Cragg, Louis and a Myconian with a bright purple cap and a ‘Spellcaster’ vibe to it were all standing around Red, softly conversing about how to wake her from her coma. Louis had immediately tried licking her, which did nothing except make everybody laugh. Their current methodology was to select potions and substances seemingly at random and give them to Red’s unconscious form. There were some ethical concerns there, but Ben basically trusted them to figure it out. The myconian in particular seemed to have a grasp on what to do.

Ben, Short Bus and Ghost Ears were all free to ‘shop’. Between the three of them, Ben had no idea how much actual money they had, but whenever he needed something, Frankie would hand it to him. At some point, he would need to do a full audit of exactly what was in his possession, but that point was far, far into the future. Frankie was, himself, currently utilizing Lucky Louis’s Wonder Emporium as a fence and haggling fiercely with a Myconian.

Fun fact, neither of them could talk, and their haggling took place entirely through body language. It was the sort of thing that a person could just stare at and watch, amused, for hours. Frankie was wiggling his arms and legs and wildly swaying around, while the Myconian pointed and shook its head.

Though Ben easily could have sat down on a park bench, lit up a Stamina Cig and actually watched the scene for hours, he had more pressing concerns, like starting his revenge against Solas for murdering him in an alternative timeline. He reached into his Utility Pocket and patted the timepiece fondly, before turning a critical eye to what kinds of wonders Louis was selling.

Mostly, it was drugs.

Ok, ok, that’s not super fair. They were combat drugs, or performance enhancement drugs, and yes, some recreational drugs that Cragg kept looking over at. They came in about gallon sized open lid cauldrons, were all extremely brightly colored, and each was steaming colored steam. The sheer variety of smells was practically overwhelming, smells no human nose had ever experienced before.

There was also, and Ben felt he really had no choice but to go check out the stall, a colorful shop covered in pastel question marks, exclamation points, and stylized pictures of Ben’s face. He stared at that for a while.

Then he stared some more. Louis ran over, barking, speaking telepathically.

“Hey! I got a skill from your parade, haha! That was a fun parade! It’s called [The Stall of Wonders]!” then Louis started barking, and the barking was clearly laughter, “Even I don’t know what’s for sale in there! Go check it out!”

Ben, somewhat reluctantly, walked over to the stall. Much to his displeasure, the Myconian in charge of the stall, who had a funky rainbow cap and a really wiggly, stalky body, gestured to a hanging curtain, indicating that he had to actually go inside the [Stall of Wonders]. He found that proposition to be sketchy at best, but resolved himself to move forward.

“Prince Ben?” Vivi asked, startling Ben before he was able to enter the dubious skill. Wait-

“Vivi?” Ben asked, doing a double-take at the Aeon Slug, “When’d you get here? Weren’t you back in the. . . uh, shit, the name alliterated, the bar Thirty-One-”

“The Sneaky Cervo?” Vivi asked.

“Yeah, that’s the one. What happened?”

“I got a drone and hurried over here?” Vivi asked rhetorically, looking confused, “wasn’t that the plan, for all of us to meet up and then attack a police station or something?”

“That doesn’t phase you at all, Vivi?” Ben asked, looking at the Aeon Slug, “attacking a police station?” In response, Vivi laughed his squeaky toy laugh.

“This is Solas, Ben. I don’t care if we level half the city! Actually, they might rescind my exile if we did,” Vivi said, his lightning fast mind already jumping several moves ahead, his large, beautiful Aeon Slug eyes getting a sneaky glint. “Ben, you have my full support in getting vengeance on Solas, even though they didn’t actually do anything to you-” Ben held up his Pocketwatch of Timeloop.

“They gassed me in another timeline and killed our entire party,” Ben said, “fuck those guys.”

“Wow, seriously?” Vivi said, looking outraged, “what a bunch of slimy assholes! How’d we do, you know, in the fight?”

“We almost beat ‘em,” Ben easily lied, not wanting to reveal how badly they’d been stomped, “but in the end our lack of teamwork and coordination was our undoing.” Ben reached out his arm and placed a hand on Vivi, transmitting firm, confident body language. “This team’s got a lot of potential, but we need to train, Vivi. From this point forward, you and Red are in charge of party tactics and training,” Ben was speaking quickly now, trying to get Vivi away before he asked for more details on the alternative timeline, all of which were embarrassing and frustrating, “speaking of Red, why don’t you go see if those guys need your help getting her awake. The cops sedated her with something, and we’re trying to figure out what it was-”

“Obviously they gave her Webweaver Slime, or some derivative,” Vivi said, immediately slugging away and towards the situation in which he could be smugly superior, intellectually speaking, “they’re quite common in the Overcavern Forest- Oh, look at them!” Vivi said, his eyes forming an upside down crescent as he pre-gloated, “they think it’s Blank Salts! Oh ho ho! Excuse me! Oh, excuse me! Are you giving that poor girl J-25?” Vivi called out at the group, successfully distracted.

“Ok,” Ben said, watching him slug away, “Vivi averted. Red, taken care of. Short Bus,” Ben said, then looked over at Short Bus, who was very vocally ‘haggling’, read that word as intimidating, the myconid cook with the mushroom squirrels, “uh, he’s good. Ghost Ears?” Ben looked around and saw the fairy was just shopping normally, buying various cauldrons of potion and placing them in his very nice Bag of Holding. “Predictably, Ghost Ears is staying out of trouble. I’m so glad that guy is here,” Ben said to himself, then looked at the [Stall of Wonders] again. “It’s just,” he said to himself, speaking exclusively to himself, “is this going to be a thing? It can’t be a thing, just a bunch of ‘of wonders’ locations and skills scattered all over The World with my face plastered all over them, designed for me specifically? That’s pretty fucking unlikely,” Ben said, nodding and agreeing with himself, “yeah, I think this is a one-off. Ok,” he said, taking a deep breath, “I’m ready.”

Ben confidently walked into the [Stall of Wonders], then immediately, confidently, noped the fuck out of there, his face red with embaressment.

“Why is there so much merchandise with my face on it,” Ben said, honestly and truly mortified by the idea that people were actually buying [Prince of Wonders] merch, and that there was so much of it. Still, something told him he needed to enter the [Stall of Wonders], and he needed to peruse through it’s cursed, cringy wares.

--

One of the first trials Ben had to endure, psychologically speaking, was a legitimate rack of invisible clothing. Ben touched it and rubbed the fabric between his thumb and index finger, and honest to God, it felt like high end clothing, except, you know, it was invisible so you could be nude just like the [Prince of Fucking Wonders].

Then there was a display full of headbands that, if you put them on, would replace the wearer’s head with an extremely large, cartoon, exaggerated illusion of Ben’s head. Right next to that was a bunch of bracelets that did the same thing except for genitals. It was by far the single worst thing in existence, according to Ben at least.

There was a shelf with. . . Invisibility Underwear. Ben frowned and examined the product. According to the description, the item self-repaired, adapted itself to the wearers size, and rendered everything it covered completely invisible and see-through. Ben imagined himself losing all his clothes and confidently standing around, his pelvis completely invisible while the rest of his body was still there.

“Huh,” Ben said, then put every single pair of the Invisibility Underwear in his shopping basket. Ben weren’t no dummy- he could project a trend into the future, and he had a strong feeling that involuntary, public nudity was a part of his reality now. He continued shopping, enjoying the fact that it was, as advertised, ‘Bigger on the inside’, just like his Utility Pocket.

He passed a display of Frankie plushies, and Ben would have bought one, but he already had the real thing, so why bother? He immediately thought of a good reason, namely that they would be great gifts, so he took all the plushies as well. Ben had already committed to, if he didn’t have enough money, just steal everything.

Then, he passed the single most offensive display he’d ever seen.

“Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Ben said, looking at the, the- “man, fuck all you guys,” Ben muttered. The display advertised itself as a marvel of [Magical Engineering] that, upon the destruction or loss of any set of Ben’s clothing, would immediately teleport the remains and repair them, and put them up for sale. If the clothes were too destroyed to be repaired, they were re-created and marked as a re-creation. Obviously, the original articles sold for considerably more than-

“Fuck you!” Ben shouted at the display, “give me my clothes back!” Ben was in particular outraged when he saw the extremely expensive, original, ‘Vacation Outfit’, priced so astronomically highly that nobody aside from the richest man in the world would be able to legitimately purchase it. “[Whap]!” Ben said casually, trying to take the outfit, but was blocked for the first time by an anti-theft system designed specifically to deal with Utility Pockets. “Fine, new life goal then, get my fucking hawiian print shirt back.

Right next to it was a glass case with both original and recreations of all the crowns he’d ever worn. Ben was muttering darkly, feeling kind of embarrassed that he’d ever worn any of the crazy person bird’s nest shit he saw on display. He noted with some amusement that the ‘Smartest Phone Citadel Deluxe’ didn’t actually have a functional ‘Smartest Phone’ attached to it.

“Hate this fucking place, doo dee doo,” Ben said, humming to himself and ignoring everything as much as possible. He browsed for a little longer until he finally found something that made it all worth it.

“Jackpot,” he said, his eyes having settled onto the section of the store dedicated to selling [Prince of Wonders] class specific items. He noted with a grin, while feeling frustration, that all the items were locked up in Ben-Proof anti-theft glass cases. They even said ‘Ben Proof Anti-Theft’ on them, just a little sticker slapped on each case. There was a little placard in front, and behind it, eight lamps were on display. The one on the far left was made of a plain, somewhat dull brass. The lamp on the far right was constructed of some sort of violet and purple substance, inlaid with gold, and was brightly glowing. From left to right, the lamps grew progressively more splendid looking. Ben decided to read the placard, which was set into an immovable display window like he’d encountered in the Portal Labyrinth.

[Own your very own piece of highly collectable, extremely sought after, [Prince of Wonders] class equipment! Each Shop of Wonders will contain class equipment of a single type! Though this equipment is unusable to any but the [Prince of Wonders], it is very much for sale! Tier 1 equipment is available in unlimited quantities, but from Tier 2 onward, only a single item will be sold, due to the extremely high production costs, and the System Labor intensive manufacturing process that goes into each of these high end pieces of Class Equipment!]

Ben examined the lamp on the far right, which didn’t even have a price listed.

[Empty Vessel Of The Arch-Djinn]

[Tier 8 Class Equipment]

[Immutable: This item cannot be altered by any means.]

[Indestructible: This item cannot be destroyed by any means.]

[Extremius: This item cannot be duplicated by any means.]

[Note for Prince Ben: Your class gear is, by definition, impossible to wish for. Please try it, I’d like a laugh.

-The System]

[You do not meet the Level Requirement of 100 in order to purchase this item, or even view it’s purchase conditions!]

[This lamp was left behind by the Legendary Arch-Djinn who tricked his masters into allowing him to escape back into The Beyond. Though the Djinn is gone, this vessel nonetheless remains highly attuned to the power of wishes.]

[All cast wishes are 5,000% more powerful]

[All cast wishes have a 50% chance to generate a new wish of equal power]

[Increases the speed of Wish Growth by 10,000%]

[Other Effects unknown, or unlistable.]

“Well, that’s going on my christmas list,” Ben commented, pulling out a large rock and bashing the glass ineffectually. He had the strong suspicion that nothing in the universe was capable of breaking into the display, including his wishes. He considered trying it, then looked at the ‘Ben Proof Anti-Theft’ sticker wisely decided not to waste a wish. If it was designed specifically for him, then he wasn’t even going to try.

Ben turned his attention to the lamp on the far left, the classic looking one, the brass one.

[Empty Vessel of Robinius, the Lesser Half-Djinn]

[Tier 1 Class Equipment]

[Immutable: This item cannot be altered by any means.]

[Indestructible: This item cannot be destroyed by any means.]

[Extremius: This item cannot be duplicated by any means.]

[This lamp was left behind by the kindly Robinius, who was freed by his master. Though the Djinn is gone, his vessel nonetheless remains highly attuned to wishes. It is said a spark of his goodness still remains imbued in this vessel]

[All wishes cast are 50% more powerful]

[All wishes cast have a 1% chance to generate a new wish of equal power]

[Increases the speed of Wish Growth by 100%]

[Other Effects Unknown or Unlistable]

[Your credit with The System is sufficient to receive this item free of charge. Would you like to claim the Empty Vessel of Robinius the Lesser Half-Djinn?]

Ben reached out and grabbed the lamp, his hand passing through the glass display like it wasn’t even there. When he pulled the lamp out, it was replaced with a similar, if different lamp of equal power. Thinking he might be able to dual wield the tier one lamps, he tried to take the new lamp, but his hand was stopped by the display case.

Ben held the lamp by the handle, looking at the thing. It wasn’t heavy, nor was it light; rather, it seemed like it was exactly the right weight. The metal was cool against his bare [Magical] skin. The lamp’s metal was too matte to give more than a reflection of light.

“This is sort of a dream come true,” Ben said, looking at the lamp and immediately rubbing it- nothing happened. “Definitely worth a shot,” he said to himself, then used his Utility Pocket to attach the lamp to his jeans belt loop, hanging off of his right side. He walked around for a bit, then realized how in the way that was, and just stored the lamp in his Utility Pocket till he got a very large hat to hide the lamp in.

He checked out the Tier 2 lamp, but he needed to be level 12 in order to even see if he could afford it, so he left it alone. Level 12 seemed like a long way away for him.

After Ben received his class gear, he felt better about the entire [Stall of Wonders] experience. He found the novelty items to be less annoying by about, oh, twenty percent. His next stop was the ‘Dress like royalty!’ section of the store, which sold general royalty class gear. Ben, who lacked a proper crown, scepter, cape and all the other bits of accessories that royal classes required, grabbed a couple of full sets of basic royal gear. Red capes with white furry trim, golden scepters inlaid with gems and images of Frankie, and several simple golden ring crowns.

Ben attired himself properly, ditching his current shitty crown and placing the golden ring on his head. The difference! Ben felt for the first time that his thoughts were really, really clear, and now knew for a fact that crowns gave a boost to general intelligence. He wrapped the cape around his shoulder and felt his power harden, surrounding him like a shell. He grasped his scepter and felt his royal authority grow malleable and reactive, moving about and reacting to his intention and will.

He was ready to buy all this stuff, so when he looked around for a sales attendant, that’s when he realized the store was unmanned. However, set into the wall near the entrance, which was also the exit, was a small Town Crystal looking thing. It was ice blue, about the size of two fists put together, and hung deliberately near the door. Ben rolled his eyes, walked over and put his hand on it.

[Your inventory contains sufficient value to complete your purchase. Would you like to complete your purchase?]

“Yes.”

[Your purchase has been completed.]

[Options]

[Feedback survey?]

Ben decided to do the survey. It was like something straight from Earth, asking him to rate his experience in the [Stall of Wonders] out of five stars, and then allowing him a little space to write something. Ben’s review was as follows:

[Stall of Wonders: 5 of 5 stars]

[Store is well run by Louis the [Travelling Merchant], no complaints on that front. Not enough Ben merch, was a little disappointed. Instructions on novelty lamp items are unclear,] Ben joked, because the lamp was not a novelty item, [does lamp need to be held in order for the effects to be applied? Again, Louis is an excellent shopkeeper.]

Ben submitted the review, and then was surprised when the shop crystal(?), is that what it was called? Dinged at him and a little orange icon showing a closed mail envelope hovered over it. Ben touched it, because why wouldn’t he?

[Response to Stall of Wonders Review]

[Thank you for your feedback. We are working tirelessly to find ways to sell every aspect of Prince Ben, and will take your suggestion of more Ben merchandise very seriously. The [Empty Vessel of Robinius, the Lesser Half-Djinn] must be physically held in order to make wishes fifty percent more powerful, however it must merely be in your possession for its other passive effects to be active. To reiterate, you must be holding the lamp in-order for any of it’s active effects to have a chance of activating.]

[You have left a review for the Stall of Wonders, and found a hidden quest!]

[The King of Feedback]

[Leave a review for all eight -of Wonders merchandise locations and receive a fabulous prize!]

[Quest Progress: 1/8 reviews submitted]

Ben laughed and shook his head. So far, he had the weirdest fucking quests, he thought. He left the [Stall of Wonders] and was greeted by the sight of his entire party standing together, quietly chatting with one another, along with Cragg and Louis, who were a part of the conversation. Red was ambulatory, which was good, and she was also soaking wet and pissed off, which was funny. Ben put his fingers in his mouth, folded his tongue and did that really sharp whistle some lucky people are capable of pulling off, also known as a taxi whistle. Fun fact.

“Oi!” he yelled, “gather round! Party only! Er- Louis, you can come too! Cragg, give us some privacy, will you? We’ll come get you in a minute, just got some business to take care of.”

“Got it,” Cragg said, immediately heading over to the section of the Wonder Emporium that had the most drugs and making purchases.

When the party had gathered up, Ben, without ceremony, produced the Ancient Reliquary Casque from his Utility Pocket and placed it on the ground in front of everybody.

“Vivi,” Ben said without ceremony, “I know you bought some keys for this-”

“Dibs,” Vivi said firmly, “My keys, my treasure.”

“Uh, no,” Ben said, “we’re a party, and we’ll give the item to whoever it suits best. Now, you said if one of us dies, we all die, correct?” Vivi rolled his eyes.

“Yes Ben, that’s how [Questors] work. Everybody knows that.” Vivi was met with the blank stares of literally everyone around him who were still coming to grips with that fact. “Ok. We have a pseudo shared health pool and a psuedo shared mana pool and a pseudo shared stamina pool,” Vivi explained, “so we’re all much more durable than we would be normally. That’s the good part. But if one of us dies, we all die.”

“Ok,” Ben said slowly, “so rather than make yourself more powerful, you should be focusing on making the entire group better, right? Because the group is an extension of yourself?” Vivi’s eyes had a jolt of panic, and he looked around in fear, looking at everyone and then looking totally skeeved out.

“Ugh!” he said, “I think you’re right! Oh, slime this is such a gross concept! ‘An extension of myself-’ gack!” Vivi gagged a little bit, “what kind of horror show planet did you come from that you’ve just got a phrase for that unnatural-”

“Ok, so we’re giving the Relic to whoever needs it most, or whoever it’s best suited for, correct?” Everybody nodded, and Vivi, reluctantly, produced a green key and handed it over to Ben. “Excluding Louis, obviously, but he can vote too if he wants to.”

“Oh boy!” Louis said, wagging his tail.

“Ready?” Ben said, his eyes twinkling. He kneeled down and held up the key for everyone to see. He slowly brought the key to the keyhole.

“Open in three. . . two. . . one.”