I was with Fono and Pook in the white realm, surrounded by no less than a hundred vintage mirrors. Inside each of these was a Kiara.

The quest would only end if I pinpointed the real Kiara. Every time I chose a wrong mirror, two additional mirrors would materialize, so I had to be extremely careful.

I would have freaked out if I hadn’t known this was just a test quest.

I went from mirror to mirror, scrutinizing the Kiara inside each. All the Kiaras were identical. Every time I folded my arms and observed any mirror, the Kiara inside would insist that she was the genuine one.

I went through all the one hundred mirrors. Only one stood out. There was a detail in it that, to my satisfaction, was not repeated in any of the others.

With a contented smile, I approached mirror number 69.

“She’s here,” I said.

“I am indeed,” Kiara said. I offered her a hand as she came out of the mirror frame. A temporary quest-completed screen hovered in the air.

“How did you find me?” Kiara asked.

“Well, the other Kiara’s are mirror images,” I said, pointing at the mirrors 68 and 70. “So it was obvious they were fake. When I looked at you, I knew instantly there was something different.”

Pook made the mirrors vaporise. We decided we had done enough for the day. We would come again tomorrow to train Pook in quest creation.

We came out of Pook. It was still night. Just to ensure that it was the same Saturday night, I went out of my chamber. I met Nora and Nadir who had permanently shifted to the palace to live with me. I had met them earlier in the day.

“Did I meet you today?” I asked.

Nora narrowed her eyes and Nadir tilted his head, puzzled.

“Well, we met a few hours back ,” Nora replied. “What’s the matter?”

It was confirmed. The black void gave rise to the time difference. Pook had not put us in the black void, hence no time distortion had ensued. When we had been in the darkness Pook had simply switched off the lights of the white void.

Could the black void be used as a trap for players in the future? Definitely possible.

Later that night, lying on the bed with my arms around Kiara, I sought to clarify another of my doubts. Advice from Kiara was turning out far more helpful than consulting my ministers.

“How are we going to offer quests to the players? Seek them in the forest?”

“How did Pook offer you his quest?” Kiara asked.

“Well, Pook’s stone was inside Bono’s head,” I replied, “and the sage had just notified me that I could receive new quests like players, so I guess Pook grabbed the opportunity. And his stone was physically close to me. I don’t think he would be able to offer quests to anyone that’s far away.”

“That bridge we went to for the discussion,” Kiara said, stroking an imaginary beard, “isn’t that the route through which most of the players come into the forest?”

“It is. So?” I asked. I had a feeling I knew what she was coming to.

“Well, so we have two options,” she said, “we can either leave Pook’s stone lying near that bridge so that he can offer his quests to any player that comes into the forest…” Kiara began to pinch her lip, “... But, what if one of the players decided that the quest was not worth it and threw Pook’s stone into the river instead? We need to hold his stone in our hand to accept his quest, right? We would have a hard time searching for Pook’s little stone in such a big river.” Kiara’s ‘options’ were still in the developmental phase.

“You said we have two options,” I said.

“The second option is that we…” Kiara trailed off. She seemed to be lost in the depths of her own thoughts, looking fixedly at the ceiling. I elevated my head using my forearm.

“We?”

“You told me that Pook is not just the white being that we met,” Kiara said.

“He is not,” I said, “It’s a bit hard to grasp, but Pook is the stone, Pook is the black void, Pook is the white realm that we were in, Pook is the test quests that we created, Pook is… a lot of things really.”

“Pook was creating the test quest within himself, then, wasn’t he?” Kiara asked.

“He was. Everything was inside him.”

“But can he create quests outside himself? In the game world?”

***