“Your shoulder will not be happy,” Bono commented as I strained myself to move the boulder covering the spot where the fissure appeared.

I was in my Skhite form, and even with the bigger muscles the boulder refused to budge. My angry shoulder was not helping at all.

“Arrgh!” I growled, putting in a burst of massive effort. The boulder rolled aside. I was so drained of energy that I felt faint and sat down. I breathed in deeply, squinting at the sun. It was right overhead and the time was noon. In a couple of hours the fissure would appear and I could meet the sage.

“Is there really some magic stone in your head?” I asked Bono. He had after all survived despite the elf king’s powerful spell.

“You are taking those two seriously?” he pouted towards the pale corpses of Killerguy and Roxy, lying in the distance.

“But it would explain why you didn’t die when the elf king tried to kill you,” I said.

“Are you thinking of cracking open my skull?” Bono asked. “Because I don’t know of any other way you can verify if there is a magic stone inside my head.”

I waited patiently for the fissure to appear. An hour dragged by. I kept staring without blinking, although my eyes itched. I didn’t want to miss the fissure. Five seconds was not a very long period of time.

“There it is!” Bono cried, before I had taken note of what was happening. I acted instinctively and jumped into the fissure. It closed the moment I was through. I exhaled deeply and rubbed my eyes.

I made my way towards the interior of the tunnel where the sage lived.

I found him sitting in his meditative pose with his legs crossed and eyes shut. An expression of peace graced his face. I waited for the sage to sense that I was here.

The sage opened his eyes after a while.

“Ah!” he said with recognition, “Look, who has come!”

“I… I just wanted to ask you a few questions,” I said.

“Go on, let them out!” the sage said with much encouragement as though he was a kindergarten teacher and I a child.

“Despite all my efforts I am getting nowhere. Why is that?” I said.

“Is that a philosophical question?” the sage asked. “If so, then efforts don’t really take you anywhere in the first place, and that is not even their purpose—”

“No, it’s not a philosophical question,” I cut in, before the sage could ramble on.

“Ah, then, what kind of ‘efforts’ are you talking about exactly?” the sage asked. “Please elaborate, so I may help you.”

“You said that the game world wants to help me get back to the real world–with a healed body. But at the same time whenever I take actions in that direction I am hit by a flood of problems that have no meaning. I tried to make peace with the players so that I could work on my farms, but they tried to capture me instead.”

“Dharti is not very happy with you over that. The game world says that what you are doing is like asking lions to make peace with the deer,” the sage replied. “The players and the Eviluns are enemies. That is in the very roots of this game world. This world runs on that principle. When you go to make a deal with the players you are violating it. You cannot expect to succeed in such endeavours. The elf king was just doing his duty. You alarmed him when you sought to make peace.”

“But I do not want any bloodshed,” I said, “is that too big a wish? I know it’s a bit weird to have sympathy for what essentially are codes, but at the end of the day they display emotion just as anybody in the real world.”

“The game world appreciates that you care for eviluns. But can’t you see? The elf king and all the other beings that help the players are also the game world! Everything that you see in the game world is the game world. Only exception is the players, since they are controlled by people physically outside.

“Dharti says that although it wants you to succeed, it cannot help you when you try to violate its core principles. If you want to carry on with your farming you are free to do so. At the end of the day you are in profit in terms of evilese. But you must carry out your farming in such a manner that the players do not get a whiff of it. Also, it is the responsibility of the game world to provide the players with quests if they come close to your farms. It just has to be that way. It is the nature of this world.”

“So, the game world wants me to start killing players?” I asked, because the faces of Killerguy and Roxy flashed in my mind’s eye.

“That is up to you,” the sage replied. “What you do is your choice. But you must keep in mind not to violate the core principle of the game world, like the last time you went to sign an agreement with the elf king.” The sage was looking me in the eye as he spoke. “See, the game world tries to help you and it has already helped you multiple times. But Dharti can do nothing when it comes to the core principles. Players and Eviluns can come at no agreements of any sort. You cannot mess around that. If you want to find peaceful means to attain your goals you can. But you must rely on your own ingenuity for that.”

“What will happen if I start killing players and try to attain my goals through that?” I asked.

“You can do that if you want,” the sage shrugged. “You will face problems from that end as well. For any action you take you will get a reaction. You will come across obstacles that you must overcome. I am repeating this, but just be careful not to mess around with the core principles, and you will be alright in the long run. Perhaps you might end up in the real world some day with a completely healed body.”

After this conversation, the sage resumed his meditation. I fell into deep brooding. Ingenuity, huh? I needed to come up with something. A fresh outlook was required. I spent the next twenty four hours waiting, observing the blue sage who was still as a wax statue. When the crack opened the next day, I exited the tunnel.