The Lion, the Lamp and the Warthog
Fate, Genie reflected, was a fickle bitch. Usually he was a little more moderate in his thinking, but right now? Yeah he'd thought he and Al had a real friendship going. Right up until Al's confidence broke. Yeah, he'd been mad, but he figured having a heated heart-to-heart might help iron things out after Al came back.
He'd never gotten the chance. Jafar stole the lamp, with him sulking he had no way to know what was happening outside of his prison until the lamp had been rubbed... and he'd been under Jafar's thumb. Or rather his foot.
Eesh. The guy was a classic case of a Bad Master, the type that always wanted more. The Sultan wish had been expected, and he honestly wished the mad vizier hadn't said "rule on high". But noooo, the first wish the guy made had him rearranging the landscape as a
side effect. And now he was forced to watch as the newly empowered Sorcerer exposed Al. He bit back a wince as he felt Jafar's magic scrape out everything Al had been taught through his wish about being a prince.
And then he felt
it. The tremor wasn't physical. It rang through the cosmos. An infinitely dopplering death wail coupled with a roar of triumph. And underlying it all was EVIL. Not evil as mortals knew it, this was true, pure, undiluted EVIL. And then the portal opened. He shied away from the portal as that great Evil Eye balefully glared out... which is why he missed when Abu, flailing as his transformation was painfully stripped away by the raw magic, knocked his lamp through it.
And where the Lamp goes, so goes the Genie.
He was pulled after the lamp, bursting into coruscating clouds of cerulean smoke as the shifting portal left only the thinnest of holes to follow through, kept open only by his own magic and the unbreakable connection between him and his lamp. The last thing he saw and felt before the remainder of his being was pulled into his prison was being spat out high in the air was a vast plain of golden grasses interspersed with small points of green, and a wide stretch of desert cutting one of said points of green off from the rest of the savannah. And he appeared to be falling towards said stretch of sand. He heaved a sigh as he braced for the impact. As it stood he'd probably be waiting to be found for a long,
long time.
Hopefully this time he wouldn't wake up with another crick in his neck...
---
The feeling of the lamp being rubbed woke him. Either ten thousand years had gotten a
lot shorter, or he'd been found a lot faster than he'd been expecting. Deciding to forgo the light show and dramatics for once (he just
really wasn't feeling it right now...) he emerged from the lamp in a plume of smoke. "You who rubbed the lamp, are now my massssss...ter."
A half-grown Lion cub and a Meerkat stared at him with stupefied eyes, a troop of gorillas farther back huddling away in fear. And one very confused looking Warthog looking between him and the young female gorilla holding the lamp. Behind them all was an Elephant eying him with a great deal of trepidation.
"I
told you you shouldn't have messed with it," the Elephant declared with the air of someone stating common sense.
Genie was pretty good at adapting to things on the fly, and shockingly this hadn't been the first time that he'd had an animal intelligent enough to invoke the magics of the Lamp as a master. Usually they were pretty straightforward wishes at least.
"Okay then, so first off, I'm not gonna hurt any of you." Genie had taken the form of a Gorilla himself in order to make the skittish creatures a bit more comfortable. It seemed to have worked given the youngster that was currently grooming him looking in vain for tasty parasites. "And yeah, I can grant wishes. There's just three rules." He began to tick them off on his fingers. "I can't kill anyone. I can't bring anyone back to life. And I can't make anyone fall in love with someone."
Normally he'd have been making some effort to really drive the point home, but again these animals were all already on edge. Turk, his current master, was a bit better than the others, especially the elephant Tantor. But she was still not wholly at ease. The leader of the troop, Kerchak, was even more wary; bordering on outright hostility but he had at least kept from attacking. The Lion cub, warthog and meerkat; named Simba, Pumba and Timon respectively on the other hand, were all listening with great interest.
"So, lemme get this straight. You can't bring someone back from the dead. But what about locating someone who isn't dead?" Turk was cradling her chin as she looked between Genie and his lamp.
"Well, yeah that shouldn't be a problem. Transporting them anywhere... well that depends." Genie shrugged. Even against Genies there were plenty of protections that could be made. "Just remember, you need to keep the wording specific. If you ask for a general wish... well sometimes they can backfire badly. I had one master, this joker wanted to 'hold the power of the universe in his hands'."
Surprisingly it was Pumbaa that spoke up first. "He didn't say for how long, did he?" Genie pointed a toe at the hog, taking a bite out of a papaya with one hand.
"Correctamundo! And well, that much power... mortals just aren't
made to channel that kind of energy. Of course then there was the guy before him. He wanted to turn everything he touched to gold." At the looks of confusion, he elaborated. "Shiny yellow metal, really rare so humans ascribe a lot of value to it." Simba cocked his head to the side and then winced.
"When he wished for
everything he touched to turn to gold, he didn't have any way to keep from
not turning things to gold did he?" Genie nodded.
"You got it kiddo. He only realized that after he clapped his hands in joy. Had
just enough time to realize what he'd done and then
boom, he's statuary."
"Okay then, in that case, here's my first wish. I wish that you could show me exactly where Tarzan is, or his body if he's dead."
Genie nodded, a blank parchment poofing into existence as he resumed his normal form. "Sorry, I need to have the right posture for this... annnnnd..." Suddenly multiple hands extended from his torso, each one equipped with some kind of writing or coloring implement. When the flurry of action ceased, there was a large map showing a good chunk of Northern Africa and the surrounding countries. One with two large red Xs on it. One X was back in the heart of the African Jungle. The other... while the animals had no real context for it, it showed the other X as being situated on a large island to the east of Africa, labeled "Indonesia" before that had been crossed out with "New Britannia" written above that.
"Huh? Why are there two locations?" Tantor peered at the map. Turk sighed, scratching at her head with the lamp.
"I wish I knew..." As soon as she said it, she realized her mistake. "Wait, no I-"
"Sorry kiddo, but I gotta follow the rules. And..." Pulling out a crystal ball, Genie waved a hand over it. Smoke within swirled and danced before clearing to show a man with brown hair caught in a short tail with a ribbon and aristocratic features hunched over a book, apparently writing something in it. He looked... well, scrawny was putting it
mildly, but his eyes were lively and intelligent. As a girl walked by and refilled the cup at his elbow he gave her a grateful smile, but ignored her own flirtatious body language and turned his focus back to the book. "There's the guy that's
there," Genie pointed at the X on the island.
"Now for the other guy..." The smoke swirled and billowed, gaining a hint of reddish hues before they saw a heavily muscled man wearing nothing but a brief loincloth and a mask/cape made of a leopard pelt, multitudes of scars crossing his body. He was clutching a spear, and in the middle of his chest was what at first glance was an amulet. Until a closer look showed that it was fused to his skin with scar tissue around the site. Genie let out a hiss of surprise.
"Oooh, now that's something I hoped I'd never see again. Soul magic, nasty stuff. Lemme just adjust the settings here..." Genie tapped on the ball and spun it counterclockwise, and the man was suddenly surrounded by a fierce red aura. The smoke split to show the book keeper, whose own aura was a deep blue. Both of them however had a similar concentration of color where the gem was fused into the warrior's skin, with the color bleeding into a deep royal purple.
"Oof, someone did a ritual to separate this guy into two parts embodying different aspects of himself. Looks like this one," Genie pointed at the bookkeeper, "Is probably all of his 'civilized' traits. Pretty much the lion's share of the brains. While this one," he indicated the warrior, "Has got to be the brawn side of the equation. Primal, all instinct and little higher thought. Easy to control though." As he spoke, another person came into view. A beautiful dark-skinned woman with white hair who dressed in a black halter top and sarong, both edged in fangs. Eyes the light green of sunlight through the leaves peered at the man, then seemed to turn and look directly at the individuals looking through the ball. The red jewel in the jaws of the leopard-headed staff she bore glowed ominously, and Genie quickly swiped his hands over the ball, causing it to vanish into smoke.
"Whoops, looks like someone had the mojo to detect me scrying on them. Lady had some serious power behind her too. Definitely the one that did the splits on your friend there." Turk looked conflicted, before glancing down at the lamp in her hands.
"If I wished them both here, that wouldn't fix them, would it." Genie shook his head.
"No, sorry. And working on souls like that is... well it's really tricky. I
may be able to finagle it, but it'll still be tricky for me. Even with all of the power I've got... well, sometimes things happen. It doesn't help that there's something that's muffling my powers as well. The being that caused all of the worlds to collide sunk his claws in
deep, even if they've loosened a bit since I was last out of the lamp."
Turk moved away to confer with Kerchak and Tantor, the older Gorilla looking at Genie suspiciously while the elephant tried to comfort his friend. Finally though, Kerchak took the lamp from Turk, and moved over to sit heavily next to Genie. "Turk told me about the risks. I... I believe that they are worth it. All his life, I denied him. But in the end, he was truly my son in all the ways that mattered. And I had been a fool. I want the chance to apologize to him."
Genie looked at the old Gorilla for a moment, before nodding. Now was the time to be serious, rather for wacky observations. "Okay then, so we've got two ways to do this. One is that you wish for both of them here at the same time. I can do it, but it'll leave a kind of magical trail. But, if you use all three wishes to nab them one at a time? I can make it a lot more stealthy and keep the green-eyed lady there from figuring out where he went. Especially if we grab him last." After a few more minutes of conversation to word out the wishes for best effect, Kerchak nodded, rubbing one heavily calloused palm against the side of the lamp.
"Genie, for my first wish, bring the civilized side of my son to this oasis." Genie nodded and smiled, spinning on his heel to appear in full magician regalia complete with top hat.
"Alright then folks, as you can see there's nothing up my sleeves," he pushed his sleeves back to reveal his hands floating independently. "But with a little bit of pizazz..." He flipped the top hat off, rolled it down his arm and caught it by the brim, before reaching in. "And out of the hat comes..." A large white rabbit, its skin sallow and its frame emaciated, a pocket watch clutched in one paw, was pulled from the hat. "Whoops, wrong direction." Genie quickly stuffed the animal back into the hat, before reaching in once more, angling his arm in a different direction. This time he pulled out a shocked and wide-eyed young man dressed in wool and cotton out of the seemingly too-small hat, depositing him on his feet.
"What... what is happening! Who, what are- where..." the man spluttered, eyes looking around wildly as he cringed away from the animals. Genie 'tsk'd' in annoyance.
"A soul cleave also scrambles the memories. Need both halves of the book to read it properly, right now it's like every other page got pulled out and made into its own volume. Easy there bucko, we'll have you right as rain in a minute. Just take a seat." A heavily cushioned chair appeared behind the man, which Genie gave him a gentle shove into. The man wasn't in any position to resist, and his frightened eyes were wide and wary as he tried to make himself as small as possible.
"Okay, one down. Next one's gonna be feisty, I can tell. So be ready to make your third wish as soon as I've got him." Kerchack nodded before rubbing the lamp once again.
"Genie, I wish for you to bring my son's primal side to this oasis!"
Once again Genie spun, though when he ended he was hip deep in the water of the pond at the center of the oasis wearing waders, a plaid shirt, and a bucket hat replete with fishing lures. Pulling a long rod out of the waders, Genie made a show of checking the wind, before going through a strange sequence of motions, muttering under his breath.
"10 o'clock, 2 o'clock, quarter to 3, jump, spin, little teapot annnnd," he flicked the rod and the lure at the end of the line shot out of view sinking deep into the water far past the actual depth of the pool. "Let er fly!"
Genie continued to let the line play out for several minutes, before it jerked in his hands. "Here we go! Oh yeah, he's a fighter alright!" The rod was bent almost entirely at a 90-degree angle and Genie seemed to struggle to pull in the line. "Almost got him..." With a scream of rage the line erupted from the water, bringing along with it a yowling, howling beast of a man. "Now Kerchak, I can't hold him forever! And if she gets a chance his lady is gonna try and trace him!"
Kerchak practically roared his last wish, having been coached on the wording. "
Genie! Restore my son to his proper state of being!"
Genie grew to massive proportions, big enough to hold each man in one hand. "Okay, red to blue, blue to red, let's get these two back together!" He cupped his hands around the two of them, rattling them like dice. "Annnnd here's for all the marbles!" Kneeling down, Genie aimed for the heavily cushioned chair, and like shooting a marble, sent a figure tumbling head over heels before he impacted the chair. Legs up in the air, upside down. Long dreadlocks of brown hair covered his eyes, before the young man carefully clambered out of the chair. He looked around, blue eyes calm, stance at ease but ready to move.
His musculature seemed to have shrunken, becoming leaner and more lithe than the primal aspect, but certainly much more toned than the book keeper. He had a few faint scars as opposed to the multitude that had covered the Warrior, but the most prominent one was a scar shaped like an ankh where the gem had been inset into his flesh had once rested. After a moment he stumbled, easily falling into the supporting trunk of Tantor.
"Tantor? Turk? Kerchak? What is... where is Clayton? Kala? Jane and her father? Where am I? And who... or what, is that," he ended by pointing at Genie. The man seemed to be coming out of a deep daze, recognizing his friends by name.
Genie fistpumped. "Oh yeah, I still got the moves!" The King of the Jungle was swarmed by his friends and family, all of them expressing their gratitude that he's once more with them, before a low hoot and a single thump against his chest has Kerchak silencing the others. They make way for the leader as he moves up to Tarzan. The two exchanged looks for a long moment... before Kerchak smiled.
"It is good to see you, son." He embraced Tarzan with one heavy arm, the stunned wild man returning the embrace with tears in his eyes, a look of disbelief on his face. "There is much we need to speak of. But for now, the members of the troop that came with me are all safe." The gorilla's smile turned to sorrow. "I do not know what happened to Kala, I am sorry."
Genie sat back on a stump, watching with a fond smile as the reunion continued... before he felt a pull at his magic. Heaving a sigh, he looked down to see the Meerkat Timon rubbing furiously at the lamp with a look of intense concentration.
"Easy there bud, you'll wear the polish off like that!" Genie got on his level, shrinking down to match the Meerkat in size. "Okay then Master, what do you wish of me? And remember, the three rules all still apply."
"Yeah yeah, I gotcha." Timon waved somewhat dismissively, before grinning widely. "Okay, so I wish for a never-ending supply of the tastiest bugs, for the spring in the oasis to never dry up, and for the crick in my back to be gone." Genie rolled his eyes at the self-centered wishes, snapping his fingers thrice in succession. A small log with a hollow appeared.
"Reach into the log and you'll get whatever bugs you want. Guaranteed to never run out." There was a slight bubbling from the main pool of the oasis before it subsided. "The spring's connected to a larger underground aquifer now. Won't run out without serious geological movement. And your back should be fine, just stop sleeping hung over a log."
As Timon whooped, diving at the log and beginning to pull out grub after beetle after worm, Genie looked at Pumbaa. "How about you pal? Infinite mud wallow?" To his visible surprise Pumbaa actually thought about it before shaking his head.
"Nah. It sounds nice, but... well you said you can do almost anything, right?" Genie nodded cautiously. "Could you fix the weather? The rainy season was supposed to start
months ago, but it's still bone dry out there. And that way, I get my wallow anyway." Genie's eyebrows went up to where the hairline would have been on a normal person, before he smiled widely.
"Alrighty then, and now for the weather!" There was a poof and Genie, dressed in a western-style suit and standing in front of a screen showing the local topography of this area of Africa. "Okay then, looks like the drought that's been going on is due to break, we're looking at heavy,
heavy rain for the future, with an uptick in babies at the end of the rainy season!" As he spoke the symbols on the chart were rearranging themselves, and in the distance heavy rainclouds began to gather while higher up in the atmosphere jetstreams that had been put into disarray by the Upheaval were grabbed by his magic and set back onto courses that would help bring the weather across the globe back into balance. Pumbaa smiled as the first fat drop of rain hit his snout.
"Gee, thanks! But now... I dunno. What would you wish for?"
Genie was struck for a moment, before he gave a tentative smile. "You know, you're the second person ever to ask me that. And... I'll tell you the same thing I did to him.
Freedom. I'm bound to the lamp, shackled to it. And at the whims of whomever may happen to get hold of it. I just want to be my
own master."
Pumbaa gave a nod. "Okay then. Genie, I wish you free." Genie gaped, before a swirl of energy emerged from the spout of the lamp, crawling up the tail of smoke that connected Genie to the it. Genie curled inwards as the energies built... before with a flash, it expended itself, leaving him with legs instead of a tail of smoke. As the last wisps of power flowed over his limbs, the bracers on his wrists, the shackles that bound him to the lamp; opened and fell away, dissipating into tiny motes of light that vanished into the gloom.
Genie's tears were hidden by the rain as he looked at his bare wrists. "I... I can't believe it. I'm... you, quick!" Simba startled as he was pointed at. "Wish for something crazy. Wish for the Nile. Go on, go ahead and wish for the Nile!"
Simba's jaw worked for a moment before he managed a weak "Uh, I wish for the Nile?"
"NO WAY!" Genie yelled, laughing hysterically before he gave a long gasp like he was coming up for air, realization writ large across his face that no, he wasn't dreaming. "Oh, does that feel good!"
---
Genie smiled as he finished relaying the tale. "After that Al, I've been bouncing around the continents looking for you and figuring out what happened. Two years in the lamp was... well, a lot changed didn't it?"
Aladdin nodded sheepishly. He'd made a cup of tea for Genie almost without thinking about it, which Genie had been oddly touched to receive. "Yeah. There's been some ups and downs, but... well we're still here. Even after there were some pretty tough times."
Genie's smile had widened at the "we". "Being a Prince isn't all it was cracked up to be, was it Al?" Aladdin chuckled ruefully and shook his head.
"No, it really wasn't. But I had a good group to help me, thanks to you. Even after Jafar got rid of all of the knowledge you'd stuffed in there that a Prince needed to know... heh well not much of that involved how to woo a beautiful and brilliant woman did it?"
Genie chuckled as well. "Nope, that kind of battle has to be fought alone." He took a sip of tea, a monocle appearing in his right eye as he lowered the cup. "Excellent brew."
Aladdin smiled, something that he seemed to be incapable of stopping at the moment, before leaning forward. "So what happened with that Tarzan guy?" Genie shrugged.
"Honestly Al, not sure. But he was in good hands. And after what he went through he was kind of skittish around magic. Not that I can blame him." Genie shivered. "Messing around with the soul is some of the most dangerous magic there is. And it can go bad
really easily. It's why we have rule three. Trying to get a soul reattached to the body is generally His providence, though there's always exceptions like Hades that can do it pretty easily."
"Well Genie, you've always got a home in Ababwa, no matter what you decide to do." Aladdin and Genie tapped their tea cups together
----
Genie has rejoined Aladdin!
Never Had A Friend Like Me!
Genie is, to put it in the words of Sinbad, much like a benevolent earthquake. He's there to help, often in a big way, but you're not really going to control how he does so. During a Turn, Genie can act to affect a failing roll. He can turn a critical failure into a normal failure, or if a roll is within 5 points of the DC, he can boost it over the edge.
Genie doesn't have a Stat Block, he's a bit too hard to quantify even with his powers diminished. But right now he's also luxuriating in being free for the first time in millenia, so while he's more than happy to help, he's not going to be taking orders anytime soon. And even with all his power, he can't focus on more than one thing at a time, so if there are two failures, or a crit failure on a Personal and a failure on a National action, Genie will act on his own initiative on what he considers more important.
