In the Land of GIANTs, 415 days after a wizard cursed the REALM…
Current Version:
With her chores completed and her mother’s permission, Fritta ran over the hills and through the woods to meet her friends, the tiny Villagers.
Fritta’s mother refused to believe in Villagers. “Teeny tiny people who live underground? Fritta, you are too old for such foolish games,” she’d say, but Fritta didn’t care. Fritta still believed whatever magic revealed itself to her nine-year-old eyes, and most especially the kinds of magic that her jaded and tired mother could trip over without recognizing.
But even Fritta had to freeze in her tracks at the sight of the flashing, spinning, floating disk that hovered over the meadow where the Villagers had taken up residence. It was huge, probably as wide as Fritta’s mother was tall.
“This is a message for David Pullfinger,” the flashing disk stated. “David Pullfinger? Are you there?”
A Villager appeared in the mouth of the hidden tunnel. Like all of the Villagers, he was tiny. Small enough to fit into the pocket of Fritta’s apron. In fact, Fritta sometimes carried three or four Villager children in her pocket as she ran through the woods or jumped into the creek.
“It’s pronounced pol-fin-JAIR!” the Villager shouted up at the floating disk.
“Message begins,” said the disk. “David Pullfinger, like a square peg in a round hole, you have been designated as Wordler 415.”
“Who are you calling a square peg?” the Villager demanded.
“Message ends. Good luck with your quest!”
Fritta wondered whether she might be able to jump onto the disk from the branches of a nearby tree and take it for a ride, but before she could begin her climb it floated back up into the air. Maybe next time, she thought.
Dave the Villager—Dave the Wordler now—shook his head and popped back into the tunnel, and a stone slid back into place to hide the entrance to the Villager’s underground home.
“Hey, come back!” Fritta called. She ran over, but by the time she arrived there was no longer any telling which of sevdral rocks was the one that led to the cavern village. But not to worry. They might have been boulders to the little Villagers, but Fritta could pry them out of the ground, one at a time, until she located the one with the deep, dark hole into the bowels of the Earth.
Fritta stuck her head into the hole. “Hello? Mr. Pullfinger? Hello?”
“It’s pronounced pol-fin-JAIR!” the Wordler’s voice echoed up to her.
“Hey, the disk-thing said you had a quest. I could help you!” Fritta pushed further into the hole, up to her shoulders. Rocks and dirt rained down into the dark hole in front of her.
“Hey, watch out! What are you doing?” called Dave.
“Sorry!” Fritta tried to pull herself out of the hole, but her arms were now pinned against her by the sides of the hole. “Oh! I can’t move!” In a panic, she kicked her feet, but that only wedged her deeper and deeper.
“What are you doing?” Dave asked.
“Help! Help! Somebody pull me out!”
“With what?” asked Dave. “You’re a GIANT. We’d need a crane!”
The sides of the hole crushed Fritta’s chest. She couldn’t breathe, except in short gasps. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but all she could see was a delicate scaffolding and a glow of lights from the village below. “Mr. Pullfinger!” She spotted him on the spiral staircase within the scaffolding, looking up at her in a terror that mirrored her own. “Please help me, Mr. Pullfinger!”
Fritta slipped the rest of the way into the hole and tumbled through the air.
The scaffolding and staircase crumbled around her as Fritta fell. She landed on her back with a loud thud, the crackling sound of breaking structures, and many Villager screams. A rising cloud of dust lit up with a shaft of light from the hole far above.
Fritta’s bonnet floated down after her, with David Pullfinger holding onto its straps for dear life. “It’s pronounced pol-fin-JAIR!” he shouted.
Web3 Draft:
- Listed on OpenSea
- Listed on Rarible
- Pinned to IPFS
Revision Notes:
To be added.
