DWARF IN A HOLE

The dwarf awoke alone. The sun had performed its job of drying, his skin and hair only wet with dew pooled around him. It all splashed off to the soil, the stout frame smashing their corpses as he bent himself up out from the glare above. The dwarf scanned his surroundings for Waspig. The river rushed to his right. Behind, bricks of nature stacked themselves high to support the wall of trees that continued rustle, all forming a horseshoe to round the dwarf. Directly ahead mist had not yet burned, and the church, egg, and hole he’d escaped menaced from the west. This last direction crunched and snorted. Too the dwarf’s stomach growled. In a handful of days he’d eaten a handful of carrots, his palms empty else. He bounced the conflicting ideas of a pet search party and berry foraging against each other until finding himself unable any longer to ignore the continued noise.

The dwarf investigated.

Drawing close, the snarling source echoed out from yesterday’s battlefield--bleached white. He drew his breath and hoisted his frame over cracked eggshell, carefully steadying himself to avoid slipping back into the viscera. There he found his pet tearing at the exposed flesh of the fallen. The dwarf’s eyebrows pressed themselves against each other as he turned his gaze gut-wards. With one more glance towards the beast, the dwarf was back over onto the grass, hobbling then into a slow walk.

Butterflies rested themselves on stump and log, the latter of which ecosystems of shroom and moss draped atop. Upon closer inspection, the dwarf realized, each butterfly sprouted fungus from head to spine. He watched one break off from its group and flutter over to rest near the river, at which a nearly Waspig-weighted frog crept from cover and shot its tongue. A fish bounced out from the nearby water and too became its prey.

The dwarf wandered away.

The sun hung. Wishing for a hat once worn under warm weather, the dwarf lost himself to daydreams. The round brim cast great shields of shadows, he remembered, and it always kept his head cool, the dwarf’s bald dome now particularly unignorable. He retreated soon to the wall of earth and dirt, the burning star’s trajectory still constant as it descended towards town. He placed his hands against the cliff face and held his head down, beads of sweat dripping into a pond of itself. His stomach cried out in protest of the conditions endured, but the dwarf could do little else than sympathize. He’d found no berries.

The dwarf then found berries, a bush sprinkled onto by bald he realized. He studied the things intently, not yet pulling any from their stems. Each’s color gleamed red, a saturation seen much of in recent days to his distaste. But he plucked a berry from the bush and gently tore the fruit in two, fingering a dribbling of its juice into the pocket of his lips. An announcement of some levels gained in ‘SURVIVAL’ appeared before him. However...

Bitter.

He spat the thing and kicked at its siblings in anger. The dwarf’s teeth clenched. He marched forward with the wall to his side while juggling not a thought at all. His worn feet splashed straight through the river past toads of all sizes. Soon, he inadvertently completed his crescent pathed walk and found he could again see fully the settlement spied before, a bountiful collection of buildings nestled on a faraway shore that wore its blues well, he admitted. His lips salivated as he considered the cooks that concealed themselves within, far off as they were; the vegetables they harvested, alien as they may be. The dwarf thought of the cakes. He thought of his mother’s. His gut roared.

A frog heftier than any previously observed crept from the bank, fungus dotting its massive head, the dwarf would learn fast. Without hesitation the thing blasted its pink munition out onto the dwarf’s back. His feet left the ground as wind rushed past both sides, hands flailing useless. A cave closed in around him.

Resting on wet flesh, the dwarf regained his composure enough to understand the digestion that’d soon follow. He attempted to scramble to his feet only to slide and plop face first back onto the tongue beneath. Before realizing, he rolled, bumping up against the cave’s sealed lips. The dwarf began pounding his fists against them causing the creature to retaliate and shake itself, the dwarf violently flung around within. Amidst the chaos the beast gaped its maw allowing light to illuminate an engorged uvula, the dwarf compelled to action following recovery. He rolled himself against the lips for a second time, next using leverage provided by the seal to prop his legs up which, with great effort, they did in straight bends. As the creature traveled, so did the dwarf’s desired angle change. Moments passed and he seized his chance, leaping off the frog’s flesh and towards that which hung from its roof. His attempt to seize failed and the dwarf crashed against the back of the frog’s throat. Stunned, it came to his horror to realize a retaliation by digestion had begun. The concept of ‘LOADING’ a ‘SAVE’ rested in mist to the dwarf; even if physically, he could not be sure he’d survive mentally.

Thus regaining quick his composure, the dwarf kicked his legs at the back of the frog’s throat, a gag reflex shooting the dwarf in an arc back towards the tongue. Landing sickly, he rolled against lips once more and, a deep and unfortunate tasting breath after, brought his great fists crashing back down against the cave entrance. Another tossing was sure to quickly follow, and so the dwarf braced himself. The timing of his leap off the vibration of the swallower brought the dwarf successfully onto the uvula.

Stirred fast into a frenzy, desperate to rid itself of the clinging parasite, the massive frog thrashed. But the dwarf refused the calls to release his hands, listening only to his own pangs of unbelievable hunger. Persistence paid off as he exited in spilled vomit, the frog disturbed, deflated, and unable to will its own flee. The dwarf leapt then atop the creature, pounding his bruised fists onto its head bashing a concussion into the predator until it toppled dead. The dwarf fell beside the corpse, his growling stomach rising and deflating with as then yet unseen acceleration.

“MELEE INCREASED TO 5”

“MELEE INCREASED TO 6”

“MELEE INCREASED TO 7”...

Night arrived as too did a fire born from wood and ‘EXP’, the dwarf’s ‘SURVIVAL’ soaring past many others. Waspig had arrived from across the river, filth from the egg once more washed away in its wake, the two then cooperating in cooking the defeated’s limbs from detachment to dinner. The dwarf maneuvered through these processes in a dejected dour, allowing his body to act autonomously in avoidance of death. The first bite he ate following the frog’s roast loosened a store more of tears. His pet looked on unable to earn any enlightening, and so it returned to its second feast. Energy began restoring itself within the dwarf’s body as the last of the flames snuffed, he then laying his frame down next to fire dried fur. Together they drifted off to a sleep the sun would not see.