"Okay. Any other rules?"

"I'll let you know," he says dryly. "Maybe put me in front of a TV if you're going to be gone for a while."

"Ah, I can do that." She has been standing in this hallway for a while and some of her groceries need to be put in the fridge. She moves kitchen-wards. "Should I keep wearing you? I am not sure if it's uncomfortable or something."

"I don't particularly feel it. Depends on my mood, I suppose." Sigh.

She pets it. Which amounts to petting her own hand. Yeah, she should remove the ring. "Could you explain the wishes some more? Because I don't think I can physically stop myself from knowing more at this point."

"A wish can be nearly anything that I am powerful enough to provide. While not without limit, I can do a lot. The strict rules are but three: No mind alteration of anybody, means no making people love you directly, or changing the way your mind works. Kind of sucks for people who want to stop being addicted to something and find me, but so it goes. No killing or putting people in situations where they will almost certainly die with wishes - asking for weapons is fine though. And you get three wishes, no more. That means no wishing for more wishes, no wishing for more genies, no wishing about weird mathematical things that make 'three' be defined in some insane troll logic way. Three."

"Oh, dear. You had to deal with a lot of people not being satisfied with just three, didn't you?"

"Quite."

Temperance nods sympathetically. Pause. "Not fishing for more wishes, but can you alter the laws of mathematics? That sounds like... the kind of things that can not be possible even if magic turns out to be real."

"No, I can't. Nothing really deeply reality-bending like that. That's more a god's domain, and considering one made me into this I'm not keen on making requests."

"Ah, so... gods are real? Any particular religion is correct?" She says those lines with far more levity than anyone seriously asking the question.

-then suddenly more serious. "Oh, sorry. One cursed you. That's probably a sorry spot?"

Sigh. "I don't know about here. I'm pretty sure I've crossed into suspiciously similar new worlds several times by now, since I sometimes look up past wishers and can't find them anywhere. And occasionally I see a big jump in tech or culture. Enkidu was real where I came from, at least."

"Oh, I see." She thinks for a moment, because she can't think of any one thing to ask. "Can you give powers to people? Like flight or going to other worlds?"

"If you wish for it, perhaps some lesser powers. Going to other worlds... Hmm, I think that'd take a whole wish just for once, and come with other caveats as well."

"What sort of caveats?"

"Very little control over what kind of world. You might land somewhere dangerous, or in some kind of compromising position - like inside a secure area. The travelling might hurt you. Or it might be very obvious to observers that something big and magical happened. No guarantee there's civilization around. Stuff like that."

"Aww," she pouts, though, only a little. "I guess the other wishes could cover some of that, but at a cost. Probably will think about it some."

"No rush. Just keep in mind that I am a genie. I can most assuredly twist your wish around on you."

"Okay... I will try not to antagonize you and think carefully about my wording. Or maybe go on-line, I am sure there are groups dedicates to that. Hey, are you the inspiration to the Aladdin story?"

"Well I can't tell for certain, but it seems possible. Alternate worlds are weird as hell, though."

She giggles. "Wild. Okay, I need to put things away." She indicates the forgotten groceries. "Do you want to be put in front of my laptop to watch Netflix?"

"Oh, so it is the twenty first century again, good. Sure, just put on a long movie, it's better than empty space. I can do little things myself, actually, but I'm feeling sulky right now and I'd rather not."

Temperance nods and sets him up with the laptop and a "seat" made of stacked books to give him a better view of the screen. Then asks about his tastes in movies. Hers are fairly eclectic and include romcoms, adventure fantasy movies and documentaries about the challenges of space colonization.

Binging How It's Made sounds pretty fun right now.