The orb in her pack began to glow

{if Roxxy is alive = true}The sarcophagus lid did not budge an inch. Nora brushed the sweat off her brow and looked behind her. The steps slowed the terracotta figures advance somewhat, but they were getting alarmingly close. If they didn't figure out something soon...

"Hey, why is my pack glowing?" Nora opened her satchel, letting free an almost blinding ray of light. Even Roxxy, who was on the other side of the sarcophagus, had to cover her eyes. It was the golden orb that Nora picked up earlier. "It wasn't always glowing like this, right?"

She took it out. It trembled in her palm, as if something was alive inside- no, as if the orb itself was alive! Strange symbols danced on its surface. The same symbols that were present on the concave divot on the sarcophagus. It wasn't hard to put two and two together and figure out that the orb went in the divot. She placed the orb in its place.

The sarcophagus clicked open.

Inside was a skeleton, clad in a rich dress, though time hasn't been too kind to it. She was clutching a strange rectangular baton, which emitted light from its tip. Sensing one of the figures drawing near behind her, she grabbed it and swivelled around, ready to use it as a weapon if she had to.

To her surprise, the terracotta figure stopped in its tracks, just mere inches of clobbering Nora over the head with its heavy fist. Both Nora and Roxxy breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

Roxxy broke the silence first. "Holy shit that was close."

"Y-yeah."

There was a long pause. "So it's some kind of rod of command?"

"Guess so. Geez, we really got to that in the nick of time," Roxxy said, once again examining the figures, " so does it just stop them, or can you do other stuff with it?"

"Why are you asking me? I just got the thing." Roxxy rolled her eyes. Nora swung the baton, but nothing happened. She commanded the figure to raise its hand, but again nothing. She tried both at the same time. Nothing. "There must be something more to this. Hrm..." She sat down on the steps, staring intently at the baton. Roxxy took the opportunity to search the sarcophagus more thoroughly.

"This person must've been some kind of royalty to be buried like this. I wish I had a dress like that."

"Why?" Replied Nora, still staring at the baton. "It's not like you ever go anywhere fancy."

"Hey, that's not true. Once, me and my brother went to this party at this one guys house. Big honcho guy. Russian. I think he was a mob boss. Anyway, we were selling him this rare artifact... Actually, never mind, it's not important. But I only got a fancy suit at home, not like a dress that most of those kind of ladies wear."

"You think maybe this baton will work if I put on that dress?"

"You crazy? The thing would fall apart if you touched it. Plus, that's just stupid."

"Well, I don't see you coming up with ideas. Is there anything else in there maybe?"

Roxxy ducked her head into the sarcophagus. "I think... I think I see a key. At least I think it is. Looks the same as the keys we used to unlock that door." She struggled with reaching for a moment, but then triumphantly held the rectangular key up in the air. "Got it!" she exclaimed.

"Well I don't think that'll help any with the baton."

"There's not much else in here, except some bones. Oh. What about that golden orb."

"Hm, maybe together they do something?"

"It sounds more plausible than the dress."

"Oh shush. Give me that orb then."

Roxxy pried the orb off the sarcophagus lid, and handed it to Nora. Immediately it had an effect, as the baton and orb shook, and then both suddenly shot off into the air, colliding with each other and clattering to the ground. When Nora picked them back up, they were attached to each other, the orb now solidly stuck to the glowing end of the baton. "Guess they were magnetised?" Nora stated.

"Or it was magic."

"Roxxy, I know we just got chased by an army of moving terracotta figures, but you can't surely believe it was magic?"

"Well what else was it huh?"

"R-robots."

"Robots?" Roxxy said in mild disbelief. "You can't be serious. You're saying that this civilisation, this ancient civilisation, had the technology to build robots. Out of terracotta."

"If you put it that way, it sounds stupid doesn't it?"

"No Nora, it sounds retarded whatever way you put it."

"Well it's more believable than magic."

"Can you hurry up and try using that wand please Mrs. Harry Potter."

Nora was about to try the baton again, but then stopped in confusion. "What did you say?"

"You know. Harry Potter. Cause we were talking about magic, and that baton looks like a wand?"

"Never heard of it." Nora was about to try the baton once more, but this time was stopped by Roxxy.

"No wait, stop. Seriously?! You never heard of Harry Potter?"

"What, was I supposed to?"

"Well it's only a wildly famous, if not THE most famous, book about wizards! It's what people think when they hear 'wizards' or 'witches'!"

"I think of Gandalf when someone says 'wizard'."

"Nora, I swear to god I'll kill you someday."

"Great. Well if that's out of the way, can I-"

"Really? Not even the movies? You must've heard the movies existed at least."

"No. When I said never heard of it, I meant never heard of it."

"Do you want to watch it then? I have tapes."

"Roxxy," Nora exclaimed out of exasperation, "is this really the best time? You don't think there might be something else that we should be doing, like, I don't know, awknowladging the freaking find of the millenium instead of talking about movies?!"

Roxxy pouted, crossing her arms.

"And tapes? Who uses video tapes anymore?"

"You know what? Fine, whatever. I don't care. I was just trying to lighten the mood after that near-**** situation we just had. But whatever. Fine. Sorry!"

"Good. Can I try using the 'wand' now?"

Roxxy rolled her eyes in reply and grunted. Nora commanded the closest figure in front of her to lift its hand. Nothing happened.

"Alright, I'm starting to think this baton is broken."

"Hold on. I think they just don't understand English."

Nora slapped herself on the head. "Of course! Kind of seems obvious now in retrospect. Okay so uh, know any ancient," she spun her hand in a circle, to point out the vagueness, "words?"

"We could try Chinese, since this place has some distinct ancient Chinese details."

"Well alright, know any Chinese?"

"Modern or ancient?"

"Take a wild guess."

"Er, well uh..." Roxxy blushed, "only a couple. And like, most of them are swears."

"You're kidding."

"Hey come on, they're great conversation starters, you know? You go up to a hot guy or gal at like, a party, and you go; 'hey, wanna hear some swear words in Hindi or Portuguese or ancient Chinese, or whatever?'"

"You're telling me you only learn other languages to swear?"

"What? Why would I learn Hindi? Nah. Just the swears."

Nora placed her hands on her face. "Okay! So you for some reason you know ancient Chinese swears; I feel like that's not going to help us out much."

"I guess. I mean, then again," Roxxy smiled bashfully, "I do know the ancient Chinese word for 'fuck'..."

"Wha-NO. No! NO! Roxxy, no. I'm not gonna use ancient artefacts like a, a, uh, bunch of sex toys! For fucks sake, I swear you try to fuck half the things you see!"

"But they have cocks! Whether they're magic or robots or whatever, that's clearly what they were designed to do!"

Nora stroked her chin. She had a point. She considered it, but...

{else}The sarcophagus lid did not budge an inch. Nora brushed the sweat off her brow and looked behind her. The steps slowed the terracotta figures advance somewhat, but they were getting alarmingly close. If she didn't figure out something soon...

"Hey, why is my pack glowing?" Nora opened her satchel, letting free an almost blinding ray of light. It was the golden orb that Nora picked up earlier. "It wasn't always glowing like this, right?" She said, forgetting in the heat of the moment that she is by herself.

She took it out. It trembled in her palm, as if something was alive inside- no, as if the orb itself was alive! Strange symbols danced on its surface. The same symbols that were present on the concave divot on the sarcophagus. It wasn't hard to put two and two together and figure out that the orb went in the divot. She placed the orb in its place.

The sarcophagus clicked open.

Inside was a skeleton, clad in a rich dress, though time hasn't been too kind to it. In her bony hands she was clutching a strange rectangular baton, which emitted light from its tip. Sensing one of the figures drawing near behind her, she grabbed it and swivelled around, ready to use it as a weapon if she had to.

To her surprise, the terracotta figure stopped in its tracks, just mere inches of clobbering her over the head with its heavy fist. Nora breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

'Some kind of rod of command maybe?' she thought. She wondered what these figures even were. Surely they can't be moving through magic? Maybe some kind of terracotta robots? But that seemed just as silly and implausible. 'Nevermind. That's a question for later.'

She wondered whether she could control them in more ways than just stopping them in their tracks. She tried waving the baton at the figure in front of her, but nothing happened. It didn't react at all. She tried to command it to move, but still, nothing.

"Great, this thing's busted," she said, secretly hoping that perhaps it would illicit a reaction from the figure. But nothing.

"Maybe there's something else in here?" She carefully looked inside the sarcophagus. She was a bit disappointed in herself that she was so hasty in opening it; she could've damaged something, and what kind of archeologist would she be if she damaged a priceless artefact like this? Thankfully, she didn't appear to have damaged any of the contents.

In the skeletons other hand was a key, similar to the ones she used to unlock the door to this chamber, though much larger and thicker. She took it. Other than that, there was nothing else; at least, nothing that she found would be useful in her situation. She kind of wished she could take the skeleton and her dress and show it to the curators at the British Museum, but, well, all in due time.

"Ah forget it then."{endif}