Item Seed: The Wells Fargo Wagon.

OK. So it’s a plot device.

Wells Fargo Wagon – Google Docs

The Wells Fargo Wagon

Normally musicals don’t actually trigger a physical manifestation of a concept like this, but sometimes even low probability scenarios occur.  The Wells Fargo Wagon typically manifests in the form of a horse-drawn enclosed cargo carriage, complete with a friendly driver (typically male) who happily converses with people while smilingly never telling them anything about himself, his wagon, or how it all works.  Speaking metaphysically, the Wagon is a standard wish-generator in tangible form, but with three major differences:

1. It deals strictly in material goods.
2. You explicitly have to pay in advance.
3. It’s not malicious at all.

The Wagon works like this: when you find it, you can ask the driver to procure you an item.  He’ll look it up in the catalog he keeps with him, and then he tells you the price.  Unsurprisingly, the price is rarely monetary.  It’s more like “check up once a week on that mean old person who lives down the street and make sure that he’s eating properly” or “give back the fine china set that you bullied your sister out of” or something else equally unpleasant, yet laudable.  Should you do this, at some point the Wagon will show up and deliver you your item.

Note, by the way, that what the item actually is is up to you.  Do you miss your first stuffed animal? It’s in the catalog.  Looking for that truly impossible-to-find book or curio?  In the catalog. A fertile passenger pigeon egg?  In the catalog, but you’d probably order a gross of those, just to be on the safe side (there’d be a group discount there, anyway).  In other words: if it is or was real, but you can’t really buy it with money, it’ll be in the catalog, and if you’re ready to pay the price, it can be yours.

One last note: obviously, a tangible concept like this is rather offensive to evil creatures and entities.  Some have even tried to destroy the Wells Fargo Wagon in response.  If you ever get the chance to see something evil attack the Wagon, by all means: find a good vantage point, and settle in to watch.  What happens to those attackers is usually highly entertaining.