Interview with the D'jinn Part 6

After our discussion on brainwashing, Sul and I didn't have any in depth discussions for almost two weeks. It dodged my occasional questions and changed the subject when possible. After a couple days I decided to wait until Sul was ready to continue the interview, one of the times I did get an answer from Sul, was about the Minoans, apparently there was a labyrinth that housed a beast half man and half bull, but the Minotaur had been a sorcerer dabbling in arts he could not control.

I didn't have to wait long though, as The D'jinn spoke up as I returned from class on a Tuesday. "I'll tell you of the Midnight war now, if you'd like." I blinked in confusion for a few moments my mind shelving what I'd been thinking of and pulling up the information relevant to delving into the secrets of the past.

"Yes, let's cover that today." I dropped my messenger bag and grabbed a notepad and pencil before taking a seat at the table. "Midnight war... you said that began around..The fall of Babylon correct?"

"Yes."

"...so short answers today, how did the war start? you said it was with the angels correct? Tell me about them."

"I never directly met or saw any of them, they are beings of great power and that is about all I know. I did not fight in the war.. that was the duty of the Val'krul, the D'jinn actually trained for combat. Most were volunteer, but as the war progressed conscription began. I had recieved my notice before I was captured and locked within the amulet you found."

"Was it the angels that captured you?"

"No.. while the amulet itself is angelic in origin it was used by humans at the direction of the angels I would assume."

"I thought you said, the angels don't interfere with the affairs of mortals."

"We were at war, the Val'krul are trained to kill, things we don't do out of moral obligation we do out of necessity during times of strife, I would assume it is no different for the angels."

I nodded as I thought over the things that happened on a daily basis in parts of the world. "...So the war, how did it start? And why is it called the Midnight war?"

The D'jinn sat there quietly for a time. "...As to why it is called the midnight war, I believe it was because it happened mostly out of sight for the lesser races, in the shadows and during the dark of night away from prying eyes."

"Perhaps it was kept secret out of pride?"

"I don't follow your logic."

"As in the belief that the angels and D'jinn were above the petty squabbles of the lesser races? Revealing that the "gods" were at war would somehow make it seem like both the groups were not above the barbaric cruelty of war?"

"...That is an interesting spin on things.......I don't know if you would make an excellent politician or philosopher..."

"Did you just praise me?"

"Possibly."

"Once again.... why did the war start?"

"A difference of ideals, when your race was young the angels had attempted to guide and help you. This resulted in strife among humans. They believed that those that the angels helped and those that they didn't were blessed and damned accordingly as a result there was infighting between families and camps. Horrified at what they'd done the Angels returned to their flying citadels and forbade interference with the lesser races. D'jinn are a.....were a....younger race compared to the angels, we watched what they had done and learned from their mistakes. Rather than overtly reveal ourselves as "greater beings" we chose to live among the "lower beings" as equals, teaching where we could, and learning our own lessons where we would. Eventually the angels decided our "interference" had caused too much harm and hardships to the "lesser races" and we were given an ultimatum. "Cease, or we will be forced to act"."

"....so if I'm inferring correctly, because D'jinn culture was so intertwined with that of humanity's culture it was impossible for you to do that?"

"Humanity and the other races, you keep implying your kind are the only sapient beings living on this world, you need to stop that....but you are right. D'jinn culture was so tied to that of yours that to abide by the requirements of the angels it would be the wholesale destruction of our own identity as a people."

"So what did you do?"

"We prepared for war, and lost."

Interview with the D'jinn Part 5

"Can you make something appear from nothing?"

Sul sat there quietly for a longer pause than usual, I wasn't sure if I had offended the D'jinn or not  before it finally spoke. "I can bend light and make the illusion of something being there that isn't, if I altered a persons perception so they could even interact with it. to the outside observer they would not seem right in the mind though... however to make a building requires more than simply willing it to be, it requires materials...time and...for lack of a better word power. Each act draws from the surrounding energies, uses and transforms materials at the basic level as needed. If I so chose to I could change the floor here to gold and the air into ice. The repercussions would however cause unpredictable weather, or other unexpected things to occur. I would also be rendered into a state similar to unconsciousness for a time if I were to do something that complex."

"That was a bit more of an explanation than I expected... So why couldn't you change the food I had here into something edible?"

"Time mostly. The food that was originally here contains compounds I have never encountered and it would have taken much too long to decipher how to remove them and keep the nutrients in the food, it was simpler to recreate your currency. I had to use some of your clothing to do so as the cloth it was made from was very close to the makeup of the papyrus used."

"So...how would you describe your abilities? A manipulation of the atomic structure of substances?"

"I do not believe even the most powerful and intelligent of my kind ever truly understood how it works.....The best word could be from one of your kinds. Magic, as I recall. It's a harnessing of the energy of the world, and we simply reshape it."

"So even your people don't understand it..." I sat quietly poring over my notes for a bit. "So the tales I told you.. what at your most powerful, what are the absolute limits that a D'jinn could or could not do?"

"Limits....We cannot change history. What is past is past, it is done and over, we cannot bring the dead back to life what makes a person them is gone.. reanimating the body....the results are....I do not want to speak of shades at this time....Only the angels are able to return a lost spirit to the realm of the living and they closely guard that secret, with good reason I think." At the subject of reanimating the dead Sul's eyes narrowed and looked as though it were staring into the past with a haunted visage, it sat there a time before I spoke again, my voice breaking the silence seemed to bring the D'jinn back to reality.

"Anything else that you cannot do?"

"....ah..yes. While a D'jinn can do so, it is something of an unwritten law among us that we cannot change a person's mind... force them to be something they are not."

"Brainwashing?"

"...I am not familiar with that word."

I spent a few minutes explaining the concept of brainwashing and "re-education" to the D'jinn, and Sul seemed genuinely horrified that we can and would do such a thing to each other.

"Yes... it is like that....We refuse to do such a thing."

I sat for a while again and Sul returned to watching the history channel as I mulled things over, my curiosity starting to grow. I found myself intrigued by the magic and powers Sul had spoken of, my mind beginning to think of what my second wish might be, though other questions nagged at my mind as well, particularly about the Midnight war, as well as "shades". So many questions so little time.

Interview with a D'jinn Part 4

The rest of the night proceeded "normally".. though I suppose normal to me then and normal to another person would differ quite a bit. I managed to make something to eat, offered some to my guest, who spent a minute poking at it before declining, and spent the rest of the night poring over my notes from the interview.

The last thing I truly remember is explaining the intricacies of television and the television remote control to Sul. I don't remember what I dreamed of, nor do I really think it would have been very important. Unless of course it was a brilliant plan to use up the rest of my wishes, but that didn't happen as far as I know. When I awoke, the previous days events were something of a blur, and I fully expected to find that it had all been a food poisoning induced fever dream, but that also was not true.

I truly awoke sometime mid-morning to discover I had used my notepad as a pillow. Sul appeared to have taken on a solid form, a more material human form. Though the D'jinn's manner of dress made determining gender from a glance mostly impossible without a closer look. It had taken on a tan skinned elfin form, angular but feminine facial features, thin eyebrows with crimson hair tied back in a long ponytail complete with long antennae like ears. It was wrapped in a set of light robe like clothing, adding to the confusion of gender identity, and was perched atop the beanbag watching what seemed to be a history channel marathon with the intensity of a wary cat observing a laser dot on a carpet. The D'jinn's eyes flitted in my direction as I sat up, a solid molten red, not like fire, but not human either.

"Your species has been quite busy since my imprisonment, though much of that progress has been made in the last two hundred years."

I nodded blinking sleep from my eyes, finally noticing there was a plate with fresh prepared food sitting beside me. None of which was anything that I recognized as actually having inside my apartment. Rice, and diced pineapple, with cooked eggs and sausage. Finally waking up enough I actually asked about this. "....ok..I know I didn't have this, and I know I didn't have a cable subscription to history channel last night."

"I went out to the nearest bazaar and retrieved some things. The food you had available was either rotted or incredibly toxic....yes I paid. Once I saw some of your currency it was incredibly simple to replicate."

"...toxic food?....ok I'll question that later, and ....know what not going to go into the ramifications of just magicing up money....As for History channel?"

"...you call it electricity..well electrical signals.. it was easy to manipulate and trick the machina you humans have created to harness these powers. It took some prodding but I ended up finding this history channel and it has been most informative."

"Don't take everything it says as fact."

Sul nodded as I poked at the food with a fork. "...that form?"

"Something to make you more at ease, a floating cloud could be considered....intimidating."

"So not what you looked like before?"

"No, I got the idea after watching a....I believe it was a japanese tv show?"

"Most likely.... After I eat shall we continue the interview?"

"If you would like to, I have no issue with that."

I nodded and wolfed down my food, as Sul resumed watching the history marathon, as it covered some obscure bit about the industrial revolution, particularly about some kind of moth and adapting to the ash of the coal plants. As I ate I went over my smudged notes, formulated questions, and attempted to figure out where to go from the night before.

Finally I broke the silence. "There's only one really accepted tale in human history that really covered any major interaction between human an D'jinn. It didn't give the D'jinn's name but the person that met them was called Aladin. I hate to bring something up so cliched, but well.. it's the only thing that really references D'jiin outside of the Quran."

I spent the next few minutes going over a brief synopsis of the tale of Aladdin, not the whitewashed Disney cartoon, but one of the versions that began circulating in the 1700s.

"The transportation from one continent to another, and making castles appear from thin air... are those things D'jinn are capable of? Is that something you yourself are capable of?"

Interview with a D'jinn Part 3

"So.. do you think you can teach me that glyph trick?"

Sul sat there quietly, watching me the air seemingly charged with static. The Dijin's unblinking stare unnerving as time ticked on, seeming to have slowed to a crawl.  Sul finally spoke in a low whisper. "No. Not as you are now at least. Your mind cannot understand the senses that would be opened to you if I were to teach you how all at once, over time yes. All at once would be... damaging...I believe that is the correct term."

"Ok, a topic for another time then...So Japan, have you ever been there?"

"No, my travels never took me further east than Istanbul, and before I gained the chance to do so the midnight war began."

"That keeps coming up, but I have a different question in mind right now. What do you first remember of the world?...what civilization did you see first?"

"The first civilization I encountered.....I did not see their rise, I had not been born by that time, however I saw their fall. The Minoan civilization in the Mediterranean. Their decline was slow, the culture was shattered time and time again by earthquake and volcanic eruption, Mount Thera, I believe they called it. By the end of it all there were more Mycenaean Grecians than Minoan Grecians, though the Mycenaens adopted the culture and language they did not improve upon it and it became less diverse group of people as a result."


"And after the Minoans?"


"After living among the minoans and watching their slow decline I travelled to the north and west across a small straight to an island nation to observe and live among the Drwy. I found the difference between the two people...refreshing."

"The who?" I arched an eyebrow, trying to figure out what Sul had just said.

"The Drwy... it's hard to describe them, they were pale of skin like yourself, however we never fully understood how or why, but they had attuned themselves with the energies of the world like we had, though to a lesser extent. Some could speak to the trees and animals and even take on the forms of some of the creatures inhabiting the islands, while others could reshape the land itself. In concert with each other they could divert water and raise stone hills from boggy soft land it was quite startling really, compared to the very few people capable of this among the Minoans, the Dryw by their last breaths could be almost as adept as a young D'jinn."

"....It sounds like you're describing the Druids of myth and fable rather than the religion that exists today..."

"Druids... that is a term similar to what the scholars of the Roman republic called them, though there were many fewer Drwy by that time than there were when I initially met them. The rest of the world arrived and changed them, took them away from nature as some of the elders said."

By this point I began to realize what time it was, That I had spent most of the day speaking with Sul, and that I had missed two classes. After a few moments of contemplation I shrugged and sat there quietly contemplating over what my next question should be.

"Is there anything else you'd like to know about the Dryw?"

"What separates them from Dryads?.... Beings who are more plant than human, simmilar in power you have described, but tied to the health of the forest, say a group of people logged the entire forest, this would leave the Dryad dead or extremely weak..have you encountered anything like this?"

"What you are describing would be some of the eldest and most powerful Dryw. They tie their health and vitality to a shrug, tree or other plan or multiples of the same to gain mastery over a particular element of nature. Usually they chose a young tree to maximize their vitality. In doing so though they can only range as far as the nearest stream from the tree, or trees they had chosen, and over time they would change. Being less human as you put it, and more like the plant they have tied their essence to. If it were an oak, their bones would grow more pliable and stronger, with their skin, thicker and more barklike. Eventually their hair would begin to leaf out with the natural cycle. Some Dryw chose to take on a half form between deer and human, or horse and human human for mobility and speed. I believe the Romans called them Centuars...or perhaps it was Saytr's..."

Sul trailed off as it seemed to be in thought for a time before I spoke again.

"We've been talking for most of the day, I need o get some food and rest, if it wouldn't be a problem, we could stop here for today and we can resume the interview tomorrow or the next day if that's not a problem?"

The D'jinn sat there quietly before nodding as though remembering that my species had odd rudimentary needs like food and sleep. "That is acceptable, I will remain here until you complete the duration of your first wish and decide on your second and third."

I nodded and went about scraping together something to eat for dinner, suddenly quite hungry, having completely forgotten to eat, and that I had two more wishes waiting in the wings.

Interview with a D'jinn Part 2

"What was the midnight war?" Sul paused and sat there for a time before finally speaking. "...It was a dark and terrible time for D'jinn, I would not speak of it so lightly, perhaps later after I tell you my own tale..perhaps not at all..."

"Fair enough....Ok so, D'jinn are more or less long lived, beings formed off energy.. am I correct in this so far?" the D'jinn nodded and I continued, "D'jinn tend to stick to themselves and nature but some of your kind have been involved in the founding of our most earliest civilizations, as well as acted as our early gods and spirits." Sul nodded once more. "So, tell me about yourself Sul."

"I am a D'jinn, as I have explained... I'm not sure what else to say."

"Well, let's start at the beginning, where and when were you born?"

"How long has it been since the unification of Roma?"

"The Republic, Empire or Eruscans?"

"The Republic, and their own word was Etruscian, Eruscan was what the Romans called them, though they were all romans after they were annexxed."

"To answer your question, roughly two thousand five hundred years, when was the War in relation to this?"

"Between the fall of Babylonia to Mursalis of Hatti and the transition of the Roman Republic to the Empire."

As Sul spoke I continued to write this all down before I interrupted as it paused, "So.. the war was close to fifteen hundred years long, is that right?" The Djinn gave me the slightest of nods before I continued. "now that we have a general timeline, where and when would you say you were born... is born even the right terminology?"

"Born is correct, as it takes two Djinn to create a new third Djinn, I won't go into detail and simply let your mind wonder." The Djinn snickered before continuing, "I was born after what was referred to as the great floods on the southern continent of Al'antia, while many groups described this events as the anger of the gods, and punishment for vices it was rather the result of several things. Fire, or rather stone and metal rained from the sky across the world impacted the oceans and changed the balance of the natural world. At that time the Djinn and Angels were opposed about what to do. Both groups had seen the threat coming, however the angels refused to interfere, while the Djinn wanted to intervene, as a compromise we chose members of your species to be warned and make their best attempts at riding out the impending destruction. Considering you are here to ask me questions is proof enough our efforts were not in vain."

I rapidly scrawled my notes, holding up a hand to indicate I wanted Sul to stop there for the time being. "Ok, that was a lot of information that I need to properly make sense of it all...Al'antia, southern continent, could this be what has been referred to as Atlantis in Greek writings?" Sul nodded holding up a glowing set of glyphs again to correct my pronunciation, "Grecian, got it.... So the "great floods".. makes sense most cultures have a flood myth, makes sense it was a natural disaster of some kind, however our scholars though it several separate events."

"It was. The comet initially impacted luna and broke apart and over the course of several hundred years the larger pieces became trapped by the world's g'vity and was pulled in most of them impacting the oceans and resulting in massive displacement of water." I arched and eyebrow at the word Sul had used. "G'vity, the force that keeps your feet on the ground."

"We call it Gravity."

"Duly noted....where was I?"

"Comet chunks splashing down and causing Tsunami's."

The Djinn sat there quietly staring at me. "..Soo...nah..me?" I nodded, drawing out a basic sketch of a Tsunami and the spelling. "Ah, yes....where is that term from?"

"Japan, to the far East...it's actually closer if you go to the west though. An island nation, also known as the land of the rising sun. East of China....do you think you can teach me that glyph trick you've been using? It might make it easier to communicate and translate ideas and words a bit more clearly."

The Djinn sat there silently watching me for a time.

Interview with a Djinn Part 1

The spirit paused for a time, seemingly taken aback by what I had asked for before speaking again. "I do not understand. Explain what you mean."

"I thought you said you could read my mind." I continued before giving it a chance to respond. "An interview.. well it's basically asking a bunch of questions, who..or what you are. What your story is.. things like that."  It hovered there, shifting like a breeze as it remained quiet. I wasn't sure if my explanation was making much sense to it. I suppose in retrospect the concept of an interview could be rather strange to a being like this.

"You.. wish to know my own tale?... ", its eyes blinked and looked around as though it were confused as it spoke. "This is...most unexpected.you are strange."

"I get that a lot...so where to start...I suppose I may as well start with what I may call you....I mean who are you. your name?" As I asked this I scrambled for a notepad, my mind beginning to focus on the interview and not the strangeness of the situation. "Um..ah..take a seat if you'd like. " I motioned to the two chairs I had in the apartment, a beanbag chair and a rolling office chair. I felt like it was smirking as it settled down atop the beanbag chair, its presence pressing down into the bag like a normal person would.

"My name... as best as I can replicate in the spoken languages is Sool-Lith-ewe-eye, and I am an Al-jin, in your written language the words would appear like this." It began to literally write out in the air, the letters sparking in the dimly lit room and remaining as I copied Súl'lithui and D'jinn down onto my notepad. "You may call me Súl' if you wish."

"Alright..Súl'.. let's begin with.. well what is a D'jinn?.. Just so I have a frame of reference.. we have legends and stories, but.. well I've never met one nor have I heard of anyone meeting one.. well in the last couple thousand years." I scratched at the back of my head, still not sure if I was delusional or suffering from food poisoning yet.  Súl' seemed to nod at this as though it knew that no one had met a D'jinn in a long time.

"D'jiin are beings of power, magic if you will, we have free will and can affect the world around us if we so choose. Normally most D'jinn prefer to keep to ourselves and commune with the world in remote places, however.. well in the past some of us actually preferred to interact with the world and see what you mortals were doing and watch, interact and live life. Sometimes we would offer aid, trick and deceive some of you and act like wild children occasionally, however when you went to war we tried not to choose sides though some of us were a bit more attached to certain factions of your people." Sul paused as I scratched a cliffnotes version of what it had said down as I absentmindedly threw questions out as I wrote and thought aloud. "would you say D'jinn are immortal?... could they be perceived as gods...what about ...well why do we only have legends and have never met D'jinn in recent history."

The D'jinn waited for my writing to catch up before beginning to patiently answer my initial questions.  "No D'jinn that I have known has died of old age if that's what you mean. We can die, however the means to kill a D'jiin takes an equal or greater power." I interrupted with my interpretation, "So magic?" Sul nodded but added, "a bolt of lightning would work just as well, but that is rare, a mortal like yourself is much more likely to die from a bolt of lightning than a D'jinn....As for gods... yes there were some of us that were so interested in your people that they pretended to be as such... though your fledgling civilizations flocked to them for guidance, and blessings, as for why your people have not seen us for some time.. I suppose that could be the result of the midnight war."

"The midnight war?" I had stopped midway through writing something down as that had been brought up. "What was the midnight war?"

Foreward and Introduction

Like my other blog, Blog With the Blastwave, this too is an exercise in SciFi writing. Yes I was inspired by Ann Rice's "Interview with the Vampire" for the idea, however I don't intend to stick to one creature from cryptozoological myth.  

I also do not intend to stop writing Blog with the Blastwave, however for obvious reasons (second strike systems launching a salvo of nuclear hellfire and the Soviet/Sinno etc. automated response) the character in that blog is  currently unable to connect to the internet for the time being. However as a little hint, the earth itself will respond to the atomic annihilation in... unexpected ways.

But moving on, this blog is about a character's step into the realms of the unknown, sort of a chronicle if you will, or how things change unexpectedly from a simple decision.

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Looking now over the things I have seen, done and witnessed, I suppose now would be a good time to begin writing it all out. From the beginning. Once upon a time that seems long ago, though it really has only been a couple years, normalcy was irreparably shattered for me.  To take and paraphrase from one of my more favorite webcomics, hunt it down try and find it, it is an amazing read, there's normalcy, and then there's a step above normal. Like the difference between the daily routine of walking to work and stopping at the starbucks for coffee, where a step above that normalcy would be getting to the shop and finding that the person before you is paying for the next customer's drink, that customer otherwise known as you. About two years ago, you could say I took a super step away from what is considered normal, though to say the world I'm involved in now, I'm more of an oddity than any of the other people I've met. A so called normal person, involved with and meeting such abnormal things and people.

I didn't used to keep a journal. It's a damn shame really, had I been doing so I would have a proper record of what happened then.  Living my ordinary life, going to college trying to get a degree and figure out what I want to do with my life. All such normal and mundane things, that, well seem silly to me now.  On an off chance I chose to go into a shop of oddities. I can tell you exactly where it is if I wanted, but there's no point to it, the shop itself isn't different from any other oddity shop in the world. You're better off poking around and tapping at bricks in the courtyard of a small pub on Charing Cross Road in London if you're after that kind of adventure. Anyway in this shop I found a crystal pendant on a silver chain.  At least I think it was a pendant. Having been at a college that had surprisingly cheap credit costs, (3 dollars a credit) I had taken a lot of extra curricular classes in search of finding my true calling, and as such I recognized it as appearing to have been made to match the style of Egyptian jewelry, and the stone of the pendant was marble with a seam of uncut garnet along one of the larger cracks.

Because I was curious, and the price was low I chose to buy it, take it back to my flat and promptly forget about it for a week. Only when I stepped on it did I remember it. By that point it was too late. With my foot stepping on the stone, two things happened. I broke the pendant, and unleashed a being from its confinement. I'm still not quite sure if it was malevolent or not.

It stood before me, the sound of cracking stone, louder than it should have been, and the pain of the rock digging into my bare foot, fresh in my mind I was a little surprised to see someone, or something else in my apartment. It was roughly human sized, but seemed to be wrapped in the heat and dust of the desert like a cloak. I distinctly remembered it having two red eyes like garnets staring at me as it shook and stirred looking around before returning its gaze on me. I felt like it was looking through me, or past me, as though it could tell everything about my past at a glance. At first it hissed at me, in some indecipherable language, before steadily speaking in tongues, latin, greek, italian and others, starting with old phrases and moving on to more modern dialects I caught and understood bits and pieces before it stopped and "spoke" a quite whisper flitting about the living room in plain English, soft and indeterminate in gender. I vaguely began to wonder if the chinese food I'd had for breakfast had gone bad.

"You have freed me from my prison, for that you have my gratitude, in the custom of my kind you may have three boons granted, provided they are within my power of course."

As my mind registered what had been said and I began to understand I shook my head in confusion, not sure if I should run, or just move to another room, thinking this was a hallucination, muttering to myself.

"Boons? who uses words like that nowadays."

"I chose it because that is the lexicon your mind would accept."

"So you can read minds..what are you...when you say Boon.. do you mean Wishes?"

Despite my dawning realization of what it was I may have just found I wasn't fully ripped from my happy warm normalcy just yet, and other things pressed my mind, like the journalism class I had enrolled in that semester. Here I had a person..well sentient being, in my apartment that I could more or less ask of anything, and all I could think of was "Hell, I still have to find someone to interview someone."

"To an extent, yes I can skim a person's mind to better understand them and communicate. It seems the world has changed greatly from when I was sealed, perhaps I may need to take a different form than this. " The being looked around slowly, motioning towards the television and electric lamp, out the window at the coastal rain that had blanketed the city. "As for your question about what I mean by Boon, the word wish is an acceptable replacement."

"Huh...I...wellll."

I stood there for a bit rubbing my head, thoughts of lottery tickets and other mundane things flashing through my mind, but the warnings from every bit of lore stories and "fiction" I'd ever read and seen brought me back to reality, how wish granters were tricksters, or the monkeys paw always turned things badly for their user. Things like that. The fateful words, actually slipped out as an accident as my thoughts turned to school once again.

"I wish to interview you."

With that choice of words my fate was sealed, life had changed, and my world tossed up on its ear.