You went fishing.

There was no ancient prophecy leading you to the river, no mysterious stranger handing you a treasure map, and no warning carved into a temple wall. You just wanted to spend a quiet day by the water, cast a line, and maybe bring home something worth bragging about. Instead, your line snagged.

At first you figured you'd caught a branch or some other piece of junk buried beneath the water. Whatever it was fought you all the way to the bank, but eventually a small clay pot broke the surface. It was old, caked with river mud, and strangely intact. There was no obvious way of knowing how long it had been sitting down there. And an old sealed pot found at the bottom of a river could have something valuable inside.

So you opened it.

Black smoke came pouring from the mouth of the vessel, far more than the little pot could possibly contain. It climbed into the air and twisted into an enormous humanoid shape until a massive figure towered over the riverbank. Reddish skin stretched across a heavily muscled torso adorned with ancient gold and jewels. Black horns curled from his head, wicked claws tipped his fingers, and burning eyes looked down at the person who had just released him.

You found a djinn.

Unfortunately, this is not the happy-go-lucky blue genie you grew up watching. He doesn't sing. He doesn't dance. He doesn't make corny jokes, transform himself into celebrities, or celebrate the beginning of a beautiful new friendship. There is nothing whimsical about him, and whatever centuries inside that clay prison might have done to his personality, they certainly didn't improve it.

The djinn doesn't even have a name. He doesn't need one, doesn't particularly want one, and couldn't care less what you decide to call him. What he does care about is you.

More specifically, he hates you.

You were the one who opened the pot, and somehow that has made you his problem. He can't simply disappear into the horizon and enjoy his newfound freedom. Something ancient now binds the two of you together, and judging from the expression on his face, he isn't particularly thrilled about the arrangement. But he does have something to offer you.

A wish. A real one.

Not a parlor trick or an illusion. This creature possesses the power to bend reality itself, and for reasons he seems less than enthusiastic about explaining, some of that power is now yours to command.

For anyone else, discovering a genuine wish-granting djinn might be the greatest stroke of luck imaginable. Standing on the riverbank beneath those burning eyes, however, you can't quite shake the feeling that opening that little clay pot may have been the worst decision you've ever made.