The lamp

I wondered through the cave. Inside was a forest that somehow existed despite the lack of sunlight. Hanging from the trees were jewels. I decided to take some. Maybe I could sell them later. I climbed up one of the trees. I saw a slender girl with black messy hair who looked to be Chinese run towards me. She had only one hand. She shouting something.

I think she was saying, "Touch the jewels hanging from the tree."

I plucked one of the jewels out from the top of the tree and fell to the floor. Fortunately, a cat always land on its feet.

"I said DON'T touch the jewels hanging from the tree," the woman said.

"Oh, I couldn't hear you. You must be Aladdin."

Suddenly the whole cave started shaking.

"This is why I didn't want you touching anything. now the whole cave is gonna collapse. How did you even get in here? Nasira told me I was the only one," Aladdin said.

"I used a portal to get in here."

I pulled Aladdin through the portal. Outside the now collapsed cave, I saw Glaze and Tank fighting demons.

“Oh, great,” I muttered. Fighting demons above and around while trying to avoid stepping in the quicksand down below.

As one demon lunged I quickly squatted low to the ground and rolled to get out of the way, bringing my Chainsaword up in a sharp thrust to jab the demon in the side as it fell over where I was. It got its hand sucked into the quicksand.

That gave me an idea: The quicksand was a hazard, but maybe it could be useful.

Glaze, I could see, was throwing ice spells left and right, aiming at both the quicksand and the demons around her.

Several demons froze in place. The quicksand, as the ice spells hit parts of the patch, freezing the quicksand which helped reduce the hazard as well, though I was careful not to risk going out too far: Trying to step more than a foot into the puddle on the ice was successful but yielded an uneasy crack. She could see the frozen surface beginning glisten in the hot late morning sun as the ice started to thaw near instantly.

Another demon lunged, and I sliced it with a swipe of my Chainsaword.

Glaze shot a fireball, making the battlefield blistering hot from where it was already overly warm from the Turpan Khanate sun bearing down.

I could see Aladdin pull out an old lamp. She held the lamp carefully with her teeth as she rubbed it with her only hand.

A white cloud burst out from a lamp the girl was holding, distracting the demons as it grew larger.

And then it took shape. The result has a fairly humanoid appearance. I saw that it was slender and had light-grey skin, with spiky blue hair. She wore a golden collar round her neck and golden bracelets round her wrists and ankles and nothing else.

“I tell ya, ten thousand years asleep in my lamp...!” She said, “So what's your first wish?”

“Help us!” Glaze shouted angrily past her mouth full of quicksand. Aladdin tore her eyes away from the Genie to remember our plight.

“Right, hey Genie! Save them from the demons and quicksand!”

“Here you go, wish number one coming right up! Technicality it's two wishes but I don't have a three wish limit anyway!” she shouted eagerly.

With a snap of the Genie’s fingers, we were lifted out of the quicksand. The demons were vanished away in an instant in a spectrum of white clouds.

The three of us were gently lowered to our feet, and Glaze gave a relieved sigh.

“Thanks, you were a lifesaver,” I said to the girl, "You are Aladdin, rigth?!"

"Uh, yeah. But... who are you guys? And how'd you end up here? This place is quite a ways off from the usual caravan routes."

"Looking for you? You're needed to help fight Nasira," I said.

“Nasira? She said she was my father's sister," Aladdin said.

"How does that work? She's black, you're asian," Tank said.

"In hindsight it was stupid for me to believe her. She wanted me to go into this cave to get this old oil lamp for her!” Aladdin said.

"This Nasira might be working with Hera," I said to Glaze and Tank. They agreed.

"Who?" Aladdin asked.

"She had a hand in the demons going everywhere we've been so far!" Tank answered.

At this, the Genie ducked in, “And I’m here to grant my master any wishes she makes!"

"Any wish?" Glaze asked.

"Any wish!"

“I wonder if she can defeat Hera,” Tank muttered to Glaze.

"Oh no, gods are out of my league. So, master,” The Genie batted her eyes at Aladdin, “What’ll it be for wish number two?”

“Well,” Aladdin looked down at the lamp, "Give me my hand back."

A new hand appeared on Aladdin's hand.

"For my third wish, I’d love to wish to be a wealthy prince so I can propose to Badroulbadour…”

“Who?” I asked.

"The princess," Glaze said.

“Ooh!” The Genie said, “Money, royalty, fame! A hundred servants and a hundred camels loaded with gold!”

“…But I think I’ll put that on hold until we get back to Turpan Khanate,” Aladdin said, “As a prince out here, I'll probably get kidnapped or something.”

"Uh, why a prince?" Tank wanted to know.

"You see, there's this girl in Turpan Khanate named Badroulbadour. But she's a princess, and I'm..." She sighed and hung her head, "Aw, she could never fall for another girl."

"Oh. Princess?" Glaze asked.

"Badroulbadour?" Tank echoed.

"Oh, that's right!" I exclaimed, "She's in trouble, Aladdin!"

"What? Well, c'mon, let's get going!"

Go to Turpan Khanate. Stop Duncan and Hera. Save the princess.