I concur with most of that, and I will emphasize even with a large well prebuffed strike force it would be incredibly risky.  Still, this might be a very rare opportunity to strike back at her.  Also, a clarification for Tanya, spells that create conventional illusions that appear externally, cause hallucinations, and interact with mindscapes are all usually classified as Illusions.  And it is a type of magic witches lack in, but spellcasters of Areelu’s caliber are known to sometimes incorporate entirely disparate forms of spellcasting and thus bypass such limits.

She said the date several times, ostensibly for notes she was dictating or memorizing. First one in 4715, last one I remember is 15th of Arodus 4718. I don't remember experiencing anywhere near that much time; I have many disconnected episodes, none longer than a few hours. I remember several different-appearing locations but none outdoors. There was one other visible person besides Areelu some of the time, she throws up an illusion of a dretch. I didn't have the tongues spell until later... 

Tanya doesn't quite understand the memory of Areelu saying 4715 AR, she didn't speak in tongues then but the meaning of those particular words comes through clearly. It seems to be an effect of the tongues spell she has now but she can't remember most of the rest of what Areelu said clearly enough to translate it, which is very suspicious!

I would really have expected to have grown enough to notice over three years. I remember her cutting my hair at the end to match the length it had when she abducted me, but I ought to be at least a couple of centimeters taller if I'm done growing.

The illusion could have been cast by someone else to frame her, or if she's working with someone, or - doesn't she have a whole organization behind her? Couldn't she find someone else to do illusions, even if this was her own project? 

Tanya would really hate to conclude that they learned absolutely nothing because the enemy could have fabricated any illusionary set of memories they wanted. Even if she shares the memory and they confirm it was an illusion, they won't know whether the illusion was cast by Areelu! On the other hand -

Why would someone have bothered showing me illusions - or suspected illusions - of which I could recall memories, unless they expected me to believe them? Illusions are a very obvious thing to suspect. Maybe the enemy is just toying with us. Is there a way for me to share the memories?

You can send more than just words over the telepathic bond, although it might take some practice if you’re trying to get an entire memory and not just images from it.  There are some more obscure and specialized spells that can transmit entire memories, but only a minute to ten minutes per spell depending on the exact spell.  So start with trying to use the telepathic bond and we can see if that will suffice?

The demon cultists don’t actually have that many high circle spellcasters.  So getting someone that can create a greater mindscape or cast a permanent hallucination would be hard for Areelu, they are both 7th circle spells.  …well she could just cast from scrolls, but she would need to buy them and we’re unsure how much income she can earn acting anonymously.  If you were one of her main projects she could afford the expense even with our lower estimates on her purchasing power.

Also, lower circle illusion spells, such as audiovisual hallucination or major image might work, each casting can last as long as the caster can concentrate and Areelu should be able to get a caster that could help, but leaving absolutely no tells or flaws with them is actually a specialized skill.

As for you apparently not aging, there are standard known approaches for putting someone in stasis.  And Areelu likely has some nonstandard ones.

A point that might need clarification:  Outsiders like myself or like demons typically don’t have general spellcasting like mortals do, just a handful of innate spell-like abilities.  Whereas, to explain a few examples, wizards can cast any spell they can write in their spellbook and stably prepare, and witches can cast any spell they can teach their familiar and stably prepare, and clerics cast any spell their god can stably package and allow them to thus prepare (with some additional limitations from divine treaties on clerics’ list of available spells).  So even entire hordes of demons don’t have the range and versatility of spells available one high circle well-rounded witch or wizard might.

To put me in medical stasis she'd need a reason, Tanya thinks. A plan or contingency in which to use me, and either preparation or waiting for the right moment. So in addition to assuming she set me up, we should assume she chose the best time to act and wasn't constrained by having just met or captured me. Terendelev kept saying Areelu is known for complex long-term plans, and this fits. (Or someone else is framing Areelu; there's no monopoly on long-term planning.)

So the 'gods' are distributing magical technology unevenly between factions and classes, driving them to adopt different strategies and specializations. Tanya already knew they were fostering warfare and internecine competition; this makes it sound almost like they're simulating various equilibria... no, this is useless speculation at this point, for all she knows they just enjoy variety in their blood sports. 

I'll try telepathically broadcasting a memory, if it doesn't work I'll need instruction. Areelu standing over her, talking in a language Tanya didn't understand and now doesn't remember clearly enough to translate outside of a few words. Herself a prisoner in her own skull, tied down and not feeling or doing anything that feels important to the memory. Her native magic sense sensing many things that Tanya entirely fails to understand. A faint bitter scent.

(She has no idea how to send non-speech over telepathy but she has no real idea how to send speech either, it just works without Tanya being able to describe the experience in words, so she tries focusing on the memory while sort of - intending to share it.)

How much of that came through? Can you describe to me what you learned about the scene, what senses were included and what level of detail you got, or should I quiz you on details to make sure? ...maybe if you send me the same thing back I'll notice what's wrong or missing.

So we’re back to guessing at her long term plan, and if she really did wait that long she must have had one.  Could she have underestimated your abilities?  How thoroughly did she seem to study them?  Maybe she was figuring Deskari would kill me but you still save the city?  …And without my micromanagement your existence is well known and you become a publicly known hero?  I don’t see an endgame that benefits her out of all of that…  

The speech is coming through garbled, like you didn’t actually form a proper memory of it at the time.  Since dates came through… maybe you could try a memory with some numerical quantities, the wish wording I used supposedly actively divines that sort of information and restore the memory with it.  On my end I could obtain scrolls for divinations with retrocognitive aspects to see if any could recover the words from the garbled memories of them.  Maybe speechreader’s sight if you have a memory of her lips moving?

Individual elements of memory are all coming through clearly, just not all at once together.  Like I can get your magic sense or a bitter scent, but not all tied together.  Like here: [she sends back an exact reflection of what Tanya sent]

Speechreader’s sight needs the physical presence of the speaker.  But I think your general approach is along the right lines.  Your wish wording was obscure enough I don’t have an initial guess about spells to combine for enhancing the memories further, I will consider it…

She had me verbally describe all of my spells but only had me demonstrate ones that didn't use bullets, and never at maximum power or to the greatest effect. As far as I know, none of my magical abilities are a secret from her, and she must have extrapolated their exact limits either from my words or by reading my mind. 

(The idea that Areelu simply wouldn't bother confirming the exact limits of Tanya's abilities when she could just ask is too bizarre for Tanya to consider. Areelu is presumably skilled in analyzing magic in her own right, and she had her in a laboratory with instruments, for years. If Areelu heard Tanya can use a spell and didn't follow up by asking how long she can keep using it, it's presumably because she already knew, or else the memory is missing or fabricated.)

...she did not ask me much about military tactics and strategy. For whatever good that does us, since we don't have the Germanian Army or even my own company. Or about Earth technology, including the manufacturing of the orb or the rifle. We should of course assume that these memories are partial even if they are true, or else that she read my mind or had other sources of information, or had someone reverse-engineer them since she had access to them for several years. The rifle would be a much easier starting-point; it is not nearly as complex as the orb and there are simpler versions I could tell her about. Even with this world's tech base, with a good team and funding replicating it is probably only a matter of time. 

So either she has already done that and doesn't mind losing her lead, since she let me keep my weapon, possibly because she intends to act soon. Or else ordinary armies and weapons are completely irrelevant to her plans, no matter which faction has them. ...in which case she might have sold the information to someone else in the meantime, since money is always useful. I should brief you on what rifles can do without magic. There are also many other useful technologies I could have told her about, but for this one she had a working example.

As for the memory, I don't understand her words myself - I didn't seem to have a tongues spell at the time - so I don't know how accurately I remember them; I was hoping you could understand them. I do remember seeing her lips at least some of the time, but I can't phonetically lip-read and she didn't look quite human anyway.

Is my having the tongues spell now supposed to let me understand words I previously heard in languages I didn't speak? Wait, she can just check that, she heard plenty of snatches of languages she doesn't speak or doesn't speak well over her life. ...hmm. It looks like I might just be bad at remembering the exact sound of words in foreign languages I don't understand. I do remember some other scenes where I did understand what she was saying. It's not obvious to me how to send all the senses at once.

I can come up with some guesses from the spoken sounds you remember, but the sample you showed you me has too many probable guesses to get an unambiguous meaning.  We could try others, maybe one will be too ambiguous for your Tongues, but not beyond my ability to guess two or three possible sentences for.

Heaven has put some effort into developing a psychological profile of Areelu.  It is possible she was distracted by some details about you and meticulously focused on them at the expense of others.  Overlooking the potential of non-magical science and industry wouldn’t be out of character for her, or many other Archmages.  Overlooking studying your magic more extensively would be very odd and out of character…

I have a guess about her limited studying of you, but it is really upsetting, try not to overweight it, it is just an initial guess…

We'll have many memories to go through, what should I try to prioritize? And should we return to the safe zone? Terendelev, do you need to leave now that we have a telepathic link again?

What is your guess?

Tanya has never worked in Intelligence so for all she knows this is a perfectly normal situation, but she feels she doesn't know nearly enough to even formulate guesses. They can't assemble the events they know about into a coherent narrative but even if they could it would still be the narrative fed to them by the enemy! They are reacting, not acting, to something the enemy chose to do at their leisure, and that is literally the worst possible position to be in.

Lastwall is pulling together some people for me to take back.  Their normal rapid response team and some of their backups and alternates were all called away earlier today on several different emergencies.  So I have a few more minutes at least.

My wild guess is that Areeu overdid it with the cursed wound, whatever purpose it has, and was having trouble keeping you alive, or at least could predict a very sharply limited remaining lifespan, even with optimal healing magic.  So, she put you in stasis, to direct towards whatever opportunity she could use you best in.  If you can remember her inflicting the cursed wound and/or healing it, that may provide confirming or disconfirming evidence.  If she cursed you in one of your much later memories that strongly disconfirms this theory.  If she cursed you in an earlier memory that is weak evidence for it.  If she healed your cursed wound that is evidence for it.  If she healed your cursed wound multiple times that is additional evidence for it.

If a specialist has a better guess about what the curse wound is doing that would be useful evidence.  This is just an initial wild guess.

Keep in mind that the dates you heard are likely fake.  Although actually, if you can only remember them because of the particular wording Terendelev used she may not have anticipated you recovering that information.  There are too many obscure variant limited wish wordings with slight nuances for Areelu to anticipate which Terendelev would have picked, assuming she anticipated that much.

It isn’t that obscure of a wording, but I agree it is possible we could have decided on a more standard one.  I think Tanya should have her restored memories in order, though she may have to work through them a bit to determine the exact order, even if the dates themselves are wrong.

Tanya lingers over Terendelev's offhand sentence. The rapid response team and their backups and their backups were all called away, on several different emergencies, as cover for the real emergency in Kenabres, unless that was cover for something even bigger! Such flawless operational planning! Why the hell does the enemy have it! Tanya is used to working for the side with the awe-inspiring operational planning, damn it! 

Their enemy is very cunning. (Or possibly Deskari and/or Areelu are very cunning and Tanya's enemy is pretending to be them, and may or may not be cunning in their own right.) Which implies they don't also have brute force on their side, since the combination of force and cunning should have won already. ...does that mean Tanya is now working for with the brute force faction? What an unsettling realization. She rather hopes these are two equally cunning factions, probing each other during a long and hard-to-break stalemate. Maybe defense is much stronger than offense here, despite all the teleports. Or maybe the divine factions make sure the war doesn't end quickly... what a depressing thought, but it would be just like them. 

The wound in my chest existed in most of the memories, but that doesn't tell us how close together they were. She did various things to it, multiple times, sometimes healing and sometimes reopening it. I can share those memories but if sharing takes a similar amount of time to the episode being remembered, it will take days to go over all of them. 

The theory that Tanya might have a very short expiration period and be effectively a single-use weapon is very distressing. It still begs an explanation of why someone would use her in this particular way; there are too many missing pieces. If there's going to be terrible news it should at least be terrible news that makes sense.

It's possible that the curse is going to kill me, and even that the enemy couldn't prevent that, but that alone doesn't explain most of the evidence, Tanya thinks out loud. Terendelev could have died or I could have died if events had gone differently. I could have not assisted you, or not until later. I could have left the city instead of taking sides in a war between aliens. Terendelev might not have healed me, or not in time, if I was really dying of the curse when I was brought in. In the chaos of a surprise attack it's unlikely the enemy's goal would be accomplished, and so why bother using me at all? Even if the enemy didn't care what I did, if I was discarded as useless because I would die soon, why not keep my gun and orb, why let me go and tell you these things? I cannot believe that of the same entity that carefully drew away all your response forces before attacking.

When you have eliminated the impossible... could today have been less chaotic than it seemed to us? I was found near the city and brought to you in time to be healed; we haven't yet questioned the men who found me. I was the first person to be attacked, in the square where we were at least, giving me a reason to side with you and lessening the surprise of Deskari's attack a few seconds later; the demon who attacked me might have been a double-agent, or mind-controlled. After I attacked Deskari he immediately fled, rather than trying to teleport on top of me or to a different place out of sight in the city, and he never came back even though he was the demons' strongest fighter and most of the rest of them didn't flee; he might have been forewarned about my power, or he might have been playing a role. While I was leisurely flying around sniping demons, it took them hours to try to teleport on top of me even though their force was getting weaker over time, but then they tried it anyway instead of fleeing; perhaps they were being sabotaged or misled. We decided to come here, which caused my wound to reopen; that might have been an obvious move but we could have done it much sooner or much later, since we did it the moment we realized the need, so I'm not sure how that contributes...

If I do die, can your gods revive or reincarnate me or do I go straight to Pharasma's torture dungeon. ...and if Areelu held me and I had died, couldn't any of her divine backers do it? This is not at all in response to the higher prospect of imminent death! This is something she rationally needs to know regardless! Tanya absolutely knows how to keep acting rationally under threat of imminent death and is even used to how that feels! (She is not yet used to being threatened with eternal torture and isn't in any hurry to try to feel appropriately about it, beyond being obviously committed to avoiding it.)

Deskari and Baphomet are not believed to currently have any 9th circle clerics, and they are not strong enough to directly elevate a cleric to 9th circle, and their innate magic isn’t flexible enough to cast arbitrary cleric magic by themselves.  Areelu herself can cast some of the magic for restoring the dead to life, but the strongest spell for doing so, the 9th circle spell True Resurrection, cannot normally be cast by witches.  This is relevant because some forms of magical damage persist through being raised except by the strongest forms of resurrection.  So it is possible your cursed wound was beyond her healing or resurrection but we might have a chance with the strongest form available.

As for your speculations… the demons are mostly very disorganized.  Rallying demons for the attack on Kenabres would have looked like Deskari and Baphomet personally rounding up especially powerful demons and extorting or bribing them to in turn round up lesser demons, with useful coordination or planning only happening among the most trusted of the most powerful demons and cultists.  Areelu is something of an outlier in the plans she pulls off, but Heaven’s analysis is that she personally carries out her plans with her full range of spells, with only a few if any allies contributing and direct mind control or at least thorough vetting with mind reading and very clear incentives of those few allies.

If we could determine in advance if your wound will make you unresurrectable, we could petrify you and ship you to Heaven.  You would then spend many millennia in stasis, until we’ve eventually won, either defeating Pharasma herself or at least occupying the entry points of all Evil afterlife’s to redirect the souls Pharasma sorts there.  But even the most optimistic estimates for achieving such a goal are multiple millennia.

To clarify, Heaven could theoretically bypass Pharasma’s system altogether, but she is much more tolerant of merely stalling her system for millennia than trying to outright defy her by redirecting a soul in a way outside her system, and Heaven, for the most part, gave up in the option of such direct defiance in negotiations long ago.

The disorganized demons you describe probably could not have pulled off simultaneous distracting attacks with military precision and without the plan leaking. You assumed Areelu handled it because she is known for careful planning. If she also released me in Kenabres it would have been an act of half-deniable sabotage. We don't know why she would do that but more importantly, would she really do something whose outcome was so uncertain? If she wanted me to wound or kill Deskari she could have controlled me directly. If she wanted me to become your ally she would surely have had opportunities that did not involve attacking Deskari or sacrificing a large allied force in a doomed attack. Whatever her plans she should not have been indifferent between me wounding Deskari, killing him or not attacking him at all, and all three could have easily happened. To ensure the exact outcome observed I think she would have had to warn Deskari, which begs the question of why both of them would bother with this convoluted and risky plan.

At this point is seems like a more parsimonious explanation that whoever held me captive was not Areelu and only used an illusion to look like her. We still don't know their plan or goals but at least we don't have to ascribe insane behavior to Areelu and possibly to Deskari, whose goals we do know.

Resurrecting her can be tried if she dies but cannot be relied on to resolve the underlying problem or possibly even buy her time. Putting her in stasis with a time limit imposed by Pharasma wouldn't help anything. If you send Tanya thousands of years into the future, all her hard-won knowledge and skills will become completely worthless. ...unless she invests her money now, and trust the managers to grow the fund? Can you really trust a fund for thousands of years? Maybe she can come out of stasis to sign off on major decisions. Do the locals even have something like a stock exchange and is it really known to grow reliably over thousands of years? ...anyway, it's something she can try because that's better than not trying but it's only relevant if there's a solution that she can't afford now but might be able to afford in a thousand years with wise investments.

...actually.

If the curse can be fixed with research but not in time, could I go into stasis and leave my money to fund continued research on it? I could promise to transfer knowledge and lend my skills to investors in the project, to the extent I don't have time to do it before my projected death. Behold: Tanya, the genie in the bottle who will grant three wishes to those who free her from her curse!

It would have taken an Archmage strength witch spellcaster to mask the Tongues and Comprehend Languages the way they were.  The only other known active Archmages on this continent are Razmir and Morgethai, and they are both wizards... admittedly Razmir has behaved erratically enough a wild and unpredictable plan like this might be his doing.  And I guess Nethy's High Priest, even if she uses divine magic more than arcane, has the flexibility and inventiveness of an Archmage, and although she is eccentric and talks as if she was insane, she doesn't actually behave that erratically.

Technically speaking, casting from a staff uses the caster's strength, so a non-Witch Archmage with the appropriate spell on a staff could have also cast the spell you are thinking of.  But there isn't a known, standard staff design with that spell.  Also, there is another Archmage Witch sometimes active on this planet, Baba Yaga.  Also Baba Yaga has taken her name from an Earth legend, that is another possible point of relation with Tanya.  I should have mentioned her sooner, but I thought she only had a brief visit to this planet once in the past century… 5 years ago, as evidenced by Irrisen’s monarch changing.  I don't have a good guess at her motives, Baba Yaga seems satisfied with the way she has established herself and she mostly avoids major conflicts.

He’s kind of irritated about overlooking Baba Yaga, a near eidetic memory isn’t the same as arbitrarily good ability to make associations and leaps of intuition.

The right research or an Archmage specializing in anti-curse magic... we are possibly getting ahead of ourselves, that was an initial wild guess.  We will want to invest some specialized or expensive divination magic in determining more about the cursed wound, and do it quickly.

I thought of another theory about why someone would want to release Tanya into such chaotic, unpredictable circumstances... if they wanted to level Tanya for whatever reason, sticking her near an upcoming battle with lots of strong demons that would make her into an enemy of the demons so she is incentivized to keep fighting would be one strategy.  Tying her to the worldwound with her cursed wound would ensure she has to hang around where demons can try to assassinate her, forcing her to continue to grow stronger.

Speaking of which, Tanya's cursed wound has picked up to a solid trickle of blood now!  The pull of the throb is getting more insistent at a relatively faster rate than the blood flow, compared to their earlier respective rates of growth.

She points out the wound. Is this the time to get more healing and/or to go sit in an antimagic cell about it? Jon can stand outside it and relay telepathically to Terendelev. (When the enemy is putting you under time pressure, you should do your best to delay.)

I don't understand why the list is restricted to this continent. Why do teleporting people even care about continents except for geology purposes? Would this Baba Yaga be able to take me from an Earth in another reality? The same goes for Areelu, I think Jon implied earlier that only some - special class of entities was suspect for interfering with other realities? What would Baba Yaga's plausible goals be?

As for me - being made stronger - I do not at all understand the required conditions. Jon said it was linked to - being in danger and killing people? Why couldn't that be accomplished while mind-controlling me? ...The implication is that the enemy thinks they can regain control when it suits them. If Tanya really believed that she'd rather die except for the fucking torture. Supposing it happens, what does it serve? In what ways would the - system - try to empower me?

I overlooked the relevancy earlier, but Baba Yaga also has some connections and history with the First World, the World of the Fey, which some of the rare alternate reality related magics also touch on.  Baba Yaga… seems to want a nation-state for access to resources, which she has, and other than that mostly stays uninvolved?  If she was researching magic and wants to see how your magic grows under conditions which allow this planets spellcasters to grow in circle, that could be a motive?

He doesn’t think he explained circling up to Tanya right before so he’ll let Terendelev answer.

You didn’t mention the alternate reality thing before?  I’ve heard of the concept in a speculative contexts before… this seems not urgent, but maybe important for figuring out what spellcaster was involved?

It’s not exactly an organized system.  The dominant theory about, to use a few variations in terminology “circling up”*, “growing stronger”*, “gaining adventurer toughness”*, “gaining extraordinary abilities”*, and “leveling”* (to use the adventurer slang) is that contexts where one’s will is intently focused on fateful struggles causes one to absorb and internalize magic innately.  I guess if your planet doesn’t have that, it’s good evidence for the variation of the theory that leftover positive energy from cleric’s healing channels is a major contributing factor.  Or maybe all the divine interventions on this planet compared to your planet makes it more ‘fateful’.  And it’s hard to artificially induce at lower circles and basically impossible to artificially induce at high circles, so under this theory our unknown Archmage wants you struggling of your own free will to maximize your growth.

Anyway, my two best guesses about what to do about your wound  are to teleport you back towards the worldwound and heal you again, or have you hide under an antimagic field.  …I’m somewhat worried, antimagic fields repress magic, so it could come back faster or even build up and come back all at once if you spend a while under an antimagic field then exit it.  Lastwall's teleport capacity for today has been badly strained, and I've been using lots of my spells as well, so I would prefer not to need to make a return trip, but it is easily worth it to keep you alive.

*these each come through with moderately different connotations and denotations but all seem to be suggesting a single concept.