The group of players halted abruptly. It was impressive how quickly they readied themselves for anything and everything, forming a circle so they could keep an eye in all directions.

The warrior pulled out dual swords, the archer nocked an arrow, and the barbarian hefted a fat stone effortlessly. We remained still in our hiding place. We didn’t want to be caught by the scanning eyes of the players. Thankfully all the monsters were concealed in Pook’s world together with Fono, Bui and Bono.

“Who are you?” the youthful warrior asked the voice, his thick brows drawn together in alert as he wielded his curved talwars.

“I have been trapped,” the voice repeated, “Please help me!”

Pook sent the message to all the five members of the group.

New quest available!

Help the mysterious voice!

Rewards: You level up by ten levels

Note: There may be hidden obstacles in the quest.

“What do you say?” the warrior asked his fellows.

“Well we can’t piss on the chance to level up by ten levels, can we?” the barbarian said in his hoarse voice. “It would be stupid.”

“Then there is only one thing to do,” the warrior said, “but be careful, guys, this can turn out to be dangerous.”

All the five players accepted the quest. Immediately the part of the game world surrounding the group merged with Pook’s world.

“Stay put, guys,” the warrior told his fellows. “All right, mysterious lady voice, tell us where you are, and we will save you.”

“I have been buried alive,” the voice said. It was actually a modification of Kiara’s voice that Pook had recorded with his magic earlier. “I have been buried alive under the air!”

“Under the air?” the warrior asked, crinkling his nose. “What does that even mean?”

“Yes, such is my misery,” the voice replied, “The very air that one breathes is holding me captive. You must dig me out of this air. But for that you will require the spade of fire that the tree folk possess. You must take it from them and free me!”

“Tree folk?'' The warrior and his friends frowned at the trees. They gasped when they realized that the trees possessed crude faces. The truth was that Pook had manipulated the trees, incorporating several of my monsters with each tree, so that the trees could move and talk, and also perform the most important thing—attack.

To demonstrate that the tree folk really had a spade of fire, one tree rubbed a limb-like branch with another so intensely that sparks flew out. The branch and leaves caught flames, almost resembling a fiery spade.

The trees began to cackle with mocking laughter directed at the group.

“I think we must cut down that branch,” the warrior said, “and use it to dig the air–dig air? Jeez, that sounds so lame!”

The players threw themselves at the tree in an effort to bring it down. They tried everything they could. Hacking with swords, releasing arrow after arrow, and the barbarian even attempted to wrestle the tree down.

Just the required act.

The other trees teamed up to save their friend from the attackers. It was not like the group of players were not skilled, they were. Unfortunately for them, the odds were stacked against them when Kiara and I had first framed the quest.

The trees repelled with twice the ferocity of the players. If only they had stopped attacking then the tree folk would have left them alone

It took just five minutes for the trees to kill all members of the group, despite the archer/healer trying her best and despite their health vials–not all of which were used as the roots sneaked up from behind and wrapped around their arms so they couldn’t reach into their pockets.

We were successfully able to deploy the same quest on five more groups on the days that followed. The players never realized that it was their own hostile action spurring the trees to behave like a mob. It was only the sixth group of players who did not attack the trees immediately, despite the mocking laughter of the plants. This particular group was headed by a gaunt female witch. Her face was dusted over-the-top with white powder, contrasted by dark lipstick. A collar embedded with tiny gemstone skulls encircled her neck.

“Could you please give us the spade?” she requested the trees. “We will gladly return it to you once we save our friend.”

Her words took us by surprise. We were drunk with success from the previous easy wins. Asking with humility was the only act that could have unlocked the spade and the group received it.

But of course, getting the spade was only the first hurdle. The next obstacle ensured that the players lost the quest.

The tree that had created the blazing spade, now yanked the branch separate from itself and handed it to the group.

“Take the spade,” the tree said to the players. “But be warned, wrong use of the spade shall cost you your lives!”

“But how do we use it?” the witch asked.

The tree however fell silent. It ceased all movement and became a regular immobile tree. The witch protected her hands from getting burns handling the fiery spade by using a water spell.

She toyed with the spade, trying to figure what to do with it.

“Okay… invisible voice,” she said, “I hope you know how to use this? How do we dig you out… from the air? Gosh, that feels so weird to say!” she added to her friends.

“It is simple,” the invisible voice replied. “You must make movements with the spade as though you were digging. But you must not drop it at any cost.”

Somewhat awkwardly, the witch began to ‘dig’ the air. With every movement, the wind blew harder.

“Why is this happening?” she asked, fighting to hold on to the spade of fire, even as sparks flew to her face.

“The air resists!” the voice replied. “But you must persist! You must strike it harder with the spade to dig it.”

The witch gritted her teeth and made a forceful imitation of digging with the spade. That did the trick.

The wind blew so hard in response that the witch and her friends were blown off their feet. The witch hit a tree, and the spade fell off her hand and hit the ground. Instantly fire exploded everywhere. It claimed the lives of the players, though it spared everything else.

But we had learned the lesson.

It had been a close call. If the witch had held on to the spade successfully and continued making the digging motions, then the group would have won.

Kiara speculated that word of the quest had spread in the town from previous groups, and this particular group had therefore not attacked the trees. Perhaps the next group might hold on to the spade for longer and would eventually win. This we had to prevent by all means.