Her name was Sally, and she had just turned six years old.

She arrived at the park sometime after opening, much to her annoyance. It was her mom’s fault if she was honest. Her mom was older and liked to take tiny sips of her morning jrum while reading.

“We’re not leaving until I finish today’s paper. And for that, I need silence.”

The words played in Sally’s head all morning—but eventually, they departed Sneerhome. They passed neighbors and guards, caravanners and dire-beast. Hitching a ride from a trader her mom knew, Sally inwardly shouted with glee… at least, until the trader made a stop and traded. The process only took fifteen minutes—selling fresh bread to the outer barracks was like that—but for Sally, it felt like an eternity.

But eventually, Sally walked through the gates of World Walker Park with her mom. Yesterday’s paper raved on and on about the park, the World Walker, and the amazing curiosities inside. And for her birthday present, Sally demanded a whole day walking around the park.

So, her and her mom did just that. They rode the WHEEL—Sally gawked at the view, her mother doing the same! They rode the teacups—Sally spun them in circles so fast! They didn’t ride the spinning swings—those were too scary for Sally… and maybe her mom too. They rode the carousel—and Sally thought that ride was only “okay.”

Her mom watched her slide down the lighthouse slide several times—each time with a new friend. The park was absolutely swimming in children, some with families, others not. Sally’s mom commented about the unsupervised, specifically wondering how a parent could be okay with their kids running amuck!

Sally ignored her mom and slid down the slide several more times. But there were whispers. Her new friends spoke of a new ride, one that was better than all the others she’d already ridden.

She practically dragged her mom over to the ride.

“I don’t know, Sally, this one’s more expensive than the others,” her mom quietly said, stopping at the back of the line. “We don’t have the money for it.”

Sally felt her heart sink.

And together, the small family walked away. Her mom rubbed her back gently, yet the tears rolled down her cheeks like hot lead. Sally had just turned six, but, maybe better than most, understood money. Sally’s father worked the lumberyard for the season, chopping trees at a survivable income—an income that couldn’t afford many luxuries.

Sally knew this well and had long grown numb to the situation. Kids at school mocked her for her secondhand clothes, flaunting their own enchanted garb like lions on the prowl. They joked about the lumberyard and how Sally rarely got to see her father. They fed on her trepidations and laughed when she tried to play off their teasing.

So—Sally understood why she couldn’t ride the new ride her new friends told her about. She understood why her mother gently patted her on the back like some layman cat. She even understood why her father couldn’t be here for her birthday.

And yet, she cried.

“Come on, Sally, we’ve got to get back to the bar before Mr. Ticks leaves for his next stop.”

Sally’s shoulders continued to fall as they walked closer and closer to the exit of the park. She wanted to stay, she wanted to play, to have fun, to make new friends, and to… to…

What’s that?

Sally drifted from her mom’s side, veering off to the back of a gathered crowd. Vaguely, she sensed her mom notice her departure and reach to guide her back onto the path. But for one reason or another, her mom instead followed, even assisting the small girl to the front of the crowd.

“We can watch for five minutes, Sally. We can’t be late.”

Sally nodded so greatly her small head felt as if it would break from her shoulders.

Before them, a man dressed in plain tan clothes controlled magic. Wood, metal, leathers, and stone swam through the air like a pond vortex mixing lily pads and duckweed. The materials melted together and transformed, shedding layers of bark at the same time rust fell away to the dirt.

The crowd clapped at the display, and Sally and her mom did the same. The materials stacked and played, pantomiming a story about marching men made of sticks and an evil sorcerer’s hat made of metal. One by one the stickmen marched to their doom, the hat swooping through the air, breaking them apart at the joints.

But, as stick limbs broke apart, something shimmered across the area. A gentle fog rolled in, along with a sparkling haze of iridescent light. Sally was enthralled. Slowly, the iridescence coalesced among the broken stickmen, connecting them to one another through faint lines. The metal hat soon triumphed over the broken army… until the stickmen rose again.

Their wooden bodies meshed, knitting and bulking. The army of thirty stickmen soon became an army of one—one hulking, giant of a beast. It roared, a silent war cry echoing against the foggy landscape. Iridescence poured from its gaping maw as teeth the size of branches sprouted.

The hat cowered—the stick monster leagues above it in size and scope. The monster charged, and the hat found itself cornered. With a singular snappy bite, the hat was no more. The villain was defeated! And the stick monster broke apart, their confluences not needed anymore. Stickmen reformed from their communion, each eagerly hopping through the fog, off to live another day.

The crowd erupted, and the magician bowed. He dispelled the fog and turned to his materialistic dolls. Wood, metal, leathers, and stone flew high into the air, mixing and transforming into a colorful display. They formed into words; big, thick, bulky words. Light glyphs exploded with various colors as mist glyphs oozed their namesake. The words conjoined across an aerial foundation held into the air by two thick columns.

When all was said and done, the park had a new entry sign: “WORLD WALKER PARK!”

“One more thing,” the mystery man said, addressing the crowd. “I need a volunteer from the audience.”

Sally’s hand shot straight up.

***

Luka scanned the crowd, finding a young girl. She wasn’t human, he recognized, but did that really matter here? She had dulled blue skin, almost like a cut sapphire before it was shined and polished. She was dusty, her clothes old and worn. Scabs crusted her elbows and knees, obviously from falling in the dirt one too many times.

Luka remembered his own childhood—he, like many of the neighborhood kids, had the same scabs. Thinking back on it, he only had happy memories around that time. So young, so carefree, so imaginative. And yet, the girl looked sad. Dried tear lines streaked across her cheeks—she’d been crying. And from the look of her mom standing behind her, it wasn’t because the kid was throwing a tantrum.

Somehow, Luka understood the distant look in the mother’s eyes. He could imagine himself standing in her shoes, watching his daughter’s fun come to an end. Soon, they’d be back home, back to the monotony of their usual lives.

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“You!” Luka said, pointing at the girl. The mother pressed her lips into a fine line, yet when the girl jumped with joy, the mother couldn’t help but smile.

But Luka hesitated for a moment—he wasn’t actually planning to call for a volunteer. Tram had told him to take an hour and make the park a better entrance sign—something he could have done in five minutes if he wanted to. He already had the design, all he had to do was make it. But the World Walker was supposed to appear before the masses and put on a building show once a day.

So, Luka had. And he also had found a sad little girl exiting the park.

The girl skipped across the grass, planting herself one step from Luka. She beamed up at him, her eyes sparkling. Slowly, she leaned back and forth between her heels and toes, waiting for orders.

Luka internally cursed. I really should have thought this through!

Then, a memory appeared: He was a kid, sitting in his school’s gymnasium. A speaker was explaining simplistic physics concepts by way of fun examples. Bubbles soared through the air, the speaker inhaled helium and sang a song, chemicals were mixed, producing elephant paste.

The presentation was what got Luka into the world of science all those years ago.

“What is your name, little miss?”

“Sally!” the girl said before abruptly blurting out. “Today’s my birthday!”

Luka blinked a few times. “Today?”

“Well, yesterday! But today’s when I received my present!”

“And what was that?”

“To come here!” Sally hesitated. “Though I wish my dad would have been here for it…”

The crowd chuckled at the first sentence but abruptly stopped at the second. Luka glanced up at the mom. She had her arm crossed across her chest with her other firmly locked on her lips. She was shivering, her eyes glassy with tears.

“Did you ride all the rides you wanted to?” Luka asked.

“No—we don’t have the money to ride the new one.”

Luka pursed his lips, cursing internally. No wonder she was crying! He silently screamed. He glanced at the mom—a single tear fell down her face.

“Well, Sally, we can’t have that, can we?”

“No, we can’t!” someone shouted from the crowd, receiving agreement from several others. Sally’s eyes were still twinkling.

“Tell you what, kiddo: for being so brave and volunteering right away, I’ll make a bet with you.” Luka held out his arms, bringing forth a series of wooden planks. He manipulated them, stretching some and flattening others. “If you can break these boards with a kick, I’ll give you something special.”

“A kick?” she asked.

Luka held out a board, cupping it by the edges. He lowered it level with Sally’s knee. “Go ahead!”

The girl inspected the wood for a long second before kicking it. Her shoe bounced off it with a thud.

“That’s okay!” Luka quickly yelled. “I forgot to say, you have three tries. Try again.”

Sally did, throwing her foot out as if kicking a ball. Again, her shoe bounced, leaving the board unharmed. Her face fell.

Luka hummed loudly. “Well, I think I see the problem!”

“You do?” she quietly asked.

Nodding vigorously, he said, “On my home world, there’s a strange concept—”

“Your home world?” Sally interrupted.

“Yeah—I’m a World Walker.” Several in the crowd gasped, either not knowing about him or not knowing what Luka looked like. Sally just looked at him strangely. He knelt beside her. “On my world, there was a super-duper secret only a few very smart people understood. Do you want me to tell you?”

Her eyes were wide, and she nodded very faintly.

“There is a concept called potential energy.” Luka tucked his finger against his thumb as if he was about to flick something. “You can think of it as stored energy just waiting to be expended…”

Sally frowned.

“Okay, okay, let me rephrase that. Potential energy is like… a great big magical fireball. Imagine the most powerful mage creating a ball of fire in their palm. There are two options. First, the mage could throw it and kill a horde of monsters. Or, second, he could simply let the spell fade. Now, the ball of fire in both cases has the potential to explode and save the day, but it also has the potential to simply fade away.”

Sally nodded, her eyebrows tight and focused.

“You, me, and everyone here have the same potential inside of us.” Luka stood up and extended a leg. He waved it around, bending it at his knee. “When I kick with my knee, I use the potential energy in my knee only. But—” he threw a kick using his hips, back, and knee at the same time, “— when I kick using my whole body, I can kick much harder because I’m using more potential energy.”

He glanced around the crowd. Every adult nodded along. Even without knowing the name of the concept didn’t mean they didn’t understand it fundamentally.

Sally and the other kids… not so much.

“Your first two kicks were weak because you weren’t using your full body,” Luka said.

The girl’s eyes snapped open. “Oh!”

“Do a couple practice kicks. Stand on one leg, lean back slightly, raise your other leg up, then, at the same time, extend your knee, flick your hip out, and push your back backward.”

Many of the other kids practiced as well, even a few adults.

“I’m ready!” Sally suddenly announced.

Luka knelt and held the board—a flying foot crashed into it, sending splinters into Luka’s chest. He flinched.

“W-wow!”

The crowd erupted into applause.

Luka stood and brushed himself off. He had planned to break the board for her if she couldn’t do it, but was pleasantly surprised that he didn’t have to. The kid understood potential energy for sure, now.

Luka addressed the crowd. “Let’s give our young volunteer a great big ‘hurrah,’ okay? On three. One, two, three—"

The crowd screamed, “Hurrah!”

“Amazing, Sally, amazing!” He reached into his pocket and pulled out three small rectangles of wood. A pattern was burned into them, along with the English letters “WWP.” He handed them to his daring volunteer and waved over the mom.

Then when she was close enough not to be overheard, Luka said, “These are lifetime free passes. Every ride currently built, every future ride to be built. All free.”

Sally and her mom stood shocked. “I—I—” The girl started crying, crashing into his leg with a crushing hug. Through blubbering lips, she sang, “Thank you, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, Sally. You’re the one who helped me explain potential energy and it was your super powerful kick that won the bet.” Luka glanced up at the mom. “You’ve got a good kid, here.”

The mom was beaming as she pocketed the passes. “Do you have kids, Mr. World Walker? Because you handled her excellently.”

A memory appeared: An Earth hospital. Flowery wallpaper. A waiting room—

“No,” Luka said, shoving the memory away. “But the village does. And I’ve spent some time with them.” He ruffled Sally’s hair. “And I’d say Sally handled herself excellently—not me.”

“She’s my pride and joy,” the mom muttered as tears began to roll. “H-happy birthday, Sally.”

“Yeah,” Luka said, shifting so he’d be in between the mom and the dispersing crowd. “Happy birthday, kiddo. Come see me again when you can.”

Sally swayed on her feet. “Do you think Dad can come, Mom? Do you? Do you?”

“When he’s back from work, of course.”

“Best birthday ever!” Sally yelled.

An idea came to Luka. “Hey, Sally, out of these three designs, which do you like better?” He handed her a stack of ride sketches.

The girl went through them one at a time, carefully studying the papers as if her life depended on them. She stopped at one in particular.

“This one says, ‘water ride.’ What does that mean?”

Luka glanced at the paper. “Ooh, the log flume, yeah, those are cool—”

“’Log flume?’ Like daddy works at?” Sally asked her mother.

The older blue lady hesitated. “I’m not sure…”

“A log flume ride is where you sit in a ‘log’ and travel down a water track like a log traversing a river.” Luka tapped the paper. “You like the idea?”

Sally vehemently nodded.

“Good, 'cause that’s the next attraction I’m building,” Luka said, activating his artifact ring.

Requirements for a large log flume:

9,000kg of hardwood.

5,500kg of metal supports.

90kg of softened leather.

25kg of hard rubber.

85 water creation glyphs of various degrees of power.

50 strength and durability glyphs of various degrees of power.

Various glyphs.

1 large log flume blueprint.

“And you know what?” he then asked. “I think we have all the materials we need for it. I can have it built by next week!”

Sally’s eyes sparkled.