What to Wish For: A Georgie and Armand Vacation story

I know it has been some time since I have posted here. 

I have been real busy lately.

Had a great vacation to Disney World and Galaxy's Edge and I do plan to do a full post about it soon.

Got back from that and published the second Georgie and Armand's Place novel, 'Georgie and Armand’s Place Under Siege' (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B095WDZPXM).

I then did some promoting of the book.

Nerd Alert News (https://nerdalertnews.net/celebrate-pride-month-with-an-interview-with-author-ian-brazee-cannon/) posted an interview with me on their website.

Then 5280 Geek (https://weekendgeekupdate.podbean.com/e/weekend-geek-update-1623186267/) had me in the studio for an audio interview as part of their podcast.

Now here on my blog I am going to give the readers of my blog a little treat.

I do a series of short stories in the Georgie and Armand's Place called the Georgie and Armand Vacation stories. These are fun stories following Georgie and Armand as they explore various worlds on their vacations. The following is one of those stories I am posting here for free. If you enjoy it, I hope you will go here and check out more such stories.

What to Wish For

A Georgie and Armand Vacation story

By

Ian Brazee-Cannon

Based on

Characters and Concept 

Created by

Bryan Hineser

Georgie moved his hand in a smooth motion. The illumination orb that hovered in front of him moved forward with the motion. The light revealed the crumbling structure of the ancient temple’s buried ruins.

“Oh, this is beautiful,” Georgie commented as he looked over what appeared to be a room of worship, with a large stage and altar as the dominating features. The walls and pillars were covered with hand carved artwork. “Just look at the detail in those carvings. Such magnificent, hand crafted masterpieces, hidden from this world for so long.”

“Very impressive work,” Armand agreed. “If those crafters were still alive, I would be hiring them for our hotel. Many of our lobbies would benefit from some artistic details. I will be making images of them once we get closer for inspiration.”

“Everything down here is inspiring,” Georgie remarked as he walked to the center of the room. His attention was drawn to the grouping of statues that lined the chamber. Each one was a detailed depiction of a noticeably different creature with nearly lifelike auras to them. “Just look at those sculptures. I say we talk with the locals and see if they’d let us display these incredible works of art back at The Hotel.”

“It was difficult enough to get permission to explore this area,” Armand reminded his life partner. He was turned away from his lover, closely examining one of the statues, a depiction of a being with insect-like features standing on its hind legs, holding an uniquely designed sword. “I can’t see them allowing anything to be removed. We may have to settle for reproductions based off the images we create.” Armand stood back and cast his image capturing spell with the statue as its focus.

“Now look at this,” Georgie said as he prepared his own image capturing spell. “This one has a medallion on it.”

“And why is that of notice?”

“Because it is not part of the carving, but a real piece of jewelry that has been placed on it.”

Armand joined Georgie to inspect that statue himself.

“This seems to be the only statue that has been added to in any manner,” Armand remarked after looking around at all the others. “Was this being their high god? Or high priest? King maybe?”

“The amulet is of a copper/bronze-like material not fitting with anything else about this temple, covered in lettering that is not translating,” Georgie noted. “I so love such mysteries.”

Goergie took the talisman in his hand and gave it a good rub to try and clear off the layer of dust on it in hopes that clearing up the lettering might help with the translation magic.

“Now this is unexpected,” Georgie commented as he stood back. The medallion was shaking with a thick cloud of blue smoking seeping out of it.

“Did you not sense any magic from it?” Armand asked, his hand to his chin as he watched events unfold.

“That wasn’t my focus.”

A large blue cloud was forming above the statue, with a tail clearly connected to the medallion. A crackle of energy echoed through the chamber as a physical body took shape with-in the cloud.

A booming voice announced, “Do not be afraid, for you have awoken Royin, the great genie of Willsim. I grant you...”

“I would not have expected to find a jinn here,” Armand remarked.

“That was rather rude of you,” Georgie rebuked. “It was in the midst of its ‘awakening’ speech. You know how they enjoy putting on a show.”

“Right.” Armand turned towards the genie, nodded his head in apology and said, “Please feel free to continue.”

The purple form of Royin floated silently in the midst of the cloud with a puzzled look on his face. His gaze moved back and forth between the unassuming human forms of Georgie and Armand in puzzlement.

“You seem unimpressed with my appearance,” Royin said, his voice still booming.

“Well, it’s not like this is the first time we’ve met a genie,” Georgie explained. “While not common, if you do enough traveling they seem to pop up. What kind of jinn are you? An imprisoned demon being kept from harming the world? Or a nature spirit that has wrongly been captured by someone for their own gain?”

“Uhh… wait, what?” Royin stuttered, clearly not used to being questioned.

“I guess we are a little better traveled than most beings who have awoken you,” Armand remarked. “Now what is your knowledge regarding the builders of this temple? We run a hotel and would like to…”

A flustered Royin emerged from the blue smoke, his glowing purple body was massive and impressive. “I need to be allowed to finish my speech so I can tell you about the wishes.”

“Oh, you’re one of those genies then?” Georgie remarked with enthusiasm. “I’ve heard the stories, but never encountered a wish granting jinn before…”

“Now why does the wishes of a genie always have to come with some manner of  trickery to it?” Armand asked. “All the tales give the impression that the jinn are jerks.”

“I assure you that any of my wishes…”

“It would be rather easy to get around that though,” Georgie commented. “All you would have to do is use your first wish as a safeguard wishing that there were no unintended issues with your future wishes.”

“That seems a bit wasteful,” Armand replied. “I mean if one were to think out the wish fully beforehand, it would be easy to fix that problem as well as give yourself practically unlimited power.”

“It might seem like a waste of a wish for those of us who would think the situation out before wishing. You know most beings would blindly jump into the whole wishing game,” Georgie remarked. “But if you get three or five or as many as you want… So how many wishes do you grant?”

“Ummm, three,” Royin answered. “Now if you would just let me get back to my introduction…”

“I told you jinn were big on the show,” Georgie said, giving Armand a stern glance.

Armand let out an unamused groan. “Beside the fact that you have been interrupting it as much as I have, I am not sure we need a whole little show now.”

“Don’t listen to him Royin, go ahead and give us your best awakening speech.”

“There really isn’t much point to it now,” Royin said in surrender. “So you have three wishes.”

“Well I have no need for them,” Georgie replied.

“Really?” Royin asked in puzzlement. “In all my centuries of granting wishes, no one has ever declined them.”

Georgie gave the genie a reassuring smile before saying, “We don’t need them. We’re master mage dragons and there really is nothing of value for us in such trivial and unpredictable things as wishes.”

Royin looked between the two of them, obviously confused as he tried to process what he had just been told.

“Here let us revert to our natural forms if that will help,” Georgie suggested.

The two of them transformed into their dragons bodies. That did not seem to help Royin gather his thoughts. He stood there looking up at the grand forms of the red and black dragons before him with a new level of mental fog.

Without saying a word the two dragons changed back to their human forms.

“I’m not sure what to do now,” Royin said when he was finally able to speak again.

“Actually I believe that we might be able to make effective use of one of those wishes,” Armand commented.

“And what might that be?” Georgie asked, giving his lover a questioning smirk.

“We do know the long and rather complex ritual to break a jinn from their item of bonding,” Armand commented. “I do believe we may have found a far simpler method with this one.”

“Oh, of course,” Georgie said with an energized sense of realization. He turned towards Royin, who had been standing there in silence. “I wish for you to be free of your enslavement, as long as you are not going to be a danger to anyone upon your freedom.”

“Wish granted,” Royin said reflexively before realization came to him as to what the wish was. “Wait a moment, I have no idea what that will do…”

There was a bright flash of light from the medallion as Royin was engulfed in a cloud of blue smoke.

As the smoke cleared, it revealed a much smaller form that still had the purple skin, but was not as imposing looking as before. Royin was now a furry humanoid with pointy ears, and long slender arms and legs.

“That feels a little anticlimactic,” Armand observed.

“I think it’s a fine ending,” Georige countered. “Royin, in its true form, free to go out and follow its own way in the universe. It has a grand sense of hope to it.”

“Actually I have no idea what I’m going to do now,” Royin explained, looking over his fury arms that felt unfamiliar to him. “I was a genie with a purpose. Now I’m...lost.”

“As we must accept a good deal of the fault with this, you should return with us to The Hotel,” Armand offered. “We can help you find a new purpose there.”

“What would I be doing?” Royin asked.

“There are so many wonderful jobs,” Georige explained with enthusiasm. “And we are never not in need of more staff. If you wish to work for us, I have no doubt you will find something you will enjoy doing.”

“Now let us finish up with our exploration of this place,” Armand suggested. “While this little distraction was amusing, I still would like to see what other wonders are down here.”

“Yes, yes, back to exploring,” Georgie replied gleefully. “Hopefully you’ll join us, Royin. I am curious as to what you know about the civilization that built this place.”

In an absent-minded reply Royin said, “They called themselves the Bements. This temple was built in honor of….”

“I think we might have found a tour guide,” Georgie whispered to Armand as the two of them followed Royin deeper into the ruins.