Earth: 'Modern Day' Montana

Part time job at the local feed store, generally manual labor.

Ranch hand on family ranch in rural Montana.

Rick was a particularly average young man with particularly average dreams. While he was aware of the larger world thanks to such things as mass media and the internet, that might as well have been another world to him. His life was set: Finish high school, perhaps a bit of community college, take over the family business. It was not the most glamorous life, but it was an honest one.

His simple life path was thrown into disarray by the relatively innocuous find of a dirty old corked beer bottle out in the field he was working one day. Thinking nothing of it and rather needing a break, he popped the cork in idle curiosity of what it might contain. Expectations were shattered as thick black smoke began to pour out of the quickly dropped container, the young man attempting to take cover behind the ranch truck! As he dove for cover, a calm voice that seemed to radiate an otherworldly authority began the usual genie spiel. Three wishes. Coming out from behind the truck, dusting himself off, he looked the pitch black genie up and down. This was new. Well, he had needed a break, and he had watched enough TV to know wishes were tricky things. Being a child of modern technology, he popped out his cell phone and Googled for 'foolproof genie wishes'. First result seemed to be a forum where people had pondered this exact thing! Quick read through later, he announces his first wish to the still, watching genie:

"I wish to live in the locations of my choice, in a physically healthy, uninjured, and apparently normal version of my current body containing my current mental state, a body which will heal from all injuries at a rate three sigmas faster than the average given the medical technology available to me, and which will be protected from any diseases, injuries or illnesses causing disability, pain, or degraded functionality or any sense, organ, or bodily function for more than ten days consecutively or fifteen days in any year; at any time I may rejuvenate my body to another age, by saying a phrase matching this pattern five times without interruption, and with conscious intent: 'I wish to be age,' followed by a number between one and one hundred and ninety-nine, followed by 'years old,' at which point the pattern ends - after saying a phrase matching that pattern, my body will revert to an age matching the number of years I stated and I will commence to age normally from that stage, with all of my memories intact; at any time I may die, by saying five times without interruption, and with conscious intent, 'I wish to be actually dead for real'; the terms 'year' and 'day' in this wish shall be interpreted as the ISO standard definitions of the Earth year and day as of 2006."

Looking up from the phone he read off to the genie, all that happened was that same calm, otherworldly authoritative voice stating: "It is done."

A quick look over of himself, seemingly nothing changed, he frowned. Someone was having one over on him. Failing to do his homework for the next wish, thinking this a farce, he sarcastically returned, "Right, next I wish for my own herd of cattle."

It was all over in a heartbeat. His vision changed, his ... everything so different. No more genie, no more truck, and no more clue where the heck he was. There was the initial panic, of course, the attempts and regaining his life, but it was all for naught. This new form put severe limits on what he might do, communication seemingly impossible, even if those managing this unknown ranch had even thought the eccentricities of their animal more than the obvious.

So the years passed. The once young man's hopes and dreams faded into acceptance of the situation he was doomed to. It wasn't until long after the bitterness of the genie's curse had eroded away and various more practical sufferings had visited him that yet a new novel thing occurred: A red mist began to form...

The magic visited upon Rick would scan similar to a very powerful curse, one that self sustains and alters its own reality. There seems to be only a single magic at work. Further, scanning said magic would be akin to digging down into the depths of a fractal, attempting to find the finest detail. Alteration or disspellation of this magic should prove to be extremely difficult at best. One might say 'impossible' if such a word had any meaning in Infinitas.