Down With Lamps: Djinn Takeover

[Malley]

You don't know how pleased I was when this reproduction day was done, knowing I was so close to the end 


There are two different futures depending on what ending gets chosen 


I was going to post the last RD today but my sister had her baby this morning so I've been busy taking care of her older daughter and visiting the hospital. I'm really exhausted but it gives anyone interested in voting another day to decide on what ending they'd like. So far it's one vote for good and my younger sister says go with bad.

Congrats on your new niece/nephew I also vote for a happy ending because I am an absolute sucker for a happy ending!

[RainBeau]

Good endings all the way! Or you could do both, just to satisfy my curiosity

[KRae]

I like the idea of two endings, sort of like a choose your own adventure. And congrats on the new family member!

[Brooke.]

Congrats on your new niece/nephew I also vote for a happy ending because I am an absolute sucker for a happy ending!

Oops, forgot to mention I have another niece.

Good endings all the way! Or you could do both, just to satisfy my curiosity

I will share some snaps of how the Bad end would have played out in an extra chapter 

I like the idea of two endings, sort of like a choose your own adventure. And congrats on the new family member!

I've always loved the options of good/bad/happy endings from playing hundreds of choose-your-own-adventure and otome games 


So, Good end is the winner - sorry little sis  I'll be working on it in the next few days.

[Brooke.]

Reproduction Day: Fourteen

Each morning I would hastily eat my breakfast - sometimes choking in the process - then head to Performance Park to perform simple magician tricks that had been old long before you or I were even born.


My daughter Isis was a regular and often gave me huge tips if no other Sim showed up.





Ifrit was a little more creative. He chose Flying V as his stage and would relate the story of how djinn were created, since almost the whole town consisted of our children he thought it was worth teach them of their mother's history.





We worked together for the SimFest at the Warehouse. Ifrit volunteered for the Vanishing Sim illusion trick - our children were kind enough to not let slip what I'd really done was Banish Ifrit to the upper floor of the warehouse so he could make his big reveal to the few NPC Sims still around in Hidden Springs.






My last trick was the Watery Escape which I had only practised once. Luckily my lungs were strong due to being so athletic from my fire-fighting days and I survived to receive an encore.





We took our time with our last children, I admit we spoilt them and let them choose their own future. Choronzon wanted to be a doctor and Culsu a filmmaker, we had no studios in town so she was content with photography until she could inherit the house Ifrit and I had moved into many months ago.






Reproduction Day Fourteen:


Queen - Jinni Fable
Max Career: Magician
Skill Challenge 1: Master Of Nectar Making
Skill Challenge 2: Electrician
Unique Best Friend: Jaime Jarrell
Unique LTR: Friend Of The Kraken
5 Object Collection: 2 Gems


King - Ifrit Fable
Max Career: Magician
Skill Challenge 1: Master Of Nectar Making
Skill Challenge 2: Electrician
Unique Best Friend: Chuck Rodiek
Unique LTR: Teleportation Pad
5 Object Collection: 3 Gems


Reproduction Day Fourteen Drones:


Name: Choronzon Fable
Max Skill: Logic
Career: Medical
Property/Business: Subalpine Square
Best Friend: Cruz Underwood
New Home: Vanderburg Palace, 1 Lake View Place


Name: Culsu Fable
Max Skill: Photography
Career: Photographer
Property/Business: N/A
New Home: N/A

[Malley]

The last reproduction day!  Congrats!!

[Brooke.]

The last reproduction day!  Congrats!!

Thank you  I have another update tomorrow with the 'honeycomb' room before I post the Good ending.

[RainBeau]

Huzzah for happy endings!

[Magpie2012]

Wow I disappear for a while and so many stories have come to an end!

Congrats on completing this challenge? Was this a HoF entry?

Sent from my BlackBerry 9720 using Tapatalk

[Brooke.]

Huzzah for happy endings!

Happy endings are hard to write, I had a lot more fun taking screenshots of the bad ending - don't worry I'll share my favourites 

Wow I disappear for a while and so many stories have come to an end!

Congrats on completing this challenge? Was this a HoF entry?

Yes, but I won't send in my stats to the Mods until I post the ending which should be tomorrow if I can complete writing it tonight.

[Brooke.]

Epilogue, Part I: Honeycomb

Queen Jinni and King Ifrit.





Fable drones and collections from Reproduction Day One to Seven:





Fable drones and collections from Reproduction Day Eight to Fourteen:





Domination completion: Week 30, Day 5 + 4 weeks abroad.

End date: Week 34, Day 5

[Brooke.]

Epilogue, Part II: Gingerbread

"So, that's it, then." I sat up straight on the sofa and turned to Ifrit as he did the same.


"Yeah," he replied, sullenly.


Although we had started this journey not knowing anything about each other or even had romantic inclinations towards one another I was also feeling a little dismal that our time together had come to an end.


I pushed away these thoughts and grinned as I said, "Now's the part where you draw those pentacle things and take my lamp to Herit."


He frowned, almost as if he'd forgotten Herit's curse confining me to my lamp. "I... I'm sorry, there's something I need to confess." Ifrit's hands were clasped and he seemed to be playing thumb war with himself. "You see, I set you free as soon as I found your lamp. It took a while for you to regain consciousness so I... made up the pentacle stuff, it was all nonsense."


Ifrit avoided my gaze. To be perfectly honest I really don't know how to describe what I felt at that time: anger, confusion, joy, incredulous and then a rage that I could barely suppress.


"I'm sorry, Jinni." He tried to approach me but I held out my palms, I couldn't even look at him let alone speak.





"Our daughter's upstairs so I will spare your life. just give me her address." I snatched the small card he was taking out of his pocket and stomped away, letting tears finally fall when he couldn't see me. He didn't have the nerve to stop me.


I heard Culsu call after me. I didn't look back once as I slipped my seat belt into place and drove out of Hidden Springs despite the fact that I hadn't looked at Herit's address.


You would think the first thing I'd do was pay my sister a visit. Instead I ran away to Roaring Heights - it hadn't changed from my previous visit there over eighty years ago - then to Barnacle Bay. I had a wonderful time during the Pirate Era where my lamp was gambled away by pirates too juiced to think clearly and wish away their worries. I swam in the cove where I found old Bart dying and his last words - See you in Hell, love - and I didn't have the heart to tell him mine was the Egyptian underworld and no, we would never meet again. But those fond memories brought forth the pain of recent ones and so I travelled to a new place - Isla Paradiso.


I learnt to scuba dive, exploring the ocean floor which I didn't have the chance to do before and meeting a school of merfolk with their shimmering scales and seaweed hair was one of the highlights of my life. I rented a small beach house and read all through the cool nights whilst my days were spent underwater or sunbathing. One evening I hungered after crepes and it was only after eating a few mouthfuls that I burst into tears and dashed the plate against the wall, smearing strawberry and cream onto the pages of The Sakura Immortals.





It was time to face Herit, I'd postponed our reunion long enough so I rummaged inside my car to find her address and smoothed out the creases of the card to read: The Gingerbread House, Moonlight Falls. No street name or post code. I packed what little belongings I had and rang the agent to hand in my keys and paid my remaining fee in person then I waited for the boat ride back to the Continent.

*

I was intrigued by the little gingerbread cottage, it stuck out like a sore thumb among the fairly dull houses of Moonlight Falls,  with candy canes leading up to the front door in an inviting fashion. I bent to take a closer look.





They were plastic to my disappointment. I could feel a warm breeze slither down my neck and up my arms followed by the smell of charred skin. I wrinkled my nose and then heard an unearthly howl and my heart jumped to my throat, pulsating wildly.





"Hello, darling." The unmistakeably seductive voice.


"Herit!" I turned to face her, just to be shocked again: my sister was a ghost. "What in Sekhmet's name happened to you?" All other thoughts slipped from my mind as I stared at her, bewildered.


"Oh, darling, you should never have kids." She waved one hand in annoyance. "They'll be the death of you. Literally."


"I have forty," I replied a little too smugly.


Herit gave a short laugh, "Then may Hathor bless you with forty more! Come inside." She floated through the door then remembered to open it for me, smoke trails flowed behind her like a cloak. As I stepped through the entrance I felt the vibrations of a spell, similar to the one that bound me to my prison. I kept quiet.


We were in her living room that also served as a kitchen. Looking around I saw piles of cookery books and unfinished recipes spread all around, she had a canning and baker's station too so it seemed she was quite a cook these days - she didn't lift a finger to help with the harvests and festivals of the old days. The faint smell of liquorice and gingerbread lingered in the air.


"Did you build this house out of sweets?"


"Yes, a long time ago. It used to be real, then all these travellers got lost in my forest and started eating me out of my home. Literally,"—I wondered if she was one of those Sims addicted to social media sites—"It's all replica now. Sit," she said and began to brew tea. I watched her scoop sugar cubes and gently stir it in with the strawberry and raspberry tea bags - we still shared the same tastes - and the sweet but sharp infusion made my mouth water.





I sat and she set my cup before me. She drank the scorching hot tea right away, I don't suppose ghosts can really feel anything other than the cold of death. I watched the rosy tea slide down her throat and swirl away into nothing. Herit smiled at me kindly.


"Who's your baby-daddy?"


"Ifrit Geb,"


She beamed brightly. "Of all the potential bachelors you chose that boy,"


I remembered the affectionate way Ifrit had spoken of her that night in Egypt. Now I knew she had never thought of him in that way. Why did that seem to please me?


"How did you die?" I blew on my tea and sipped a little. Herit was blessed by Sekhmet so death by fire was strange to say the least but I was reminded of the headstone in Hidden Springs - Hansel Bastet who had perished in a fire.


"My two ungrateful kids locked me in my oven." She jerked her thumb at the baker's station. "Not only did they steal some of my powers but they burned my forest down too. All this used to be the Black Forest and now—"


"Wait, are you saying you're not a witch anymore?"


She shrugged. "I can still make my elixirs, they're just not as purely distilled as they used to be. I think Ammit devoured my soul, taking my remaining magic with it and before you ask she's just as frightening as Mother said she would be,"





I shuddered involuntarily. I don't look forward to meeting Ammit, knowing which way the scales will tip when Anubis judges me.


"So I'll be a djinni for all eternity then,"


"Is it so bad?"


"Of course it is. I'm your sister, Herit! How could you have done this to me?"


"There you go again, disrespecting me like always. That's what started all this, you never did like being the younger sibling,"





"That was not what started it. Gods, you're giving me a headache already."


"Why are you even here? Do you want revenge? Go for it, baby sis, because there is nothing you can do to hurt me - my kids have done it for you." She rubbed at her eyes.


No, those crocodile tears don't work on me anymore. "I came..." I left off and we sat in silence drinking tea, two sisters who didn't know how to communicate after thousands of years apart, both hating each other over something so stupid.


"It's not so bad being a djinni, apart from the lamp and all those energy draining wishes," I said at last. "I always wanted to travel and pick up new skills, I found love and lost it too."


My sister reached out a hand to me but I pulled away and wrapped them tightly around my cup. "I don't forgive you, in fact I never will but you're my sister and Mother wanted us to be civil so in her memory I can at least do that."


"Mother's favourite," she said softly. I swear I could have throttled her.


"You got your just desserts, pun intended." The chair scraped against the old wood flooring as I got up. "I don't know what to do, I mean you're a ghost and you're not giving off any magical energy so there's no way we can fight fairly. Having no power is punishment enough."


"Darling, I knew you always had a kinder heart than I." She gave me what could be passed as a warm hug, her arms hovering a couple of centimetres from me. "Um... there is something else." She lowered her head, either too shy to make a request or simply embarrassed.





"Set me free from this house, p-please?"


The spell I had sensed earlier was exactly what I thought: a binding curse. Herit's children were clever and as conniving as their mother. I laughed and gave her an accusatory look.


"No chance, after what you did to me I think it's time you had a taste of your own medicine."


"Gods, Jinni, I was a fool to think you'd care."





Before we could argue any further I turned my back on her. She followed after me, pleading and trying to stop me in vain but her hands went right through me - my insides complained -  and sped towards my car to see an invisible cord pull Herit back into the house. The sight left me quite scared so I got out of there as fast as my car could take me.

[Lisa46]

So funny! Poor Heri, I almost feel bad for her but then again...

[Brooke.]

So funny! Poor Heri, I almost feel bad for her but then again...

I loved playing with Herit, she's much easier to write and evil characters are fun in general

[Malley]

Herit definitely got her just desserts.  Great pun by the way