

  “Maybe failing the quest won’t be so bad. You might get a reward.”

  “Why would I get a reward?”

  “I don’t know, it seems as likely as getting a divine crusade from yourself.”

  “What do you know about divine crusades?”

  “Nothing except what you do. Which, I have to say, is not much.” The mask flipped to the grinning side. “I’m just saying, impossible things have happened.”

  “Without the gas, it’s useless. I can’t even shift to my battleform. Even my Persistent Renewal trait can’t… clear…” He sat forward.

  “Oh, I don’t like that look,” Zanas said, his mask flipping to the frowning side.

  “I think I have a solution to our problems.”

  “Your problems. I’m just going along for fun. I’m sure I could find another host if you died.”

  Ashinaro realized there was a simple—if not easy—solution to both his problems. If he could extract the poison from the blood of his battleform, that would solve them both: his battleform would be cleared, and he’d have the poison to inject Vershik with.

  But he’d need to shift to his battleform to do it, and that was currently delirious. Inhaled, drank, or injected, even the drakken Renewal trait couldn’t clear arnaphen poison. But there was a way to extract it.

  “Well, I’m quite good at drawing blood,” Zanas said, reading his mind, his mask now displaying its grinning face once more.

  He trusted the skeleton—mainly because he was bound to him and Ashinaro could feel his intentions, which primarily revolved around doing exciting things—but he was still hesitant to let him do this. He hadn’t known Zanas long, but cautious was not a word he’d use to describe him.

  “We’d still need to figure out how to infiltrate the ritual. Extracting the poison will render it liquid, which means we won’t be able to flood the ritual chamber with it. We’ll have to get close enough to Vershik to inject him with it. Without the distraction of the gas. They’ll spot either of us right away before we got remotely close enough.”

  “You could use my mask.”

  Ashinaro stared at the painted-on grinning face. As malleable as it was, it wouldn’t fool anyone. “I don’t think that’s going to help.”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Zanas shrugged and in a blink became High Priest Vershik. “Maybe I can distract them with a song.” He cleared his throat and began singing in the priest’s voice.

  Ashinaro just stared at him. He looked and sounded like a perfect replica of Vershik. Even Ashinaro’s beyondsight didn’t reveal the deception. He simply appeared veiled.

  Ashinaro wondered if it would work on someone of higher renown.

  Finally, he said, “You can transform into other people?”

  Zanas cut off his song—the words sounded like nonsense to Ashinaro. “What? No, don’t be silly. I’m still me.” He reverted to his skeleton form. “See. I just looked like him.”

  He used his beyondsight again on Zanas.

  [The Jester]

  He’d never heard of anything that could deceive beyondsight. It was inviolable. Or so he’d thought.

  It wouldn’t be the only thing he’d been taught that turned out to be false.

  “Would it work on me if I wore it?”

  “I can’t know that, can I?”

  “Let me try it.”

  “You don’t need my permission.”

  Ashinaro reached for the mask and Zanas staggered back in outrage. “Don’t touch the mask!” he growled. “No one touches the mask!”

  “You just told me I didn’t need your permission.”

  The mask flipped between its grinning and frowning sides, before finally settling on the grinning one. “Poor ignorant child. It’s within you, like the scepter. This is but a representation.”

  Ashinaro reached within himself, feeling for the mask. He’d never noticed it before, only the scepter, and still didn’t. “I don’t sense it.”

  “That’s because you’re already wearing it.”

  “No I’m—” Ashinaro cut himself off, realizing he felt something on his face. He reached up to discover the flat plane of the mask. “How long has that been there?”

  The grin spread wider. “The whole time.”

  It hadn’t been, he would have noticed. Or at least, it hadn’t been there physically.

  Ashinaro shook his head. “How do I use it?”

  “You’ve to simply imagine the identity you wish to take, and the mask will do the rest.” Zanas once more became the priest. “See? Quite trivial.”

  Ashinaro imagined himself as High Priest Vershik.

  After a brief moment of vertigo, there were suddenly two of them in his room.

  Even his height had changed, which maybe explained the vertigo.

  And it wasn’t only his body that had changed, but his clothes as well, which now were Vershik’s robes. He reached down and felt them. They felt real.

  He held his hands before him. They were Vershik’s hands, rings of the goddess and all.

  When he attempted to connect his essence to them, he felt nothing. They were hollow shells, even though to his beyondsight they looked genuine. An interesting discrepancy was that they appeared as they did when Vershik was wearing them, rather than how they would were they linked to his own battleform. Well, not linked, exactly. Divine items couldn’t be linked. Simply wearing them granted not a boon, but a direct effect. But not in this case.

  [First Ring of the Goddess (Divine)]

  “Eh,” Zanas said, studying his face. “Not bad. Not as elegant as me, but not bad for a pet.”

  Ashinaro scrounged around for a piece of polished metal to check his reflection.

  When he found one, the face peering back at him was that of High Priest Vershik.

  But when he peered within himself, he discovered he was still a Lesser Defender.

  “I’m still the same renown. Is this simply an illusion?”

  Zanas tilted his head back and forth. It clacked against his shoulders each time. “You’re taking his identity. Anything missing is because it’s not part of that identity.” He shrugged. “Or maybe you’re not adept enough.”

  “Can we become two different people?”

  “Of course, no problem.” Zanas suddenly became one of the city guards they’d passed on the way in.

  Again, he appeared veiled to Ashinaro’s beyondsight.

  “Unveil yourself. I can’t see your renown.”

  Zanas squinted. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “You’re not veiling yourself?”

  “I’ve taken on the identity of someone else, so… yes?”

  So, the illusion only changed physical properties. He could work with that.

  “Maybe we can create a diversion. You could become an arnaphen and I—”

  “It doesn’t work like that. The mask only lets you take on the identity of others. Monsters don’t have identities. They’re… monsters.”

  He focused on becoming a messenger. Not the strange one who’d visited him, but the normal variety. If he could go around as a divine messenger…

  “I just told you,” Zanas said, “you can’t turn into monsters.”

  “I’m not trying to turn into a monster.”

  “Messenger, monster; what’s the difference?”

  “One’s a monster, and one’s not.”

  “Well both are things you can’t become.”

  “What about battleforms?”

  “You’re still a person in battleform, aren’t you?”

  Ashinaro focused, recalling Vershik’s battleform, but he couldn’t quite recall the features.

  “No no, you’re doing it all wrong. Just think of the person, and become him.”

  Ashinaro did, and felt himself shift. Not like shifting into battleform, the sensation was entirely different. There was no tingle of nervous strength, just that brief vertigo.

  He was in Vershik’s battleform, yet not really. He had none of the benefits that came with it.

  “It only looks like I’m in his battleform. I can’t access my relics. Or his.”

  “Those aren’t part of the identity.”

  “Wait, if I can look like I’m in battleform while in humanform, can I do the opposite? Make it look like I’m in humanform while I’m in battleform?”

  Zanas shrugged. “Give it a try.”

  “My battleform is afflicted by the arnaphen poison, remember?”

  “Actually, I forgot.”

  Whether or not he could mask his battleform, this was amazing.

  “This is going to make it so much easier to infiltrate the ritual.”

  “Of course it is. That’s why I mentioned it.”

  “Which reminds me, we need to find out where it’s being held. I hope it’s in Joy’s temple.” He had a vague notion that’s where they held it, but it wasn’t like he’d ever attended one. “And we need to solve the problem of getting this poison out of me. I don’t know that we have enough time. The blood moon is tomorrow night. We’d need to get a blood filter and the proper reagents. I don’t have enough money for that. And Kakoris isn’t going to take my Beast cores. His shop is likely closed by now anyway.”

  “There’s no other way to get what you need?”

  Ashinaro considered, glancing around his apartment, at the empty bottle of rot draught Zanas had drank before they’d set out on this crazy endeavor.

  Kakoris wasn’t the only source of alchemical supplies in Argalis. And there was one in particular which stayed open late.

  “There’s one. But it will involve visiting someone who doesn’t view me very highly.”

  “Just let me do the talking.”

  “That would be a terrible idea.” He tilted his head. “Though, she does have a thing for skeletons.”