But from his curent vantage point of "standing up" he can see Shadowheart a ways over there, lying unconscious on the sand.

...okay it is simultaneously less strange and stranger that someone else managed to survive, too. Less strange because it's not something weird that happened to him specifically, stranger because why is there something specifically saving the not-thralls of the mind flayers?

Well, he supposes maybe the mind flayers did this somehow. He'll have to see. For now he'll check on his new friend, grabbing the dagger the githyanki gave him from where it was lying on the sand over there on his way.

She jolts awake, pushes him off her, and rolls to her feet.

Then blinks. "I'm alive."

"And so am I, yes. Shall we move on to more pertinent things or do you also want to remark that it is daytime and water is still wet"

"Why are we alive?" she asks, frowning in annoyance.

"A more pertinent question! One that I am, alas, not equipped to answer."

"Hmm." She looks around, then at him again. "I do not know where we are, either."

"Ah, well, too much to hope for, I suppose."

"No matter. We need food, shelter, and someone who can do something about the parasites in our heads."

"'We'? Why, darling, I didn't know you felt that way about me."

"We have better odds of survival together."

"That we do. And I may have a lead: the githyanki seemed to know of a way for us to get rid of our parasites. Which stands to reason, given the givens. Assuming she survived, she might be our best chance."

"A big assumption."

"Nevertheless."

"Hmm. We follow the tentacles, I suppose.

"...and thank you."

"Whatever for?"

"Rescuing me. On the nautiloid. I have a life debt to you."

"Oh, darling, these sweet honeyed words of yours will get you places."

"...let's move."

"Lead the way."

Leading the way is easy enough: as Shadowheart said, follow the tentacles.

And boy are there tentacles.

The nautiloid's many gargantuan tentacles decorate the landscape, forming barriers and arches and dangerous terrain but most importantly giving them a direction to find the crashed nautiloid. And although they can't literally just climb a tentacle and follow it—if nothing else, that would be extremely dangerous and reckless—they can follow the environmental storytelling. So they walk past these dead fishers—

Wait, fishers?

Indeed, it seems like the nautiloid crashed straight onto a fishing village.

Excellent. Astarion will acquire clothes and no longer be naked as on his nameday. People will be deprived of his beautifully sculpted form but as they say, sometimes concealing is sexier than revealing.