Oh. So you want to know how my shop got its name, eh? Yes, that will do nicely for a story. Though
at that time I wasn't really recording anything, so this will just be what I
happen to be able to remember.
It was maybe... about twenty years ago? Maybe a little more, time doesn't
really hold that much meaning for me beyond day-to-day
appointments. Anyway, I was just getting bored of my "live like a normal
person" phase, and was looking for an outlet for my magic. Somehow, though
I can't remember the details of it, I got it in my head that it would be fun to
pretend to be a genie and grant someone's wish. So I enchanted one of those
classic genie-oil-lamps to alert me if someone rubbed it. Then I tossed it
aside in a park in the middle of the night and left.
I remember it took a few days for someone to finally try it, but it did
eventually happen, and I did pop out of the lamp wearing a stereotypical
Arabian outfit. Now, I'd expected there to be a handful of people around, maybe
with a few poking fun at the person who rubbed the lamp, so I made a grand
sweeping bow saying "How may I serve you master?" before I took a
look at my surroundings. An ear-piercing shriek brought me to my senses, and
caused me to take stock of where I was; standing in a bathroom with a young
woman soaking in a tub, at that moment trying to gather soap around herself in
an attempt to conceal her body.
I made a quick judgment call, and decided it
would be more fun not to break character.
"Well Mistress, if you didn't like the idea of me seeing you naked, perhaps you shouldn't have summoned me while
washing yourself," I said, keeping the
somewhat haughty tone I'd used when entering.
"I didn't actually expect that to work!
Genies aren't real! Nothing is supposed to happen when you rub a lamp!"
She retorted while still trying to cover herself.
"I'll admit my kind are rare, but there are stories about us. Never
discount stories as totally false; they have
to come from somewhere right?" Just as a side note, genies are real, they just like to keep to themselves. That Aladdin movie had it all
wrong; their lamps are a paradise for them. They're basically gods of their own
realms in there so why would they want to come out?
"I'm still allowed to be surprised that you popped out, you just said
yourself that you're rare!"
"OK I'll give you that. Now, as long as I'm here,
I believe I owe you three wishes?"
"Would it count as a wish for me to ask you to turn around so I can get
out of here and at least wrap a towel around
myself?"
"I suppose that one can be on me."
"Thank you." At this point I turned and she got out of the tub and
began to dry herself off. "So, do you
have a name?"
"Call me Quill, Mistress." Now, it was fortunate for me that she
didn't ask me to leave the room. Why you
might ask? Because she forgot that there was a mirror behind me. When she got
out of the bath I got a rather good look at her body, before she wrapped it in
a towel. She was maybe five-and-a-half feet tall, and couldn't have weighed
more than one-twenty, with a fair amount of that weight distributed on her
chest. She had strawberry blonde hair cascading
in soft curls down just beyond her shoulders, a fair complexion, and amazingly clear skin. If that rogue mage from my last story had
captured this girl, she would never spend longer than a few minutes on display
before someone rented her again.
"And you call me Laura; being called
Mistress feels weird."
"Very well Laura. So now that you've dried off, do you have any wishes?"
"Well..." She turned so red at this point that I figured she'd have
boiled her bath if she were still in it.
"I do have one wish. You might think it's silly though."
"If it is for something frivolous then do not worry yourself. I know you
mere mortals have strange tastes, and it is not my job to judge them, just to
indulge them."
"Well... I need to figure out how to phrase this. I don't want my wish to
backfire on me."
"Then perhaps I can help you figure that part out. I know in some stories of my brethren have us
deliberately misinterpreting wishes for our own sadistic amusement, and I wish
to assure you I am not that kind of genie."
"How do I know I can trust you?"
"You don't. But just don't say 'I wish' before you talk it out to me and I
cannot act on it."
"I guess that part is true. OK, I'll just think out loud then. You let me
say what all I'm thinking, then I'll ask for your opinion. Got it Quill?"
"Ok Laura, do as you wish."
"By the time I have used all three of my wishes, this is what I want to
have happened: I want to be a toy. Not a woman, not even really me, at least
not the way I am now. I want someone to own my body, and I want my body to do
whatever that person says, up to and including having it change shape on their
command. I want to always remain a woman though, and always humanoid. Things
like my hair color, ethnicity, breast size
and the like would be totally up to my owner though. Even what my body is made
of could be changed on command; if my owner wants me to be a statue, great! A lovedoll? No sweat! As for my mind, I want to be
disconnected from myself, in kind of a waking dream state. I would see my owner
as my boyfriend/husband, and I would be in the perfect relationship. So, Quill, is this all possible?"
I was... stunned to say the least. She'd
obviously been harboring this fantasy for
quite some time and I did want to help her with it, but it involved mind-magic.
Now, I don't think I've fully explained my position on messing with other peoples’ heads so let me do it here: it's evil.
Oh, it can be used for some good purposes, but overall it's powerful, dangerous
magic that has a good chance to corrupt the user and target alike. If the target is willing, then there's no chance of them being corrupted,
but there is still a good chance for the caster.
Corruption, in magic terms, is a person’s
personal magic supply becoming tainted with impure emotions. What impure
emotions are is up for debate, but hate, disdain for life, and
the need to rob others of their free will, are pretty safe bets. What
corruption means for a mage is that they're slowly going to be taken over by
their magic; losing themselves to the pursuit of whatever tainted them to begin
with. So someone who became corrupted by enslaving people is going to go out and
try more and more crazy things to enslave more and more people. For a non-mage, corruption tends to lead to insanity. So it's
something to be avoided.
There is however one single, convoluted, difficult, and time-consuming method
to get around all of that though: a technique known as Dream Weaving. It can
only be performed on a willing subject, so that eliminates the chances of the
target being corrupted. Additionally, it can
only be used to make changes the target desires, and I'm not talking waking
desires, I mean the desires of the heart. If someone wants something badly
enough it becomes a part of them, and Dream Weaving is
all about the mage making those desires manifest, by giving the subconscious
enough power to make it happen. So because the mage isn't actually doing all
that much, besides providing power, and maybe gently nudging the targets dreams in the right direction,
there's no chance of corruption. This is the technique I used with Laura, after
explaining how it was possible of course.
"So that's what I would need to do in order to complete your wish."
"You can't just snap your fingers and make it happen?"
"Unfortunately no. What you are asking for would take more power than I
have available to me at any given moment, but over the course of time I can
make it happen. You need only say 'I wish for you to fulfill
my innermost desire' and I will begin carrying out my task each time you
sleep."
"Well then... Quill, I wish for you to fulfill
my innermost desire."
"I shall begin tonight then. Sweet dreams,
Laura."
Continued in Part 2: The First Dream