Wish upon the Stars chapter 69

Stepping through the door, the first thing I noted was how absurdly  large this place was. I'd been expecting that from all the hype, but  what I hadn't been expecting was..."Why the fuck is everything Orange?"  It wasn't the most important thing in the world, but the absolutely  appalling color scheme was definitely jarring.

Zeke  snickered. "That would be why I was able to get this place so last  minute. It's big enough that redecorating would be an actual effort, and  it's absolutely hideous. Comfortable as hell, but the person who made  this place was apparently chronically allergic to style. Trust me, it  gets so much worse." I winced, finding that hard to believe. I couldn't  really imagine anything uglier than this. He just chuckled. "We can fix  that later though, for now pay more attention to what's under the  decoration disaster."

We stepped into the lurid orange  front room onto surprisingly plush carpet and he started pointing things  out. "As you can see we have plenty of couches for lounging on. A  recessed scan box mount in the middle of the room. The carpet is stain  resistant, though if you CAN manage to stain it feel free, it's not like  you could make it any worse." Benny snickered at that while Jessie held  down a giggle. Callie and I just smirked.

I wondered if  one of them would wish to change the color scheme of this place. Since I  wanted it to happen I couldn't pitch it to them. My involvement would  fuck up the potential compensation making the wish basically worthless  because it wasn't of real value to them, which would in turn mean there  was no valid payment. Still with so many people here there was a decent  chance someone would think of it. Hell Zeke might have already come up  with the idea, after all he had been friends with my dad and would be  pretty used to wishing, though even if he had I wasn't sure he would  mention it.

He led us out of the living room and into the  kitchen, gesturing proudly to the enormous space. "Of course a top of  the line kitchen since I know there are chefs among you. Granted every  single piece of equipment is orange somehow, which seems like way too  much effort even if you somehow thought this looked good but hey, can't  say they weren't committed to their color palette. High end stove, oven,  a materializer if you suddenly decide you hate yourselves or the two of  you who can actually cook arent here, and a massive refrigerator. Any  questions there?"

We all looked at each other in shock.  Awful decorating aside the kitchen was massive. A huge open room with a  massive marble top island in the center. The counters had huge cabinets  lining them filled with all sorts of expensive utilities for cooking,  some of which even I hadn't heard of. I was really looking forward to  cooking my first meal in here and judging by the looks so were the  others. I chose not to comment on that and just kept walking, mostly  because I didn't feel like cooking tonight.

Next  we headed into the bathroom, and literally all of us froze in awe. Zeke  smirked. "Yeah, not even the person who made this place got everything  wrong. This is easily my favorite room in the whole place." He gestured  to the massive marble bathroom and I had to agree with that. It was  beautiful. The tub was on a raised platform in the back corner, sort of a  stage with carpet around the edges where it was set into the floor. The  tub itself was massive, ten feet by ten feet and a set of mirrored  shelves lined the walls nearest to meet in the corner behind one of the  corners of the bath.

The  marble floor was open and empty aside from some rugs as it stretched  out to where a massive stall shower was set across from a lavish toilet.  The shower was made with smooth tile and the glass for the shower door  was opaque, but I could see a vent at the top that could be open or  closed and next to it was a switch that could be turned after the vent  was closed to make the thing a steam room. When I opened it I found a  marble bench set back in a wide open shower with four different heads so  you could get pelted with water from all sides or just take a normal  shower with a single head.

Now  there are lots of weird quirks people have, but mine is hands down my  love of large showers. I could sit in a shower all day long just  relaxing under the hot water and letting my troubles melt away. I used  to worry about my skin drying out but with my current Vitality I bet  that wouldn't even be an issue. Zeke saw my look and sighed. He turned  to my friends. "If I were you I would limit his time in the shower. None  of the rest of us will be able to use it if he has his way. He has a  problem."

I  glared at him. "I don't hog it. I'm happy to get out when people need to  shower. If no one else is in there I don't see what the problem is.  Plus isn't this place huge? I'm sure there are other bathrooms, I can  just take the room closest to this one." I glanced over at the carpeted  platform the tub was set into, briefly wondering if it was comfortable  enough to sleep on. Having a bathroom as a bedroom might be convenient.  But I dismissed the thought, that would be ridiculous, my scan ring  might get wet.

Zeke  grabbed my shoulders and literally steered me out of the bathroom.  "Nope. We can talk about rooms later, now is the tour, we're leaving." I  tried to protest because I wanted to stay in the nice bathroom but Zeke  was MUCH stronger than me, and even holding back it became hard to  resist when he pushed me. I finally gave up and started walking on my  own. I could come back later on. I was sure I'd spend a ton of time in  there. Our old shower at the place in Velan had been one of those shower  curtain monstrosities, and I hadn't bothered to use it more than the  quick daily shower I needed to stay clean. Now that I was living in a  house with the perfect shower nothing would stop me.

Luckily  I wasn't the only one freaking out. Our next stop was the training  room, and Callie lost her entire godsdamned mind. The basement training  area was absolutely massive, and instead of an empty room the whole  place was filled with obstacles. Hurdles, pit traps, rings hanging from  the ceiling, sand boxes, balance beams, and even more difficult  obstacles that could be added between them to make them harder like  swinging pendulums  and robotic attack arms. It was absolutely gorgeous  and even I was interested in trying it. I was betting I could rank up my  gymnastics with this.

Callie  was bouncing in place in excitement. Apart from food, Callie's main  passion was actually training. It was how she got so far ahead of  everyone else back at the guild. Some of it was a good public presence,  but some of it was the actual skill to back up that presence, which she  got by being a training maniac. She didn't even wait for the ok, just  took off at a run after staring for a minute, bouncing up onto a balance  beam as she dodged around a series of mechanical arms trying to push  her off.

I  turned to Zeke incredulously. "Who the hell lived here? Between the  weird decorating and this training room I have to assume it was someone  strong. I figured Ascendant based on the house, but with all this  nonsense around I have to assume a higher rank. This level of weirdness  reeks of serious recursion. Or at the very least someone like the Jerks  who weaponizes their oddity to accrue points." There were all kinds of  Ascendants, and I knew for a fact you could get strong by being a  complete weirdo. This place had that kind of vibe.

Sure  enough Zeke burst into laughter. "Yeah, he was an F ranker. I won't  tell you which one, though if you look around for the info you'll figure  it out. Still, you aren't wrong. The weirdness tactic is valid but the  recursion is harder to avoid when you use it. Mentally stopping yourself  from becoming a monster can be tough but its pretty straightforward.  More unusual recursive behaviors can be harder to recognize. Once you  start leaning in it can snowball. Innocuous shit like eating a specific  kind of pie can be a gateway to all sorts of crazy behavior."

That  was something to look out for, for sure. Though honestly I doubted I'd  have taken that route anyway. People like the Jerks might have an easier  time getting points but it was impossible to take them seriously. I  didn't want to be the joke of the whole city like they were. No, my  wishing was enough to give me an edge, and the more I used it the more I  would shock and awe people and the more powerful I'd get. Besides I was  having trouble resisting the basic recursion of just being a hero.

Speaking  of, I turned to Zeke. "So I've been having a bit of trouble with my  recursion. Specifically it pushing me towards violence. I'm guessing  that's partly because of Stricture?" If anyone would know how to get  around this it would be Zeke. It wasn't like her was going to make it  worse somehow.

He  smiled. "The punch your problems away mentality. Yeah, that one is  common with younger Ascendants. People assume a predisposition for  violence. It's one of the most consistent forms of recursion. Not for  everyone of course. There's implicit bias towards people like Jessie who  use plant based stuff. They assume they'll got for control or healing  for instance. Your actual showing in the world is just fighting though,  plus you killed Stricture on your first major run in with an enemy."

I  winced at that. "So there's no way to fix it? And why aren't people  more pissed about that. I'm supposed to be a hero right? I'd have  figured offing someone would have made all the civilians nervous. Though  I guess they might have just been relieved not to have to deal with  him."

He  shook his head. "No way around it sadly. And you're buying into the  press too much. Would it have bothered you as a mortal?" I frowned but  then shook my head. He nodded in satisfaction. "Heroic Cultivation is a  PR stunt, they set themselves up as protectors of the innocent and all  that nonsense because it's an easy way to monetize fame so to speak, but  they're still cultivators. The Unity is very careful to steer people in  such a way that they accept the necessary harshness of that kind of  business. It's not effective marketing if you have to hide everything  you do for it to work."

I  could see his point. Cultivation was much more cutthroat and brutal  than I'd expected going in, but I still kind of just accepted all that. I  never had any high moral expectations for heroes or assumed villains  were monsters one and all. It was all just spin, and somewhere deep down  part of me kind of knew that.

It  was a lot to think about, but I was glad I'd asked him. I felt like if I  had kept any of that internalized idealism I might have run into some  problems later. Still, I was happy with my moral stance. I was a hero,  and I enjoyed that. What that might mean for my relationship with other  forces or how I handled my enemies was something I could figure out  later, for now I was moving into a new place with my best friends. Life  was pretty good.