Arabian Nights: Wish Granters

Written for Advanced Camp 2010 by Jacob Leeser.
==Teaser==
Sinbad gazed down at the small avalanches cascading down the sheer drop behind him like the wake behind a boat, before raising his eyes to survey the land below. Without thought, his shoulders relaxed, his breathing grew even, and a complacent smile spread as he raised his face ever so slightly towards the sun. The patchwork art of ages spread towards the horizon, as far as the eye could see. Sinbad could remember the savage glory of High Djinn battle magic. He had seen the great works produced by the smiths of the Well Diggers when magic flew like sparks off the anvil with every blow, the weavings when the Star Queen’s blood ran with enchantment. For all the loss mourned in the now mundane world, there was still beauty in the mystical land itself.
Old man lost in his memories. The adventurer snorted at his reverie. There were matters in the present to worry about. Not far to the east he could see the clearing where he knew delegations from the Nations would convene in a few days. They were wasting time talking about distributing an ore when few among them remembered how powerful the metal could be or realized how powerful they could be together.
Anyway, time to keep going. He had climbed this ridge many years ago, and knew there was a rock garden ahead where he could rest for lunch. The pass between the cliffs widened to a sheltering circle with stones strewn to provide a place to sit. Shrugging off his bag, Sinbad dispelled the ward sealing the flap. Digging past sparking trinkets and glowing vials, he ripped off a hunk of bread and dried meat.
It wasn’t until he finished his meal and leaned back to rest against a nearby menhir that he heard the sinister scraping of stone beneath the earth. Through lowered eyelids he saw the telltale thick black smoke rising from a crack in a nearby boulder. Sinbad had learned long ago not to pause when granted warning, rare as it was. One hand closing the pack and sealing it with a ward, the other crept towards the leather thong around his neck. Keeping his eyes closed and head back, he tensed his muscle and slid one leg back. The next moment, the chaos burst through the stone beneath him. In one movement Sinbad dove forward, rolling under the massive granite arm that shot out of the rock wall, and ripped the pentacle from around his neck, hurling it into the being rising from the boulder where he had just been sitting. The emerging monster ground to a halt, but the others, which seemed to have materialized around him, only advanced. Skittering down the path he had just hiked up, Sinbad hoisted his precious bag onto his shoulders. Barely keeping on his feet as he rounded the hairpin turn, he caught sight of a cohort of the dim, savage foliots blocking the path down. Turning to face the behemoths lumbering his way, he backed towards the cliff edge. The adventurer cast a glance over his shoulder at the dizzying vista he had been admiring minutes before and uttered a curse and a Wish to the all four Granters in the same breath. Spitting at the shadow of a giant flickering in the now thick column of smoke issuing from the boulder, he spun to face the drop, and leaped.
Category:Games