What would happen if The Forgotten Pharaoh got the mask in book 4?

[Asciiman]

I hope someone can offer some insight into this. I am looking for a few different perspectives on what to do next.

My party got to the Sphinx and began the process of assaulting it. It has been slow going. I run a fairly difficult campaign, and my party has been struggling. They have had to retake the entrance three times but now the Cult of the Forgotten Pharaoh has run out of reinforcements to hold the entrance. Instead they are retreating to the forge/pyramid room with all cultists and girtablilu. Everything else that is the Forgotten Pharaoh cult has been eliminated, aside from the two girtablilu in the sauna room who retreated to their main force on the parties last attack.

The party elected to explore a little more. They burst through the stone wall at K14 and were on their way to where Lady Sophronia resides. In the process, the Shadow Demon, Sargota, overheard them all call out before they got into the fight with the mud elementals. At which point the party was being overwhelmed and opted to retreat. In the process, the rogue was left behind and this allowed Sargota to use magic jar and take over the rogues body.

From this point on it all goes south and quickly. When the rogue(possessed by the Shadow Demon) rejoins the group she proceeds to drop the bard, ranger and fighter in two rounds. They were all nearly dead from the mud elementals after all. And then she turns to eliminate the Wizard. With that done the cultists had heard the battle, as the party ran and fought down the halls, and went to investigate. They find the wizard dead with the mask on her face. Of course they immediately take the mask, cheering in incredible luck and victory, taking it to the Forgotten Pharaoh.

As for Sargota(shadow demon), his description lists that he wants to gain sacrifices for Ninureset and as such using the rogues body, grabs the ranger and heads off to give the bodies over to the demon.

So my question is ultimately this; What happens if the Forgotten Pharaoh/Serethet gets the mask?

Assuming my party can recover from this(slim chance), I need to know a follow on plan and to be clear, I think I am in "make it up as I go along" territory. Not much here is happening by the book.

Keep in mind that this is the Forgotten Pharaoh/Serethet version that attains the mask. Not the full on Hakotep. He has NOT been resurrected yet as the Forgotten Pharaoh/Serethet hasn't been killed.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

I suspect the FP would be very careful of his precious and hide away for a bit while feeling very happy while going full Gollum on the Mask. After the initial euphoria wears off I assume one of three things will happen.

1. the FP will still feel as though something is missing and try to go looking for Hakotep's body in some manner. Exactly how successful this wil be is up to you. You could say that the two soul parts have a strong enough connection to the body that allows the FP to home in on the body and get to it eventually, or you have a possessed FP who will wander aimlessly looking for something they don't quite know what is.

2. The ib and ka combine to awaken Hakotep's spirit properly - fully sentient. Possibly a ghost, probably bound to the Mask. The FP is just an empty husk piloted by an evil spirit, and newly woken Hakotep will find his corpse, combine to wake properly and go on to reconquer Osirion to the best of his ability.

3. The FP still feels as though something is off but will put that aside and start reconquering 'his' kingdom, run across something a bit too powerful to overcome, and die. Then

1 and 3 will eventually run into the fact that the FP's body is mortal and will die. When this happens, the ib will shoot off and rejoin the body and awaken Hakotep; cue the rest of the AP.

[Morhek]

As I understand, if Hakotep himself gets the mask back after he has his Ib, he resurrects to full life again which was the cult's goal. Which may not sound impressive compared to the Mummy Lord he is, until you remember that the ancient Pharaohs were true God-Kings, which I would guess involve Mythic ranks. So if the party eventually managed to still fight their way to Hakotep, he not only has a legion of undead between him and them, he's ALSO much more powerful than his basic stat block, with mythic abilities on top of his spells.

The problem is, even if the Forgotten Pharaoh gets the mask she has no way to unite it with the body - that's why the cult needed to interrogate Chisisek, because the Forgotten Pharaoh only remembers what Hakotep knew in life and the flying Pyramids were allowed to drift away AFTER his death. She might draw power from it if she puts it on, but she's still only 2/3 of Hakotep's soul without the corpse which is still dormant and trapped in an invisible flying pyramid that's been lost. However, if the party all die and can't stop her from interrogating Chisisek with Speak With Dead, she'll know to head to the Slave Trenches of Hakotep and begin activating it. So the party probably still has a chance to stop her before she can call down the pyramids, it just means modifying Book 5 a little into a race to the Slave Trenches by the surviving party members.