“That sounds like a better question for Jon…”

She thinks a moment.

“Lastwall has ancient protections laid at the height of the Shining Crusade, when Iomedae was mortal, so they’re probably good enough.  And they had Arazni then, so yeah, they might be good enough to protect you indefinitely even if Areelu is actually trying.”

“I don’t think Lastwall has any long range communication better than the standard spells, did Jon  cover the standard spells for that?”

"If he did I don't remember it. I know the ones we used today, the telepathy and the whispers, needed to be cast at close range, so presumably something else unless they can be made to last much longer?"

“Sending is 4th circle, indefinite range, 25 words to a target and they can speak 25 words back, as secure as your target is.  Scrying is 5th circle, indefinite range, 10 minutes duration for a typical caster, creating a sensor that the caster and anyone else with them looking at the foci can see through, so 10 minutes reading a text prepared by someone you can scry.  Message, uh, the whispers spell you mentioned, can work through a scry, but inconsistently, I don’t think there is a technique to make it reliable.  So some random chance you get a ten minute two way conversation each scry.  Telepathic bond… that one’s not a cleric spell… I think it’s 5th for wizards?  Like an hour and half constant communication between several people.  For a fortune in diamond dust you can make it permanent, that would only be used in speciality applications you need constant instant communication.  And there is teleport, 5th circle for wizards, not a cleric spell, hundreds of miles range, the caster can take mail and messengers with them.  Oh and  clerics can call outsiders with teleport that can run tiny parcels back and forth that way, but outsider teleports can’t take passengers like mortal teleports can.”

She thinks a moment.

“Actually I guess indefinite range doesn’t reach other planets or we would hear more about them, so indefinite meaning anywhere on this planet.”

“And there are loads of one-off items that can do communication in all sorts of ways, but not any good standardized designs that beat the standard spells on price and range and amount of information.”

There is a little knock on the door.

“Terendelev is outside, one of the side entrances.  She is out of polymorphs so cannot enter herself and we would need to get clear of the teleport trap anyway.”

It has been under 15 minutes, much better than his worst case estimate!

"Thank you, Anevia. I hope to find a way to work together in the future, in less stressed circumstances."

"Jon, please take my shoulder again." Just in case. Tanya is going to be so on edge leaving the building. If someone wants to prevent her from reaching safety, this is when they'd strike.

"Will do."

He cast message again.

"That way, and then out that side door."

Terendelev is waiting right outside.  She really hates to use a 5th circle spell on this (and another one back), but she would hate Areelu Vorlesh puppeteering Tanya into slaughtering everyone in her city (she's gotten the impression Tanya, as deadly as she is, has been holding back to avoid collateral damage).

"Hold my claw." 

She extends one out.

"There will be security checks when we arrive, but they don't include mind reading."

There is a tug along some higher dimension and in an instant they are elsewhere, in walled area, surrounded by fortifications.

The tug is especially deep in Tanya's chest where her wound is.  In fact, even after the teleport it seems to keep tugging.

She looks at who is in charge of security and casts a message.

"I need your best secured room available, as soon as you can clear us.  This is Tanya Von Degurechaff, she'll need the forbiddance passwords, she's Lawful Evil.  I also have an urgent report to make about Kenabres and the Wardstone."

(She is not including Tanya in this message).

An inquisitor begins cycling through detections.  Someone else runs off to get someone higher up, Terendelev teleporting in like this outside of any plan or schedule is probably very urgent.

Meanwhile, the tug in Tanya's chest has gotten more insistent, pulling in a clear direction.  If she is paying attention she can notice it just barely start to bleed, like a small scab that was scratched open.

Tanya is on high alert and mentally sped-up so she has a lot of attention to spare!

The tugging is probably part of how teleports feel, hopefully it will go away soon? 

The itch in her chest - she opens her jacket to check - she's sure it wasn't there before? She took the time to check herself and all her equipment after eating, which generated as many as several questions regarding the equipment but she knows she was in excellent health and definitely not bleeding from her chest!

"Jon, is this expected?" she whispers. "I feel - pulled, starting with the teleport, and a tiny wound seems to have opened."

“No, that is not an expected effect of teleporting.  Not even a known rare one.”

Even as distracted as she is, she notices.

“Your cursed wound from earlier?”

She announces clearly so everyone can hear.

“I think we need a remove curse over here!  I think it’s a nonstandard curse with a bleeding effect triggered by a teleport.”

If Tanya doesn’t have any adventuring toughness, she could bleed out really fast.  Terendelev readies a heal.

The blood is at a solid trickle now and the wound is the size a paper cut.  And it’s growing just barely noticeably bigger moment by moment.  The tug is a constant pull and has a clear direction.

...she had a wound earlier, right, she never saw it before it was healed, she was barely conscious before then.

A 'cursed' wound sounds very worrying! Terendelev sounds like she knows what she's doing, but someone set this up and they knew Terendelev would be involved and so this probably doesn't end with an easy generic 'remove curse' spell.

Why would someone set her up to be injured if she's teleported? She didn't know it was the case so she teleported anyway, but if she did know she could have flown away, so why...?

"Pulling sensation keeps increasing. Pointing that way. Feels almost like a flight spell but only the sensation, I'm not actually moving..."

Tanya's own magical healing could close this wound. ...Slowly. If it didn't keep increasing - yeah, she can't deal with this by herself. She digs out a compress from her bag on autopilot but this is presumably not going to be enough.

Terendelev looks and thinks.  There is one obvious conclusion (although it could easily be a misdirection)…

"That is in the direction of the Worldwound."  (She says this over just the message.)

They were worried about Areelu Vorlesh becoming involved, but what is she already is?  She is probably one of the few people that could take someone from another planet.  But what is her game?  If she had someone really capable of singlehandedly winning battles that she could easily dominate, would she really waste them on some bizarre plot instead of just... winning?  They've know for decades that Areelu was some mix of either playing very cautious, holding back, not quite as powerful as an archmage ought to be, and/or playing for some goal not directly correlated with increasing the Worldwound, but this is outright ridiculous!

She makes another announcement.

"Can we get a Analyze Dweomer on her... I suspect something very unusual and important is going on..."

A cleric on duty channels energy in case it would help.  They know they aren't powerful enough to stop a cursed wound but it could buy time and their channels are less valuable than Terendelev's spells.

Any other minor aches on Tanya's body are instantly and fully healed.  The cursed wound reduces in size slightly and stops bleeding... for around 10 seconds before it resumes its bleeding and growing in size at the same rate.

The inquisitor on duty thinks carefully.  Terendelev finds money kind of annoying to track, but she is still aware how much a 6th circle scroll costs, so if she's asking it must be important.  "I'll authorize it, we should have at least one in reserve."  He nods and gives the order and someone runs off to retrieve it.

An older woman in plate armor comes up.  "The channel looks like it slowed it down?  Should I use my lay on hands to keep slowing down the bleeding while we wait on the Remove Curse scroll?"

"If none of your mercies are mind-affecting or emotion affecting... even just removing fear would count."

It would be just Terendelev's luck with interacting with Tanya if this paladin happened to have an obscure mind-affecting mercy.

"It might save me from using a Heal."

She's been able to be sparring with her spells, the fighting has been relatively easy thanks to Tanya.

The woman nods and lays a hand on Tanya.  This stops the wounds for another few rounds again.  Also, Tanya is completely refreshed physically almost as if she had a full nights sleep, with the most major difference being that her mind is unaffected.

Their instantaneous healing is truly miraculous incredible! It even removes tiredness, so a mage company with those spells could keep on fighting around the clock! And it sounds like they have spells that would remove mental fatigue too - 

But this is all academic as long as Tanya has a magically (?) cursed (???) eternally-growing wound. They will run out of healing spells eventually and even if they don't, she doesn't fancy life as an invalid who has to be healed every few seconds!

"Whoever set this up could have killed me. Or triggered the wound earlier. They don't want me dead. They're expecting us to - deduce and do something that will stop the wound from killing me, or else it won't simply kill me if left alone, but either way we play into their hands -" Unfortunately Tanya has no idea how to complete that thought. "The pull's direction might be a crude signal - I didn't feel it in Kenabres, can we move again to triangulate, how much of a risk would that be -"

"My Heal fixed it earlier, I was just trying to be efficient with conserving spells and resources, I'll try a Heal again if the Remove Curse doesn't work..."

Lastwall is probably going to write about a report about whether they should put their scroll storages closer to their teleport points.

"I don't have a lot of teleports to spare, but maybe one or two more would be worth it to try to triangulate the pull."

She makes another announcement.

"I have an unusual request... could we also get surveyor's equipment, the type you would use for turning loose magical senses into compass bearings?"

The Inquisitor is puzzled.  "I can try to have some retrieved, it will be at least a few minutes, I'll wait for one of the runners I sent for scrolls to get back, they should be back any round..."

The older woman in plate armor looks at Tanya.  "Would you like to be less afraid?"  Tanya doesn't look particularly worried, but it doesn't hurt to ask!

Jon has sharp enough hearing to hear whispered messages he is not included on and is paying attention to everything he can.  Is Terendelev worried this is a bizarre Areelu plot?  What plot could she possibly have that would outperform dominating Tanya then unleashing physics-explosions on the Worldwound line?

"No thank you but I appreciate you asking," to the woman in armor, because good behavior should be reinforced.

"I have a magnetic compass and a magic altimeter and rangefinder. If a healing spell fixes it until the next teleport, it might be intended to stop me from using teleports tactically, does that make sense? Could another teleport make it worse?" whispered to Terendelev.

"Those all sound helpful for triangulating it.  I haven't heard of a unique curse that triggers on teleports, I might need a Heal for each teleport if we do that.  I don't like burning through my Heals on this, that is a 6th circle spell slot, but this is plausibly urgent and important enough to figure out..."

She thinks.

"Can you go ahead and get a bearing before we try the remove curse?"