Wish upon the Stars

When Zeke had mentioned the bazaar, I had assumed we would be  attending some small gathering of stalls. Maybe some tents, a few  blankets on the ground. The word invoked images of a temporary market  that contained equally temporary sales locations. What we actually ended  up walking into was...not that.

For  one thing I felt...heavier. Like I was under pressure I hadn't been  before. It was a strange feeling to experience, like I was suffocating  even as I took a deep breath. Once I realized I was panicking about  nothing and forced myself to calm down the panicked sensation went away,  though the weight remained. For another thing though, the place we'd  ended up was...amazing.

The close  night sky in the portal made much more sense once I got to view it up  close, since we were literally IN space. It looked like someone had torn  a city (a very large one mind you) out of the ground and let it float  among the stars. Buildings extended for as far as the eye could see, all  of varying shapes and styles. "This is...temporary?" I said in shock.  This place was just a random camp set up to wait on the glade, but it  looked like it had taken centuries to build.

Zeke snorted.  "They've probably got a high ranking Architect around somewhere. I've  seen variations of that ability that can make entire countries with a  snap of their fingers. There are a bunch of ways to do it. Though out in  space like this they either had the rock shipped out or they hired one  of the Fantasy based variants. The latter would be pretty damn expensive  though."

There was a sound as a man cleared his throat,  and we turned to see a short, burly man with curly dark hair and horns.  His eyes were goat eyes and he had a small patch of facial hair that  went well with his annoyed expression somehow. He held out a hand. "My  tip?"

Rolling his eyes, my uncle started muttering  something about Waywalkers, and fished out a chit he flipped to the goat  man. The other ascendant caught the chit, then made a show of biting it  while staring at Zeke, before nodding and vanishing into thin air in a  blink. I was guessing since Zeke had been transported too, tipping  wasn't a breach of contract, but I wasn't going to ask in case he'd just  managed to slip that by the geass by not thinking about it.

"So...we're  here." Said Callie slowly. "Wherever here is. Does this place have a  name?" She looked around excitedly. "Actually, I can find out on my own.  I should try out my new powers here. I can use them to spy on everyone  around here to figure out all the important info. Learn the ins and outs  of the city."

She stepped toward a wall, but Zeke held up  a hand. "Don't!" He said quickly. When she stopped to give him a  confused look he just sighed. "Don't forget that your ability, while  amazing, IS Perception based. Anyone with a sufficiently high Perception  can detect you even in the shadows. This place is full of random elders  and faction management. Given the low standard of the cluster, I'm  guessing that there won't be many B-rankers, if any, but a C or D-ranker  is more than up to noticing you."

Wincing slightly she  stepped away from the wall. "Ah. And you can't protect me because I'm  not your charge. Speaking of, D-rank is the new level of protection you  can offer right? If we run into any E-rankers and piss them off we're  screwed." She sounded about as worried as I felt.

Zeke  just waved it off. "Oh sure, but there won't be any here. Sending an  E-ranker to this place would be stupid. Everyone else would be stronger,  or weaker, depending on if they were entrants. With the Glade blocking  anyone below or over F-rank, and any protectors being notably powerful,  most of the people will be C-rank. Only lower middle class factions will  send B-rankers. Strong enough to have them but weak enough not to trust  their reputation to protect their people."

That seemed to  put Callie back on balance. "That makes sense. This whole thing is its  own kind of challenge. The chaperones will be seen as expressions of  both power and confidence. Won't having you here make us seem weak  though? You're WAY overkill for this place."

"Nah." Said  my uncle casually. "I'm his sole protector, technically speaking. Stuff  like this tends to be a gray area for candidates. If anything having a  protector like me is bound to impress. Most candidates get rookies like  her." He jabbed a thumb as Selka, who was standing next to a calm but  interested Nat.

The other guardian bristled. "I'll have  you know that I'm a talented combatant. You don't get chosen to be  guardian unless you can handle yourself. Don't treat me like some punk  kid."

Zeke just grinned maliciously. "Awww, it thinks it's  dangerous. How cute. Here's the thing though, you ARE some punk kid. It  become exponentially harder to rank up as you move up. You may never  reach B-rank, and even if you do it'll take you absurd amounts of time  to reach the point I'm at in B-rank. By that time I'll probably be an  A-ranker." He paused. "Or dead. I might just be dead. Either way,  respect your elders kid."

Her glare was almost funny,  until I snickered and she turned it on me, at which point I shut up.  "Anyway." Said Callie firmly, regaining attention. "Where are we going?  Do we have some sort of...faction safehouse here? Are there other WCP  branches here? Can we trust them if there are?"

"There  are, and we can't." My uncle said firmly. "I don't know if there are  other candidates, though if there are I would wager not many.  Regardless, the WCP isn't cohesive enough for that. Maybe if it was  another member of your branch, but there's no way to know at the moment.  Too many people for me to keep track of, so I can't even check. Not  that my geass would allow it."

Callie scowled. "So...maybe  a hotel or something? Do we even have the money for that?" I hadn't  paid much attention to join funds lately, but I knew I personally was  just short four and a half E-rank coins. I was betting that would NOT be  enough.

Zeke just gave her a pitying look. "Did you  forget we're traveling with a pair of wishmaster candidates? They're  basically walking piggy banks. You can trade wishes for nearly  anything." He pointed over at Nat and I and I scowled at him in  annoyance.

"Hey!" I said loudly. He just raised an eyebrow  at me. I looked away, grumbling to myself. "You could be nicer about  it, you know. I'm not just some asset to pay for things."

"You're  a PAIN in my asset." He drawled. "But we can figure out where to go  with an easy trick of the trade. I wish we had the location of a safe  place to stay." I blinked at him. Zeke had never wished for anything  from me. I could see how it was within his geass, since he needed a  place to stay too. He paused as the words flowed across my vision. "Oh,  payment." He pulled out a chit and flicked it to me. An F-ranked chit,  which was pretty decent.

Wish detected. Grant wish? I  confirmed, accepting the point cost which was much lower than my usual  wishes theese days. There was a flash of electricity and I realized why  there had been Creation points folded in. A piece of paper covered in a  spidery scrawl flashed into existence, a map that showed all the nearby  areas, including a single neatly marked X off to on side, with a caption  over it saying. "Daylight Dreamer Inn."

I grinned at him.  "That's a good idea. I take it you want me to get more used to using my  Wishes as an asset now that I'm stronger?'

He nodded  amiably. "Yup. There will probably be another candidate or two around  here, given the sheer scope of a cluster wide search. Even candidates  who don't travel horizontally among similar scale worlds like Natalie  probably got swept up in this mess."

Clapping me on the  shoulder, he chuckled lightly. "More candidates means that your Wishes  are both more and less valuable. You can use them more freely, but they  aren't quite as limited a commodity as they used to be. You'll need to  adjust to the new environment. Granted, it's pretty specific to places  like this, but the Ruined Soul Temple will be one of those locations as  well, so it's something to get used to."

I  nodded, following Callie as she grabbed the map from Zeke and set off  in a direction. Benny stepped up next to me. "This place is nuts,  right?" He said, gesturing around us. "Because I thought Rajak was big,  but this place has to be like...half the size, and they put it together  short term as a place to hang out and wait? Architect or no that's  insane."

"Yeah."  I murmured back. "I feel that. I think I feel...slower here. Weaker  maybe? Which is nuts because my stats are higher. This must be a higher  level area than our planet. Probably just D-rank though. If we were more  than a rank up right now I assume it would be much more obvious."

Zeke,  who was ahead of us, turned to nod. "Yeah, D-rank. Since your planet is  a psuedo D-rank world anyway it's less difference than you would  expect. It won't have much effect at this level. Just a bit of  suppression and a change to the strength of your abilities. Nothing too  noticeable with all the recent upgrades."

"It's  true." Celine said solemnly. "I've been on higher ranked planets  before. Your combat efficiency doesn't drop much, considering it's a  linear change across the board. The one difference is that the  surrounding environment tends to be harder to damage. I doubt it would  be a simple thing to destroy a building here, if we were even capable of  doing so."

Which  seemed like a big change from our psuedo D-rank planet, but then again,  this place was much smaller. Maybe the Impact was more condensed here.  Suffice to say I could understand why they didn't let anyone under  F-rank off the planet. While this was only mildly stifling for us, I got  the feeling that with twenty less Impact it would be much more  difficult to bear with, even if still possible.

Finally  we came to a stop in front of a large, tower like building. With cream  colored walls and red tiled roof, the place looked like a vacation  destination more than a run of the mill inn, but it was definitely  upscale enough to be a feasible place to stay. Zeke looked it over  carefully before nodding. "Decent security and top notch stealth.  Probably a high C-ranker running the place. Not perfect but more than  enough for our purposes."

I  was curious how it had top notch stealth when we found it so easily,  but I was sure I wouldn't care about the answer anyway. He said it was  fine and I trusted his judgement. So we stepped inside, strolling up to  the counter. The girl behind it had black hair in a ponytail, pale skin,  and dark lips with a single ring in them. Her eyes were ringed with  dark liner, and she mostly ignored us as we approached, engrossed in a  leather bound book.

Knocking  on the counter, I cleared my throat. She looked up. "I'm hoping to talk  to your boss about accommodations." She pointed above her head at sign  with pricing on it before returning to her read. Must be a fascinating  story. I scanned the values and sure enough, WAY too many chits. I  grinned, knocking again. "Tell them we're from the WCP. And we're  willing to trade wishes." It was satisfying how quick she slammed the  book shut. It's nice to be taken seriously.