As a result of the recent capture of Furion, Raiks was forced to call an emergency council meeting. Faris and Varn were too busy utilizing the new supply of resources to attend, but Turb, Derrin, and Lunima were still present.

The soldier's representative for this meeting was Alicia. Raiks would have summoned her to the meeting anyways for her input, but she volunteered instead.

"Alright, here's the problem," Raiks said. "We took territory without a plan to control it."

"How is that a problem?" Alicia wondered. "Worst-case scenario, we just leave the territory and let Daraken retake it."

"Yes, we could just take the smart course of action and leave this place alone," Derrin suggested.

"On one hand, that does mitigate the risk to us," Raiks said. "But on the other hand, by leaving a territory that was quite literally given to us, we show to Garnoth that we are cowards, that we cannot stand against Daraken. That will significantly impair our ability to gain support."

"All due respect, sir," Lunima said, "but I do believe the whole 'territory control' business is seen as a formality more than anything civilians care about. To them, a change in ownership of their city means nothing more than their taxes going to someone else, and maybe some miscellaneous services being added or discontinued."

Daraken, despite his ambitions and quest for power, didn't actually pass any of the costs for his ambition onto his people. Cities under Daraken's rule remained mostly independent entities as they had for the years before, and in exchange for the taxes that he imposed on each city, he utilized his Black Guard to protect them. It made it especially frustrating to gather popular support against him when the Resistance didn't have grounds that a peasant could easily understand for their opposition to what seems like a perfectly just ruler. His true ambitions were kept in the shadows.

"The way I see it, we have three options," Raiks said. "Option one, we send our forces, establish a permanent presence, and attempt to hold the area against his assault."

"The problem with that," Derrin countered, "is that we might stop a few of Daraken's attacks, but then he'll commit enough forces to wipe our entire resistance off the map, and we'll lose the city and anything we put there."

"Yes, that's why it's the worst option," Raiks continued. "Option two, we abandon the area, and let Daraken recapture it at his leisure. But, we're giving up the resources we'd get from the area, as well as proving that we can't even hope to contest with his forces directly."

"Option three," Raiks finished, "is that we challenge him, put our forces there, but retreat once he sends a significant opposition against us. He'll be forced to react, and if he sends an overwhelming force against the area, we won't lose anything, and might even have an opportunity to counterattack."

"He won't send an overwhelming force, not at first," Derrin said. "Remember, to him, we're still an irrelevant rebellion, taking control of an irrelevant border region. He'll most likely send a few token assault forces to keep us busy and allow him to pretend to be addressing us."

"However," he also added, "if his opinions did change, he could disguise a group of elites as a minor force. That was what caused the disaster that resulted in Raiks being captured." It could be done either by having elite troops (with their enhanced physical attributes) wearing the equipment of regular Legion infantry, or by having a few mages use illusions to disguise as regular infantry (the method he had used to capture Raiks).

"Yes, that is a problem we may need to deal with," Raiks said. "We'd have to make sure he can't get us with a sneak attack. I'm not concerned about a fake weak attack as much as I am with a sneak attack through disguised agents."

Raiks' mind briefly blanked out, but he quickly recovered. He didn't pay too much attention to it.

"On a similar note, how would we make sure his infiltrators can't access Sanctuary through the portal we'd be using as our exit plan?" Alicia asked on a tangent.

"Sanctuary is capable of stopping an infiltration," Turb said. "He'd have to get his infiltrators past the null-magic zone surrounding the portal in order to have a chance of doing anything useful, and we can lock the gate to the portal chamber. They'd need magic to blow down the gate."

"Right," Lunima said, a bit doubtful.

"As we were saying," Derrin said, "we need to figure out when exactly our forces should retreat. If we get ambushed by an elite force, it could be too late to retreat."

Wait. Raiks' mind was disrupted again, and now he suspected someone was infiltrating his mind. He quickly recalled a technique he had read about for defending against mental attack, and fabricated an alternate persona to present to the attacker.

Wait, how did you know? Raiks picked up a mental message sent by the intruder, and quickly used that to figure out who was contacting him.

He responded, though he wasn't quite sure how. Annabelle? What are you doing?

I'm bored, so I decided to practice on how to read minds without letting the target know. You know, stuff that could be useful in espionage, Annabelle replied. Plus, I want to know what's going on.

This is supposed to be a confidential meeting, Raiks replied.

Daraken doesn't exactly have a way to get that information out of me. He has no way to hold me for more than a day or two, and even if he could, he would not be able to get anything out of me. Not in a million years.

Raiks wasn't entirely convinced. Even if she wasn't lying, she wasn't exactly demonstrating loyalty either.

"Raiks? Are you okay?" Lunima asked, taking Raiks out of the telepathic conversation.

"Yes, yes, just... distracted," Raiks said.

"As we were saying," Derrin continued from a previous conversation, "our forces should be concentrated on ranged firepower. We can block portal access around the city to force enemies to approach, allowing us to take them down at a safe distance, and if we are outmatched, giving us time to retreat."

"Good idea, as long as we can deal with stealth attacks," Raiks responded.

"I'll have some of the diviners focus on the area. A sneak attack that would threaten our whole force should be notable enough to be detected."

Annabelle sent another message. I don't know how elite his elite forces are, but if I was part of the defense, they probably wouldn't be elite enough to beat me.

When this meeting was done, he was going to have a word with Annabelle. Though she did have a good point…

"We know Daraken can counter and disrupt divinations," Raiks replied. "But I think there's another option. We can have Annabelle as part of the defense."

"She is an unknown factor," Lunima said. "We don't know how well she could perform in a defensive operation."

"Neither does Daraken," Raiks countered. "Daraken hates risks. If Annabelle's present, Daraken will be much less willing to send non-disposable assets when they could be easily destroyed, or worse, converted to our side. Her existence alone will weaken the attacks Daraken is willing to use."

He realized something else. If Daraken needed information about Annabelle before he could follow through with his attack, Annabelle shouldn't fight unless necessary.

"Furthermore, I believe that when she is deployed, she should be deployed as a reserve asset, to put further pressure on Daraken. He'll want to see Annabelle using her abilities, but to do so he'll have to commit a large amount of assets to the fight, and risk us gaining control over some of them."

The council spent a few more minutes debating exact details, but in the end, they decided to follow Raiks' idea. A garrison would be sent to Furion to fortify it against attack, with Annabelle present as a lynchpin in reserve. It would give Daraken an interesting dilemma, forcing him to figure out how much to commit to expose Annabelle's capabilities without losing too many key assets to her potential.

As the meeting concluded, Raiks searched outside for Annabelle. She had to be nearby. However, he didn't expect her to sneak up behind him.

"So, you want to talk to me?" Annabelle asked, as if she was innocent.

"Where were you?"

"I was on the roof."

Note to self: station guards on the roof of the headquarters, so they can watch the whole area, rather than just having them stand outside the doors for effect.

Raiks was almost afraid to rebuke her for fear of retribution, but he had faced mages in combat before. Granted, most of them were weaker than Annabelle, and his encounter with Daraken himself had not gone well at all.

"Okay, Annabelle. I don't care what abilities you have, or how powerful you are, right now you're part of an army. I expect you to follow the rules of this force, the same rules that I would expect anyone to follow."

Thankfully, Annabelle didn't become aggressive. "The problem is that I know more about my abilities than the rest of your council does. I wanted to make sure you had something useful in mind for me, where my abilities could be useful to your force."

"So you're saying you should be part of the leadership council?" Raiks said. "Completely bypassing the chain of command?"

"It's something you should consider," she replied. "You do have that open slot for a 'soldier's representative', after all."

"The intent is to have the representative be different each time to minimize the amount of information one individual possesses," Raiks said. "I will admit that your situation is unique enough that I may open a spot for you. But I am going to make one thing clear. If you are not invited to a council meeting, do not spy on it in any way. Do so, and I will make you regret it."

Would he remove Annabelle from the Resistance in such a scenario, though? Then she might be more likely to spread those secrets, and they would be out a key asset. Raiks hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"Fine," Annabelle said.

"Now, soon you will be assigned to guard duty in Furion. You will be assigned as a reserve asset, and are not to engage unless you either receive a direct order or are personally threatened."

He expected complaints for that plan.

"That sounds like a good idea," Annabelle said. "I've got limited reserves, at least for my best combat powers, and if there's no need for me to use them, I'd rather save them."

Raiks hadn't thought of that reason. Then again, he understood her power only a little more than Daraken did.

"What, exactly, are your capabilities?" Raiks asked.

"I think you've seen a majority of them," Annabelle replied. "I have telepathy that I can use to communicate, or as a vector for mental attacks up to and including mind control. I also have versatile telekinetic abilities, which I often use for blasts of kinetic energy, and to enhance my movement. That's how I got to the roof just now, and how I dropped down without creating any noise. And, I can create the vortex of destruction you witnessed previously, though it burns most of my energy to do it."

"So no secret tricks you're not telling me about?"

"None that are significant. Except maybe this one trick that can detect invisible attackers within a small radius around me, if I'm aware of them and actively spending resources to spot them. And an odd case where I got a premonition that let me evade an attack that would have killed me, but that could have just been luck."

"Anything else?" Raiks asked, one last time.

Annabelle considered for a few seconds. "I tried to teleport once. I suspect that's what brought me here. I don't plan on doing it again."

**********

The next morning, Raiks received a message from a different source: Julia, the high priest of Helios. Unlike Annabelle's telepathic communication (which was a direct transmission of thoughts and ideas), it took the form of a spoken message, sent across a vast distance.

Julia said. "Meet me in Dustreach, urgently. Annabelle's arrival has disrupted fate."

Unfortunately, she was rather cryptic. Apparently, whatever key information she held could only be disclosed personally. Even though she had been wrong before, it was likely at least worth paying a visit.

Officially, Dustreach and the temple of Helios were neutral to the Resistance. Unofficially, they provided some assistance, but not to the level of being a direct threat to Daraken. This primarily took the form of sending some of their priests to Sanctuary to provide healing, but sometimes it took the form of prophecies that often failed to hold true.

He decided that Annabelle and Darius would come along as well. Julia might be interested in seeing her first-hand, and Darius would hopefully be able to keep her out of trouble.

**********

While the Resistance had taken over a meaningless border province, Daraken had gathered crucial information on their new secret weapon. His stray supply cache, though an obvious trap, was just too good of an opportunity for them to pass up, so they had sent a lone scout to check on it. Though his apprentice waiting there had been slain, he still managed to get crucial information out of the Resistance scout first, information that he passed on to Daraken through a mindlink.

The escape at his blacksite had been the result of a psion, named Annabelle Lee. Her powers were exhausted in the escape, but she claims the null-magic field disrupted them.

A psion? All of his research had shown them to be nothing more than myths and legends (or at best something that gods had spent considerable effort defeating in the distant past), but now his plans were coming to ruin because of one.

He unfortunately didn't know anything about her actual abilities, having arrived after the deed was done. Even though the second-hand report claimed she was exhausted after the prison break (showing a potential limit weaker than his maximum capability), it could have been due to having to spend additional energy to overcome the null-magic field. And, he still wasn't sure how the escape had been performed, or what she was capable of.

Or, for that matter, how she had ended up in his prison in the first place.

He would not take direct action against her. Not until he knew exactly what she was capable of.

He spent the next hour channeling powerful divination magic, viewing into various potential futures. He found that in all of them, Annabelle would be in Dustreach tomorrow night, with little backup. It would provide the perfect opportunity to eliminate her. Or, at the very least, learn more about her capabilities.