Wish upon the Stars chapter 3 pt 2

Naturally the first thing I did after this storm of revelations was  go and talk to Benny. I texted him to meet me at the park and hopped a  bus down there, stashing my suit and mask in the bag. I would eventually  need to get an actual costume once I did the intake, but establishing a  brand now (so to speak) was going to link me to my current actions and  might give the Unity some clues about what my powers actually were.

He  stayed quiet as I told him the details of what I'd learned, nodding at  appropriate times. Still, once I finished he nodded. "Well, guess that  explains why giving me a power would have been so difficult. Zeke said  doing things with Impact would be crazy expensive right? Plus  considering Impact is so hard to raise I bet each point is harder and  harder to get. Still, good to know how all of this works at least."

I  didn't mention my Mom. I didn't want to talk about that, especially now  when I was too weak to do anything about it. I'd fill him in once I  could look into it more, until then it was just too real. I mentally  shook off my reverie and focused on Benny again. "So. What the hell do I  do next? The thing is, places like The Night Market and Doom Sovereign  can help me get more wishes sure, but the people there are mostly  desperate. They don't have the cash I need."

Benny  stroked his chin in thought, a habit I thought looked ridiculous since  he didn't have a beard, but one he said he would grow into because his  dad had. Still, it was his thinking pose, so I just shut up and waited,  and sure enough his eyes lit up after a minute of thought. "Hey, our big  issue was your identity right? Well with your new mask you don't need  to worry so much about that, so why not go somewhere a little more high  class? How about Vengiello's?"

My  eyes lit up too. That was an interesting thought. Vengiello's  was...well the only way to describe it was the world's most expensive  swap meet. This world I supposed, but still, it was a weird place. If  The Night Market was where the criminals gathered to hock their goods,  Vengiello's was where the elite went to put their wares on display. The  issue was I didn't know if I could get in, much less have a chance to  set up a display counter there. I mentioned as much to Benny.

Benny  waved me off. "First of all, who do you think I am? Half the things on  sale at that place are rare gems and minerals, I'm basically royalty  there. Second of all, you're wearing the mask now remember? Nobody who  does business chases out the WCP. If the Palace shows up at your trading  event you shut up and let them work. Plus, same as at The Night Market I  doubt it'll draw attention. While it's not common the Wishmaster DOES  sell wishes, setting up a booth should be fine."

I  nodded at that. It was one of the main reasons I felt safe with the  table at The Night Market. Some poking around about the WCP online had  turned up plenty of thing's I hadn't known before. One of those was the  the Wish ability wasn't some big secret, just the opposite, half the  WCP's power came from social status given by people who wanted to be in  good with the Wishmaster. Because of this, he'd created a method to sell  wishes in order to provide the service to interested parties without  being forced to be a workhorse.

If  I'd had to guess I would have assumed it worked like me granting wishes  through Doom Sovereign. Using a medium or in some notable cases an  emissary to create a link between that would let him grant the wishes  from a distance. The point was, this created a sort of abundant scarcity  of wishes in the Palace. Everyone wanted them, they could be anywhere,  but no one had them, so when they showed up no one questioned it.

Reflecting  on it the entire system could very well have been set up to enable  candidates like me to move unhindered in the universe without drawing  undue attention before we were ready. It was one of the many things I'd  never heard about the WCP and the world of Ascendants before becoming  one. The vast majority of the population had no clue how Ascendant  things worked and mostly just knew the stories about the big names that  got around via the media and urban legend. It was staggering how much  information was there if you knew to look for it.

In  the end I decided Vengiello's was our best bet for quick cash. I could  grant four wishes a day now with Lesser Wish, and despite the actual  scale of those wishes not being changed I had many more stats to work  with. Since my power let me grant any wish I could accomplish in the  span of three days, essentially tripling my effective stats for wish  granting, even a single point could be a game changer, especially that  point of Impact, which I now knew was the most important factor.

I  got changed into my temporary costume and Benny pulled up a number on  his scan ring, shooting out a text as we waited for a car to pick us up.  Benny wasn't a fan of using the driving service his parents employed,  but since Vengiello's was such a high class place we couldn't really  arrive by bus. The ride was smooth and quick, and by the time we got to  Vengiello's I'd already made my mental preparations and put on the  mental mask I wore to go with the physical on sitting on my face.

As  we climbed out of the car, that persona was the only thing that kept me  from whistling at the venue where Vengiello's put on it's daily trade  fair. The locations of The Night Market and Vengiello's were, of course,  like night and day. Where The Night Market was a cramped secluded  gathering of the scum of the city, Vengiello's was elegant and refined.  It was in one of the Garden Terraces, beautiful curated parks within  city limits meant to preserve some the natural beauty of Callus inside  the sprawling metropolis that was Valen.

The  sparkling white manor house that hosted Vengiello's was situated in a  picturesque meadow located in one of the seven or so Garden Terraces.  The grass was all specially designed to grow to a uniform length, with  some small variation in height to make it look more natural and blended,  various wildflowers were dispersed artfully through the field around  the manor, with cute little woodland creatures frolicking at strategic  places and gorgeous butterflies touching down on the wildflowers.

In  short, it was the least fake looking fake paradise imaginable. It also  provided a perfect back drop for the manor house, a sprawling edifice of  white wood and gold veined white marble columns that looked like a  mashup of a sort of ancient temple complex and an old style mansion. The  result was elegant and refined and fit perfectly into place in the  meadow, clearly having been designed with the location in mind.

Benny  stepped up next to me, giving me a grudging nod. "Yeah, it's pretty  nice. I used to come here with my dad as a kid. He likes to keep a  presence here because of all the precious stones and rare metals that  show up. Just to remind everyone that the Miner's union keeps and eye on  it's assets. He would bring Mom and I and talk shop while I played with  the other rich kids. Once I transferred to your childcare I lost touch  with most of them and stopped coming." He had a fond smile on his face,  but his eyes looked a bit sad. "I miss when I thought things like this  were fun."

I  winced. Benny's mother had a very specific idea of what she wanted her  family to be, and pushing that idea had alienated both her children. Not  that I hated Amber or anything, she was a nice lady, but she was  obsessed with image and neither Maria nor Benny cared much for it. I  knew when he was younger Benny didn't mind his mother's kingmaking as  much, but as he got older he started feeling like a show dog. It was  part of the reason he started spending time with me at the start.

I  clapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, it's cool man. New adventure  remember. We just need to focus on getting stronger. You already know my  old man brought his best friend with him when he came up, we've got big  things headed our way." He chuckled a bit closing his eyes and taking a  deep breath before raising his head and giving a blinding smile. Like  flicking a switch he went from being upset and nostalgic to his public  persona of charming screw up. I rolled my eyes as we headed inside.  Clearly he was fine if he could still put on a show.

We  strolled up to the door and the tuxedo clad man standing near the  entrance nodded graciously to us as we approached. He obviously  recognized Benny because he didn't stop us at all. As we stepped inside  Benny led us down a long elegant hallway with white painted walls and  white and gold carpets. Gorgeous tables and paintings lined the hall and  displayed all sorts of beautiful images and designs to the glitterati  as they made their way towards the main hall where the trade fair was  held.

Benny  saw me looking and smirked. "They put this stuff out here to get people  thinking about their values and wondering where they came from. Being so  curious puts them in a prime mood to buy things or to try to sniff out  deals when they get inside." I nodded, getting his logic there. It was a  sneaky way to advertise, but in another sense it was pretty up front.  'These thing's are fancy. Don't you want fancy thing's to put in YOUR  hallways?'.

Still, none of it  tempted me at all, I just ignored it, not even tempted by the fancy  bric-a-brac. I was pretty proud of myself for my immunity to the  temptation, but that feeling pretty much vanished as we reached the  entrance to the show room and my breath caught in my throat. I'd been  around Benny long enough to be mostly inured to the presence of shiny  things. Or so I had thought. The endless array of wealth on display in  Vengiello's made me salivate slightly as I thought about my own money  needs.

Benny  chuckled when he saw me freeze and patted me on the back. "Yeah I know,  it's a bit much the first time. Just breathe." His eyes raked over  beautiful carved wooden display tables and elegantly engraved glass  cases with a sense of dismissive boredom. Everywhere I looked were an  endless array of items. Some useless and odd like a globe made of  precious gems, some dangerous like a particularly menacing hooked  dagger. Some were just carved statues or pieces of art that sat around  looking pretty and obviously had no other function.

I  walked almost dazedly towards a nearby table and ran my fingers across  the glass panels that had been placed over a sectioned display of  gemstones on a deep crimson velvet cushion. The place only had gems, and  they were all huge and intricate and gorgeous. I saw a sapphire the  size of a fist and a diamond that looked like you could hatch a bird  from it. None of that however was of any special interest to me. No, my  eyes were drawn to an inconspicuous ruby sitting at the corner of the  case, about the size of an eye. A ruby that I could sense contained a  power I was very familiar with. A ruby that gave off the sensation of  Might.