Some years later...

Tanya struggles towards consciousness. There's a sharp pain in her chest and she can't see or move - she's being jostled, carried, she was wounded - brought back by her men? she can't recall any details, can't rule out she's been captured, she has to resync her orb has to get back in the air, up up up, she can feel magic all around her -

(If she was captured they'd take her orb, except - the thought fails to complete -)

Every time she tries to spin up the orb she loses her grip on consciousness and she claws back -

"Heal," a voice says suddenly very clearly.

It looks like Terendelev's Heal managed to fix her.  He takes a moment to puzzle over it.  If it was merely that she had that much adventurer toughness he would have at least seen a little progress from his own cure spell, so it must be magical in nature.  A wound magically resistant to healing isn't that strange.  But the woman's attire and equipment are also strange.  The safe guess for the unusual is some form or another of demonic plot.  His current best guess for the latest ongoing demonic plot is a systematic false alarm to get them to waste resources and disrupt the festival.  He could already see it playing out.  The city's real defenders would expend some scrolls and potions and wear themselves down going on high alert, the demons and cultists would laugh it up at how manipulable the Desnans were, and the Desnans would offer some half assed apology if they even bothered with that much.

"Who are you?  What were you doing outside of Kenabres?  What is your equipment?"

He would normally prioritize thoroughly looking at her alignment, she has multiple pieces of equipment he doesn't recognize at all.  Even with all the insane impractical gear adventurers come through with, he thinks he should at least have a guess what more of her equipment is.  Detect Magic.  

The healing and the clear questioning are enough to stop Tanya from immediately bolting into the air; she does jump up from the litter and onto her feet. 

These people don't have uniforms or any insignia that she recognizes, they're not Germanians but could be Federation or the Council or any number of partisans. The Federation army isn't so incompetent they'd fail to recognize her as an enemy - no that's worst-case thinking, some of them probably are that incompetent. Mage healers are rare, nobody would heal a random stranger - this isn't a hospital, field or otherwise - 

"I'm Tanya," she says, it's a Russy-sounding name and unlikely to clue them in if they're not already. "Who are you and where are we?"

Detect Magic will see a pair of bracers (abjuration, weak) and a - something inside her clothes or maybe just inside her (universal, strong).

What are these things strapped to her hands. They look almost decorative but if these people put them on her they may be relevant to healing her or something? She'll refrain from tearing them off for the moment.

(Tanya has no concept of magical restraints. If you don't want a mage to cast, you just take their orb. Her orb is fine and she is busy pouring mana into her barrier and spinning up her flight spell. This will draw the attention of any mages here but when they come calling she will be ready.)

He wants to get a closer look at whatever that strong aura is, he isn’t remembering any standard item that would look like that.  What’s even more worrying is all the rest of her gear that doesn’t have an aura.  If she’s an adventurer it would be a bit odd to spend all her money on a single powerful item, so maybe she’s concealed the auras of the rest of her gear?

He realizes she is casting something.  Silent and stilled so she’s a powerful caster, or she has some exotic style or form of casting, or some combination of both.  He continues to concentrate on his detect magic to try to get a better feel for her casting.

She's probably disoriented from whatever demon attack injured her.  Terendelev can tell she is casting something just from the feel of the magic, but can't identify it.  She'll ask Hulrun afterwards what he saw with his detection.

"Peace, both of you.  You are in Kenabres, at the Worldwound.  Prelate Hulrun is concerned for the city's safety.  Why don't you take some time to collect your thoughts.  Enjoy the festival, and then the Prelate can ask you some questions later?"

That spell felt entirely unfamiliar and had no visible effect.

Tanya speeds up her reactions so she can think. (It'll be visible that something is wrong with how she moves, she never practiced doing this stealthily, but he chose to show her that he's a mage and so he knows she's one. And they let her keep her orb, which is an incredibly weird thing to do with a stranger unless you have reason to assume they're an ally!)

She was... unconscious and then roused abruptly? Or she lost her memories - no, she was on a litter, there's blood on her shirt and her chest still hurts. So she was healed magically, presumably by this man.

It's better to keep questioning these people instead of random strangers, even if they (reasonably) think they can question her in turn. Her priority is to know where she is, how she got here and why, and whether the locals will turn hostile if they realize she is Germanian. They weren't speaking Russy, her accent is terrible and would give her away - 

...what language were they speaking? She... doesn't remember speaking Germanian but she also doesn't remember speaking any other specific language - shit, her memory is bad. She really really hopes it's passing trauma but she's rapidly getting a terrible premonition.

She has never heard of Kenabres or anything called 'the worldwound', and the people here look remarkably... rustic. There's an archery competition and - Halloween costumes? (Isn't that a States tradition? Well, it must have come from somewhere.) It's a welcome surprise to see something as peaceful as a harvest festival, she hadn't expected to find one within three days' flight but it stands to reason that any remaining pockets of peace and prosperity would be located where she isn't.

"Can you tell me how I came to be here? I don't remember how I came to be wounded and I wasn't conscious on my way in." That's safe enough to say, but the risky part - "I'm afraid I don't recognize the name Kenabres, can you say how far we are from the closest major city and in which direction?" She's not quite asking 'what nation are we in' but that's only diplomatic cover, not actual cover.

Terendelev notices the signs she is speeding up.  A still silent haste, so this woman is at least 5th circle or something exotic.

"Kenabres is in Mendev... which is a kingdom in Avistan, on the border of the Worldwound.  Nerosyan is the capital of Mendev" 

She is careful to talk slowly and clearly.  It is kind of odd an adventurer could come to the Worldwound without learning of Mendev?  Maybe her memory issues are more severe, or maybe she is still disoriented.

"And you were brought in on a stretcher ...where did the people that brought you in go?"

He's not believing it.  Adventurer's regularly lie about their past, often for stupid reasons, making his job more difficult.  And this isn't even the first time he's heard "mysteriously lost memories" for bullshit adventurer backstories.  Of course, it's also a lie (or technical truth, with the right spells to interfere with memory) cultists might try.

Terendelev's question alarms him.  He gestures to some of the guards.

"Start looking for whoever brought her in.  Take them in for questioning."

He starts detecting alignment, cycling through Chaos, then Law, then Evil, then Good.  He can detect alignment without the slightest nonmagical tell he is doing so.  It'll still take a few rounds for each detection to resolve with the full set of information, so he'll stall for time and try to catch this women in a lie or incongruous detail.

"What do you remember about yourself?  What Gods do you worship, why are you at the Worldwound, what is your last memory?"

He isn't bothering to hide the skepticism in his voice.

Tanya is strongly Lawful Evil!

"I don't recognize any of those names, Mendev or Avistan or the Worldwound, and I don't know why I am here. I remember... fighting, but I do not remember being hit." She needs to go through the recordings on her orb but it can only play them back, it doesn't summarize. 

What language are they speaking. Her mind insists it is not any of the ones she knows, which is obviously absurd - she thinks the word 'hello' in every language she's aware she knows, Germanian Francois English Russy Ildonian Lebadonian Akinese... Waldstatte uses the same ones... Ispagnan? 

They are all as she remembers - her knowledge of languages seems unimpaired - and then she imagines saying 'hello' out loud and she gets a completely different phoneme! What the fuck!!!

Shit, speaking in tongues is a religious thing, isn't it. She doesn't know much about it, the nuns who brought her up didn't mention it but that just means it's not a Catholic thing and she already knows Being X isn't Catholic.

She does not worship any gods but the only nation where that would be an unproblematic answer is the Russy Federation and even they don't normally make it a priority concern. (Also, 'gods' plural?) Saying she's Christian will force her to pick a denomination and she's probably not in Catholic territory; she stays silent.

(She still has no idea what he's doing with that magic but he's definitely actively doing something!)

Did whoever bring her here just dump her in front of the local healer and leave? Even if they had pressing duties, they ought to have taken the stretcher! Also, "take them in" sounds wrong, is he implying they should be arrested - well, as a matter of military discipline he may be right, but this place really doesn't look very... military?

...she can't get out of saying anything at all about herself - well, she can, but probably not without refusing to acknowledge the local legal authorities or something. But she can try to get some more answers before she takes the plunge.

"What are the Kingdom of Mendev's relationships with the great powers of the world - the Unified States, Russy Federation, Albion Commonwealth, Francois Republic, Germanian Empire...?"

There are many small kingdoms in the world but the only one that matters to her is Ildoa and she's pretty sure she's not in Ildoa (because she can think in the Ildoan language and this is not it???) - there are some self-styled kingdoms subject to the Commonwealth but she'd have to fly past half the Federation to reach any!

Okay, this might be the result of some sort of accident with teleport or planeshift?

"I'm sorry I don't recognize any of those places."  What is a polite way to suggest maybe other continents don't know of the regional powers of... Tian Xia?  Arcadia?    Nevermind, she'll try to provide context with the least number of assumptions first.

"Mendev is in the north of Avistan.  South of Avistan is the Inner Sea, in which is the city of Absalom, which holds the Starstone and is where Aroden, Norgorber, Cayden, and Iomedae ascended."  

Distant adventurers should have at least vaguely heard of the Starstone even if they somehow don't know of the Worldwound?  This woman is speaking fluently, but she might have had a tongues up?  Actually, if she is running low on duration on Tongues, they should figure out what to prioritize and/or find someone that has a Share Languages available.

"Are you speaking with a Tongues?  Do you have a guess how much duration is left?"

Well, she's Lawful at least.  It isn't impossible for demonic cultists of odd temperaments and backgrounds to read Lawful, but there is one way to rule that out quickly.

"Are you willing to swear that you neither serve nor ally with with nor compact with demons, demonic powers, or demon lords?"

Irabeth and Terendelev often seem upset at the idea of pushing against people's Law like that, but Hulrun doesn't care if he causes a demon cultist to stop reading Lawful and in fact views it as a good thing.  He'll go back to concentrating on Detect Law so he can see if she suddenly loses her Law.

She obviously doesn't have a tongues up (or else is concealing it, which would be suspicious), but he hasn't had a chance to explain to Terendelev what he saw with his Detect Magic.

Obviously she is speaking with her tongue - is the woman really asking if she's speaking in tongues???

Is this what it feels like to be actively contaminated insane. Should she just resolve not to speak in languages she doesn't know - she really can't see how that would help and also she can't just decide to stop understanding them!

"I swear I'm not serving or allied or... compacted... with demons, demonic powers or demon lords, and never have," she says smoothly while reeling inside. This is easy and also true. Unfortunately that's the only easy part.

"I confess to some... confusion, regarding the language we are speaking. I don't seem to recognize it and - even if there's something wrong with my memory, it does not seem possible that I've forgotten learning an entire language to fluency - I apologize, I realize this sounds absurd."

"What is today's date, please?" There's no way she forgot multiple years. For one thing, she would have grown at least a little!

Tanya continues not to recognize any of the place-names or local cultural heroes referred to.

He relaxes just a touch at hearing her oath.  The rest of what she says is even more absurd though.  Probably she's "just" a patsy for some demon sneaking into the city, but he doesn't think he's heard of any memory alterations that would hold up against a heal.

"It is the 16th of Arodus 4718 Absalom Reckoning."

He'll start with pointing out the obvious contradictions.

"You can cast spells Silent and Stilled but you've never heard of Tongues or Share Language?"  His skepticism is obvious.

Actually, he's wasting his time.  "I'm going to lead the search for the 'people' that took her in." 

He looks around and then jogs over to some guards to give them instructions.

She'll take over here then.  She'll start with a detect magic of her own. 

If Tanya is paying more attention now, it is notable that this spell features loudly and clearly enunciated words, with spoken syllables, sweeping arm motions, and intricate hand gestures over several seconds that occur in synchrony with the way the magic is shaped and released.  Tanya's translation spell is also suggesting the etymology of the syllables of the words for "detect" and "magic" are related to the spoken syllables.

"What magic items are you carrying?"

It's certainly noticeable that she's doing this - traditional local ritual, or whatever it is - but words and motions can't affect magic, so Tanya mostly ignores them. ...if it's a magical detection spell it's not like any she's ever seen but she's not an expert in non-combat spells let alone foreign ones. She's never heard of spells called 'silent' or 'stilled' and if the other two are meant to be names of spell formulae the implications are -

There are no spells that (safely, reliably) affect human brains on the level of knowing things! Admittedly magical research is proceeding at the pace of the world's fastest technological revolution (so far) and who knows what the other countries are keeping under wraps, but if she doesn't know it means Imperial Intelligence doesn't know, or doesn't think it likely she'd encounter any in the field - perfect knowledge of a language would be useful for spies if nothing else - did she somehow... fly into a foreign secret magical research center during her period of memory loss... and was mysteriously injured and then healed by local language-spell researchers, who are not under military or private-company secrecy so probably academics...

That is absurd on several levels, not least of it being that anyone qualified to be a magical researcher would recognize the countries she named! Who even uses a calendar in its fifth millennium, the Jews?

"I have a computation orb." Which the woman already knows, of course. "No other items that interact with magic." 

...this talk of magical items is more evidence of the magical researchers theory; a lot of industrial equipment interacts with magic and so do the (very bulky, not man-portable) specialized military magic sensors and radars, but researchers are the only people Tanya knows who habitually carry magical devices in their pocket.

Is she lying about or overlooking the arm bracers?  Or well, she said ‘interact with magic’.  It’s a particularly exact wording.  

The computation orb is probably the strong universal aura (maybe a silent and still metamagic effect, like a metamagic rod?), but before addressing that, Terendelev will give this woman room to correct herself.

“And do you have any magical items with effects other than interacting with magic?”

Like an abjuration effect hiding the rest of your gear’s magic?

"I am... unsure what kind of items you mean." Is this because of the language - "I am using my magic and nothing on me is interfering with it in a way I can detect. And I have no items meant for magic to be used on or with them, aside from my orb."

"...since I was unconscious for some time it is possible something was planted in my pack or elsewhere on me. I do not recognize these," she points to the bracers, "and I would not normally put on something like this for decoration." In fact she's going to take them off now, on general principles. Thoroughly going through her pack will take some minutes but there's nothing in there she particularly needs to keep secret (apart from some written materials that she can refrain from opening) and she should really verify whether she has everything she remembers carrying, or possibly something else stamped with a future date from her perspective.

“I appreciate your thoroughness, under the circumstances it seems prudent.  And yes, your bracers are a magical item, some type of abjuration effect.  Give me a few rounds and I will attempt to determine what they are.”

She concentrates on studying them.

“I think it’s a protective effect, simultaneously granting a minor armor effect and effecting fortitude, reflex, and will.  It is luck-based, not resistance like a typical cloak.  It’s a nonstandard item, luck effects on items are rare.”

So it wasn’t hiding or concealing anything which is a relief, but it is a puzzle why someone would just give this woman such a unique item and why she (apparently) doesn’t remember having received them.

She looks over the rest of the gear.  Some of it seems standard, but some seems strange, and the style and make of even the standard items is unfamiliar.

“Is the rest of your gear in order?”

Rummage rummage. "It is as I remember it, to a cursory inspection at least. I do not know how to use these items, or recognize them from your description." 'Luck-based' presumably means they are probabilistic in some way.

Tanya hasn't heard of anyone using magic through items (two of them in this case!) separate from their orbs and it sounds like it would be very hard to do in combat. The main downside of standardized orbs is that you can't modify their spells; researchers probably do make one-off custom items sometimes, although these have no moving parts or other similarity to orb technology that she can see. Some industries probably do have dedicated apparatuses - not important.

...enough of this. The other man has left and this healer (researcher?) seems friendly, so there's no reason to put off her most pressing question.

Tanya creates an illusionary orb of the Earth with the continents and major nations' borders and capitals marked. It's three feet across, enough for quite a bit of detail although she doesn't remember enough geography to provide that detail for most of Africa and South America. "Could you please point out where we are?"

She looks over the globe carefully.

“This area looks vaguely like the Inner Sea?” She points to the Mediterranean Sea.

“But the overall shape of this continent is wrong for Avistan.” she point to Europe. “And I don’t think these match Garund or Casmaron either?” She points to Africa and Asia.

It would explain the differences in magic items and some of their miscommunication so far, but “- are you a human? I wasn’t aware any other planets had humans, but I suppose Elves look relatively similar and they came from Castrovel.”

On the one hand: multiple planets? Elves? ...Space travelling elves? Tanya being on another planet? No, something is definitely wrong with Tanya's mind (she suspects she knows what) and it is so much simpler to assume she is insane, or the woman in front of her is insane or lying, than that everyone in her the world is utterly wrong about fundamental physics.

On the other hand, Tanya is possibly the only one in the world with personal experience of another world beyond that. Instead of pseudoscientific babble like 'alternate dimensions' or 'timelines' would it not, in fact, be simpler to assume both worlds exist in the same universe? (But they appear to themselves to be in the same place in that universe -) In which case there would, indeed, be two worlds planets with humans on them. And as some scientist or other has remarked, two is not a natural number.

Did Tanya - do whatever she felt she had to do and then, in her contaminated state, prayed to that bastard who - sent her bodily to a different planet somehow? (With a chest wound -)

She knows too little. She will entertain this extremely provisionally and gather more information.

(From the outside, it is evident that she is shocked and then spends several seconds in subjectively-much-faster-than-that thought.)