That was unfortunate.

Tyler—and his “Adventurer’s Guild” were the closest thing I’d found to a decent organization. Every other group at the open forum was either disorganized, naive, overly opportunistic, or all three. I didn’t hold any illusions. At this point it was unlikely that any group’s leadership would be barely more than tribal—increasing the likelihood that a regime change after the loss of a leader would change the guild completely, if in-fighting and succession didn’t destroy it outright.

“Take me to him,” I said.

Sara stared at me, as if trying to divine my motivations from sight alone. “There’s something strange about your face.”

“Do you want to save your guild-leader? Or do you want to stand out here in the middle of the apocalypse and talk about my face.” I let my voice take on a hard-edge. This was my first interaction wearing the mask—bottle-throwing guy excepted—and I wasn’t confident how effective it would be under close scrutiny.”

“Right.” Sara moved quickly then, my comment serving to rouse her. She hurried off towards the crumbling building, and I followed behind her, the distance between us growing. After a few steps, Sara slowed, and looked back at me confused.

“Who are you, again?”

Did she hit her head? During the fight or before I got there?

“Motorcycle guy.“ I cringed mid-sentence at describing myself that way. “Saw you needed a hand. Rolled over a lizard and killed a few of them. You were taking me to see the Guild-leader.

“Ah. Right.” Sara said. A struggle of confusion played across her severe features. Then she simply seemed to accept this as fact and move on. For a moment, I was as confused as she was. Then it hit me.

The Allfather’s Mask

I pulled up the description again, as it’d been a while since I’d reviewed it.

Description: A mask that is not a mask. The last boon of a dying god. A one-of-a-kind artifact that will, when worn, make it nearly impossible to remember specific details about the User’s physical characteristics and voice, with more details fading over time. Only certain high-level perks or repeated exposure can partially counteract this effect. May magnify certain Titles before Title Integration.

I focused inward on the effect of the mask itself, as I could feel it actively calming me, eroding my earlier frustration at the idea of Tyler dying, and the usefulness of the Adventurer’s Guild dying with him. From my experience using the I recognized a mental control option, albeit far more advanced. Only, instead of an on-off toggle, there were far more possible selections, arranged in an erratic pattern almost reminiscent of a constellation. I reviewed them carefully, seeing if I could glean what any of them did without turning them on.

Some were completely alien and unknowable, represented by jagged marks projected into my mind. Others were clearer, easier to define. The one I was currently using was—as far as I could tell—maximal. There was a path above it that was grayed out, but I was instinctively aware that this was the farthest I could go. Below the current setting were two options: Mind or body.

I selected the latter.

Then, I let Sara get a few steps ahead of me again, around the distance she’d reached during the previous incident. “What happened to the Guild-leader?”

Sara turned back slightly, and grunted, pointing at the trail of lizards that led from the street to the building. She showed no sign of forgetting me again after the mask’s effect was adjusted.

“There were three of us. This,” She pointed to the building, “was the only landing site nearby, as far as we could tell. Looked abandoned. Then these scaly bastards jumped us.” Her lip curled. “They’ve got a chameleon thing going on. Not like Predator level, but they camouflage pretty well. Our scout missed them, and they didn’t miss him. He died. Tyler got bit a dozen times and fell unconscious. While they were… eating… the scout, I dragged him out here, and when he didn’t wake up from the potions, I tried an antidote.”

“Didn’t work?” I asked.

“No clue. As soon as they finished with the scout, they came after me.”

I looked at the trail of what had to be more than lizards on the sidewalk, feeling the beginnings of newfound respect. “You did all this yourself?”

“Yep.” Sara said. Then her face turned pale, and she pointed to a bloodied spot on the ground. “That’s where I ran low on mana and they got my arm. Probably did me a favor, tearing it free. Bought me a few extra seconds to cauterize it with what little mana I had left and get clear.”

“Jesus.” I hissed. The injuries I’d received since this all started had been moderate in comparison to what Sara had gone through in the last hour, and I’d been on the verge of passing out more than once. “How the fuck are you still standing?”

“” Sara said.

“No shit.”

So, there were two people crazy enough to take that feat. This exact situation was why I’d balked at the idea of the perk when Nick mentioned it. Something that kept you alive and conscious until the moment of death when there was a plethora of monsters around happy to eat you alive seemed like a recipe for a bad end.

Tyler was covered in debris. He was on his back, his breathing visible—albeit shallow. A single broken claw extended out from his eye. Sara knelt down at his side. There was a mess of bites scattering from his neck to his torso. Individually, they didn’t appear to be bleeding badly, but there were enough of them to still be cause for concern.

”Generic anti-venom didn’t work. I could take a scattershot approach, but I’m uncertain if there’s toxicity concerns from mixing too many palliatives. Got anything for me?” I asked Talia.

She responded hesitantly. ”The scaly ones are unknown to me. We have some in my world that look nearly the same, though they do not walk upright. If we were in my realm, I could recommend which flower to gnaw on or what sort of root to dig up. That does not help you here.

”Just need an idea of what sort of damage we’re dealing with.”

Again, Talia was slow to respond. She’d lost some of her standoffish attitude ever since the trial, and I had to wonder if those events had affected her more than she was letting on. ”Open one of their mouths and let me see it.”

I followed her instructions, retreating away from Tyler’s body to the closest lizard corpse and bending down on one knee. Some stiffness had already set in. I had to break the lizard’s jaw before I could get a halfway decent viewpoint.

Strange.

The lizard’s mouth was pristine. Not a hint of plaque or decay. Its tongue was healthy-looking and pink. Enlarged grooved teeth were present near the rear of their mouths. No visible fangs—the pointed incisors were little more than that. Following further instruction from Talia, I carved into the lizard’s face with my dagger, looking for anything that resembled a poison gland.

“What are you doing?” Sara asked.

“They’re not… poisonous,” I said, stumped.

“Well, there’s got to be some sort of status effect in play.” Sara looked unsettled. “I’ve seen Tyler take a beating. A real beating. A few bites aren’t enough to knock him unconscious.”

”In my realm,” Talia cut in, ”There are sacred places, blessed by the gods themselves. My kind were intelligent enough to stay away, but baser creatures sometimes stumble in and gorge themselves on hallowed vegetation and animals. This exposure can sometimes result in drastic changes.”

I put it together. The way the lizard’s mouth and throat were pristine and perfectly hygienic. ”So they ate from a sacred place. Residue built up. And now Tyler’s got an overdose of divinity.”

”In so many words. What I cannot parse is where they found such a source in this godforsaken place. There was no blood visible in their mouths, so they must have eaten recently. Any travel between realms erodes the touch of the divine, be it a blessing or a curse. So, it must have been here.”

After a moment, I shook my head. ”How do we fix him?”

Talia told me, and I relayed the information to Sara. “Good news and bad news. Good news, if he makes it through the next few hours he’ll probably live. Bad news, he probably won’t be the same.”

“You’ve seen this sort of thing before?” Sara asked, still looking down at Tyler with concern.

“Yes,” I lied. The magic-dog-hiding-in-my-throwing-knife-talks-in-my-head-truth didn’t really have a short form explanation. “The divine energy is causing damage below the surface. Don’t try any more antidote or status cleansing potions—we don’t know how they interact with each other or if there are side effects from mixing them. Give him a health potion once per hour until he gains consciousness again, even if it looks like everything’s fine.

“In your experience, how will he change?”

I shook my head, once again relaying what Talia was telling me. “It’s hard to know. He could experience drastic physical changes and class changes or very little at all. Same for his psyche. There were plenty of bites, but you won’t really know until he comes out of it.”

“If he comes out of it.” Sara looked crestfallen.

Encouragement and comfort were two areas where I was vastly inexperienced. I channeled Nick, and reached out and slapped her on the back. “He’s built like a tank. There’s a chance.”

I really, truly hoped there was. Because without Tyler, I was back to square one.