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Following the track back to town, you fid that the entire way is pitch black. No natural lights exist, nor does the wind for that matter. You find no signs of life at all throughout the first "day", and stop to set up camp. You find that it is hard to rest here. It's too quite, and there is no motion in anything. You light a fire, but it too seems pale. The next "morning", you set out again. You seem to be traveling quicker somehow, as if time worked differently here."
The dark, dusty road suddenly dips into a small depression, maybe a half mile long. Scattered throughout that depression are what appear at first to be neatly organized rows of soldiers, wearing leather armor and standing at attention with spears straight against their bodies. As you get closer, you notice a faint blue outline surrounding each one of them and not a one seems to breathe, move, or in fact, even be alive. Coming closer, you discover that they are in fact alive, and mostly wearing the same ancient armor, and similar weapons as the zombies you encountered earlier, those these look as new. There must be 200 of these soldiers, locked in some sort of temporal stasis.
Thoth explains that Geb was rumored to do this, having entire armies locked and hidden away in strange pocket dimensions, redy to come to battle at a moments notice. However, the secret to activating them, removing them from the stasis field and back to the material plane is beyond him, or anyone alive for that matter. Only his most tested battle clerics and a few devils in his service knew the secret, it is said.
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As you approach, you see a lone figure, attempting to hide behind a large pile of rocks and measure you up. He is wearing full plate, though it too resembles the armor of all the soldiers caught within the field, and has armed himself with a bastard sword. Sense that he has been spotted, he stays behind cover, but shouts out to you in an ancient tongue that Thoth and Dariamus translate for everyone.
"Who are you, and how did you come to be here! Speak up quickly, or by order of Geb, you shall perish."
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The war with Geb ended a long time ago. We are members of a society seeking knowledge in the wasteland that now divides Geb and Nex. We stumbled upon this place by accident.
You have been asleep for a long time by friend. Long enough that few outside this place, other than scholars such as myself, would even recognize the language you are speaking. Please, we mean you no harm.
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"It's complicated. Geb is now an Empire of undead, and Geb himself now exists as a ghost.. In other news he is also married to a Lich and former herald of Aroden. I know this is all a bit much to take in, just keep calm and believe my words. The year is 4714 by the way."
Thoth thinks about the history of the conflict for a moment.
"To be completely honest, both sides lost."
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Angered, but not at you, "What do you mean "both sides lost? Geb, a spirit. Then all of this, all these years has been for naught." as he smashes a plated fist into the nearby stone. You can tell he wants to smash something, anything. To just let his fury go, but he doesn't. He takes a few moments to cool down, after he looks back to you. "You said that you are scholars. And came to this realm by accident. I can tell you are much more than simple librarians. Don't deny it. What is it you study, and how did you get here?"
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"You insult me kind sir. You would never find a librarian doing an archaeologists work. My name is Thoth. I specialize in all things Osirion with a specialty in Arcane Zoology."
Not trying to rouse any anger from the ancient cleric Thoth is honest.
"We ended up here while searching for a colleague of mine. She thought she had an Arcane Breakthrough but then dissappeared. We assume she is around here somewhere. Have you seen her?"
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"I have not, though if she was here already, it may be that it was she that awoke this plane, and me. I have been here for some time, awaiting orders to raise the troops and march, but it has not come. That might explain it. You are the first I've seen other than two sets of tacks." pointing behind him, the same direction you had been heading. "I would think you may find what you seek there, if anywhere in this place."
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Leaving the evil priest behind, you follow the tracks with next to no effort, and find that they do indeed lead you back to Geb's Rest (Bitter End). Osric is able to tell that the new pair of tracks is clearly not human, and rather large, and at many points along the way seems to have stopped, and beaten and dragged the person that made the original set of tracks.
Geb’s Rest lies ahead, but a very different town from the Geb’s
Rest on the material plane. This version is the shining, new example of what the town looked like before. Every building whole and brightly painted, the streets made of packed dirt and well-lit by giant lanterns, and giant, leafy-green trees lining every avenue. In the middle of the town, surrounding the fountain, are dozens of enormous cages, thirty feet on each side, and packed full with hundreds of dirty
human figures.
Standing before the fountain, you see a Bone Devil. It is reading from a journal that looks just like the four you have. Once it finishes, it grabs one of the people from the cage, guts them, utters some incantation, and . . . nothing happens. You see a pile of dead bodies that it flings the new corpse atop, then continues the process anew. Suddenly it spots you. Only about half of the cages still hold people, but as they notice you, they all start screaming, begging for you to free them. They soon become a mob, locked away and it's hard t hear anything over them. Then the devil shoots it's barbed tail through a cage, impailing an elderly woman unable to move quickly enough. "Silence!" it shouts, and you can hear it telepathically command it at the same time.
Looking you over, "Ah, you have other journals. So the b*%## was not lying after all. Come. Bring them to me, and I'll let you live."
Constant—fly
At will—dimensional anchor, greater teleport, invisibility, major image,
wall of ice
3/day—quickened invisibility
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Stretching out a hand, the Bone Devil summons a Wall of Ice directly behind you, cutting off your possibility of escape, then moves down, preventing you from charging at it.
Dariamus tries to hit it with a Glitterdust, realizing it can become invisible, while Ezrek heaves a Cold Bomb at it.
Round 1
Bone Devil <-25>
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Dariamus (*), Ezrek (*), & Xiaobo
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Thoth, Osric, & Grimtooth
Grimtooth winds his way through the streets and bites at he devil!
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A lot of people do a lot of stuff. Dariamus caasts Glitterdust at the devil to keep if visible while Ezrek flying high enough to still see it hurls a few bombs at it.
Xiaobo drinks a potion and then moves away, but finds that there is a large wall of ice blocking him from going back further. Osric adjusts and takes a shot that seems to cause the devil a lot of pain while Grimtooth swoops around and tries to attack and trip it, but fails to connect.
Unfortunately, that leaves Grimtooth the only target he has just yet, and the Bone Devil goes all out on him.
Round 2
Bone Devil <-47>
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Dariamus (*), Ezrek (*), & Xiaobo
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Thoth, Osric, & Grimtooth
Grimtooth snaps his jaws twice at the devil!
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The Devil goes down , taking a handful of the innocent prisoners with it in the blast radius. It’s outsider form begins to waiver, as it seeps back into it’s home plane, the Bone Devil’s face displaying a look of pain and utter hatred, then disintegrates completely. Just before it does, it sends out a telepathic scream, a sort of siren static causing everything within a hundred feet to clutch their ears and temples and fall to their knees for a moment, then it vanishes back to hell.
In it’s place, you discover the final journal, labeled Demi-Planes, Pocket Dimensions, and the Mysteries of Geb . Freeing the remaining people, the lost citizens of Geb’s Rest, somehow transported here leaving the city on the material plane utterly devoid of life, the ghost town you had discovered. As you begin to remove the bodies pilled up in the fountain, you discover the stele that had vanished earlier, and things begin to make a little more sense. After studying the book for about half an hour, you discover that the Bone Devil had made a simple mistake. It had done all the preparations correctly (which you can still use), but it required the corpse or essence of either a Gebbite battle-priest or that of one of Geb’s bound servants/generals. The Bone Devil probably knew that it would require his own life to complete the ritual, but was unwilling to make that sacrifice, and had hoped that one of the townsfolk might suffice.
It had been sacrificing them, one by one, and failing every time. Grabbing what little essence of the devil remains where he died, you throw it into the fountain upon the stele, and there is a sudden flash of ghostly green light. Before you can see again, you feel the wind on your face, and never has it felt better. You have returned, with all the living, t the material plane.
You will be forever spoken of as heroic legends among the people of Geb. It takes no time at all for the tale of your heroism to spread, and any time that you find themselves in Geb, you shall generally be greeted as heroes. Within the next few days, you are able to get a boat back to Absalom. Walking into the Grand Lodge, fellow Pathfinders, many of which are being raised on your own stories greet you with cheers, each raising a mug, pitcher, or glass in the Pathfinder Societies own form of honoring victors with a walk through the gauntlet, (similar to walking through a line of drawn and raised swords, a sign of respect). Adril Hestram is sad to hear of Rijana’s death, but happy you have returned, and with her journals. It turns out that her research was brilliant, and she had really been on to something with a possible cure for the Mana Wastes. Her discovery of that mysterious stele, something that there really had been no record of in that part of the world, had been misunderstood in her attempts to fix a problem. It was designed to be an anchor for some of the local hidden Demi planes in the region, and while it might work as a cure, it wasn’t designed for that, having been created before the Mana Wastes existed, and intended to function on the other side only. If another could b found, it’s entirely possible that it’s incredibly powerful essence, both arcane based and faith based, might actually be used to reflood the area with magic, healing the land once more. If one could be found.