Eventually Sendhei releases Raziya from the hug and turns to look at Taharqi, who's petting his horse.

    "Well, are you going to explain?"

Taharqi laughs but walks back over to them. "I got kidnapped by the Dogs of the Desert."

    ("Set burn their entrails.")

"And you know how we wondered what the hell was up with that? Mind control drugs and some divine influence is what was up with that."

    "Uh, what?"

"Drugs that make you pliant, then a god that makes you want to be around them specifically. The Dogs of the Desert worship a god called Jhebbal Sag" (Raziya and Horan both flinch when hearing that name again) "and I'm betting the Darfari have Yog to thank for their fervor."

    "And you... escaped?"

        "That young man there saved us with powerful sorcery," says Horan.

"Technology, but you won't go far trying to make the distinction," clarifies Taharqi. "He's Valentin Saint-Martin, or Tintin. He comes from... very far. Unreasonably, unfathomably far. And he is very powerful."

"I have more or less stopped trying to convince you all that my biotics are not a form of sorcery," Tintin comments, bowing slightly. "I have higher hopes for the omni-tool. Hello Sendhei! I have heard about you but I think that the stories did not do you justice."

    "What were the stories?" he wonders. "Did Taharqi downplay my attractiveness?"

"I don't think I commented on your attractiveness one way or the other," muses Taharqi.

    "So they did actually not do me justice!"

        "Ugh, I forgot how insufferable you are," says Raziya, but she's still sporting a watery grin and she sounds fond as she says it.

"It's so difficult to describe how attractive someone is, though! I don't know if I could describe how handsome Taharqi is, and look at him!"

    Sendhei looks at Taharqi thoughtfully then shrugs. "He's okay I guess."

"I have been proclaimed 'okay'," Taharqi says, starting to hop on over to the steps. "Come on, let me show you guys inside."

"That's simply unfair," Tintin laughs, following. "He's gorgeous. And - and dashing, and so strong -"

"They fucked like rabbits," Raziya stage-whispers to Sendhei.

    "And you didn't participate?" the dancer asks, archly, causing her to blush.

"W-well, no, he didn't want me to."

    "And you never had any one-on-one sessions with Taharqi himself."

"Oh, stop it you."

    "I'm just saying," Sendhei shrugs, laughing.

(Horan meanwhile is mostly far too used to her antics to really comment, and just rolls his eyes and follows them inside.)

The ground floor is a single room with one other door than the one they walked through (and they are immediately greeted by a tiger head) plus a set of wooden stairs that lead up. In addition to the Stygian carpet adorning the immediate entrance, there is an animal hide rug in the center. Next to a wall there is a single leather-bound drum that has seen rather a lot of use from the looks of it. Next to the rug and up against the wall is a bed with light covers and a pillow, and against another wall there is a wooden cupboard with various bowls and trinkets.

Tintin looks like he wants to simultaneously examine all of the Things, but ends up gravitating towards the drum first. "Taharqi tells me you use dancing magic," he says to Sendhei. "Is the music all drumming-based? I'm very curious about it, you see - I dance myself, but where I come from we can't do magic by it, so I'm wondering if I could pick it up."

    Sendhei perks up immediately. "It can work with any musical instruments, really, I'm just most used to drums." His eyes lower to Tintin's crotch and then back up to his face. "Uh, women's dances or men's dances?"

"Does it matter?" calls Taharqi as he walks over to the stairs.

    "Well they're different and I know less about the women's..."

"Are they different in a way that affects the magic?" And he disappears up the stairs.

    "...hmm. Maybe not."

(Horan and Raziya both have succumbed to examining all of the Things. Horan gives the tiger and rocknose heads an appreciative hum as he sees them.)

"I wouldn't mind learning both," Tintin says. "I'm a man, but my culture doesn't divide dances that way. Or, I guess some people do, but - I don't. But if you only know the men's dances I'll just learn those."

"No I know both, I just—haven't practised the women's dances in years, and didn't learn as many of them."

    "Set burn me what manner of creature is that?" exclaims Raziya when she finally notices the enormous rocknose head hanging from the wall.

        "I believe that is a rocknose," says Horan, "a demon common in these parts. They tend to haunt places with high concentrations of precious metals."

"'Haunt' is a good word for that," snorts Sendhei. "Menaces is what they are, you keep putting them down and there are always more when you come back."

    Raziya for her part is making a warding sign with one hand.

"I'll press you for the women's dances too then, and if you've forgotten them we can reinvent them together."

Beholding the rocknose: "Now, that's something I wouldn't want to fight. I guess I might be able to shoot it in the underbelly, if it's softer?"

"They're all rock, through and through, animated by foul forces," says Taharqi, returning from upstairs. "I set some food to cook for all of us, and this time we will have spices and flavouring, which I'm sure we have all dearly missed."

    "Poor souls," says Sendhei, shaking his head. Then he turns back to Tintin. "Anyway, I can start teaching you tomorrow morning if you like? Unless he's roped you into his plans."

"My plans are moving north of the wall and away from this blasted desert and building a base there, but that will take time. I also have half a mind to pay the main Darfari camp east of here a visit and try to liberate as many of their mind-controlled prisoners as I can, but I should probably have horses at the ready and a place for them to stay, before I do that."

        "You may count on me," says Horan, fisting his chest. "My stay as a puppet of the hyena-men has filled me with nothing but sympathy for other victims of the same sorceries."

"I will help as well, of course," Tintin says offhandedly. "I wonder if I could dance and fight simultaneously? For - simultaneous effects?"

"Sounds hot."

    Sendhei snorts but nods. "Maybe. I don't think I've ever seen it but the basic ideas should still work..."

"My fighting style is half dancing already. - would you like to see me spar with Taharqi?"

He has no ulterior motive in this. None whatsoever.

    "Yes."

"Let me show everyone around here first and then we can go."

        "How are you even up for that," wonders Raziya. "I'm exhausted."

"Maybe I don't mind losing," he shrugs, winking at Tintin.

"I have only-barely-not-superhuman endurance! Especially for walking - humans are meant to walk, it's how we hunted back before anyone had figured out weapons, we would just walk after our prey until they collapsed dead from exhaustion."

"I still did that a lot, back before I lived somewhere where the prey actually fights back."

"I love this planet. My bizarre paleoanthropological facts are current events."

Taharqi laughs but motions for everyone to follow him.

Tintin is happy to follow!

This house is definitely not meant to hold this many people, but it'll do in a pinch; it has enough open space.

The ground floor is pretty much only that one room, plus a fenced and roofed area outside in the back where Taharqi keeps a few workbenches. He also shows them his forge on the other side of the fence and the compost heap they have farther away, far enough for the smell to not get to them. "Mostly for alchemical compounds and fertiliser," he explains.

Up one flight of stairs there's a door that leads to a balcony they could see from the outside. There is a large isolated fire with some pots and pans, and in the corner there is a drying rack with strips of meat. Back inside and up another flight of stairs is Taharqi's bedroom, torch-lit and fairly cosy, with a weapons rack on display, and through another door is a back room with an alchemist's bench and a tall shelf with scrolls and even a couple of bound books.

    "You know alchemy?" wonders Horan.

"I dabble. Not very much. But it's good to have a few potions and poisons for arrows and such."

"Alchemy! It's possible I can help with that. Unless it's, you know, mostly magic, rather than being mostly chemistry. Hmm."

"It's at least some magic," shrugs Taharqi. "Or so I think.

"Anywho, this now concludes the tour." He bows to his audience, and Sendhei rolls his eyes fondly.