The woman shuts her eye again and groans a third time before trying to sit up. It takes her a couple of tries but eventually she manages to slump up and forward, drawing her legs in for some more support and pressing the heels of her hands into her eyeballs.

She stays there, motionless and quiet, for long enough that the feral man pokes his head out from behind the boulder, cookie crumbs all over his scraggly beard.

Tintin passes his omni-tool over her forehead, applying a thin layer of medi-gel, which should absorb through her skin and help the headache after a couple of minutes.

After a couple of minutes, he clears his throat. "Feeling better?" he repeats.

She flinches at the touch—she hadn't noticed him approaching—but relaxes after a bit and does seem to gradually improve in condition over those two minutes. "I—" she says, then starts coughing, throat and mouth extremely dry. "Yes," she croaks, eyes still shut.

Tintin, feeling a bit stupid, wordlessly hands her a glass bottle of lukewarm water from his backpack. It's got a bit of citric acid in it to make it taste less like lukewarm water, but she probably doesn't need the help. (He should set up a condenser at some point today to refill his water supply. His right hand lights up as he types up a reminder in his calendar.)

The woman wordlessly accepts it and gulps down the water very quickly. "Thank you," she says, a bit less hoarse, then clears her throat and repeats, "Thank you."

She looks around to properly take in her surroundings and understand what's going on. The feral man has hidden behind the boulder once more, so she doesn't see him, but her gaze pauses at the now-much-more-visible grass in the distance (and in particular the even-more-distant-like-days-away-by-horse-distant snowy mountains to the north), then at the remaining unconscious person, and then finally at Tintin himself. "Who are you? Where are we? What... happened?"

Tintin bows. "Valentin Saint-Martin. I have, frankly, no idea where we are except 'away from the hyena cultists'. I was hoping you could tell me a bit of what happened, I arrived somewhat in the middle. When I arrived you were drugged and laid out on an altar surrounded by said hyena cultists, and I doubt their intentions were good. So I tossed them around a bit, and took you and your two compatriots with me as I made a tactical retreat."

"...two?" she asks, looking at the single other person lying there.

"Yyyyyes. The other one has had some difficulty adjusting, and is currently hiding behind a rock. Please don't startle him."

She holds the heel of one hand against her forehead and frowns. "We were... I was... ambushed. Is the other man a Shemite? The one hiding behind a rock? —my name is Raziya, by the way."

"He might be - I'm not familiar with the local ethnic divisions, I'm... not from the area." He gestures broadly at his clothing. "It's nice to meet you, Raziya."

"What did he look like?"

"Long white beard. Pale skin like mine, maybe a bit paler. His facial features were more like mine than like yours. Big muscles."

"Not him, then," she sighs. "I was camping with a man, here—he tried to fight our ambushers. I hoped he was alive, but if he wasn't there then he's probably dead."

"I'm sorry. And you don't know this other gentleman?" He nods at the still-unconscious man with the darker skin.

She shakes her head. "They gave me... something to drink, it tasted foul, and then I was gone... There were visions," she adds, as if she's just remembered them. "It was... strange. A large animal... not a hyena but also at the same time it was a hyena, but it was also... an owl and a wolf and a tiger and an elephant... and it spoke to me." She shivers and hugs herself. "It knew my name."

"Hallucinations can be very disturbing," Tintin nods. "I've been drugged more than a few times myself, and it's rarely pleasant."

He shakes his head. "Are you from this area? Where are we, in the most general sense?"

"The... Exiled Lands. Since I'm not dead." She looks up at the wall, then at the grassy highlands. "I don't know anything else, though, I didn't know there were parts of it that... weren't desert."

"The Exiled Lands. Huh. And - stop me if you've heard of any of the following - Turians, Salarians, Asari, the Systems Alliance, mass effect, the Citadel Council, electricity..."

She just stares at him, blinking.

"Fantastic," Tintin sighs. "-oh, another consideration I had not considered: indoor plumbing? Running water?"

"—what, like rivers?"

"Like a very small river in your home. For the convenience of the homeowner. No? No. Well, it could be worse; I could be on Khar'shan. - actually Khar'shan has running water and electricity and I might be able to foment a revolution or something, which would be fun, this just sucks." He shakes his head vigorously. "No, no, I must think positively. Are there civilizations in the Exiled Lands?"

"Like... countries? I'm not sure how big it is here, there are tribes and things... I heard of pirates and I thought that was ridiculous because who would be pirates in a desert? But if there are places that aren't deserts then maybe there's oceans, too. Maybe this place is way bigger than I thought. Um, there's tribes of Darfari cannibals?"

"Pirates and cannibals. Grand. - why are they called the Exiled Lands?"

"It's where people who are exiled from their countries are sent. ...I don't know which countries, I know Kush and Shem and Stygia and Darfar and Cimmeria and... I think there are others."

Time for the other guy to start groaning as he wakes up!