Wish upon the Stars chapter 1 pt 3

The trip to the park was both way too quick and agonizingly slow. I  took a bus to get there, mostly because I blew all my credits on Doom  Sovereign but at least had the presence of mind to buy a buss pass at  the beginning of the year when I still had a bit of money. The bus was  pretty empty at six PM on a Friday night, so I mostly just sat by myself  and thought over my options. I'd decided to wait a day or two before I  did the intake process for the Unity. If I went now I would probably get  thrown in prison or tortured for info I didn't have.

What  I needed was some way to disguise my ability, and I was pretty sure I  knew where to get that. I reached down to touch the smooth black metal  card in my pocket, tracing the faint engraving of the lamp and skull.  The Wish Curse Palace was the place to go for that kind of thing, but in  order for that to work I had to get some money first. Assuming this  card could let me buy things from them, I'd still probably need  thousands if not tens of thousands of credits for something like that.  Still, having some kind of plan was better than panicking so I felt much  more optimistic when the bus stopped at the park and I got off to go  meet Benny.

My  best friend was waiting in his usual spot, sitting under a tree in the  back of the park in the shadows. For a rich kid Benny tended to dress  down pretty sloppy, and the usual torn jeans and hoodie over a beat up  t-shirt made me smile with their familiarity. As usual Benny's messy  brown hair peaked out from under the hood, wavy and too long as usual,  somehow managing to fall in his eyes even with his head tilted back, but  when he heard me coming he jerked to attention, looking around for me.

When  he spotted me he gave a sigh of relief and climbed to his feet, walking  over to clap me in a fierce hug. "Oh thank the gods. After that cryptic ass  message I thought you might have been hauled off by the Cautious Men or  something." Fear flashed through his eyes as he mentioned the  Conglomerate's Ascendant identification and apprehension task force. The  Unity handled big name criminals, but everyone had heard horror stories  of newbie's being snatched up by the cautious men. It was one of the  main reasons people were so quick to do the intake despite being  railroaded so hard by the Unity.

I  squeezed him back and pulled away with a laugh. "No, thankfully, though I wouldn't rule it our for the future The stuff that's been going  on has been kind of nuts." I gestured for him to sit down by the tree  and started filling him in on everything that had happened. The message  from my dad, the paper, I didn't hold a single thing back, and despite  it having been objectively only an hour or so tops this still felt like  it had been weighing on me for weeks. When I finished I felt unburdened  and smiled, leaning back against the tree just happy to be free of the  weight of doing this alone.

Benny  whistled. "Holy shit man. That's...heavy. I know your dad hasn't always  been around but for him to literally disown you like that? Plus it  sounds like he might have been involved with the WCP the whole time,  that's pretty nuts." He bumped my shoulder with his. "But hey, at least  you got this cool new power, I mean, granting wishes sounds fucking  awesome. Can I be your guinea pig?" His eyes were alight with curiosity  and a bit of excitement, and all the drama aside I had to admit I kind  of got that.

I  laughed at the enthusiasm. "I guess so. If there's one person I trust  to grant a wish to it's you. So...shit, how do I do this?" I considered  taking out the scroll, but it seemed like the whole Wishmaster thing  wouldn't exactly be secret if a bunch of people were walking around with  a burning piece of paper. I narrowed my eyes before looking at Benny  and saying in a clear voice. "Minor wish." I waited. Nothing happened.  "Grant Minor wish." Again, nothing. I rolled my eyes. "Ok maybe we're  doing this wrong. Make a wish in front of me."

Benny  shrugged. "Ok, well you said it has to be within your capabilities  within the span of three days, but like...what does that mean? And you  mentioned stats too, so do those affect it somehow? Whatever, I'll just  ask for something big and we can see what I can get away with." He bit  his lip. "Ok, I wish you could give me an ability." I felt a charge run  over my skin as he said that, a light rumble of static rolling across my  arms, making the hair all stand on end as I felt my power roar up from  inside me to answer the call.

Wish detected, grant wish? The  words wrote themselves across my vision in purple fire, and from his  lack of reaction Benny didn't see it at all. I mentally tried to confirm  but the letters rolled across my vision again. Insufficient stat points to grant wish. Requirements: 50 Fantasy, 10 Creation, 25 Impact, 10 Vitality. I  blinked. So that was what it meant by being able to accomplish it in  three days. Still, the fact that I could even give someone powers was  fucking insane. I told Benny what it said and he cursed.

He  bit his lip. "Damn. Kind of makes me want to wait, but there's not rule  you can only do one per person right?" I shook my head and he grinned.  "Cool, then I can do something small time now and we can go from there. I  wish I had a steak dinner." The tingle came back again, less intense  this time, which I assumed meant this would be an easier wish, but it  was still noticeable and still took up a ton of my attention. Once again  it asked if I wanted to grant the wish, and once again I confirmed I  did.

Stat points sufficient. Requirements: 1 Fantasy, 1 Impact, 2 Creation, 2 Vitality. Compensation required. I  blinked, remembering what it had said on the scroll. Right, it had  mentioned that. I turned to Benny. "Says I can do that one, but we need  to agree on fair compensation. What would be fair?" He just shrugged. I  scowled and th0ught it over, deciding to ask for something more  ephemeral since this was clearly some kind of magic bullshit or  something. Something he wouldn't miss. "How about your Doom Sovereign  skills?"

Benny  snickered at that. "I'm not sure you can really call them that, I'm not  even as good as you are, but I don't enjoy the game that much anyway so  sure. You can have my Doom Sovereign skills." He grinned at me,  gesturing for me to get on with the wish granting, so that's what I did.  I confirmed the wish after he verified he was ok with it. As soon as I  did I felt that electricity on my skin spark up to insane levels, the  power feeling like it was filling me enough to burst. I saw a purple  flash int Benny's eyes and then there was another flash in front of us,  and suddenly we were sitting next to a table, fully laid out with a  juicy ribeye and all the fixings.

I  gasped as what felt like sixteen hours of non stop sprinting hit me at  once, bowling me over as I fell to the ground, gasping. Across my black  spotted vision those same purple flame letters danced. Skill  Acquired- Minor Doom Sovereign Mastery. Synergy with existing skills  detected, merging. Skill Acquired-Lesser Doom Sovereign Mastery. I  felt new memories slam into my brain. Nothing crazy, just hours of Doom  Sovereign I'd never actually played. I felt reflexes I didn't have  engraving themselves into my head.

Benny  was up and at my side in a flash. "Holy shit man are you ok? That  really took it out of you huh?" He helped me up, sitting me in the chair  that had appeared next to the table with the steak on it. It was a tiny  square table with a white table cloth, and the chair was cushioned and  pretty comfortable. The steak on the plate was a juicy ribeye, with a  nice steaming pile of mashed potatoes next to it and a bed of crisp  asparagus to one side. There was a small dish of bread with a little  plate of butter next to that and a full salad in a bowl to one side.  Next to that was a glass of what looked like root beer.

I  shook off the exhaustion and chuckled. "I'm good man, shit is just  tiring. Still, you got your wish. Take a bite, see how it tastes." It  smelled fucking amazing, and I was ravenously hungry after that. I was  guessing that the closer I went to my limits the more tiring the wish  granting would be. Still, it was pretty amazing I could make something  out of nothing like that. Apparently creating a table with a steak  wasn't a huge deal, since it only required a single point of fantasy and  impact. I was assuming the creation was what made the actual process  work, and vitality was probably what made it nutritious.

He  looked like he wanted to argue with me but I shook my head, standing up  and backing away from the table. He rolled his eyes, knowing that I  wasn't going to eat any of it, though I suspected if he's realized how  hungry I was he might have pushed me to at least take a bite. He sat  down at the table, scooted the chair in and picked up the knife and  fork, cutting off a small piece to pop in his mouth. I was struck by how  weird this probably looked from the outside in, and I was glad we'd  always come to this park because there were no cameras. Benny was  paranoid about his parents checking up on him.

Since  no one had seen me conjure this thing it would just look like some  weird guy brought a table here to eat. I shook off the thought and  focused on Benny. His eyes lit up as he chewed, and he swallowed the  bite of steak down with relish as he picked up the glass to sip some of  the root beer. He moaned with joy as his took a swallow. "Ok, that's the  best thing I've ever tasted man. If I hadn't needed to pay with literal  memories from my brain I would eat like this all the time. Wait, do I  need to do that? Can I pay with credits?" I mentally consulted my power,  which seemed to be happy to answer questions now that I was using it,  and nodded to him in confirmation. He could pay in credits, though the  price got a little nuts for anything more than basic conjuring like  this.

He grinned at me. "Well then,  I think I have the answer to your little money problem. If I can pay  for food with credits than so can other people, and they can pay for  other things too. If we're careful we can get you enough cash to pay for  that identity masking whatever it is you wanted." He paused. "Though  actually we should probably go see what that would cost." He cut another  piece of steak and popped it in his mouth, not bothering to swallow  before asking his next question. "So, you feel like going shopping  tomorrow?" I had to admit, even knowing I couldn't buy anything right  now the idea filled me with excitement. I was going to visit the black  market.