Desmond's eyes focused on the laptop quietly. A part of him wanted to explore this device. And a part of him most definitively did not. It felt like some forbidden magic that had been imposed upon the world. And yet, as an outsider to it, he was intensely curious about it. The people still seemed... normal. And he did not sense anything from it that was particularly magical. "A wireless connection? An... inter-net." All of these words sounded foreign, and yet, trying to take the roots of them, they seemed to make sense. How curious, was there some sort of world wide... web that connected all of these people? If that was the case, was it really safe to use such a device? What if one was connected to this 'net' internally, and wanted to escape. It seemed like a somewhat frightening prospect, and yet Desmond still found himself curious.
Still, the other man seemed somewhat comfortable with it. And he had noticed others using it, even other mythical creatures around this place. He would need to take some time to learn more about it. But at least now he had a foot hold for what it was called. Books were still something of a comfort, and though they were not quite as prevalent, it still seemed that people knew what they were, and where to get them. There were still libraries. Which meant that all he really needed to do was to find one of these libraries and search for all there was to know about an 'Internet'. Possibly that, with talking to someone who was under the influence of this internet would lead him to be a little more comfortable about using one.
"Yes, I am half human." Desmond said softly. "At least, I presume that I am..." he paused, not liking that thought very much. He had always presumed that it was the case that a dhampir was, by definition, something that was half human. The only dhampir he'd heard of were as such. So he had genuinely assumed that he was the same. But while he had met members of other species before, he had presumed, due to the prevalence of humans, that they would have been the easiest to work with his father's experiments. Still, being here, he could not discount the diversity of the world, it was possible that what he thought were his origins were not quite so cut and dry as he had expected previously.
"Many things seem human." Desmond agreed, though it was clear from his tone that he did not take 'seeming' to mean the same as 'being' human. He had met his fair share of monsters that masqueraded about in the guise of humanity to hide themselves from unwanted attention. Hell, he was one of those monsters himself, at least in his own mind.
At Tobias' admission, Desmond's eyebrows raised quietly. It was rare to see a djinn outside of their own kingdoms. They were considered by many to be evil spirits, due to the nature of their wishes backfiring. In all of his years of wandering, he had only crossed paths with a djinn on a couple of occassions. They all had made it clear they wanted nothing to do with him, and he had respected that wish. Those who did not heed the advice of a djinn who wanted to be left alone often found a horrible fate in store for them. Worse yet was a dark djinn attempting to trick you. Thankfully Desmond had not met one of those, but he had heard enough stories of fates worse than death bestowed upon the greedy who had sought out a djinn, thinking that a wish came with not strings attached.
"I'm surprised that you would refer to a genie. The last time I was in the east I was advised that it was considered something of a slur amongst your kind." Desmond said evenly. "But that was a long time ago, perhaps times have changed. Indeed it is an rare honor to meet one of your kind, and the first time I have had a discussion with a djinn that lasted more than 3 or 4 minutes."