Hinn Ch. 47-50

"Given their battles with the Jinn, do you think that may have changed?" asked Ray.

"While possible, I would consider it extremely unlikely. The Jann are in many ways the simplest of the mortals. They demonstrate a truly inhuman degree of self-consistency as part of that. I suspect that self-consistency will have been both the biggest boon and bane for Jinn trying to manipulate Jann."

"Anyone have any other risks?" asked Ray. "No? OK, so -- we've got risks, but they don't seem to be show-stoppers to me. What could we get out of this?"

Ticking points off on her fingers, Jennifer said, "Contact with the Jann. Knowledge of their leadership, internal organization, and goals. Perhaps we'll end up with improved relationships. Maybe even allies against the Jinn. Perhaps a new foe."

Tauriz nodded, "I'd only add that perhaps nothing concrete may come of this effort, as Jann do not think quite as human or Hinn do."

A strange female voice spoke up from Ray's phone, causing Annya to jump and scramble to keep from dropping it. "Your people's thoughts are interesting. I look forward to meeting you. We will leave you now, undisturbed until tomorrow's sundown."

Ray laughed, "So much for planning! They've heard the whole damn thing!"

Tauriz' jawhar tugged Ray's phone out of Annya's hand and pulled it across the table. "There are no jawhar associated with this device, just the faint remnants of contact with living beings. My manipulation is, by far, the most energetic residue on the device."

Monica said, "Divine magic is different, generally limited by the aspect or aspects of the deity in question, but extremely difficult to track or counter with human techniques. Energy-dense encapsulation or completely preventing contact with living beings generally works, but not always."

"Mac! Were you able to notice anything different about my phone during those calls?"

"Processin' now, Ray. Mebbe, I'll letcha know inna bit. An' when yer done with this fer a bit, I gotta proposition for ya."

"Noted. How urgent is the proposition?"

"Not pressin' -- it can wait 'til yer back from up North."

"OK, I look forward to hearing both your results and your proposition. Next -- Monica, Amber, can we screen this property in whole the way you were describing from divine magic?"

Amber replied, "That would be doable, but it'd be obvious to any practitioner who cared to look."

"Layers," Tauriz suggested. "An inner layer of dense energy with an outer layer of grounding. We'll need to be careful around the entries, resealing them when people or vehicles pass through the combination. It'll still be visible, but only if someone is actively scanning for something like that, and we should be able to detect any mortal techniques by monitoring the outer layer for changes."

"Don't forget birds, insects, rats, and other living creatures, they'll also breach and set off that kind of warding if I'm not mistaken," Amber cautioned.

"Fair point. Probably be best to set up multiple pairs of layers which are always rebuilding one pair of layers at a time. If they're far enough apart and the rebuilding is quick enough, we should be able to keep the building shielded from all but extremely persistent efforts."

Monica chipped in, "First, I'd suggest a triple layer sandwich squeezed tight -- grounding, power, and grounding. That way, you'll minimize the chance a visiting practitioner will recognize the shielding even as they pass through it. Secondly, I know both of those shielding runescripts very well -- they're used a lot by Asatru practitioners to ward ritual places and homes. They're simple enough that beginners often get tasked to create many sets of them. They probably will be better to trial our combined creation than the more complicated shielding we'd been discussing."

"That's a thought -- how will these boundaries interact with the other defenses we were talking about earlier?" Ray asked.

"We are getting distracted," Tauriz said. "First, we need to discuss the Jann. Once we decide what to do, we can get back to the shielding and healing discussions."

Ray set up and released another clone of his mind to research divinity and divine magic, using carefully limited wishes and incrementally adding the results to Hinn. Reaching out through Hinn to Ousha and Tauriz, he warned them that there was going to be another flood of information into Hinn before releasing his clone to do its job. Ray was a little saddened by this -- he'd hoped he'd be able to experience the joy of discovery digging through this new body of knowledge.

Ousha wordlessly showed him a slight alteration to the way he'd planned on retrieving the results. She suggested adding the clone's recollection of events and emotional responses as he researched divinities. By adding those into Hinn, he'd be able to enjoy using the mental expertise he'd honed on a lifetime researching and experimenting with the ancients' metalworking. Thanking her, Ray altered the clone appropriately and returned his attention to the meeting.

"Anyone think the risks are too great, and we shouldn't go?" Ray asked. Looking around the table, no one spoke up. "OK, we're going. Next -- who's going. They stated their Mother Moon wants to talk to Hinn -- that's either Tauriz or myself, and I'll say right now I don't want both of us in Jann hands."

Tauriz didn't look happy but reluctantly nodded. "I understand. However, I WILL be going with you as part of the backup team."

"That's fine. We should make that explicit. We'll be taking three teams, contact, assault, and backup. Contact is me and up to two more, and we need to get a guesstimate of numbers to Ousha and Betty. Two teams, Tomaz?"

"That will leave us with two teams to keep this facility safe- sounds reasonable to me, Ray. I'll suggest we lock down this building as much as reasonable -- close and lock gates, lock and bar unused doors, that kind of thing -- before leaving."

"Need to get OKs from Annya, Jessica, and Jennifer. It's fine with me as long as it doesn't knock them for too much of a loop. Then we're looking at roughly twenty to thirty people as a quick first estimate for Ousha and Betty?"

Annya pulled out her phone as she said, "Texting them now."

"Thanks. Amber, Monica, I'd like one of you to join us, preferably as part of the assault team, or at least with the security team on the ground. Tauriz will likely be with the assault team if I'm not mistaken,' he said, smiling as she nodded her head firmly, "but having more information on hand wouldn't be bad. Consider it combat duty, either way."

The sisters bounced looks off each other before Amber spoke up and said, "I'll go -- it'll give Monica more time to get the runescripts designed."

"Ah, good idea -- thank you, ladies. Annya, any problem with kitting out thirty people with local comms and long-range links back here?"

"No problems if shipping happens as planned -- I've got a bunch of stuff scheduled to be delivered this afternoon that I would need for that kind of thing. I might be able to work around the lack if need be, but it would be a kludge -- messy and finicky and not recommended for life-critical situations if there're other ways around it."

"Anything you need to expedite the shipping, please see Jennifer. If there's any doubt about it, order double from a second source -- I don't mind having an extra set in storage if it means we guarantee what equipment we need on the job."

"I can do that, Ray -- give me ten or fifteen minutes here, and I'll have that additional order on the way."

"Ping Jennifer and see if they can help with that, please. They may have additional options I've not thought of."

"OK," Annya said as she started thumb-typing like mad on her phone.

"Tomaz -- will you have enough equipment for all your troops before we leave tomorrow?"

"Already have full general-purpose loads available for each squad, Ray. We're a little light on heavy weapons, given we're trying to keep things legal, but we've got enough surprises to make almost anyone back off."

"What else do you need to feel fully comfortable? Work it with Jennifer's folks and see what we can do to improve the situation in the time frame we've got. If there's something critical they can't do in time, escalate it to Tauriz or me."

"Wilco, Ray."

"Before you go too far down that rabbit hole, though, Tomaz, please have one or more of your close-support people stop by Jessica's place and find Hina, Jonathon and/or Pete and see if they'll all join us here. They, Tauriz and I will take one end of the table while the rest of you grind out your tasks."

Taking a second to pull their names from Hinn, Ray asked Kendis and Rocco if they minded working with Amber and Monica on the sensors and magic discussion. "It is no problem, Mr. Ray," Kendis answered with a smile. "We are used to things changing!"

Ray grinned back and nodded before walking to the other end of the table. A tall Hispanic woman and a short, blocky black man all but jogged in and headed over to Ray and Tauriz' end of the table, with Hina on their heels. The two troopers introduced themselves as Maria and Deshaun, the two with the most experience in close-quarters bodyguard tasks in Tomaz' detachment. "The whole detachment has secondary skills, bodyguard just happens to be ours," Maria said.

"OK. So the situation is, I will be going with up to two other people into a potentially harmful situation. I take it Tomaz has briefed you on the whole mess of Hinn, Jinn, and Jann?"

They nodded. Deshaun said, "You two are Hinn, Jinn have made a hard pass at your apartment, and you had a verbal disagreement with a few Jann outside the student center, is my rough understanding."

"Good sketch. The Jann took a swing at us during that disagreement, but we were able to prevent any problems on our end -- it appears they may have lost their equivalent of a fairly skilled person, however. I was able to reflect the technique they used back on the attacker."

Both troopers nodded. "Is that likely to be do-able again?" Maria wanted to know.

"Depends on the circumstances. With a little warning, it is likely to be effective, but their stealth is pretty impressive. If Mac had not been able to localize the attacker, I think the reflection would have been much less likely to have worked."

"Stealth as in humans hiding in the brush, or something else?"

"Something else -- effectively consider it invisibility, Mac was able to locate them by sound. I didn't take the time to try other ways to find them."

"That'll make this harder!" Deshaun exclaimed, grinning.

"Like a challenge do you?"

"I like overcoming challenges. Otherwise, they just piss me off."

"Fair enough," Ray chuckled. "So, we're going to go to the top of an island in Lake Placid to meet the Jann. They're going to take us to a meeting, and have promised us safe passage as long as we don't attack them, including returning us to where they pick us up later the same evening. We have reason to believe they intend to meet those promises -- a good long track record, you could say.

"I suspect there'll be some magic transport of some kind. It could theoretically take us anywhere, but typically it would make more sense for the transport to lead to someplace nearby. The farther the trip, the higher the cost, and there's lots of country in the Adirondack Park that people just don't get to all that often."

Hina asked, "While that is certainly one possibility, how certain are you that you were talking with that Jann? No chance someone was playing false-flag games?"

"Heh. No, I'm not certain, now you mention it. I could fake that kind of message fairly easily, having been there. There are three additional factors I should explain. One is that the voice and style of speech was pretty distinctive, extremely similar to the Jann I spoke with. The second is that we think the message was delivered by divine magic, which leaves effectively no traces that we know how to track. We could likely block it, but that's about the limit right now. Thirdly, I'm not sure how a third party could have mimicked that specific Jann without having been at that meeting. Mac has recordings of it, I'm sure, and the guardians of the Student Center may have gotten to hear some or all of the discussion."

"Do you have others you could ask?" Deshaun wanted to know.

"Yes, but not until we finish getting an initial set up. Talking to you folks is part of that -- we need to know what kind of answers we should be looking for."

"OK, so you've got a potential enemy that can hide and do all sorts of nastiness while hiding, apparently. You expect a trip to an unknown location that may or may not even be reachable except by their transport. You've accepted that there can only be two people going with you. Any limits on weapons or gear?"

"They didn't set any."

"Then they're not worried about it for some reason. The transport may strip the gear away, they may have overwhelming force available at the destination, the gear may not work properly at the far end, who knows."

"Not a very reassuring set of thoughts," Ray chuckled.

"Nope! It's not meant to be. First, we find the bad, then we mitigate it as much as we can while amplifying the good. We're still finding the bad, though."

Maria chipped in, "Deshaun's particularly good at threat analysis, especially on small unit scales."

"I'm just a geek who's read too many books and played too many games," Deshaun disagreed. "Anyways. Do the Jann have any particular weaknesses? Silver? Salt? Holy items? Mystic symbols?"

"They're hardy, somewhere around twice to five times as physically strong as humans. They are at least as dedicated as the most hard-core person you know, probably more so. Each Jann's focus may differ, but usually they include protecting the whole of the Jann as part of it. They can take a goodly amount of damage, but destroy the brain or heart and they die. Wounds that aren't immediately fatal will typically heal completely in no more than a month, sometimes in hours.

"On the flip side, their dedication limits their initiative. They're not dumb, but they prefer to focus on their goals. This focus isn't a suicide pact, one that really wants to, oh, paint a picture will stop painting and handle any critical problems before going back to painting, but it's a strong aspect of their personality. Their mental reaction times are perhaps a little slower than human, even if their physical reactions are faster. That is, any Jann with physical combat training would almost certainly block or dodge any human strike they're aware of, but if you did something they hadn't considered it would take them longer than a human to respond. They are fairly resilient against most organic toxins, although some neurotoxins are known to be especially deadly to them. They eat and drink a little more than a human of the same size, need oxygen, require air pressure, etc."

"So shoot them or outthink them, melee isn't likely to be very effective."

"Tauriz could handle several dozen in melee, assuming no magic was involved. I could probably handle nearly as many. If magic comes into play, they'll have had time to prepare whatever they wish. On average, I'd say a Hinn is more magically destructive than a Jann, but the Jann is better able to hide and distract."

"Single Hinn have been known to wipe out several thousand Jann in open conflict, Ray," Tauriz corrected. "The offensive trick is to avoid aiming, and instead generally destroy the area. Hiding doesn't usually work against broad swaths of destruction."

"And there I learned something new. Probably true against most Jinn, I'd assume?"

"In general, yes."

"So. I think Tauriz and I will work up some strong countermeasures to bring with me. I'm currently leaning towards going alone, as anyone I bring with me will likely be confused by the Jann and used as a shield, either actively or passively.

"I will bring technological tracking and communications gear, but Tauriz has a much better method of tracking what's going on. Can you think of a way to block Hinn, Tauriz?"

"There were successful attempts, Ray, especially by the Binn, but Jinn and Jann have occasionally succeeded as well. With Jann and Jinn, they typically have relied on illusion, while against Binn it was often a jamming-like effect. Rarely, other techniques have also been successful. Strong mental shielding and constant communication typically counter those attacks, though."

"OK, so it's likely Tauriz will be able to keep in contact with me, and vice versa, wherever they take me."

Hina asked, "What if they use the transport to send you somewhere fatal? Deep underground, outer space, something like that?"

"Cheerful thought. In the first case, the transport will have to be one way, or else whatever's underground will be pouring out of the transport under pressure. In the second case, air will be whipping into the transport. In either case, have them send one of theirs through first and come back as proof?"

"As long as they can't switch settings somehow, that'd be a potential counter. Can you detect that kind of change in a transportation device?"

"I can detect changes based on life force, wishes, or qalb al-qamar, the magical essence Jann contain. If it's divine magic, I don't know."

"If it's divine magic, carry the local leader though with you," Maria said. "Just be sure to pick out the leader, not necessarily the noisiest one."

"Interesting. Assuming they let me, that should be an unexpected counter."

"What if they just send a portal, with nobody to meet you?"

"Then I don't go through. They said they'd meet me there. If there's no one to meet me, then there's no way forward."

"Is it possible to force you to enter such a portal?"

"Yes. However, with forewarning, we can make it extremely difficult for them to succeed."

A pair of richly detailed, carefully designed thoughts hit Ray. He knew they were his, but not from the present. Another something new from being an Oracle, it seemed. "I'll need at least a dozen of those chemical glow sticks. I'll scatter them around just before sundown -- it'll help, I'm pretty sure. I'll have to work on something else too with Tauriz between now and then."

He shared the design of the ring he'd just received with Tauriz, whose eyes popped open wide. He felt her surprise, and he knew she felt his as well. The core design was ancient, older than Tauriz. It changed how Hinn itself connected with mortals from the equivalent of a broadly-scattered message that'd eventually reach its destination to something much closer to a direct physical connection. There would be more throughput, more bandwidth, more clarity to the link this way -- and Ray couldn't put aside the feeling that there'd be more than just those benefits as well.

The eye-opening thing wasn't the core design, although that was a shocking revelation -- it was all the supporting work. It didn't match the core. The core was all smoothly flowing lines, repeating a consistent design fractally, ending up requiring every last little piece to be lined up perfectly within the whole in order to function. The techniques supporting that core were completely different, crafted from ancient Norse runes in a very human style.

Power -- large, dense volumes of raw samum -- were set into motion by the ring through the structures built from the runes. These flows were refined, scrambled and rebuilt into multiple different flows. The result of this morass of moving samum hid the whole construction, changing charges, densities, and velocities pulsing in unpredictable manners within a grounding shield. Other portions of the runescripts scrambled the perceptions of any who perceived it, detecting intrusions, attempts to sniff the changes, or other attacks, and otherwise defended the central pattern.