The following occurs shortly a few days after Part 11: The Dark Ride 

The story starts with Lubanah, the jinn (see Side Story 4: A Bottle of Jinn) at a cafe in Jinnistan, the city where her people dwell in the supernatural realm. She's lamenting the fact that her own home was sold off during her long imprisonment in Ali Baba's bottle and that so much time has passed that the world has changed completely from what she remembers. It also bothers her that Arja was able to wrest out a ring to summon her with as her final wish, though she does begrudingly admit that partial freedom is better than no freedom at all. 

As she's sitting there trying to make heads or tails of a manga she found at a book store in the mundane world she notices a young boy of a jinn walking past her who seems familiar. It takes her a few moments to remember, but then she realizes that this boy is, infact, Fahad al-Jan and despite his childish appearance he is an incredibly powerful jinn, much moreso than herself. She tries to go unnoticed, but he recognizes her and walks up to her, commenting that she finally escaped the bottle that Ali Baba had tricked her into. 

She nods, telling him about her rescuer (she refers to Simoni as Arja's 'slave' during this) and then gets an idea, telling Fahad that those two seemed like they'd be just the types he likes to play with. Fahad considers this for a moment, then nods and vanishes to the mundane world. 

"Hehe, this is perfect! Either Arja will stomp Fahad and I can claim his home for myself, or he'll make her and that slave-girl Simoni into his pets and then she can't summon me anymore! Either way I win!" she grins.

In the mundane world Simoni and Arja are enjoying a peaceful night for once, Nelen having found out that McCall will be out of town for a couple weeks to oversee the renovations of a casino he owns in Las Vegas. She flies Arja out to a mesa away from the ranch, landing the two of them up where mundanes can't reach them, and fully intends to enjoy the night with her until a strange dust storm begins to kick up. 

Simoni immediately recognizes that the wind is being manipulated and begins to fight back against it, managing to break up the dust devil that surrounded her and Arja before Fahad, who is hidden and invisible nearby, summons up a second one directly under the garuda. She yelps in shock, then lets out a loud hawk-like screech and summons a huge swirling mass of air around the top of the mesa. While this doesn't harm Fahad it allows her to find her and focus an attack on him, forcing the jinn out into the open. 

He comments that he's glad Simoni has some fight in her, worried that she'd be boring after Lubanah referred to her as a 'slave', then tells them both that they're going to play a game with him... whether they want to or not. Arja reluctantly agrees to it, then a hole in reality opens under them, pulling them both down. 

Simoni lands alone in a cell in an unknown location, the door opening and showing a long path ahead of her through what looks like a stone tunnel just barely lit by small torches. This worries her as her wind magic won't work properly underground or indoors, requiring more effort on her part to conjure wind. To make matters worse Fahad is using his powers to suppress Ajra and Simoni's, leaving them to have to escape using their wits. 

The girls then hear Fahad explain the rules of the game. All they have to do is reach the center of his maze and they can go free. He'll even cut them a break and honor the owner/slave bond they share in that only one of them has to actually get there for them to go. Simoni frowns, but decides she doesn't have a choice. Heading down the hallway. At first its just a narrow corridor, until she comes to a fork in the road with two signs pointing down each fork. The signs give a hint as to what is down those roads... unfortunately it's written in Farasi and Simoni has no idea what it says. 

However, while Fahad is blocking her magic, he didn't think to check her for mundane tools. She takes out her smartphone, scans the writing, and runs a universal translator app she downloaded a while back. 

Fahad huffs "I hate the modern age so much" he says, the screen on the phone flickering and becoming an image of Fahad sticking his tongue out. Still, she's able to get a glimpse at the translation, left read... well all she could make out was 'ice' and the right read 'binding'... 

Ice she'd give a pass on... binding... well, if nothing else it could be something she'd at least know how to deal with. She puts the phone away with a smirk, "Hey, should've frisked us if you didn't want me to do that." she replies, heading down the 'binding' path.

The path leads her to a bare stone room that appears to be a dead end, until suddenly one of her wrists is forced behind her back. She can't see any limbs, ropes, or anything holding her, but the shadow on the far wall shows a shadow of a long bind reaching down to her wrist. She struggles against it, looking for an exit, but as she does another invisible bind grabs her other wrist, the two lifting her off the ground. 

She realizes she doesn't have a choice on this and, taking a gamble, she focuses her magic and sends a blast of air at the nearest torch, blowing it out. 

She glances around, thinking hard... She can't see the ropes, just their shadows... and she can't feel the ropes either... she looks around and spots the torch that's casting the shadows, then takes a deep breath and focuses as hard as she can. Its harder to use her magic indoors and underground, but not -impossible-... "This is gonna give me such a damn headache..." she winces, bracing herself, then summons up a gust of wind, powerful enough to snuff out out the torch. 

In his saferoom, Fahad smirks as the shadows break apart at that, or rather get engulfed by the other shadows. Regardless, she would come falling down on the ground, a chunk of wall at the far end sliding open to reveal a new hallway... 

She lands with a thud on the stone floor. "Ow..." she grumbles, then clutches her head as the feedback from her spell hits, "OW!" she grimaces, getting to her feet and heading towards the new hallway, wiping a tiny trickle of blood from her nose as she heads down the path.

Simoni stumbled along the path to the next part of Fahad's game, this time a wooden door depicting images of fish and waves. She was only moderately surprised to open it and find the room filled top to bottom with water, though the water didn't flow outwards when she opened the door, holding still as if an invisible wall held it in place. Fahad speaks to her again, telling her she'll be able to breathe in there and that all she has to do is reach the trapdoor at the top. 

She sighs, then takes a deep breath and dives in, swimming upwards as fast as she can... which isn't very fast at all. One of the downsides of turning into a bird of prey is that she tends to swim about as well as one, and then she feels something wrapping around her legs as seaweed on the floor of the room binds her ankles, trying to pull her down. 

This time it's different, not only is she weakened from using that wind blast before, but she really CAN'T use her magic underwater... or rather, she can't use her wind magic. Transforming is just as easy indoors as it is outside, but its normally useless indoors because she can't fly without crashing into something. However, she realizes if she just changes one part of her body, rather than totally changing into a garuda, she may stand a chance. She has to concentrate hard to do this, a very difficult task underwater with seaweed pulling her down, but she manages to only change her legs, growing sharp garuda talons in their place. She easily shreds them with her talons, changing one leg back as she swims upwards, keeping one talon just incase, and then... 

The seaweed shreds easily before she's propelled up, only to get pushed against something soft... and also scaly... a familiar blue haired mermaid grinning at Simoni as she grabs her wrists, "Gotcha!" she teases. 

She yelps, looking at her. "Thea?!" she struggles, kicking away from her, "Oh jeez can this weirdo read our memories too?!" she squirms, convinced that it's not really her as she struggles upwards towards the trapdoor, trying to get her wrists loose from the mermaid. 

The girl just grins, squeezing nice and tight around her arms, "Actually I owed him a favor from helping my city out a bit ago." she teases "I mean I'm sure he did read your memories but this isn't an illusion or whatever." she teases as she swims downwards. 

She squirms, struggling against the mermaid's body, "Thea! C'mon! Let me go!" she insists, though she isn't -extremely- upset at seeing the mermaid now is definitely not the time. "Arja and I need to get out of here!" she yelps, her legs both becoming talons now. She really hopes Thea won't make her use them... she honestly does like the mermaid. 

She frowns as she sees the talons "Hey no need to get aggressive, we're in MY house now remember. Nothing personal here, I'm just repaying a favor." she says, leaning in to whisper "Of course if YOU offered ME something in return, I can see letting you go." she teases, Fahad frowning a bit "Hey!" "What?" Thea teases, "I believe the deal was that I'd wait for the birdy to come in, and grab her. Well now I'm grabbing her nice and tight aren't I Simoni?" she teases, squeezing you against her chest as the Jinn huffs "This is why we don't do business with creatures of the sea often!" he pouts, but he really can't do much in retaliation, she did have him and despite his 'tastes' he was an honorable Jinn... 

She raises her eyebrow at this, "Hmm..." she thinks. Despite the saltwater in her hair she did rather enjoy some parts of being Thea's 'guest'. "Well... we're staying right near the Gulf of Mexico at the moment... If you wanted to, say, visit again in the mundane world I could probably convince my brother to take us to the beach." she suggests, slowly letting her legs shift back into their human forms. "You know where that is right?" she asks. 

Thea nods at that "Hmmm I could see to that." she giggles, licking your nose before showing off her shark teeth wickedly... 

She bops her lightly, "Hey, don't point those daggers at me." she smirks, then glances around the room before planting a quick kiss on the mermaid's cheek and squirming free of her grasp, kicking upwards as fast as her legs can manage. 

Thea just grins "Oh dear, she got away." she says in a flat tone as she puts her hands behind her head to relax, the Jinn huffing loudly as you find the trapdoor unlocked "Sure you're not part Jinn yourself?"

The trapdoor leads her into a pitch black room, no torches or lights or anything. Simoni also finds, when she gets out, that she's somehow totally bone dry. At least the jinn wasn't expecting her to wander around soaking wet in these caves. Still, she can't see anything in the room and she's not sure she wants to feel her way around to see what's nearby, so she uses a trick she'd picked up. 

She tries to look around, unable to see anything in here... then whispers out a quick burst of wind. It was a trick she'd picked up while training with the garuda (blindfolded too). A sort of echolocation that relied on feeling wind rather than hearing sound. She let the tiny gusts travel outwards, then return to her, getting a feel for the dimensions of the room. This spell isn't very taxing so it's not too hard to use it through Fahad's spell block, though she does have to concentrate. 

She finds the room is quite large, with many furnishings around it, less a 'lair' for a beast and more a home it seems. Worse, the echolocation would bounce off a figure...a tall, feminine, figure with a serpent's lower body and a human's top... 

She feels her eye twitch as she quickly scans for -any- way out, letting out an involuntary whimper in the back of her throat. Thea was one thing, she was more of a prankster than anything... but a godsdamned NAGA?! Was this jinn actually trying to get her killed?! 

Fahad blinks a bit in his safe room "Wait what?" he whispers in your ear, sounding just as confused as you...The snake's body slowly rises, a low hissing sound coming from a far wall "What in the name of Allah is that?" 

Simoni steps backwards, whispering back and assuming Fahad could hear her, "Lemme put it this way Mr. Magic... whats the arabic word for 'mortal enemy'?" she whimpers, moving as far away from the hissing sound as she can as she frantically looks for an exit, ANY exit! Even the trapdoor she came through. She'd rather just be stuck with Thea anyday than have to face one of the serpent-folk. 

Fahad winces a bit as the trapdoor she came through is gone now, trapping her in the room. "Ok give me a second, I need to work something up to get you out, I had no idea she was even in here." he says, the snake slithering closer slowly, another low hiss as her tongue extends, 'smelling' the air around her. "I smell a little bird..." she whispers in a soft, almost ghostly, voice "Lost from her nest?" 

She changes her legs into talons again, trying to keep away from the serpentlike woman as she steps clumsily backwards on her talons, remaining as quiet as she can. Magic is definitely out of the question here, blowing out that torch all but wiped her out. Stupid stupid stupid jinn! Locking her in a room with a naga of all things?! Well... at least it wasn't another rakshasa... but then that's like saying 'its a bomb, but at least it's not a suitcase nuke'. 

The snake laughs softly "I can smell fear...what's wrong little bird, did your mother tell you about how my kin nearly wiped yours out?" she coos "Did she tell you the ancient legend of Vinata, the mother of Garuda, and Kadru, her sister and mother to Naga?" she coos, slithering closer slowly "How Kadru tricked her foolish sister into slavery? How Vinata wished for just two powerful children rather than Kadru's wise wish of spawn that would blot out the sun..." it was clear she was enjoying this, and not in Arja's sexy sadism way... 

Definitely not sexy... this was pure sadism, this was something that could very easily wind up with her dead. She raises one leg infront of her, talons ready to claw and tear at whatever is infront of her. "Arja... if you're going to make your grand save-my-ass fire monkey entrance now would be a -really- good time..." she whimpers. 

Luckily, about then the wall behind her opens up and she dives for the gap, tumbling through just as the naga lunges. She only sees a glimpse of her, her human upper body was that of a typical Indian woman, though her hair was a dark green to match her scales. Her face was distorted in rage as she lashed out, though there was a long scar going right over one of her eyes, the unscarred one was red, but the one with a scar over it was milky white...maybe she was half blind? Regardless, she winds up with a face full of rock as Simoni tumbles into a thankfully safe hallway...

Simoni is unhurt, but clearly both frightened and angry. She yells at Fahad, demanding to know why he thought locking her in a room with a creature known for not only killing garuda, but cannibalizing them, was a good idea. 

However... 

The Jinn winces "Hey hey I didn't mean for that to happen! The cave was supposed to be empty, you were supposed to just bumble around in the dark, do a few of those 'crawl over a deep pit following a narrow beam' things and junk! I don't know how she got in there! I got you out didn't I?" 

She frowns, "Wait... you really don't know how that happened?" she asks suspiciously, "Because it seems like one -hell- of a coincidence that I escaped that underwater trap and just happened to stumble into a room that contained a creature known for killing garuda on sight." she says, folding her arms over her chest as she stomps along. 

The Jinn huffs at that "Hey you escaped a pool of water I explicitly said you could breathe in, where your biggest block was an old friend I thought would just tease and bother you while I think up something else to keep you in place! I think that's a pretty huge leap to something that wants to eat you!" 

She spins around, "Well then answer me this jinn-boy! HOW DID THAT THING GET IN HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!?" she yells, "Isn't this some magical dungeon you control or something? What? Did you leave the back door unlocked by mistake?" she demands. 

There's a pause before he speaks again "Well...it's kinda built into a cave...in India...I figured it'd be funny to dump you out in New Delhi or something! This...kinda used to be a Naga temple....but I cleared it out before I started using it, this was like, a century ago!" 

She scowls, "Yeah, a century ago... BECAUSE THEY CAN'T JUST COME BACK CAN THEY?!" she sighs, then blinks, then realizes she probably shouldn't be shouting if there's a chance more of them are around, "Hmph, yeah, a riot. Dump us halfway across the world from the rest of our friends after putting us through this mess..." she scowls... "So where's Arja? Did you lock her in with a demon?" she retorts. 

"Weeeeelll to be fair technically Nagas are divinities like you and the monkey not 'demons' per say. Actually it's kinda funny except for their...blood grudge with your people they're kinda known to be fairly neutral to humans and all, a lot like my people..." he says, chuckling nervously "Ok ok, we'll call this a draw and I'll get you your monkey friend ok?" he says. There's a long pause before..."Uh...where did she go..." he says, the Jinn looking at a smoldering hole in his maze wall...

Arja however, has found another naga and, after realizing the danger this posed for Simoni, especially in an area where her powers are stunted already, had... well... barbecued it. Unfortunately, her magic was being suppressed too, and she had to tax herself badly to do so. 

Arja, meanwhile, was a layer deep, huffing loudly as she rubs her arm. She was fairly exhausted, having to muster all her strength to overcome the Jinn's dampening magic (funny enough if not for him turning focus on Simoni to get her out she probably wouldn't have been able to...) Though at her feet was a very dead, burned, Naga, younger than the one that attacked Simoni, clearly an underling..."That's it, game's over, not letting some snake eat Simoni because of a fucking genie." she says, rubbing her ring "Lubanah! Get your ass over here!" 

There's a puff of smoke and a flash of light as Lubanah appears in midair, holding a 3DS. "These mortals do make the most fascinating toys..." she says, then glances down and blinks, noticing what's left of the naga. "... wait, where are we?" she asks, tucking the toy away as she sits cross-legged in midair. She'd just expected Fahad to tease and torment the two girls, maaaaaaaaaaaybe use his magic to force them into servitude... but something about this place feels very off. 

Arja huffs loudly "I don't know, some maze your little boyfriend stuck us in! Now, un-stick us!" 

She tilts her head, "My boyfriend? Wait, you mean Fahad? He's not my boyfriend, we barely know each other." she replies dismissively, then looks around, "And... well... that's easier said than done I'm afraid..." she says in a worried tone. Normally she'd just smirk, tell her next time to wish for a ring that makes her do what she's told beyond just coming when she's called, cackle and yell 'oops you can't!', and vanish again... but she can tell something in Fahad's plan has gone horribly wrong. "You see... I can teleport, but I can't take anyone with me. It only works for myself." she admits, leaning down and examining the burned up corpse. 

"A naga... In the prophet's name what has Fahad done..." she whispers, straightening up, "That buffoon, he's so powerful but he's got the brain of a little boy." she rubs at her forehead. This was bad, not to mention it was partially her fault... but she didn't expect him to do THIS. 

Arja sighs loudly "Wonderful, of course you can't, so what do we do, can you do anything to get us out because, in case this didn't reach your bottle, my girlfriend is a GARUDA, not exactly welcome guests in Naga temples!" She huffs again, clearly upset by the as she kicks the dead snake.

Simoni, meanwhile, has Fahad appear next to her in the maze, the smaller jinn looking apologetic in his own way. 

Fahad, meanwhile, shivers as he feels Lubanah "Oh great she called in help" he says, huffing as he appears in front of Simoni, crossing his arms "Just what I need, her holding it over me that she had to help..." 

Simoni glares at Fahad, "Well maybe you should've considered the location before you tossed me into a snake pit." she replies, looking around, "So how do we get out of here then?" she asks the boyish jinn. 

"Hey!" replies Lubanah to Arja, "I didn't know he'd send you here! He didn't even have this place when I was out of my bottle last." she insists. "Look, by now that idiot has worked out that something has gone wrong with his 'little game' and is probably looking for us. All we have to do is find him and your slave-girl and then you can use that bracelet I gave you to take us all safely to Jinnistan." she nods. 

He huffs lightly, but nods "Fine fine, it's just a matter of finding your owner, shouldn't be too hard since I doubt Lubanah is going to abandon her...this WAS her idea after all" he says, clearly not planning to admit her idea was just 'go mess with them'."Come on, stick close to me and nothing should notice you." he says, leading her through an assortment of chambers (man he sure had a lot of free time to get all this set up...) to the chamber with the busted wall "Your monkey friend bashed through here..."

Fahad's proximity means that the naga and other surprises he set up won't notice Simoni as he guides her through to where Arja blew apart a wall, along with what was left of the naga she encountered. 

Simoni blushes as he calls Arja her 'owner' but follows him, nodding at the wreckage. "Yep, thats Arja's handiwork." she replies... then notices the burned up naga corpse. "Another one... did you even check to see if they'd come back before you dragged us here?" she frowns at the jinn boy. "And could you at least stop with that magic dampening trick you're using? Its hard enough for me to use my powers underground already!" she growls, rubbing at her head, "Still got a headache from that damn shadow-room..." 

Fahad frowns "I checked! ....last decade..." he says, waving his hand as the power dampening stops "Hey! Monkey!" he whistles down the pit to where Arja was, the girl frowning a bit as she looks up "Oh good, it's the guy who put us here..." 

Lubanah looks up as well, floating slightly as she does, "You know Fahad, when I told you about them I didn't expect you to do more than, say, tie them up and toy with them... Did your tastes turn dark during my imprisonment or something?" she asks in a snide tone. 

Simoni however just jumps down and hugs Arja tightly, relieved to be back with her as she looks around the pit over her shoulder, making sure there weren't any nasty surprises down there. 

He scowls "Oh please I didn't think the snakes came back!" he says "Maybe if so many of my kin weren't locked up by random mortals with a bottle I'd have an easier time keeping tabs on things!" 

Lubanah rolls her eyes, "Oh yes, go for that one Fahad. Its not like I don't know that the -reason- Ali Baba failed to trick you is that you were hiding nearby when Halim got stuck in his own bottle and saw how he was doing it!" she retorts, "Sure, you warned the others, good for you. All hail Fahad, master of eavesdropping and -dumb- luck!" she spits back up at him. 

"Yeah yeah, you're both jerks." sighs Simoni, "Now lets get out of here before more naga show up." 

Fahad gets annoyed at that "Oh yes, blame me because you're too dumb to AVOID THE GUY FAMOUS FOR TRAPPING US!" he retorts, fuming a bit before looking at the girls "Fine!" he says, Arja's bracelet glowing as he infuses it with enough energy to get all four of them to Jinnistan... 

Simoni sighs in relief, eager to be out of here... then she almost wets herself as a hissing noise comes from further up the tunnel, accompanied by the sound of scales gliding across stone. The naga have found their intruders... 

"Look now you're shouting attracted them..." Fahad says as Arja groans "Alright, and away we go on that mature note." she says, grabbing Simoni good and close as she activates the bracelet, making the entire area light up before all four intruders vanish, reappearing in the sands of Jinnistan a mere second later.

The four of them vanish just in time for Simoni to get a glimpse of a corridor full of snake-like humans before they reappear in the supernatural realm of Jinnistan. Once safe Lubanah says that her job there is done and teleports herself away as Simoni demands that Fahad send them back to Texas. Fortunately the jinn-boy, feeling responsible for what happened, agrees to do so and both girls reappear on the mesa that he ambushed them on. 

Simoni sighs, then flops onto her back and gazes up at the stars. "So... thats what a naga looks like..." she says to Arja as they land. "I gotta say the pictures on the temple walls don't really capture the pants-shitting horror of the real thing." she frowns. 

Arja nods, rubbing her back softly, "Yeah, my people honestly didn't really quarrel with them much but that was not a fun experience, I can't imagine how it was for you..."

She shudders, "Honestly... I haven't been that scared since Dawn made us see Franklin that time." she admits, leaning into her. "Its like... even though I didn't start out a garuda I just... knew what that thing would do if it caught me." she shudders, then shakes her head. "Whatever, it's over now. They're halfway across the world again." she nods, pushing it out of her mind, "Oh... um..." she blushes, "I did... um... run into Thea in there." she says, "Apparently she owed Fahad a favor... and... I might've promised her that we'd try to get down to the Gulf and visit her." 

Arja sighs, but smirks "Alright I'll see what we can do...you know me and water aren't the best friends though." she teases. 

She thinks, "Well, I think merfolk can turn human sometimes... so maybe we could get her to come out on dry land?" she suggests, "I dunno, take her out for seafood or something? I mean we know she eats fish..." 

Arja nods "That could work well..." 

She nods back, then sighs and snuggles up into her. "Bleh... I wanted a nice peaceful night with you and then -that- had to happen..." she pouts. 

Arja grins "Oh come on, by now don't you know that being abducted by a magical being and put in mortal peril IS a nice peaceful night with us?" 

She rolls her eyes, "Well, a normal night anyways..."