"Kirby!" Dedede tearfully shouted as he tried to swim up to the puffball.
Kirby held out his hand and tried to reach the king, but his arms were too short. Poor Dedede needed help fast. He was drowning quickly, bleeding out, and dying.
Kirby eventually noticed a long stick on the ground. He picked it up and cast one of the ends to Dedede.
The monarch grabbed the stick and Kirby pulled him in. Then, the puffball pulled out a Maxim Tomato, and fed it to Dedede. He only ate half of it, but his wound magically disappeared and he was good to go.
Dedede got up to thank Kirby, but he noticed he was gone again. He believed it was a dream at first because of the shadowy figure never revealing their identity and Kirby vanishing. But the pain he felt when drowning in the lake felt horrifyingly real.
Dedede noticed the sun was coming up. He realized he had wasted the whole night messing around with a backpack and crowbar...
Then, it hit him. The backpack and crowbar! They must have gotten lost in the cave's lake, Dedede thought.
He jumped into the water and pulled them out. They were soaking wet, and somewhat covered with watery blood. He washed them off in the clean part of the lake, put the crowbar in the backpack, and put the backpack on. He found the shadowy figure's axe and cleaned that off, too. Then, he put the axe in his backpack.
Dedede also realized he had to get out of the cave, but at the same time, he felt like he wanted to go in the cave to see what was in there. He chose the former.
He remembered when he trained himself to float by holding air in his body, just like Kirby. But when he attempted it again for the first time in a while...
THUD!
Dedede got up and tried again.
BUMP!
This is crazy, he thought. This has to be a dream, because last time I did this I did it correctly.
Dedede instead tried to use the long stick as a climbing rope, so he set it up against the cave's upper cliff and climbed up.
The king kept walking until he came across a desert. "Ugh," he groaned. "This is going to be a long walk."