There isn't really something he could throw here, the soldiers are between him and the rest of the corpses. He manages to stall for a bit, mostly due to the attackers moving like he had a shield, but he's now cornered.

Surprise!

His legs are shaky, and his breath is wheezing, but he manages to stand up again.

Two of the Sardaukars are suddenly distracted by swords unexpectedly jutting out of their guts, while the third one gets a kick to his knees that makes him tumble to the ground.

Oh. The dead guy was actually still alive. And quick enough to attack both of them at once.

In that case, he'll simply sink his greatsword into the chest of the remaining one – but slowly. Conrad is capable of learning.

Are there any others? If there are none left in the room, he'll stick his head out the corridor.

There are no more soldiers here in the corridor.

"You fought well. Thank you for helping protect my Duke."

And then he collapses on the floor.

He doesn't understand what the guy is saying.

Is he actually dead this time? He'll check to see if he's breathing.

He's wheezing. Still alive, but not for long.

Ah. Does he want to save him? Probably...yeah. He's kind of already thrown in his lot with these people, so.

You don't get to choose which side to fight for. What would his life have been if he was born in Lastwall and not Cheliax? The only thing you can do is make the most with what you have.

He'll sit on the floor cross-legged next to him, take out his spellbook, and prepare Infernal Healing in his remaining first-circle slot. It should take a minute.

Is he still alive by the end of it?

Somehow... yes. He's really stubborn.

In that case, he'll touch the man on the forehead and he will get...a very sinister and doomy feeling...but will also feel a lot of his wounds resolving over the course of a minute. Provided he didn't get any parts amputated. The spell can't fix those.

He thinks that he's pretty strong, so he doesn't think that it will fix all his injuries. If he was one of the weaker soldiers from earlier, then it would cure him completely. Still, it will work to stabilize him.

Uh, that's an unfamiliar death farewell.

He really expected to be dead by now, except... he isn't?

Doom feelings aside, he's not feeling bad actually? What?

He tentatively gets into a sitting position, and coughs up some blood, but upon checking the wound in his guts he finds that he's not bleeding anymore.

"Are you some kind of Bene Gesserit witch? I'm pretty sure I was dying, then you touched my forehead and I don't seem to be dying right now. I'm not complaining, mind, just - confused. Who are you? Who sent you? Why are you dressed like that.

... pardon me, I'm being incredibly rude with the person who just saved my ass."

He extends his hand.

"Duncan Idaho."

Oh no the person is talking aaaa.

Yes, Conrad does indeed look very out of place in his thick twill uniform meant to be used in the frigid arctic Worldwound. It is drenched in sweat and blood – both of his own, and others. He doesn't seem to have noticed.

He has no idea why the man is putting his hand towards him. He looks at it, and then at the man's face, and then back at it again. Cultures on Golarion don't really do touching for introductions – that's how you get touch spells cast on you. Even village peasants know that.

Right. Should he prepare Tongues? It's third circle, and there are many useful and powerful spells he can cast at third-circle. But speaking to this man seems like it would also be very useful. He could compromise and prepare Comprehend Languages instead, except that only lets him understand, and it's less of a good deal than it normally is, because he no longer has any first-circle slots and has to use a second-circle one for it.

He looks at Duncan some more and then decides to sign 'one' at him, with a fist with the index finger extended. Hopefully he understands that as meaning he should wait. He will open his spellbook again and starts to prepare Tongues. He is so glad he learned how to prepare spells quickly. He didn't actually learn it because of the battlefield utility – he learned it so that he could spend the remainder of the one hour allotted to spellcasters for spell preparation working out.

It looks like he's playing a lyre, but also weaving, but also making shadow puppets. It looks very complicated and intricate.

The dude's not shaking his hand. Rude. But also, he saved his life, he gets some slack for that. A lot of slack.

He's... asked him to wait (?) and now doing something weird with that book? What's with the hand gestures?

You know what, he'll wait. It's fine. Still beats bleeding out on the floor.

It finishes, and he closes the book. He casts Tongues. It involves saying a few words – different words from when he cast Infernal Healing.

"Hello," he says in Galach.

"Oh, so you do speak. Did you get anything of what I said before or were you still concentrating on whatever you did to save my ass?"

"No. I don't speak this language. I cast Tongues so that I could speak it."

The name of the spell comes out in the original Taldane.

So he's outing himself as a third-circle wizard and not a fighter, but he doesn't think him knowing that about him would be bad. And it's already very obvious that he's not from here.

"I have no clue what you're talking about, seems like you're speaking it fine to me. And I don't know what Ton-gs is.

Anyway, I'm Duncan Idaho and I'm in debt to you. My life is already pledged to my Duke, but you have my respect and support.

Now.

Who the hell are you, and where the hell do you come from - dressed like that? You didn't come with the Sardaukars, that's for sure."

Fortunately, 'hell' doesn't register to Conrad as 'Hell', or he would have had Feelings.

"I am Conrad Ferrer, unit wi...just Conrad Ferrer. I'm from the Worldwound," he says, as though the black and red uniform with the insignia of Cheliax on it doesn't give away where he's really from.

"I think I am from very far away." He doesn't feel like explaining that he came here somehow after dying after he defected.

"Never heard of Worldwound, must be far from the usual routes." He tentatively stands up. He's bruised but... mostly fine?

"Well, if things go well we'll have plenty of time later. Right now we should get out of here. When they get no news back from their advance team they're going to send reinforcements, and I don't know about you, but I don't feel very optimistic in taking twenty or forty more of them.

There are probably going to be a couple more guarding the thopters, but if we disguise ourselves we might be able to fool them long enough to get into melee range."

He removes the armor and uniform from one of the dead soldiers, then starts undressing.

"And I bet even Sardaukar's uniforms are going to be more comfortable than what you're wearing right now."

The usual routes...? The Worldwound is not on any major shipping routes because it's the Worldwound. Though perhaps that's just his ignorance. Cheliax supplies its soldiers in large part via teleporting wizards carrying Bags of Holding – it has enough wizards for that.

He also has no idea what a thopter is. Tongues is giving him the impression that it's a...machine? A vehicle? Okay.

"Where are we going? Are we going the same way the people who where running away behind you were going?"

The adrenaline rush of the fight has started to fade, and he now realizes that he's boiling inside his uniform. And his knife wounds are starting to hurt. He follows his lead and undresses, and looks at the bodies and picks one that seems similar in size and shape to him. And also isn't cut up in inconvenient places. How intuitive is the uniform? Can he figure it out? Also, he wants to Prestidigitate both himself and the uniform clean before putting it on...he doesn't have Prestidigitation anymore. And he's not going to spend another minute putting it into a second-circle slot. Okay. He'll deal with cleaning himself up tomorrow.

He realizes belatedly that he doesn't have his ring of protection or his locked gauntlet anymore. Well, better to lose them than to lose his sword or his spellbook. Those are irreplaceable.

The uniform is pretty intuitive, except for the helmet, which is made of some weird material, transparent as glass but clearly not glass to the touch. If he looks at Duncan he will be able to put everything on on his own.

"We could try that, but they're probably gone now, and I prefer to give the Sardaukars a very obvious target so that they chase us instead of them. I think if we get back to the entrance we'll probably find three or four thopters, or possibly a troop transport. Try to copy how I'm walking and pretend everything is fine, we need to get close enough before they have a chance to shoot us. And let's hope there's only the pilots there."

Not to worry, Conrad was looking a lot at Duncan. So he will definitely be able to put everything on on his own. He'll revert his greatsword into its dagger form.

"I can do that. Who are they? Are they – is one of them the Duke you're pledged to? Also, my Tongues will only last for an hour. Do you think the mission take more than that? I assume we're going to try to commandeer one of the vehicles for you to drive."

They get walking. "They are my Duke Paul Atreides, Lady Jessica his mother and the Imperial Planetologist Kynes. Still don't know what Tongues is, but I definitely hope the mission takes more than one hour, because if it doesn't it will be because we're dead. My plan is to commandeer one of their vehicles, yes, and then draw the heat on us to allow Paul, Jessica and Kynes to escape safely. If for some reason we manage to not die, I know how to find the Fremen villages, and then we can reunite with them."

There are three ornithopters circling above, and a troop transport on the ground. There are only two Sardaukars next to it, sitting and having a conversation.

"Tongues is what lets me speak your language.

I am very interested in not dying. What does drawing the heat on us entail? I don't know how to drive the vehicles."