"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?"