Around this time the three evil farms were harvested. The combined evilese received was a fairly good amount. I was all in for creating a new quest, however Kiara was insistent on the amusement park idea.

“How long are we going to create quests?” Kiara asked me, pressing her lips together. “It’s way too time consuming! First we formulate a quest, then we go to the decided spot, and then we set up the quest there, and Pook has to merge the game world and his own world, and we have to recheck everything and then we have to lie in wait for hours for the perfect group of players! And the next day we repeat the same thing. All for a limited amount of evilese.”

She had a point. If we drew a parallel with money, then it was not very different from wasting time availing discount offers on groceries to save a few bucks.

“And how will your amusement park be any different?” I asked.

“First off, we can create it once and let Pook and the monsters run it without our involvement,” she said, “it will save us time. Time that we… that you can use to find other ways to get out of this game world as fast as possible. Isn’t that the reason why you are doing everything after all? So that you can return to the real world with a healed body?”

“It is,” I said. It was my main motivation behind everything.

“And secondly,” Kiara continued, “the amusement park will generate us far more evilese than any single quest can. Plus, it will be set up near the bridge so players will easily see it and flock to it. I am sure, Pook won’t mind a twenty four hour long job of managing the quests, since all he really wants to do is make quests.”

“Right you are,” I said with a nod. “But I am sure it won’t be very easy to build an amusement park.”

“It will take us a while,” Kiara admitted, “we will have to design innumerable inter-related quests. I think we should first set the park near the palace, so we can sort out all issues beforehand. And once that is done, we must take Pook to the bridge and place him at a suitable spot, without being seen by any player.”

Work on the ‘amusement park’ commenced on the following day.

It was not easy to make Pook understand what Kiara had in mind. Pook was perfectly fine with single quests, but when it came to the concept of the amusement park he went blank.

“Look Pook,” Kiara said, placing a hand on his arm, “you want players to play your quests don’t you?”

“Yes,” he replied, fidgeting. “It is what I live for.”

“Well, then, once you become the amusement park, the players will line up to play your quests. Just imagine what it will be like!”

“I guess it will be fun,” Pook said. He stepped away from Kiara, not liking being touched.

“Exactly, it will be,” Kiara said. She clasped his arm again. She looked like a mother explaining to her son the importance of proper manners. “And it will only be possible if you listen exactly to what I have to say. Don’t think too much, just listen to me.”

“All right,” Pook answered, tepid. He began swinging his arms awkwardly like he was exercising and Kiara had no option but to step back.

“Will I be a part of this?” Fono asked with eager eyes. We were all in the white realm and he was sitting nearby and listening attentively.

“Obviously,” Kiara said, “and you can be one of the main attractions of the amusement park.”

“I hope I will be able to kill those pesky players?” Fono said, scratching his chin.

“Yes, you will,” Kiara said, “we will set everything up, so players will have no more than a one in ten thousand chance of ever causing any harm to you. So you can go about crushing them with your foot at your leisure.”

I caught Kiara’s eyes and raised my brows. The game world had definitely made a mark on her. She had no trouble talking about crushing people to death anymore. Perhaps the virtual nature of violence in the Dharti made her indifferent.

“I am all in then,” Fono said.

Kiara had brought a chart from the palace and this she now laid down for everybody to see. It was a blueprint of the amusement park.

She had designed entrances, hiding locations for monsters, traps for the players, and also jotted down ideas for rewards to lure them.

There were exits for the monsters to flee, just in case something went terribly wrong. The park resembled a maze. The myriad of paths would confuse anyone. Attractive illusions would be placed at strategic spots. These would serve as bait for the players, leading them to death at the hands of the concealed monsters.

The dark void too would be employed. The players would be tempted to enter it. Just a few minutes there and hours would have passed in real time.

Only a small part of the amusement park was meant to be in the game world, and no less than seventy percent of it would be inside Pook. That way it would be easier for Pook to manipulate, plus a larger park could be made.

Kiara worked on Sundays and during the evenings the rest of the week. Despite her additional workload from her day job, she wasn’t stressed. In fact she was bubbling with excitement.

I let her have full reigns over the park. Besides, I was largely at wits ends. Problems that seemed unsolvable for me and Pook, Kiara untangled in minutes.

After weeks of hard work, the amusement park was declared complete on the day of the second harvest of the three farms.

It was a bright, optimistic day. The clans were never so cheerful. The trust and faith levels were making new highs.

But then Kiara told me this:

“You are going to be the test dummy,” she said, prodding my chest with her finger. We were a little outside the vicinity of the palace.

Facing me was what was essentially a giant tee with a colossal mouth that had no end in sight. Not only this, around the tree the very fabric of space seemed to bend, causing an odd dispersion of light at points. The other trees growing nearby appeared crooked. Though if you stepped away, they regained their original shapes.

Of course, this was all the doing of Pook, with Kiara supervising.

“Test dummy?” I said. “You want me to fall into your traps? And then die and lose my lives?”

Kiara laughed, throwing her head back.

“Do not worry,” Kiara guaranteed, “anything ‘wrong’ that is supposed to happen to players would have minimalistic effect on you. At most you will lose a tiny amount of health.”

“And how do you suppose the players will be lured into the tree?” I asked.

While the tree was undoubtedly fascinating, more was required to persuade them to step inside it.

As if to answer the question, there was a jingling noise, and a large pile of gold coins appeared inside the mouth.

“Nobody can ignore gold,” Kiara said, “not even if it’s just fake gold in a game world.”

I approached the mouth of the tree. But as I did so, the coins were immediately withdrawn into the unending depths of the tree.

New quest available!

Explore me. You will find far more gold and other loot just waiting for you to grab inside. There will be obstacles that you will face, but if you are able to overcome them, then you will end up wealthy. But be warned, this is no quest for diaper wetting babies.

Added reward: Five Extra Lives. Level up by twenty, and win countless spells too.

Would you like to accept the quest?

Yes/No

I liked the diaper wetting bit. People would accept the quest just to prove they are not babies.

I accepted the quest. Immediately, I felt like I had moved into the mouth of the tree, without even taking a step forward with my legs.

The mouth of the tree closed. The pile of gold had disappeared, except for two coins.

I was impressed by the logic behind that. Keep throwing small rewards at players to keep them engaged. I picked up the coins.