“This building in particular has a teleport trap, a spell that redirects teleports to one particular area where we obviously put stuff for a security check and prepared to act as a kill box if needed.”

“The wardstone is still not working right.  Demons aren’t quite teleporting as freely as they would normally, but they can teleport at all.  So there would be some risk of ambush by teleport if you wander the city freely, especially if Deskari is personally motivated to round up some demons and coerce them into attacking you.”

“Jon and Terendelev were deliberately vague, but they’ve hinted that your magic is stronger offensively.  The normal assumption would be that you’ve got at least wizard levels of adventuring toughness relative to your magic (which for an archmage-level wizard would be a decent amount) and some standard long duration buffs up.  So that rules out a lot of the more trivial strategies to assassinate you. Deskari might try an under resourced attack anyway, because demons are impulsive like that.  That would mean all the obvious stuff: poison, cursed objects, and ambushes.  As for a properly resourced attack… I’m not actually up on what archmage magic and Demon Lord magic looks like for this case.”

She looks to Jon.

“The single biggest threat is Deskari involving Areelu Vorlesh, an Archmage witch that serves him, insofar as Chaotic Evil Archmages serve anyone.  She could approach invisible and mind blanked and drop a dominate that would bypass all conventional and many unconventional protections.  If she doesn’t deign to directly involve herself… she could prepare a soul trapping item.  You should be careful of expensive highly magical items given to you by anyone not explicitly trusted.”

...oh right, Terendelev had mentioned the anti-teleport trap. This is all hard to keep track of that's no excuse. Tanya mentally shakes herself.

Cursed soul-trapping items, wonderful. 

"I can't even detect the local style of magic items when they're not being actively used. Even if I rely on trusted people, it sounds like she could just mind-control them." If you cannot defend... "Could Deskari or Areelu find me if I wasn't in a guessable location like this one, or in another city entirely? If I could teleport out, could the teleport be traced or intercepted?"

“There is an 8th circle spell, Discern Location, that can locate someone precisely anywhere in the universe.  Areelu Vorlesh likely has it.  It normally requires the caster to have directly seen the target personally or have an item of theirs, but Areelu and Deskari can likely bypass this limit by Deskari passing a detailed enough impression of you to her mind.”

“As for retreating elsewhere… The demon lords often fail to project power outside the worldwound, and Areelu has refrained from using her more exotic semi-divine abilities outside the worldwound, so one speculation is that she has tied her power to the worldwound.  …these things may not hold true if the wardstone line as a whole fails because the wardstone in Kenabres fails.”

Actually… he hasn’t explained that properly…

“Should I elaborate on the basics of the worldwound and the wardstones further?”

Anevia would like Von Degurechaff to stick around and help, but running from an archmage is totally reasonable.  It might even be better for all of them if the alternative is that she gets dominated and slaughters everyone under Areelu’s control.

Locate anyone anywhere in the universe?! Well, presumably 'anyone' refers to any 'mortal' on one of the planets surveilled by the divine factions. And they're making the extent of their surveillance state clear so people realize just how futile it would be to rebel against them...

(Not that Tanya has any intention of going against incentives as long as she has an acceptable way to work with the system, and even if the system is entirely abhorrent she wouldn't go on a suicide attack when the suicide part wouldn't even stick!)

"I don't know what the worldwound is; if it's pertinent to our short-term decisions here then please explain it. If your enemies can find and undetectably mind-control anyone anywhere, or even anyone they've ever seen before, I assume you must have some defenses." Or they would all be long dead.

“Areelu doesn’t seem to actually consistently aid the demons?  Or maybe she’s just really cautious and methodical.”

She sighs.

“Occasionally something goes wrong in a way with hostile spells working in ways they aren’t supposed to be able to work.  We or other defenders of the wardstone line barely manage to counter it, maybe with a divine miracle to help our odds maybe with just enough luck.  Sometime we don’t and we lose ground and the worldwound expands ever so much.  The worldwound is gradually getting bigger and the lines holding back the demons more stretched… if this keeps up we will be overrun in another half century.”

“To be clear, spells for getting around stealthily, dominating a dozen people, hiding those dominates, and getting back out would be almost all of Areelu’s spells for a day?  And the dominates would last a few weeks?  And doing all that would leave her vulnerable without spells to spare for contingencies.  And powerful people are hard to dominate, even Areelu wouldn’t get better than even odds against like, a powerful Paladin like Queen Galfrey?  And the Good Gods and Lawful Gods can occasionally intervene to stop her, although they can’t afford to do so constantly.  So she can’t singlehandedly win overnight, but as you seem to be realizing, she’s either holding back, or being extremely careful and methodical, or she has some other goal…”

She looks to Jon for confirmation, he seems to be a walking library of knowledge and much less tight lipped than she heard angels usually are.

“That all matches Heaven’s understanding.  One guess is that Areelu is planning on using the worldwound as her domain and as a resource in support of a divine ascension.  Under this theory, she spends most of her time on magical research and/or magical rituals and/or preparing resources in pursuit of this goal.  And the rest of her activities against the wardstone’s defenders are merely the bare minimum Deskari demands of her.”

“We aren’t very sure of any one guess, Areelu is able to hide herself and her demiplanes from Heaven’s scrying and even the divine senses of Gods.”

Wow that’s even more worrisome and depressing than Anevia realized!  

Tanya tries to understand the situation from Anevia's oblique description. (Have these people not heard of maps? ...have they not invented maps because they can teleport and never undertake long-distance travel?)

"So you have a - line of wardstones stopping demons from teleporting out of a contained area, and that's the 'worldwound', which is expanding?" A full envelopment is extremely costly to maintain and if the line keeps getting pushed back it will break eventually. It would have been better to have a defensive line around the country gradually contracting, making the defenders stronger as it does, but Tanya doesn't know how things stand outside of Mendev and this 'worldwound'. (How did they end up with a bunch of crazy teleporting assassins neatly contained in one area?)

"And the demons or their leaders have their own divine sponsors, and at least Areelu is trying to - join the divine ranks herself, however that works," which is eminently rational of her especially if Deskari is a viable proof-of-concept. "They have enough backing already that you can't directly monitor or stop them. But Deskari is still attacking you instead of waiting for Areelu to ascend." This is a problem for the longer term, though. Setting all that aside - 

"So if Deskari can persuade Areelu to undertake some risk to try to, uh, dominate me" - an appropriate and appropriately horrible choice of words - "you expect her to likely succeed. She could either target me directly, or target someone trusted like you or a guard who could then pass me a trapped object. And the very prospect of controlling me might be a strong enough incentive for Areelu. Hiding from her is impossible but getting farther away from the worldwound might help. Is that correct?"

“That sounds mostly correct… the area is… I should get a map of the worldwound… or better yet a book showing its progression, I think we have one in this church’s library, I’ll be right back.”

“One clarification, the upper end of Archmages are actually more capable of individual spells and personally cast magic than the lower end of Gods like Demon Lords.  And under this theory, Areelu is likely inventing the techniques and abilities that make Gods distinct (such as their distributed minds, ability to empower clerics, and innate perception of their ‘areas of concern’) from first principles, which will eventually make her more powerful than Deskari, who has relied on the innate magic the Abyss grants and his divine inheritance instead of experimentation and research.”

“…I should probably explain the worldwound and the Abyss as it is getting short term decision relevant… the maps will make visualizing the area easier, but I can get started now unless you have more pressing questions.”

Is Jon describing something in ways locals would understand? 'Distributed minds' meaning organizations, abilities corresponding to access to the systems in place that track people and give them magic... But why not just call them organizations - because the individuals are all mind-edited to be perfectly aligned, or constantly mind-controlled with no personality of their own, or... connected telepathically like some kind of group consciousness? There must be aliens who'd do better at it than humans but for all Tanya knows it works perfectly fine with human bodies given the right spells.

Deskari is the son of a 'divine' being and a 'mortal', his father left him an 'inheritance' of access to the divine systems and powerful magic and maybe a few clone-bodies but he doesn't really understand how it works, while Areelu is an ordinary person working on reverse-engineering the system, with Deskari and the 'abyss' faction backing him giving her the necessary cover from other divine factions. Described like that, Tanya would much rather work with Areelu and not a bunch of obedient little church-goers! What a pity that Areelu's backers also sponsor barbarians who indiscriminately slaughter civilians and are now gunning for Tanya's head.

...enough woolgathering, mustn't forget this is an urgent situation, she could be attacked at any moment!

"The more pressing question is whether we should immediately relocate somewhere Areelu is less likely to find me!"

“Well, if she has the information to magically search for you at all, she could probably find you anywhere, the question is how much more does a more defensible location and a location far away from the Worldwound reduce the odds she successfully dominates you?”

He considers the question for a moment.  He also needs to figure out how to explain it to Tanya in a reassuring way.

“One detail you may not yet know, some types of spellcasters, such as witches, need to prepare their spells in advance and are quite limited in number of spells per day, especially compared to yourself.  When I was briefing Terendelev, she mentioned Mendev’s normal backup teleport strike team was occupied by an unusual incident consistent with Areelu having been involved.  So if she’s spent her spells for today, she would not have the spells to come after you until tomorrow.  Assuming Deskari shares enough information and has the leverage to order her to come after you in the first place.”

He considers the question again...

“Although… worst case… if she’s shifted her sleep schedule around, and she’s using a common magic item to reduce how much sleep she needs, or actually, she’s a century old archmage, she probably has a few extra tricks for refreshing her spells.  And if Deskari has enough information to let her find you and pressures her to act on it immediately… yes that’s a very worrying scenario and even if it only has a few percent chance, the downside is catastrophic.”

He thinks about places to retreat to.  He speaks quickly but precisely.

“As a temporary measure, Terendelev could plane shift you directly to Heaven or Axis.  Axis would want payment to protect you.  Heaven would protect you, but our security measures may conflict with your desire for mental privacy.  On this plane, Lastwall has protections laid down by the Archmage Demigod Arazni back when she was alive, and they would have a decent chance of stopping Areelu.  I can leave immediately to get Terendelev to teleport you to Lastwall if that is your preference?”

“The biggest downside of such an option… if Areelu Vorlesh uses discern location and thus learns that you’ve retreated to such a location, she might infer that you are doing so as a defensive precautionary measure.  As it is now, she and Deskari may falsely assume your magic is as potent defensively as it is offensively..”

Tanya sees no reason to bluff to present a strong front if there is an alternative of being actually strong. That kind of complicated stratagem requires a much better understanding of the situation. Besides, defense in depth would be prudent no matter her abilities - if she can afford it.

"If the answer is non-obvious we should go to the most secure location and consider our next move there. Unless it's so expensive we will soon be forced to move to Lastwall anyway and don't expect to prepare or think of anything better during the time that gives us. My mental privacy is only negotiable once we've exhausted all alternatives, including locating and striking Areelu preemptively, or Deskari before he can give her orders."

She would normally have many questions about Axis and Lastwall, but as long as she trusts Jon and Terendelev the answers aren't actually worth delaying her safety for.

“Lastwall it is.  My upper quartile estimate for finding and returning with Terendelev is 30 minutes.”

He takes off immediately.

Tanya can't keep a blast charged for 30 minutes without firing it, it's bad for the orb, and she can't speed up her reactions more than a bit for 30 minutes because that would be bad for her brain. She powers up her barrier as much as she can (they never tested it against local magic...), flies up to the middle of the room in case a split-second reaction is what saves her, focuses on mana signatures - she has no idea what they're doing, they keep appearing and disappearing as people cast spells, but if she senses anything close she can speed all the way up quickly...

She is trusting the locals entirely. With her life and, apparently, her soul mind. Not only to protect her from the other locals, but to describe to her what the threat even is, to tell her everything she knows about the world. 

She has no evidence mind-control exists beyond their word, but if she keeps blindly trusting them things like that they might as well be able to mind-control her. Tell her she'll be tortured (by someone else they despise, of course) unless she does something they coincidently want, and she'll spend her life doing their bidding. But what alternative is there? She knows nothing and no-one here. (Did she set herself up for this? Did someone else?) What else can she do, go ask random people on the street for their opinion? Terendelev probably is the patron of this city, she told her that in public when they first met - unless that scene was set up - the locals probably do follow the church Jon works for - random people won't know how to escape mind control by an 'archmage' - unless the whole setup is a lie - for all she knows the speaking-in-tongues spell could be feeding her lies! Who knows who set it up! Maybe whoever did it is listening in on everything she says!

...Paranoia is unproductive. Tanya sees no better option, therefore she'll go with this one. Instead of worrying, she should focus on her surroundings so she can respond quickly to any attack. She is a rational man, which doesn't mean she'll always win but it does mean she'll always retain her dignity.

She paces rapidly in the air, and worries.

Anevia’s back five minutes later.

“I got the book, and two other reference books that looked helpful - where did Jon go?”

"To get Terendelev to teleport me. We decided it was urgent to relocate to a safer location in case Areelu attacks before continuing planning, current assumption is Lastwall unless Terendelev has a better idea. For some reason he thinks it'll take him up to half an hour to find her. ...For some reason it took him half a day to realize this was an urgent risk that could be mitigated!" He wasted time on religious doctrine when he could have been productively considering Tanya's safety!!!

“In the past, there has always been at least weeks or months, usually years, between incidents we suspect Areelu Vorlesh was involved in.  And those incidents always showed signs of extremely careful planning, the sort you get with weeks of observation.  So her coming after you immediately would be very out of character, and she’s been consistent for the past half a century.”

“Although… a critical attack on a Wardstone thwarted by an unprecedentedly strong and exotic foreign spellcaster is the sort of thing that might draw her interest…”

"You do not properly appreciate what I can do. Or what someone mind-controlling me with no regard for my own safety or sanity could do. ...I shouldn't say more, there's always the chance we could be spied on." Anevia doesn't need to know, anyway, certainly not right now.

Considering the worst case... If someone made her use the Type-95 orb and pray to Being X, and completely ignored her own sanity and mental strain, and didn't need to distinguish friend from foe... And if that someone teleported her around while giving her magical protection from the local countermeasures, and had reasonable intelligence and set up some diversions and countermeasures... And if what she saw today represents the peak of local aerial combat ability, or if anything else they have can't respond quickly enough because she wouldn't need to stay in any one place for more than ten seconds...

There might not be a city left standing on the continent by morning.

Anevia hadn’t even remotely considered that Tanya might have been holding back, but now that she’s thinking of it… If her every attack was like the one on Deskari and she kept it up for a few hours…

“Right, okay, uh, what’s the priority while we’re waiting on Terendelev?  Uh… I brought a nice history of the worldwound with woodcut maps, a reference on common 1st through 3rd circle cleric spells, and a reference on espionage and counterespionage spells, covering cleric, inquisitor, bard, and wizard spells, covering spells up to 7th circle although the higher circle magic it covers is much sparser.”

Her normally unflappably manner is noticeably perturbed.

Ugh. Tanya is going to have trouble concentrating while being on edge and she doesn't want to be distracted.

"Can you briefly tell me about Lastwall? How much better are their defenses, what their relations are with Mendev and Terendelev and Jon's backers - and Deskari - what they're likely to want in exchange..."

“Sure, Lawful Good country founded by Iomedae around 800 years ago when she was mortal.  Lots of lawful well run institutions.  Iomedae as a God backs them picking lots of cleric and paladins there.  They practically run their major decision making off Communes, even with how tightly they ration them.”

“For major relations…”

She’ll get into details, maybe it will take Von Degurechaff’s mind off panicking about an Archmage…

”Deskari personally hates Iomedae, in addition to Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil being directly opposed, he had some type of grudge against Aroden, who was Iomedae’s God when she was mortal.  Terendelev works really close with Iomedae’s church… I should mention technically Lastwall has tried to keep clear lines on what is the church and what is Lastwall’s government, most people assume they’re synonymous, and to be honest I couldn’t tell you the exact difference myself.  Lastwall holds a major section of the Worldwound line, notably the fortress where adventurers from anywhere in the world can come and help.  Mendev… we have kind of a complex relationship although we are both closely aligned with Iomedae’s church… Lastwall has pushed for institutional reforms that Mendevian nobles views as foreign interference?”

“As for demands or exchanges, they will definitely provide protection for a while just for what you’ve done for Kenabres and the Worldwound already, but if you want to hang out using their most secure spaces indefinitely they will probably want some type of commitments or exchange of service?”

She keeps her voice calm and level to give Tanya something to ground her.

Tanya missed it the first time around, but she'd had time to review the orb recordings of Jon's long-winded explanations so she has a bit more context on Iomedae! Jon said she became divine after doing a lot of presumably-impressive things. Since then, she has apparently made a name for herself as an organizer and reformer in the 'heaven' faction. This would be an excellent recommendation if not for Iomedae's mind-reading habits, but Jon was sure she'd stop it once asked, so Tanya isn't ruling out going somewhere more directly controlled by her. Honestly, she's probably not safe from Iomedae in Mendev anyway.

Lastwall is trying to separate church and state, to the point this is a notable fact about them, but apparently it's notable because they're failing to separate them? That doesn't speak well of Iomedae's organizational capabilities, although it could be due to incompetence down on the ground. 

The most important fact is that they have shared interests and shared enemies with Mendev, Terendelev, and with Tanya personally. They'll be invested in not letting Areelu or Deskari mind-control her, because they might use her against Lastwall. That's better than simply paying for protection, as long as they don't outright betray her.

(Going to another country might also give her a second opinion on things, so it's probably a good idea regardless, at least in the short term.)

"Understood. Can you estimate how well they'd be able to protect me from Areelu? And do you know how will I communicate with Terendelev or others here, and are those methods secure?"