Pelvic Sorcery

Thom leapt bodily into the room, Majel crashing behind him in her full plate. She turned and slammed the massive wooden doors shut, just in time to catch an undead limb grasping through the gap and sever it. More corpses thumped against the door and started clawing frantically, the unarmed limb merely twitching weakly. As she dropped the heavy bar and stepped back, the door shook but held. She complained to him as she took stock of the room.

“I hope this prize of yours is worth it.”

He straightened his robe and dusted himself off before replying.

“So do I. It may even help us escape.”

“I highly doubt you will be proficient in something you only just found.”

“Magic is magic! Once I grasp it, I can at least use it to minimum effect. Besides, why would he be buried with his spellbook if not to keep something secret?”

She shrugged. They continued down the long room, murals depicting a brilliant light from the heavens shining upon an individual, legions mirrored behind him. Thom traced the designs and tried to reconstruct their narrative, finding them to be variations of the same idea on every panel.

“They’re the same, but different. Different poses. Showing the measure of control, maybe?”

Majel stared at him blankly.

“Looks like dancing.”

“Might be. Some cultures use rhythm to control the dead, crafting a sort of metronome that replaces their own.”

“To keep the beat, you mean?”

They reached the door at the far end, the only one not to show the mage and his entourage. Instead, it held a descending pattern, the symbols matching those on tiles set into the threshold with a periodically broken line beside them. Thom looked over the wall, then looked over the layout beneath his feet.

“It’s a dance lock.”

“I feel like I should be surprised, but I’m not.”

“Step back. I’m gonna try to open it.”

Majel raised an eyebrow, but did as requested. Taking a few breaths, Thom reached far to one side and prepared to move, stopping abruptly and looking at his companion.

“Can you vocalize, or something? I’d do better with some kind of music.”

“Vocalize.”

“You know! Uhn-Tss Uhn-Tss or Boom-Chicka Boom-Chicka or-”

She raised a gauntlet to silence him.

“I get the idea. Can’t you just…I don’t know, imagine one? You pay me to stabby stabby, not singy singy.”

“I don’t need you to sing, just pretend to be an instrument.”

Majel thought for a moment.

“I suppose there was one tune…”

“Alright. Let it go and we’ll get this door open.”

She took a deep breath.

“DOOP. DOOT DOO-DOOT, DOOT DOO-DOOT-”

“Keep it up!”

Slowly he bobbed himself to the beat of his comrade, taking the first step and hearing a near-silent ‘click’. Confidence brought him to the second switch, then the third, her music intensifying as she watched him nimbly flow over the floor. Practically, screaming, she hit the high just as he popped the last seal, the door rumbling to her vibrato and falling through the floor. Thom panted appreciation at her through labored breaths.

“That…Was impressive…”

“Yeah, I used to be in a choir. Everyone was in my village. It was that or farm with the folks.”

She trudged into the antechamber, finding it surprisingly spartan and small, excepting the gem-encrusted sarcophagus in the center of the room. Thom took another deep breath to calm his pulse and chuckled.

“I wonder where he is.”

Majel rolled her eyes and walked over to the coffin, shoving the lid off unceremoniously. A minimal cloud of dust faded quickly, the corpse inside clutching a deteriorated book. Thom squealed and reached for it, tugging gently and eventually prying it free. He began thumbing through it on the spot, while Majel looked at the thing’s groin and raised an eyebrow.

“So…there’s that.”

Thom ignored her at first, mentally devouring what knowledge he could.

“Thom.”

“Yeah, it’s great, but these all read like instructions. It’s all referencing something else, something that’s not in here.”

“Is it a garment?”

He stopped.

“Possibly? How would you-”

His gaze turned from her to the place she was pointing, silencing him. Wrapped tightly about the body’s bits was a thong gaudier than a reformed priest, crusted in jewels with a transparent crystalline tube along its centerline, an etched metallic ball trapped within. The piece had a magnetism to it, pulling the eyes and making the prospect of looking away agonizingly difficult.

“-Oh.”

He thumbed a few more pages, looked back to it, and then back to the book. A smile spread on his face as he began to disrobe.

“No. No, Thom, stop.”

“This is what we came for,” he said, tossing his pants aside, “…and I get the gist of its use.”

Majel buried her face in her hands, partially out of irritation and mostly to block the sight of his and the mummy’s plumbing. When the shuffling died down, she dared a peek, horrified and hypnotized in equal measure.

“So? Does it astound?”

“…Damn.”

“Is that a good damn?”

“You’re wearing underwear fresh off an ancient corpse. You tell me.”

“Itchiness aside, is it a good visual? It’s REALLY comfortable, and it lifts and supports like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I really didn’t need to hear ANY of that.”

Thom shook his head, walking to the middle of the hallway and staring at the barred door.

“Open it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Either I’m right and we escape or I’m wrong and we die anyway.”

“Why not test it on that?”

She pointed at the slowly writing forearm.

“Not a terrible idea. Let’s see…”

Thom smoldered at the limb, bobbing his head a few times before pelvic thrusting at it. A high, clear chime sounded at the apex of his push, the arm twitching in reply. Another, then another, until it balanced on its broken bones and splayed its fingers. The companions exchanged a look. He gave it another thrust, emphasized with a grunt, the sound changing to a deep bass while the hand snapped in time to his gyrations. Without a word, Thom looked to Majel and smirked, nodding at the door.