And they're somewhere else. She's in the mountains, among the ruins of some grand structure. It's nighttime, the only light comes from a few burning torches, and a... glowing ball on the back of some titanic figure towering far on the horizon. 

There's a few statues that are uncannily detailed, in a way petrified people usually are, though they are too angular to be huamns.

A teleport trap? This is nowhere she recognizes.

They both crouch and freeze instinctively. Do the torches feel and smell like ordinary fire or do they show up to Detect Magic? Is anything else here magical? What creatures can they hear or smell? (It will take their eyes a few rounds to adjust to the sudden darkness.) Is the titanic figure moving?

What do the stars indicate? Aria hasn't seen the constellations in the very distant north or south of Golarion, but almost every night sky should have a part that's familiar to her. (Also, this isn't a freezing wasteland or an ocean.)

The titanic figure doesn't move, and the ball shines with steady light. Torches are magical, the statues are magical, some of the architecture is faintly magical. If their sense of smell is good enough, they can probably tell that some people passed through here and into the ruins not very long ago. Also various birds, animals and so on, not a lot, but plausible for the mountains.

The stars are entirely unfamiliar. 

That... really shouldn't be the case? She doesn't have much experience with teleport traps but shouldn't they be limited to a teleport's range?

She didn't recognize the magic on the mirror, but that doesn't mean much. Could it have been a plane shift trap? She hopes not, it would make it very annoying to get back home and she doesn't want to spend time on any other planes, not even the nice ones.

The statues being magical means they're not stoned people, or not just that. None of this is a great sign, magical ruins are never safe. Best to leave and find a more normal bit of mountain.

She tells Tora about the magic she can see, steering them around it. Can they get away from the ruins and sundry magical effects?

There's some roads, though it's hard to say where they lead. The mountains are tiled with lesser ruins pretty extensively, though they seem to be near the biggest structures right now. 

No, see, they're not humans, they want to get away from all the roads. If the whole mountain is full of abandoned and ruined buildings they'll settle for a place that's not magical within a few hundred feet, if there is one.

They can probably try to find some, though before they get far, a large door to the ruins opens, seeming moving on its own, and a red-haired girl comes out. 

"Hello! Are you lost? You seem lost. We're Tribbie!"

Aria doesn't recognize the language but her permanent Tongues takes care of it.

Someone being here - might be a coincidence. Their arrival might have made noise they didn't hear themselves, or there might be a lookout they haven't spotted. The structures around here seem ruined but whatever's inside those doors might be perfectly livable. But it might also be something more than that.

"I'm Aria, and this is Tora. I'm not sure how lost we are, can you tell us where we are?"

How magical does Tribbie look?

Quite magical, with multiple overlapping auras. She also has tiny metal wings flapping behind her back, floating. 

"This is the Abyss of Fate! Or Janusopolis. Where're you from?"

Not human, not any kind of humanoid Aria met before. This is almost certainly not the Abyss but the name does not inspire confidence.

"The Verduran Forest, in eastern Avistan, near the human nation of Taldor. On the planet Golarion, on the Material Plane. What plane or planet is this?"

"Wow, we've never heard about any of those! This is the world of Amphoreus! We're not sure what you mean by 'plane'..."

"Will you come with us? We're here to rescue some priests and bring them to Okhema, the holy city of Kephale. The Abyss isn't safe."

"Not safe in what ways?"

"The Strife Titan's minions -" she points at the statues "- they're still right now, but they might wake up anytime."

"And they would attack strangers? What wakes them up, and what are their powers? How far would we have to go to get away from them?"

"Nikador has gone mad long ago, and their titankin attack everyone. There ones won't go far from here, but most places aren't safe either. That's why we're trying to get everyone to Okhema!"

"I'm afraid I don't recognize those names or terms. You asked what a plane is; it's - one of the areas the universe consists of? The nine afterlives are planes, the four Elemental Planes, and the Material Plane with mortal people and suns and planets and so on. You need the Plane Shift spell to go between planes, it's fifth circle for clerics. If you don't know what plane this is, I assume it's the Material - it doesn't feel unnatural and the others probably all do, though I haven't been myself."

"What are Titans? Is Kephale a god, and what's Their alignment?"

"The Titans are gods! It might be a bit tedious explanation if you're from so far away... Kephale is Worldbearer Titan -" she points to the figure holding the glowing ball "- they created life, and now, they hold the last light in Amphoreus." 

If they're really on another plane, and not an immediately recognizable one, then it's very important to learn about the locally active gods. Aria isn't going to trust a random stranger's word, especially one who approached her, but she will at least hear her out.

"That doesn't sound like our world," she agrees. "Can you tell us more about Kephale? What are their domains... the things they're concerned with and promote? Do they have many clerics or other empowered worshippers, are they the ones making Okhema safe?" Buying a plane shift from a cleric sounds like their surest way home.

"They used to talk to humans a lot! But a thousand years ago, they fell silent, after issuing their last prophecy. Now, they carry the Dawn Device, making Okhema the last place to have daylight, after Aquila went mad."

"We should at least go back into the temple! Snowy will be worried for us."

She signals Tora to be alert. "I mean no offense, but as complete strangers here it would be unwise for us to enter the magically-defended temple of an unfamiliar god. We know almost nothing about Kephale yet. Are you a cleric of theirs?" 

'Tribbie' has consistently ignored all questions about her god's alignment, domains and interests. That might mean she isn't confident in her ability to lie, but Aria cannot in fact read the face of an unfamiliar humanoid race from another plane.

"We aren't Kephale's priest! We were once the Holy Maiden of Janus, Titan of Passages, and now we hold their coreflame... Right, we haven't explained this yet. We were once better at telling this in a sensible order, sorry..."

"I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with coreflames." It sounds like yet another word for a god empowering a mortal.

"Right. Kephale's last prophecy said that the children of humanity with golden blood in their veins shall slay the maddened Titans and pluck their coreflames, becoming demigods and inhereting their divine authority. Once all twelve coreflames are restored, a Miracle of Genesis will occur, and restore this broken world."

"We didn't actually have to slay Janus. They knew their madness was approaching, and passed their coreflame to us. Since then, we have travelled all of Amphoreus spreading the prophecy."

...right, this plane will have functional prophecy. Another reason to step extremely carefully. If they bring the shadow of broken prophecy with them, any gods who notice them are likely to be very displeased. Best to have as little effect on this plane as possible, and leave it as soon as they can. She already intended to do that, but now she has a tighter deadline.

The story about coreflames (divine powers? divine authority, domains, maybe followers?) being passed around, or stolen, by mythic human (?) adventurers doesn't make inclined to be any more involved in any of this.

But, regrettably, they can't leave under her own power, they need friends or allies or at least trade partners, and the girl in front of her just claimed to be a demigod. Or a mortal with power on par with a demigod, anyway.

"All we want is to go back Golarion, without harming anyone here. Is there something we can do for you in return for sending us home? I am a druid of some power." Whatever the ostensible demigod's domains, she must be able to cast plane shift, by making a cleric to do it for her if nothing else.

"Also, I would like to include Tora in the conversation. She does not have Tongues like I do, but I can enable her to talk if you will speak our language, or share the language with you."

"We would be happy to help! Though we are not sure our power can go beyond Amphoreus. But if anyone can get you home, that'd us! Or maybe Naxy. He can do many things we don't understand."

"Oh! We would like to talk with Tora! Are we not speaking your language? You are speaking ours!"

"I have Tongues, a translation spell that lets me understand and speak any language. You're not speaking one that I recognize." Beastspeak on Tora.

"Hello! Can you understand me?" She's speaking Sylvan.

"Sorry, we don't understand this. You sound beautiful though!"

"Then please accept this spell, it will share the language with you for twenty-four hours." Not that she could land anything hostile on a demigod, if this really is one.

Share Language.

She extends her hand.

"Wow. That was weird. What kind of miracle is this?"

"It's... a normal second circle spell?"

Well, she's clearly not a demigod (not that that was very probable), but at least they'll hear her whole story. She updates Tora quickly on what's been said so far.

"A god gave you their power because they feared going mad? What's driving the gods mad?"

Tora is better than she is at taking things at face value and asking reasonable-sounding questions instead of questioning ridiculous-sounding answers!

"The black tide. Nobody knows where really came from, but it's been corrupting the land, people, and even Titans. It's why we must recover the coreflames and the world."

What a wonderful non-answer.

"What's this corruption like? We have some kinds of corruption on Golarion but I haven't seen them myself."

"The land gets twisted, blackened. The people first go mad and attack everyone they can see, then they lose themselves completely, and their bodies turn to something metallic, and deadly."

"That sounds terrible. And none of your gods and wizards and so on understand it, or can fight it?"

"And your druids?" If the very land is being corrupted that's clearly a matter for the druids.

If this story is remotely true the local druids will in fact be already working on it, but druids often have good reason to remain hidden. Tora is very lucky to have lived all her life in a land whose druids can walk openly in safety outside the forest. That's another thing the treaty bought them, not that they particularly cared about it at the time.

(Aria is admittedly unsure about the presence of druids on planes besides the Material, but in a normal-seeming world why wouldn't there be druids?)

"The Grove of Epiphany, the academy built around Cerces, Titan of Reason, has been studying the black tide, and Kephale's miracles can sometimes cleanse the land if the corruption isn't too strong yet. Yet the only hope we have of truly cleansing the world is the miracle of genesis. We asked Janus back then, and they only echoed Kephale's words."

"Whose miracle is Genesis prophesied to be?"

"It is Kephale's prophecy, but needs all twelve coreflames, so we think it's all of them at once."

"Why didn't your gods do that right away, before they started going mad?"

"Kephale only conveyed the prophecy after the black tide already started affecting the Titans. We aren't sure why... And not all titans are as cooperative with humans as Kephale or Janus. I don't think we'd ever get coreflames of Strife or Sky without a fight..."

They have no reason to trust either her story or her intentions, and no way to know if the story is at all plausible.

She's saying she'd be happy to help them get home, and that she only wants to bring them somewhere safe right now. Should they put themselves in the power of the first powerful stranger they meet? Instinct and wisdom both say no. Whatever danger these statue-creatures pose, they are unlikely to be able both to fly and to borrow into the ground; Aria and Tora can escape them and make their own way.

"Can you give us directions to Okhema? I would like to explore this new land on the way there, to orient myself. And if you have more information to share on the abilities of these statues, that would be most appreciated."

"Well, finding Okhema is easy! Just keep Kephale in your sight!" she rattles off some directions about the easiest way to take. "Are you sure you would be safe? There shouldn't be black tide this close to Okhema, but the Strife minions can be anywhere."

"Can they fly or burrow or strike at a distance? Do they all look like these statues? If they can't and they do, then I think we'll be fine."

"They have archers, and some can fly. We haven't heard of any that burrow. Their bodies are stone."

"What are you going to do? You said you were looking for some priests that needed rescuing?" Maybe they can do something about that without going into the spooky temple that Aria clearly doesn't like.

"They're hiding in the temple, Snowy's making sure they safe. We'll wait for a caravan and bring them to Okhema soon."

If there are still caravans passing through here, it can't be that dangerous. (And if Tribbie needs a caravan to bring some people to safety, she can't be that powerful.)

"Then I think we'll look around. Maybe we'll meet your caravan on the road, or in Okhema."

"Safe travels then! We will find you in Okhema to help you look for a way home, when you get there."

"Thank you! Good hunting!"

And when they've gone away some distance...

"You don't trust her?" That's in their private dialect of Sylvan, a mix of sounds and body language built up over decades because Bestspeak castings are limited and Speak with Animals isn't a proper language to begin with. It's not meant to be secret, or especially hard to decode, but it's not the formal interforest Sylvan that Aria shared.

"I don't distrust her," she hums. "I don't know her, I don't know this world. I don't want to give trust if I don't have to. We should spend some time learning things for ourselves, talking to more people."

"If the land is being corrupted, we need to help the local druids."

"And we can't find them by asking non-druids," Aria tacitly agrees.

Can they find a quiet spot safely away from any magical structures or statues without being interrupted this time?

They can probably find one. There's a lot more seemingly random structures or even just nature showing up as magical than would typically be expected, but not all of it. 

Once they leave the temple grounds, there's almost no statues standing dormantly, though they can sometimes hear sounds similar to stone golems or elementals in the distance. 

It's clear enough that this area isn't natural, corruption or no corruption, but they might as well start here. Aria finds a secluded spot where she can meditate for fifteen minutes.

Lay of the Land. What are the notable features within five miles? Buildings and roads besides they ones they've seen, rivers and lakes, caverns leading deep beneath the earth...

She could see most of this from the air if she spent time scouting but wild shapes are limited too, and the only flying shape she has that's useful at night is an owl that might attract predators. Besides, she doesn't like leaving Tora.

They're more than five miles away from any notable landmarks. The road between Janusopolis and Okhema is the only major one in range, though there are a few smaller roads going in different directions, and no road here feels maintained. 

No major caverns, rivers, or lakes in the vicinity. 

Oh well. In that case they can keep going, not in the exact direction of Okhema (because they don't want to follow the actual road) but not too far off-course either.

What is the local biome like? Aria is more attuned to deviations in what she knows than to figuring out completely new locations, but she did travel abroad a few times in her life and can tell quite a lot about a place from a few hours' observations. Is it thriving, recovering or deteriorating? Are the local species at all familiar to her, are there some she recognizes outright and if not do they at least fall into familiar patterns? Are there many species in a complex web, or do a few invasive/supercompetitive/hardy ones dominate? What are the local top predators and their preferred prey, how common and how overt are poisonous species, is there plentiful water and is it safe to drink, are there suitable animals for them to hunt? Are there signs of intelligent creatures living here that she could talk to, tracks or scents or implications from other things she observes? Does anything look shaped or guided in the ways intelligent inhabitants or druids might produce, are there metaphorical low-hanging fruit that any nature-minded people living here would have taken care of?

She won't learn all this from a few hours' wandering, of course, but she hopes to make some kind of head start, something clue worth pursuing.

They don't know what time of night it is, so if they find nothing in a few hours they'll look for a spot to rest until morning. (Is there a moon here?)

The terrain is mountainois, though slighly less so beyond the Abyss. There's some vegetation, bearing resemblance though not identical to that which is familiar to her, but animal life is absent in the wild. It's definetely deteriorating, though slowly. The plants seem to point themselves towards Kephale, not reach high for the sun. They don't look guided or tended, and some are barely hanging on, though it seems to be the stable state of this place, not a recent catastrophe. 

There's no visible moon. 

After a while, they can feel the ground shaking slightly, and can hear/smell/observe a group of people going along the road from Okhema, riding a few giant dinosaur-like beasts. 

?!!

There is no non-plant life. No sign, tracks, scent or litter. Not only animals but birds, vermin, they haven't seen a single insect since they began watching out for them. No mobile or intelligent plant creatures, either.

Aria wouldn't have believed it possible, to kill (and remove) all sign of non-plant life from a land without killing the plants. No wonder they're deteriorating; it's a surprise any are still alive at all, beyond the oldest trees!

This isn't corruption. The Worldwound is corrupted, the Mana Wastes are corrupted. This is death, final and unrecoverable unless life survived elsewhere and comes back. This is a land the druids have abandoned, and if they still fight for their lives it is somewhere else.

She spends her Commune with Birds, since she has it prepared. Is anyone there, she asks, are you alright? 

There is no reply, not that she expected one.

Speak with Plants, then, looking for the oldest trees she can find that look familiar, ones that need pollination or their fruit eaten before it falls, ones that might suffer most from parasites and pests. When did the animals and insects disappear? How many years ago? When did life change?

"When the sky closed its eyes"

"When darkness never left"

"When life-carrier fell silent"

It's hard for plants here to tell the exact time, but the trees that still keep their cycles agree that it's been around a thousand years.

Eternal night, for an age of this plane.

All the plants that needed pollination, seed dispersal, magic, companionship... All gone, a thousand years since. This place is long since dead, it just doesn't know it yet.

"Golarion survived the Dark Ages," Tora whispers.

"In the Dark Ages the animals were the last to die. They ate the plants, it's the plants that needed the sun. Whatever happened here isn't just eternal darkness."

"I hope this is something local like Nidal, and doesn't cover the whole plane." The locals may depend on the gods to save them but most gods won't bother to bring back anyone who won't worship them.

This is too miserable for Tora to dwell on. She can focus on people who are being miserable in front of her, or on her Aria being miserable about people who aren't, but the utter absence of people is - she'll try to think around it for now.

"What do we do? Look for the druids or follow Tribbie? She has dinosaurs, so not all animals are gone."

"In the Dark Ages most druids went to the Darklands, they weren't badly affected. If any are underground here, it might take a very long time to find them. Let's go to the city first," she decides, "it will be much faster."

They'll walk along the road to Okhema, then, close enough that if the caravan comes back they can intercept it. And they'll their eyes and noses peeled for any sign of wildlife on the way, or other changes.

The walk to Okhema takes a while. They'll probably start feeling tired around half-way, at a typical pace. 

As they get closer to the Dawn Device, and there's more light, vegetation starts to look healthier, but animal life is still absent. The plants are perhaps even too healthy considering the absence of the rest of the ecosystem. 

Anything that survives in the absence of non-plant life will thrive with more light, but that's not really living.

...Does this plane have no sun, and instead it has - that? No, the trees said something was lost an age ago, and after that 'the darkness never left'.

It still might not be a sun like Golarion's; other planes can be very strange. An unmoving light-source in the middle with no day-night cycle wouldn't be very surprising for a little out-of-the-way place, crafted by a few weak and inexperienced gods.

"We should remember not to assume this place is or was like Golarion," she tells Tora. Honestly, she probably needs the reminder more than Tora does, Tora's thinking is simple and direct and that can make her very open-minded.

She has Lesser Restorations for when they tire, walking all day is not really a cat thing, but eventually they want to sleep. They keep watch in turn, of course, and keep an eye on the road.

They can sleep uneventfully for a while, until they once again feel the slight ground shake and sense the caravan approaching.

Then they will walk onto the road to intercept it. (It has not been long enough on Aria's personal clock to replace all her spells yet, but she only used a few so far.)

What are these dinosaurs like? Aria is at least a little bit familiar with the Mwangi ones. And is Tribbie there?

These aren't exactly dinosaurs. They're horned, partially covered in what seems like white stone, and their eyes are very human. There's people gathered in a sort of saddle on their backs, and they're calmly walking along the road. 

Tribbie is there, standing next to a white-haired man holding a sword and looking around. 

"Hey there, who are you? Are you lost?"

"Oh, that's Aria and Tora! We probably caught up to them! Hello!"

"Oh, nice to meet you. I'm Phainon from Aedes Elysiae, and you've met Tribbie already."

"Hello." Her second Beastspeak of the day on Tora, this seems like a good time to use it. What magic can she see about Phainon and the horned people?

What a nice person, who talks to dire tigers when he meets them instead of assuming they're dumb animals!

...although here there may be no animals left. That is so terribly depressing. (Are the horned ones animals? She doesn't know their kind.)

"It's nice to meet you too! We were hoping to talk to people on the way to Okhema, but when we realized the land was so - desolate, empty except for plants - we came back to the road to meet you."

(Phainon won't understand her unless he has translation magic of his own.)

"I could prepare another Share Language like I gave Tribbie," Aria offers, "so that you can understand Tora, but only one more today and I don't know which of you to give it to. Or I could translate for her." (She does this.)

His clothes and sword are magical, in slightly less layers than Tribbie, but still a lot of separate auras. 

The mounts don't have magic on them. 

"The world has been approaching its end for a long time now. You probably won't meet anyone in the wilds who it would be a good idea to talk to."

"We can be the ones translating for everyone. We've been translating for the titans for a long time, and this is no harder!"

"Then we will walk with you to Okhema, if it is agreeable." Hopefully they won't be the first to tire, she needs an hour to prepare new spells with more Lesser Restorations. She can keep up in the air, or just perch on someone as a little bird, but that would exclude Tora from the conversation.

"Can you understand us?" Tora asks of the horned ones. "What are your names?"

The creature looks at Tora with curiosity, but doesn't seem to produce any response. 

"Of course you can walk with us! You're probably too big to climb onto the dromas though..."

So much for Tribbie's translations. Aria tries Speak with Animals. Hello.

"Hello..." it answers, in a slow but curious tone.  

We're friendly. We'll be traveling with you for a while.

Are you alright? Do you need or want anything? Are your humanoids treating you well?

It's hard to estimate the cunning of a novel animal on an unfamiliar world; she doesn't want to spook it by saying things it won't understand or saying too much at once. If it's as smart as she is and can understand Tribbie just fine, hopefully it won't be offended.

"We are good. The earth is steady. It's lonely out of the city, no Earth-kin to talk with, but we'll be back soon. More food might be good." (Aria can understand that the dromas is definetely not hungry, and is fed quite well, and will just always enjoy more food)

Good!

Your humanoids can't understand you but I can understand you. Do you want me to tell them anything for you? The animal looks like it might be smart enough to understand that.

"Tell that one to stop touching the shells. It tickles." One of the refugees on dromas' back seems to have instinctivelly grabbed one of the stone-like outcrops to hold on to. 

I will. If you have other problems, you can tell me!

"The animal asks you not to touch these shells, it tickles," Aria translates, and makes sure Tribbie translates it the rest of the way. She'll ask the other animals in turn if they're alright and need anything.

They seem to have a good working relationship with the humanoids, at least as far as they know. This already puts them above average on the Golarion basis, although a full evaluation would require her to learn what their lives in wild might be like and many more details of how they're treated. 

Tora can't understand animals like Aria can, but she can sense her mood and everything here is fine.

"Are animals really gone everywhere in your world?" she asks Tribbie. "Except the ones who live with you. Or are they just - avoiding this area for some reason?" 

It would take something unprecedented to keep not only animals but all vermin out of an area for a thousand years without affecting them or these animals. But the sun vanishing is also unprecedented, and Aria doesn't understand what that globe is doing, so she will wait for the locals to answer.

"The black tide has taken a heavy toll on this world. We've seen animals disappear from the wilds long time ago. We don't think there's any left beyond the Dawn Device's light, except nymphs."

Nymphs are great! They should meet the local ones!

"...what are 'nymphs'? We have nymphs on Golarion but they are not animals; they are fey, intelligent and magical."

"They're sort of spirits? Maybe they aren't animals. They small and curious and get everywhere and then talk about it. There's some in Okhema you can meet. They probably find wilderness boring."

Ah, a translation mistake. "Then they may be kin to ours. Our nymphs do love nature but there isn't much of it left here." 'Probably boring' could be a real difference or it could be a city-dweller speculating about something not seen on this world for a thousand years.

That reminds her to check what the trees told her. "How long ago did this 'black tide' start? And how does the lighting work in this world, is there no sun?" The giant orb became brighter as they journeyed towards it but stayed about the same while they rested, so it doesn't seem to have a night-day cycle of its own. She hopes it isn't as bright as a sun up close.

"What other races still live here? And how do you all feed yourself with no animals left?"

"The black tide's first signs appeared about three thousand years ago, around the same time the Titans of Calamity - Strife, Death and Trickery - awoke. Though it was only a thousand years later that it started destroyed city-states."

"There used to be a sun, Aquila, the Titan of the Sky, would open and close their eyes to bring day and night to the world. People of Castrum Kremnos - the city of Nikador - went to war with the skyfolk, and the war has blinded Aquila, plunging the world into the eternal night."

"There's many titankin of different sorts, there's Mountain-Dwellers, the white dryads of Cerces, the winged beasts of Aquila, and so on."