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What convinced Lucian wasn't, ultimately, that Lianelle couldn't remember her past. Sure, it was suspicious how all of her connections to anyone besides May had been cut or weakened, but that was only enough to push Lianelle so far. What convinced him that May was mind controlling his friend was Lianelle's lack of interest in being anywhere but by May's side. Lianelle didn't do that for anyone. She loved Katia with an intensity Lucian had hardly seen in any marriage, but she'd only visit Quiteria for a week at a time - never staying unless it was urgently required. When armies had been raised to fight the Magyar Lianelle had been there, but even then she'd ride off alone often, returning with news about how one village or another was now free. Seeing her relegated to a bodyguard and lover of someone she'd just met, with no apparent intention to ever leave, was... wrong. It wasn't Lianelle.
And so, this is how Lucian finds himself digging a hole in an unremarkable forest in west Austria. Well, digging several holes - the landscape's changed enough in the last 1200 years that it's difficult to locate the exact spot where he and his men, victorious but weary, buried the Magyar's artifacts that they could not understand the purpose of.
It's an hour before dark by the time he uncovers the chest, wood rotted through but items inside intact. He's not really sure this next step is going to work, but he's desperate and needs magic of his own, with only slight hints of how to gain it. Taking his phone, he creates images of the items inside, submitting them for display to the Pinterest repository of images. Some aspect of the physics beyond his ken slows the process beyond the tests he performed previously, but eventually he can cause his phone to recreate what he should be able to see himself, allowing him to read the magic words inscribed on each artifact. One in particular, a stone with just barely readable inscriptions and three rubies, seems promising.
He re-buries the other objects in a new location before reading aloud the words on the round white stone, the rubies sparkling as he does.
And then -
Lucien throws his arms behind his back in what feels in that instant like a futile attempt to prevent an attack. For some reason.
"I guess I don't really know what I was expecting. Not this anyways. Why are you both me?"
"... We're the same person from multiple worlds, and I am hazarding a guess that so are you? We're both named Lucien."
What if he were next to Isabella on the floor and also holding onto her tightly? That would be good.
"I cast a spell that was supposed to bring me to a place where I might find allies, if I understood the description correctly." He can show them the magic rock, which has only two gems remaining in addition to the inscription in ninth-century Aramaic.
"Stopping a powerful mage who is assembling a mind-controlled army of people with magic powers."
"Currently it's only the mage May and her... ally Lianelle - a close friend of mine who I believe to be mind controlled and an extremely capable fighter - but the mage plans on resurrecting powerful espers at a rate of one a week or so. I'm not sure whether she's got around to any yet. She claims she's resurrecting espers for dungeoneering but I don't trust this given the mind control and suspicious circumstances in which she acquired her magic in the first place."
"This May character is amassing the army in a different universe with espers in it? Because this one has espers in it. Do the individuals match such that we can find the me there?"