"So, are you willing to just hand over the information, or will I have to extract it from you the hard way?" Annabelle asked the prisoner. "I'd rather not have to dig it out of your brain, but I will if I must."

"You're an idiot if you think I'd just hand over information to you," the prisoner said. "If you want it, try and get it. I probably won't have what you're looking for."

"Really. So, you were just handed a unique piece of equipment and just informed that it ignored null-magic fields?"

"Information is need-to-know. That was all I needed to know."

Of course. Daraken wouldn't give out more information than necessary, especially to an operation that was likely a one-way trip. But even disregarding the possibility of a mistake, there was still information that could be extracted.

"Where were you given this weapon?" Annabelle asked.

"I'm going to choose not to answer that."

"Really. You hold absolute loyalty to Daraken, even though he's used you like a pawn? This was a one-way trip for you, you do realize that?"

The prisoner refused to answer. Talking clearly wouldn't get anything out of him. Time to move to the next step.

Annabelle initiated her psychic interrogation. She began to slowly infiltrate into the prisoner's mind. Even though taking control of an opponent was fast, extracting non-recent memories took more time. Rushing the effort could even result in the memories being destroyed.

She focused on his most recent memories, looking for everything he knew about the weapon. However, she was interrupted when the prisoner began screaming.

"What are you doing?" One of Annabelle's escorts shouted. He moved right up to her, trying to interrupt her effort.

"Being distracted by you, " Annabelle replied. "He's faking it."

"Prove it."

She broke contact with the prisoner (as the rest of the group could see by her aura fading away), but he continued to scream in imaginary pain. She had to admit, the infiltrator was a really good actor.

"We don't torture people for information."

"There is little difference between what I am doing now and what I do any time I seize control of a foe. He's just being a crybaby about it." And, she wouldn't torture anyone. It was ineffective for getting information, and even if it was, it didn't deserve to be.

The prisoner slowly quieted down, and Annabelle restarted her efforts. At the very least, the prisoner had made it take slightly longer to interrogate him.

Just so you know, Annabelle sent to the prisoner, the fact that your crying wolf gambit didn't pay off means that I can now do whatever I want, and they wouldn't believe you if you cried out in pain. Luckily for him, he wasn't evil enough for her to use pain induction on. Causing pain was actually not very effective at gathering information, and at best was moderately useful for dazing opponents in the middle of a fight, if they weren't capable of just pushing through it. Much more efficient to just directly attack their mental function.

Still, the thought of it spooked the prisoner and weakened his mental defenses, helping Annabelle break through to get into the valuable information.

Her initial hunch turned up no results. The infiltrator had been handed the weapon in Fiora, and as he had said, was given no information about the weapon other than how to fire it and the fact that it ignored antimagic defenses. He had snuck into Furion through a civilian portal, and snuck through the portal to Sanctuary while the Resistance was busy fighting the Blade Wyvern.

So what else could she get out of the prisoner? She aimlessly searched through his memories while attempting to think of a more useful thing to research.

So, we meet at last. A mental message, coming from the prisoner's mind, but not from the prisoner himself. There was some sort of telepathic link between him and another.

Excuse me, I'm busy trying to extract memories out of this prisoner's brain. Would you kindly wait until I'm done before interrupting? Annabelle readied herself for mental combat, preparing a burst attack.

That would be my agent, Annabelle. Wait, was this-

Daraken? Yes. I am the enemy your 'Resistance' wants to destroy. But they are misguided.

So this is the part where you try to seduce me to join your side, Annabelle remarked.

If we cooperate, we could both achieve our goals.

Are you sure about that? My current goal is destroying you.

On what premises? Daraken asked. Because supposedly, my ascension to the divine ranks would result in the destruction of everything in the known world? That is just propaganda spread by the church of Helios.

So you aren't seeking to become a god? That wasn't even her main point of contention, but the more she knew about Daraken's motives, the better.

No, I do seek ascension. But when I do ascend, I will not commit genocide.

And why wouldn't you? Annabelle questioned.

Daraken hesitated for a moment. Yes, if I killed everyone on the planet, I would gain a large supply of souls, and an immediate power boost. But I would render this world impotent in the long term. If I did not interfere, I would still collect everyone's souls when they died from old age, and would maintain a stable population that would continue to provide souls into the future.

Sure, Annabelle replied. But even if you're saying the truth, you're still an evil bastard.

In what way? I merely do what I must to achieve my goals. I've even improved life for everyone here.

Your closest minions were torturing members of the Resistance for their own amusement. That is unforgivable.

Daraken went silent for a time, before finally responding. That was not my doing. I had specifically instructed him that the use of torture was not effective. He then added, If he were still alive, I would kill him myself.

So, the actions of that monster were against Daraken's wishes? Even though she could see a ring of truth in it, she still didn't quite trust him. You still sent an assassin after me.

A logical response to an unknown threat is to eliminate them. I would have done it to anyone who had managed to cause a major setback to my plans and was then foolish enough to linger in an insecure area.

Even so, she didn't want to join someone who would kill her the instant she was no longer useful. Even though that was arguably the situation she was already in with Helios. I've already chosen my side. I'm not going to betray them.

So be it, Daraken declared. Suddenly, Annabelle picked up on a mental intrusion. A quick analysis detected thought disruption. Not quite mind control, but mind manipulation. Daraken was intending to charm her with magic to make her more willing to listen to his arguments.

I'm sorry, was that supposed to do something? Annabelle taunted.

As expected, mental defense comes with mental power. That was generally true. Others that Annabelle had trained in psionics had shown a greater resistance to mental attacks. Annabelle's own mental resilience was an anomaly, though.

But Daraken didn't let up on his assault. Instead, he shifted attacks. He attempted to implant a suggestion that the Resistance had tortured prisoners themselves. Though the compulsion aspect of that attack was effortlessly blocked, Annabelle was almost convinced by the premise. Then, she reminded herself that there was no evidence for that, while there was evidence of-

The next assault was a conventional mind blast, aiming to shatter her defenses in her moment of indecision and mental weakness. It might have worked on someone else, but her defenses held.

"What's going on?" one of the escorts asked. Annabelle realized that her aura was acting weird in response to Daraken's attack. Her purple stream of energy was being corrupted by reversed streams of multicolored energy coming from the prisoner's mind, where Daraken was staging his attacks.

"I'm busy," Annabelle replied, as Daraken launched another mental attack. "Save the questions until I'm done." Telling them that she was in a direct duel against their arch-nemesis in the middle of their Sanctuary would probably result in unnecessary panic. Yes, if he succeeded, he would probably win the war here, but he wouldn't succeed.

Is that your best? Annabelle taunted. Come on, you're an archmage and you can't mind-control one person.

That got Daraken to hesitate. He was smart enough to know she was baiting him. He dropped his attacks entirely, and Annabelle pursued back into the prisoner's mind.

Or, rather, the empty husk that was left of the prisoner's mind. It was the same empty mind she had sensed in the brain-dead assassin. This attacker had a similar killswitch, but it had waited until now to activate. The assassin's body slumped over.

"Well, this isn't good," Annabelle said out loud.

"What did you do?" One of the guards demanded.

He didn't have any useful information for you anways, Daraken stated. But his mind made excellent bait.

Annabelle was hit by a sudden attack, stronger than all of the previous attacks combined, blasting her from multiple angles. For a brief instant, she actually thought it would break her mind, but then she fought back and resisted before any serious damage could result.

"I was engaged in a mental battle with Daraken," Annabelle admitted. "I defended against it, but he killed his own agent to prevent me from extracting information from them."

"Here? In Sanctuary? If he can get into Sanctuary-"

"It was a sustained mental link between Daraken and his agent," Annabelle replied. "I could only be attacked because I opened contact with his agent."

Annabelle stormed out of the room in a huff. This interrogation had accomplished nothing of use, and if not for her mental resistance, Daraken would have been able to win the war then and there.

Then, as soon as she calmed down, she realized that something had bypassed her defenses, and embedded itself inside her mind.

She immediately stopped in her tracks, and spent the next minute analyzing the threat.

From her analysis, she concluded that she had been cursed. Or hexed. Or whatever the term was.

As far as she could tell, the anomaly in her mind was an inactive payload. There was a barrier around it, that could be shattered at any time to release whatever was inside it. Likely at a key moment, giving Daraken the edge he would need to kill her and win the war.

Did she dare to poke it, figure out what exactly the payload was? No. Not until she knew more.

But she could infer some things by its application.

Firstly, it was likely intended to be a secret weapon. She clearly wasn't intended to know of its existence. If it was intended to be used as leverage, Daraken would have made it obvious that he had leverage over her.

Secondly, it was unlikely to be an instant death effect. If it was a kill-switch, he wouldn't make it a hidden payload, he would trigger it immediately.

Wait, no, that wasn't right. It could easily be a kill-switch set to trigger mid-fight. If it detonated in Sanctuary Lunima would likely have a chance at resurrecting her, but if it detonated in the middle of a fight, especially one where Annabelle was expected to be a key asset?

But still, if it was intended as a payload, that must mean it wouldn't go off for some time. Thus, she had time to figure out what it was and how to beat it.

For now, with her first plan to get information on Daraken's firearms failing, she decided to head to the dwarves to see if they could reverse-engineer the weapons.

Then, she would investigate this curse further.

**********

As soon as the initial danger was over, Raiks mobilized Resistance assets to repair the damage to Furion.

One piece of good news was the Blade Wyvern's corpse. It was such a major find that Faris found it worth the risk to leave his workshop and head out into the field to analyze the material that could be harvested. Though the Blade Wyvern was not a true dragon and lacked the magical affinity of one (not counting the siege weapon that had been strapped to its back), dragon hide was still incredibly resilient, and its claws and tentacle tips could make incredibly effective weapons.

Further, there was only one death in the whole fight, and Lunima would be able to resurrect the man (though it would take her most of the day to regenerate his shredded, half-digested body to a state where his soul could return to it).

Though the civilians in the town had had the common sense to evacuate to the far end of the city to avoid being eaten by the Wyvern, several houses were left in ruins, as a result of the Blade Wyvern trying to force itself through city streets too narrow for its bulk. The town's morale suffered as a result; though it was Daraken who escalated the conflict and caused the collateral damage, his agents still managed to push opinion against the Resistance, blaming them for bringing the conflict to this town. To salvage the situation, they had Bouldos remain to provide aid and help in rebuilding the city, and promised compensation as soon as they gained the funds for it.

But he didn't have time to oversee the recovery operation, as he received a message from Darius. The news wasn't good; his team had been taken down, and he was pinned down in Arexia and would likely be captured within a few days. The Black Legion camp had been successfully destroyed, but that had forced the Legion to take over Arexia to gain new living space, and they now had the city on lockdown.

Could they mount a rescue operation? It was unlikely, to say the least. Raiks was about to call a war council to discuss potential options, but realized that half the council was busy: Faris was harvesting Blade Wyvern parts, Varn was involved in researching guns with Annabelle, and Lunima was busy resurrecting the dead soldier.

He left Derrin in charge of the forces in Furion, and retired to headquarters to think of his next move.