Wish upon the Stars chapter 1004

I had plans to sit down and try to absorb all of the charter, but I was unfortunately forced to let Crell handle it to start. Callie and Chelsea had come to get me and dragged me away from research to go to this Kingdom Siege thing. I wasn’t as enthused about it as them, but we’d been putting it off for a while, and I NEEDED a Master of Banking.

“So, tell me how this Kingdom Siege thing works,” I told Vicky as we all walked through the halls of the Palace underground. We were back in the tunnels, heading for who knew where, and given what had happened to Darren, I was a little nervous. Luckily Zeke was here with us, so we WERE safe, I was just being paranoid, and what better way to do that than to hear about whatever it was we were going to see.

“Oh, it’s a ton of fun,” she said excitedly. “Basically everyone gathers around a sort of basin. Inside there are holographic representations of kingdoms, and each of the contestants is given an avatar to act as the royal treasurer. Basically he allocates funds to whatever aspect of the kingdom he sees fit. If he puts it into military funds he gets bigger armies, technological advancement means more powerful armies, crop or exports he can hire mercenaries, and so on. The avatar is more of an advisor, but certain things in game can kill them.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Things like what?”

“Well beheading,” she said, ticking things off on her fingers. “Exsanguination, heavy organ damage, excessive blunt impact, poison, suffocation, strong allergic reactions, choking, head trauma, impalement, defenestration, extreme food poisoning, and snakes.”

“Ok, first of all,” I said slowly. “That’s…just death. You just pretty much listed all the ways a person can die.”

She shook her head. “They’re immune to fall damage.”

“Then how do they die from defenestration?” I asked in confusion. “Isn’t that just falling out a window?”

“THROUGH a window,” she stressed. “It’s the glass that kills them.”

I stared at her, searching for some sign she was joking. Sadly none appeared. “Right. Ok, moving on. So, the contestants just…what? Try to outdo each other until everyone else is conquered or gives up?”

“Pretty much,” she chirped. “Kingdom Siege is considered top tier entertainment. The WCP is a trade power, so financial skills are desirable, and people bet real money on the outcomes. More than one new enterprise got its seed investment from a Kingdom Siege win. It’s a huge social event, and everyone can participate.” She grinned. “Plenty of us who didn’t get the bloodline like to take part. It’s all about skill and intelligence, no Wishes required.”

I nodded to her with a grin. “Sounds like a party. I’ll need you to introduce everyone who is up when we get there.”

“You got it boss man,” she saluted. “Speaking of which, we’re here.” She gestured to the side of the hall. Instead of a door this time, a large intricately woven rug was tacked up on the wall. She reached up, pulling it aside, and as soon as it moved away from the wall, sound erupted from inside. She jerked her head and I gestured to the others to follow.

Zeke stuck close, just in case, and he grinned as we came inside. “I forgot about this,” he said wistfully. “Your dad was never much good at it. But we came to a few when we were here. After he hit D-rank we spent some time at the Palace before the succession war. Getting to know people, make connections. We tried a few of the various forms of entertainment here, and this one left an impression.”

“I don’t recommend placing any bets,” Vicky warned. “The win lose stuff is never very good odds. All the money is in prop bets, and they get so byzantine and complicated it’s impossible to keep track of them unless you have a lot of experience with the game.

“Basically, everyone here has been doing this for decades, and they’re all masters of manipulating the rules,” she laughed. “If you want to come back a few times, you could make some good money here though.”

I was once again thrown. Decades? How was it possible for it to take DECADES for someone to get to the point I was at? I’d done it in a few years. 

I’d heard things like that before, and it just didn’t makes sense. They had the Wish power, just like I did. But thinking about it, I realized I could kind of see it. Because while the Wish power had ramped me up hard in the beginning, the higher I went, the less it bridged that gap. Wishes had accounted for a relatively small percentage of my rise to power, actually. Most of my stats came from renown and big events I’d taken part in.

And the scale of it actually snowballed. The less stats I had the less stats I could trade for. The early parts of the Wish power’s development were slow going. And more than that, I’d been born with more stats than most people. Because my parents were A-rankers, I’d started with several stats to work off of. Normally even getting to where I’d began might take a week or two. Zeke had commented that I was faster than most.

If I hadn’t gotten the hundreds of thousands of points I had from renown, where would I be right now? If I’d played it safe and been a pure Wishmaster, would it have taken me decades to get here?

Hell I’d taken months if not a year to go from D to C-rank, and only a very small part of that had been Wishes. The more I thought about it, the more grateful I was that I’d pursued the path I did. Improving my Path fo the Doom Sovereign, focusing on my external development rather than just passively playing support.

“Hey, you in there?” Vicky asked me wryly. I blinked at her. Right. She was talking about the Siege game. 

“Sorry,” I said with a chuckle. “Lost in thought.” It had been a while since I’d done that. “Go ahead and introduce the contestants. I assume you DO know who all the favorites are?” I grinned at her. “This is your scene, right?” I glanced around at the sea of shouting young people surrounding the various pits. Apparently they weren’t all using the same one. “I had you pegged as being the quiet type.”

She snorted. “I’m a complex and multi layered individual thank you very much. I can enjoy tea AND kicking ass.”

“I think ‘kicking ass’ is maybe a strong turn of phrase to describe watching nerds do math,” Abel said with a grin. “I usually reserve it for activities where feet make actual contact with asses. Or heads. Or throats. Any blunt force trauma qualifies, really.”

“Don’t be a combat snob,” said Mel reproachfully. “Being tactically savvy isn’t useless just because your idea of subtlety is punching someone slightly less hard than you could have.”

He grinned at her. “That’s my idea of RESTRAINT” he said wolfishly. “Subtlety is when I punch them in their blind spot. But fair enough, I guess your nerd math might be cool. I’ll keep an open mind. Convince me.”

“I’ll get right on that,” said Vicky. “Except I have no idea who you are or why I should care again. I just remember Bethy calling you Ashley. No one else has even mentioned you to me.”

He froze. “My name,” he said, eyes narrowed. “Is Abel Castleton. I am your boss’s combat mentor, and one of his most trusted lieutenants. We’ve been through thick and thin together, and he trusts me more than anyone.”

I hissed through my teeth. “I mean…I trust Benny more than you. And Callie. And Chelsea.”

“Ok, well, yeah,” he said after a brief pause. “Benny is your best friend, Callie is your wife, and Chelsea is your twin. I guess I get that.”

“Also Bethy,” I admitted.

“What, no!” He protested. “Come on! She’s so unreliable! At least let me have THAT.” His shoulders slumped.

I shrugged. “Sorry, but you’ve been falling behind. Gotta buckle down and do some training.”

As expected, that kind of challenge was something he couldn’t allow to go unanswered. He glared at me, straightening his back. “I’ll show YOU reliable.” He said with a steely glint in his eyes. “Just wait, I’m going to make that list.”

“That’s the spirit Abner,” Bethy cheered. “I’m sure you’ll be the best pastry chef ever!”

He glared at her. “I’m a professional arena fighter!” He snapped. “And you know it. I don’t bake pastries.”

“Have you tried?” she asked with what sounded like genuine curiosity. “Because I bet you could if you put your mind to it. You seem like a determined sort of guy, I bet pastry making wouldn’t be enough to stop you. You could probably learn it in a year or two. Don’t let your hesitation keep you from your dreams!”

Abel looked genuinely confused for a second, then shook it off. “You STOP that this instant,” he snapped. “I don’t WANT to be a pastry chef. I never did, and stop trying to convince me to attempt it.”

I sighed. “ANYWAY,” I said loudly, forcibly redirecting the talk. “Why don’t you tell us about these contestants?” I asked Vicky.

Chuckling, she shook her head. “Well I don’t knew them all,” she admitted. “There are dozens per pit. But I can tell you the favorites.” She gestured over to one side, where I could see a tall, beefy man. He had long brown hair, a scruffy beard, and glasses. He was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, his feet bare, and he looked like he was standing in his kitchen more than in an underground kingdom game. “That’s Peter,” she said with excitement. “He’s a wizard with numbers. He does part time work accounting for some of the subfactions around here.”

She pointed past him at a small girl with bright blue buns in her hair, wearing a hoodie and a dark pair of slacks. “That’s May. Peter is an all around savant, but May specializes in military supply and logistics. Her armies grow faster than anyone else, and she’s aggressive.

“That’s Thomas,” she painted at a short, gaunt man with wide shoulders. “He’s a trade powerhouse. Mercenaries are his go to, and he’s always the first to get them out. The one next to him is Sylvie,” she gestured to a redhead with short hair and a lanky frame. “She’s got a brilliant mind for infrastructure. She always manages to get her fortifications to an absurdly high level early on.”

She introduced about ten more of them. Some were specialized in technology advancement, some in weapon production, some in more obscure things like resource location and acquisition, which apparently mean finding and extracting ore and things like that. I imagined that involved Skills like my Song of the Soil.

I wondered if that would help playing this game. Part of me wanted to try it for myself, see what Dantalion and Piece of Mind could net me in terms of an advantage, but that wasn’t why we were here. We came to find my Master of Banking.

So, with that said, we picked a pit to watch, the one where Peter was waiting, and stepped up next to the pit. Inside, rolling hills of green sat in miniature, and thirteen small settlements had been erected at the edges of a thirteen pointed star, separating them from the main body of the pit to start.

As I watched, the thirteen contestants each selected a settlement and began the process of assigning their limited funds. I glanced at the others, who were all watching with rapt attention, and then focused up myself. Hopefully they could show me something that would impress me.