Wake the Dead
Pathfinder Volume Eight: Wake the Dead is the eighth plot arc in the Pathfinder Comics series from Dynamite Entertainment. The series is written by veteran comic author Fred Van Lente. This book compiles the five-part "Wake the Dead" story arc—including game content from the books' appendices.
“In Wake the Dead, the tantalizing prospect of a rendezvous with a Gebbite defector in possession of priceless secrets from that undead nation draws together a diverse group of adventurers in the Nexian metropolis of Ecanus. When they all find themselves cornered by the city's remorseless Deathsealers, can the Iconics band together for survival and escape a city full of hostile wizards alive?
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Characters
Wake the Dead features the following characters:
Continuity
The events of Wake the Dead take place after those of Pathfinder Special: Fumbus, making their numbering within the Pathfinder comics chronology 43–47.
Plot
The Firebrands, the Pathfinder Society, and the Knights of Lastwall separately send four adventurers on missions to Nex: Lem and Sajan of the Firebrands, Harsk sent by the Pathfinder society, and Seelah sent by the Knights of Lastwall. In the city of Ecanus, they run into each other and the private detective Quinn, who has been hired by an anonymous employer to investigate what the five heroes learn is the target that their missions all have in common: the spymaster advisor Gabsalia Venris, a dissatisfied "quick" defecting from her position as an aide to the undead twilight sage Kwo Qenguin. Gabsalia had fled Geb while carrying as a bargaining chip a list of the identities of Gebbite sleeper agents who had infiltrated organizations around the world—including the Firebrands, Pathfinders, and Knights of Lastwall. The five adventurers did not know that they had been subtly led to their converging missions by the scheming Gebbite necromancer Nyctessa, whom they ally with to travel to Yled, extract Gabsalia's list of spies in their respective factions, and to Nyctessa's fortune, draw out Kwo, one of Nyctessa's opponents in the cutthroat political world of Geb. His treachery is exposed to the graveknight spymaster Seldeg Bhedlis, who summarily sentences Kwo to be tortured using devices developed at the Mortuarium. As thanks for Nyctessa who had tried to warn Commander Bhedlis about Kwo, Bhedlis chooses to turn a blind eye to any questionable methods or foreign quick allies that she utilized in bringing Kwo to justice, but not without giving her a warning to not believe that she is cleverer than she really is.
With their work done, Nyctessa bids goodbye to her unlikely allies, and the five heroes leave the city. As they depart, Quinn quietly remarks that he has deduced the likely identity of his anonymous benefactor to be Nyctessa.
Issues
Wake the Dead comprises following issues of Pathfinder: