Wish upon the Stars chapter 1 pt 2

Now, one might think the thing that would scare me in that situation  was the purple flaming piece of paper that seemed to have swallowed my  blood. That person would be wrong. Mostly because I recognized the name  printed on the paper and it belonged to someone even I had heard of.  Callus, the planet I lived on, was a pissant backwater production planet  on the outskirts of the Conglomerate. We were probably the poorest  planet in this solar system, if not the entire galaxy. We were barely  hooked into the Conglomerate news media, and even then, I had still  heard of the Wishmaster.

The  Wishmaster was a universe level criminal. In point of fact he was  considered one of the top three on the list of thirteen most wanted  criminals in the universe. Exactly where in that top three ranking he  fell was a hotly debated matter, especially since the Wishmaster was a  legacy title that changed hands multiple times over the centuries, but  whoever the current Wishmaster was always had a spot in the top three.  The Wishmaster wasn't ranked so high just out of raw power, though no  one in the Unlucky Thirteen was personally weak, but more accurately  because of his personal force, the Wish Curse Palace.

The  Wish Curse Palace wasn't a place, or even a number of places. They were  a sort of universal black market. They were known for their strict  adherence to contract and were renowned as being the most reliable black  market source for illegal goods in any of the known systems. The Wish  Curse Palace might not have the manpower of the Empire, the Fairyland,  or the Conglomerate, nor did they have the fanatical reputation of the  Church of the Red Revenant or the Black Sorrow Cult, but they were hands  down the richest of the known factions, and they had eyes and ears  everywhere.

For  some unknown reason no one had even betrayed the Wish Curse Palace, and  all attempts to infiltrate them had failed spectacularly, leading to an  incredibly terrifying reputation that gave even the major powers on the  universal playing field pause. This was general knowledge even a hick  from bumfuck nowhere like me was aware of, which only served to  underscore how absolutely terrifying it was that I was holding something  that belonged to the Wishmaster. Did my dad work for the Wishmaster?  Had he stolen this somehow? Was he the Wishmaster himself?

As  much as it seemed like the third option was the only real feasible  choice I just couldn't bring myself to believe it. My father was  competent and terrifying in his own way sure, but being the head of a  force that stood equal with the whole Conglomerate? The Conglomerate and  the other members of the Five Faction Alliance like the Empire spanned  millions of worlds. How could my father be involved with something on  that scale? Unfortunately that particular question would have to wait  because the words hadn't stopped and the thing seemed to be continuing  to list more information.

Wishmaster  candidate status. I-rank. Ability: Minor Wish- Three times a day grant  a minor wish in return for proper compensation. Wish must be feasibly  achievable by the candidate's own efforts within a three day period with  current statistics. Current statistics:

Might-1

Impact-1

Fantasy-1

Vitality-1

Focus-1

Perception-1

Creation-1

That  was...a lot. First of all I knew what an ability was. It was what made  someone an Ascendant. I'd even seen the occasional reference to Might or  Vitality before, and those were definitely words associated with  Ascendants. I was presumably an Ascendant now. I might not have believed  it but purple fire that doesn't burn things is a pretty convincing  method of delivering news. Second of all it said candidate. Which meant I  was possibly one of multiple people who had been given this particular  ability...however the fuck that worked.

So...maybe  dad wasn't the Wishmaster? Maybe he just knew him? But he had mentioned  our family so maybe we were related to him? My fucking brain was  hurting. This was too much too fast. I rolled up the paper, unable to  find the stick pin that had shed my blood despite looking for it  everywhere. Still, I wanted to put this thing somewhere safe for now. It  was obviously important. As I slipped it back into the box however I  found something else. A black metal card with nothing on it but the  etching of an old style lamp with a skull emblazoned on the front.

It  was the logo of the Wish Curse Palace. I recognized the symbol from the  various tags that had been painted across the less prosperous parts of  the city. I was pretty much out of fucks to give at this point, so  despite being pretty sure this thing would be useful for me somehow I  just shoved it in my pocket, shoved the scroll back in the box, and  clicked the lid shut, spinning the latch to pop the button out. With  that I grabbed my scan ring from the front table, put the box under my  arm and headed back to my room.

I'd  originally been planning to read, so I left my ring out front so I  wouldn't be tempted to game tonight. It was the weekly Doom Sovereign  challenge, and I'd already lost more than enough credits betting on  myself to enter the finals. I was semi addicted to the game, a widescale rpg that allowed you to pit your character against other players in  massive elimination tournaments every week. I actually wasn't bad, but I  wasn't in the top ten percent even for this planet, and considering the  game had a universe spanning fanbase in the trillions that meant I  pretty much wasn't shit.

The  elimination tourneys usually went by region though, so I'd tried my  luck recently to make some cash and got cleaned out when I realized I  wasn't as good as I thought. Despite my addiction to the game though I  wasn't interested in Doom Sovereign right now, I was looking to get in  contact with my best friend Benny. I fired off a request for a video  conference, trying to decide what I was even supposed to tell him, since  I knew discussing any of this directly would get me murdered or thrown  in prison for sure. The Conglomerate monitored all means of  communication, my dad may have been able to circumvent that shit somehow  but I most certainly couldn't.

Within  thirty seconds the call picked up, and the olive skinned smiling face  of my best friend appeared on the screen. Benny's sparkling green eyes  were glowing with amusement as he smirked at me from the screen floating  above my extended hand, the call interface generated by the scan ring  just as perfect and clear as if I was looking through a hole in the wall  at someone two feet away. "Shane, didn't think I'd hear from you today.  You lost so badly last week I expected you to spend all day sulking in  your room in the dark like a luddite."

I  ignored how valid that prediction was and rolled my eyes. "I still  kicked your ass, so don't be too smug. But I'm not calling about the  game. I need to talk to you in person, somewhere private. Can you get  away?" Benny's parents tended to be much stricter than Zeke. My Uncle  was a sloppy unreliable drunk, but he was also a generally affable guy  who mostly let me do my own thing. Benny's parents, on the other hand,  were heavily involved in local politics, and his father was actually the  leader of the planet's miner's union.

Despite  how that may sound, the miner's union wielded insane amount's of power  on our little production planet, and outside the local branch of the  Unity Benny's dad Hector was probably the most powerful person on our  planet. He was generally pretty affable, but Benny's mom Amber was a  total tight ass about image. I half suspected she let me hang out with  Benny because it looked good for her precious boy to spend time with a  down on his luck local kid like me. Despite that she was incredibly  strict about when and where he was allowed to go, and it was almost  sundown on a Friday night so there was a decent chance he wouldn't be  allowed to leave.

To  my relief he just waved me off. "Nah, mom and dad are at some kind of  charity gala the Unity is putting on. They won't be back for hours and  Maria already took of with her boyfriend. Even if they came home early  and somehow caught me out I could just tell them I was out with you and  throw her under the bus. You know how much they hate Zack." I did.  Benny's younger sister Maria was sixteen and still in her rebellious  phase. Her boyfriend Zack was a local street thug our age who did odd  jobs for the Queen of Heart's cronies.

Zack  liked to act like that made him hot shit, but he was mostly just a  sniveling little creep. He avoided Benny and I like the plague because  Benny was Maria's brother and I was much bigger than most people, so we  mostly did him the courtesy of leaving him alone as long as he didn't  get Maria into any real trouble. Besides that Maria never went anywhere  without her best friend slash bodyguard Anna, who was an Ascendant,  albeit a pretty weak one from what I knew, so even if he did get her  into a situation she would be fine.

Still  I was glad for her annoying habits tonight as I shot my best friend a  grateful smile. "Ok, meet me at the park near your place." I paused,  unsure of how much to say over this line, but I figured there was at  least one thing I could share without any danger to either of us, since I  was planning to visit one of the intake sites to get registered and get  a tutorial tomorrow anyway. I swallowed hard and shot him a conflicted  look. He paused, his smile falling as he picked up on my discomfort, and  I was able to force myself to tell him. "I got an ability."

His  eyes went wide. "Holy shit man really? That's awesome! I'm so jealous, I  wish I had gotten one. I've been drinking those disgusting gene  excitement tonics for years now and nothing, and you weren't even trying  and you Ascended. Damn man, some people have all the luck. So, what did  you get? Is it something cool? Can you shoot lasers out of your eyes?  Manipulate fire? Can you fly? Shit I've always wanted to be able to  fly." I shot him a quelling look and he shut up, his face becoming  serious. "Right. You want to talk in person, no problem, I'll head to  the park."

I  was guessing based on his mood shift he had picked up on my discomfort  and assumed I got one of the powers people didn't like to talk about.  Something that people would assume was going to push me toward  corruption. People could be huge assholes about that kind of thing, and  if I'd gotten one of those it would seriously mess with my quality of  life. That said, I wasn't sure I had. The whole Wishmaster candidate  didn't seem like something that would show up when I was inducted, and  Minor Wish didn't really seem like an evil sounding power. Then again it was related to the Wishmaster so for all I knew it would result in me  getting thrown in prison.

I  winced and got up, shoving the box in a spare bag I had laying around  and putting my shoes back on as I got ready to go meet Benny. I needed  advice, and Benny and I had been close as brothers since we were kids.  I'd met him at one of compulsory download buildings when we were five,  and we'd been inseparable ever since. He'd even gotten transferred to  the local childcare I'd been in before I turned thirteen because Zeke  was too lazy to raise a kid despite having the money for private care.  If there was anyone I could trust with this it was Benny, now I just had  to hope he had some idea what to do.