THE GIRL WHO DREAMED TOMORROW
SUMMARY
The kids are on the run again, this time from more Bullywugs. They are escaping by means of a swing rope across a ravine, and Eric is crowing about it, throwing insults at the Bullywugs. But when the others jump off at the other side, Eric doesn’t and ends up swinging back. Some Bullywugs climb on too, but Hank cuts the rope under Eric’s feet and the monsters fall to the river below.
Eric lands awkwardly, and is flicked into the bushes beyond, where he finds a rollercoaster car like the one they were in. Before they can get it up and running with presto’s magic, the Bullywugs get over the ravine, using the same technique as the kids did. The kids hide, and the bullywugs don’t know what to make of the car, and start hitting it.
They creep off into the undergrowth, but before they have gone very far, a big brown dog jumps out, at Eric, and the resulting noise disturbs the Bullywugs. It seems like the dog wants them to follow, and they do. They are led to a clearing, where a little girl is tied against the tree and surrounded by lizardmen, and she’s crying. Bobby and the dog arrive first, and Bobby, in proper Barbarian mode attacks, closely followed by the others, while Eric stands at the back panicking, and trying to tell them the Bullywugs are coming.
Just as Sheila is untying the girl, she shouts out a warning to Diana, to get away from the tree. Diana moves, just in time, as two Lizardmen jump down. The girl thanks Sheila and introduces her self as Terri.
Eric is still trying to tell them the Bullywugs are coming and smacks right into one. They carry him off, but meet the lizardmen, and they fight over the Cavalier. Finally, Sheila goes invisible to pull him out of the scrum, and they all run for it.
One safe, they make camp and Terri tells them how she got to the Realm. She was alone in the car, except for Freddie her dog, who jumped on before they could stop him. She knew what was going to happen to Diana because she dreamed it last night.
As Terri tells her story, Dungeonmaster appears, much to Eric’s annoyance. He informs them that a portal to their world lies within the mountains close by. The catch is that they must destroy it before they leave (with Eric correctly saying that if they destroy it, they can’t use it to get home!) It lies within the Maze of Darkness, and to find it, they must first become lost.
Shadow Demon overhears this conversation, and reports back to Venger that the Young Ones defeated his Lizardmen and the Bullywugs, and that they had the help of a young girl who can see the future. Venger decides he wants that power for himself!
Meantime, while sleeping that night, Terri has another dream and her pendant glows; she gets a vision of a bright pyramid, and a portal. But a great, black (Venger-shaped) shadow grows in front of it. Bobby and Uni are sucked towards it, and it changes into a 5 headed monster, who grabs them. In terror, Terri runs, straight into a wall topped by barbs, and she gets trapped in a maze. Behind her, it collapses, but she keeps running. Finally, she falls down a hole, and wakes abruptly.
She wakes, back at the camp, and starts to cry, being comforted by Bobby. The others are worried that whatever she saw will be bad news, for them!
Next morning, they are looking for breakfast, as provided by Eric and Freddie, who chases some strange large chicken-lizard things out of the undergrowth. As “breakfast” tries to escape, Bobby and Terri jump on them to try and stop them but are thrown off.
Eric’s rant about loosing breakfast is interrupted by a shriek. A five headed dragon-type monster appears (the one from Terri’s dream). It grabs Uni, then Bobby. Terri dashes forward, trying to frighten off the monster with her bare hands. But Hank fires, and the beast lets go of the Barbarian and unicorn. They all run and it spurts fire at them, but Eric just in the way, protecting Bobby and Terri (who are last) with the Shield.
They head for the waterfall, and Bobby brings it down over them, washing away the monster, while they continue underneath. Bobby is very impressed with Terri’s bravery for taking on the monster single-handed.
Venger has been observing their fight, and wants to know the source of Terri’s power, and decides to take it from her.
The kids travel on, through a valley where the rocks are as sharp as knives. Presto is about to do a spell that will turn the rocks to rubber when Freddie starts growling at him. Behind them, a great shadow of Venger swirls away, creating a sandstorm in its wake. Before they are cut to ribbons on the disintegrating rocks, they follow Freddie into safety behind a great stone door. They close it behind them, to keep out the sand, then turn to see where they are.
Terri recognises it as the maze she saw in her dreams, and tells the its full of traps, but the portal is at the other side. Eric thinks it’s a bad idea as they’ll just get lost, but Presto reminds him of the riddle, that they have to get lost to find the way. Eric is not convinced. But before he can do anything about it, Venger wields the door shut with magic from the outside. They are trapped, with no choice but to go on.
The Maze is full of traps, and they have to move slowly. Most of the time, they are ok, but once they are not careful enough, and the Maze starts to close off. They run, and Hank only narrowly avoids being crushed.
The part they end up in is filled with empty suits of armour, and seems to have been the site of a battle; except all the people look like they should have been on the same side. As they look around, everything goes strange; Eric suddenly snaps. He accuses Terri of leading them to their deaths. Bobby jumps in to defend her, only to get mocked by the Cavalier about having a girlfriend. They start to fight, egged on by all the others, barr Hank. The Ranger tries to get them to stop, and finally fires an arrow up into the sky. That breaks the spell and they all come to their senses. It was just another trap!
They move on for a while but everyone is exhausted, and eventually Hank uses the energy arrow as a rope to climb up and see where they are, and how far is left to go. When he gets down, he finds the others have dropped off.
As she sleeps, Terri has another dream. This time she is back home, at school. As she leaves, she hears a familiar voice. It’s Bobby! He holds up the locket, and asks if she’s lost something. They embrace, and she wakes. Dungeonmaster is there watching over them, and she asks him if this one will come true too. He says it will. The others wake too, and want to know the way out, and they are told that the way out is the way home, just as Venger planned. “for a thousand years his maze of darkness has lured unwary travellers with the promise of the portal home. Many have tried. All have failed.”
Dungeonmaster tells them the empty suits of armour they found are all that remains of a band of brave warriors, pupils of his in a time long past.
As Dungeonmaster speaksm the kids realise that if they succeed in getting home the portal will remain luring other to their doom. Before Dungeonmaster finishes, Eric accidentally starts the collapse of the walls (as you do), and Terri suddenly remembers the way out, for her dream the night before. They run, following her, with the walls collapsing behind. They just get to the end in time, but as they celebrate, Bobby notices Venger in front of them.
He tells them they are free to enter the portal and return to their home world, but he demands Terri. They refuse, and Venger transforms himself into a huge spider monster that blocks their way.
Hank tells Bobby to get the others to the portal, he will distract Venger, as someone has to stay behind and make sure the Maze doesn’t trap anyone else. Bobby takes Terri and Freddie up to the portal and tells her that all the Young Ones will stay to destroy the portal. They embrace and she steps into the portal and goes home. As she leaves she throws him the locket and tells him that he will find a way home and to remember what Dungeonmaster said about her last dream.
Once Terri is safely home, Bobby comes up with a plan to destroy the spider-Venger and the portal itself. He is going to use the club as a missile. Diana gives him a boost, Eric’s Shield accelerates him. It works, and Bobby is thrown clear in the resulting explosion, but the spider-Venger is caught in the collapse and both the portal and the maze are destroyed.
Later, in the desert, Bobby is staring at the locket, and Hank comes up and tells him they have to go. He is about to throw it away, but Dungeonmaster appears and stops him. He starts to tell the Barbarian about Terri’s last dream.
The others are all pretty morose after losing another way home. Hank is busy telling Eric to be patient and how Bobby has just lost his best friend, when they hear whoops of joy. Bobby races over, wanting to tell them what Dungeonmaster said.
= = =
Scatter Count -
Presto Hat produces –
Goodies – Terri the Dreamer
Baddies –
Walk-ons –
Monsters – the 5 headed dragon, spider-Venger
Groovy Objects – Terri’s pendant
Named Places – the Maze of Darkness
Starwars References –
Other References –
= = =
“Your mothers a tadpole.” Eric, to the Bullywugs. Good insult!
Diana is the one hanging on to Hank in the background.
The bullywugs do the sensible thing with the coaster car – they hit it. It is the same kind as the kids travelled in. Does that mean Terri came from the same park?
Presto gets a door to nowhere.
Sheila is so resigned to getting Eric away from the Bullywug/Liardmen fight.
And she impersonates a Lizardman again.
There’s definitely a little kiisy noise when uni and the dog meet up properly.
The dog is called Freddie, making the pair “Freddie and the Dreamer”!
“Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with him?” Terri, about Eric.
Tempting to think that they only destroy the Maze because Dungeonmaster tells them too here – they don’t really have to! Why can’t Dungeonmaster do it!
Freddie likes Eric. And Eric likes Freddie too, een though he doesn’t want to admit it.
Bobby gets told off for being rude to Terri, by calling her a “kid”, even though they are almost the same age.
Terri has a heart shaped locket that glows when she dreams.
Diana goes over to Hank, worried about the dream.
Suggestions for breakfast – stikweed stew, boiled beetles, dragon dumplings. Yum!
Bobby says he never learned to ride. Neither has terri.
Diana and Sheila have a damn good laugh at Eric’s expense in the background about the breakfast fiasco.
The collapsing waterfall – HOW!?
When Hank says everybody push – I only seems to be D and P that help him.
Bobby stops Eric from falling.
Presto says it was the third trap in the last 2 hours.
Why is Hank immune to the Maze’s mind-games?
They seem not to be able to remember what happened to them.
Diana helps Hank up!
“the ol Cavalier has a brain as strong as a steel trap.” Eric.
“Another couple of days…” How long have they been there? How long do they spend there all together? What other traps have they passed?
Sheila, Bobby, Terri and Uni huddle together. Diana is asleep against Presto. Eric is sleeping with Freddie as a pillow.
“For a thousand years his maze of darkness has lured unwary travellers with the promise of the portal home. Many have tried. All have failed.” Dungeonmaster, and another thousand year reference!
The suits of armour belonged to old pupils of Dungeonmaster.
“The Maze of darkness will try to stop you” Dungeonmaster.
As the Maze collapses, Hank stops to wonder if Dungeonmaster is ok, but Presto pulls him on - “do you think he’d hang around here at a time like this!”
How do they get to the end so quickly if they still had a couple of days to go?
Against spider-Venger, Presto gets mousetraps that stick onto one of the tails of the creature.
Eric falls down the last few steps.
Bobby’s plan is really suspicious! And Eric is rightly sceptical.
Dungeonmaster says explicitly that it was her “last dream of the future”.
Eric is polishing his Shield at the end.
= = =
ALTERNATIVES
What if Terri was actually older, so that Hank liked her, rather than Bobby?
What if Hank hadn’t been able to stop the others fighting in the Maze, or had been the one to fight against Eric?
“Another couple of days…” How long have they been there? How long do they spend there all together? What other traps have they passed?
What if Hank tricked the others into all going home without him; they didn’t realise he was going to stay until too late!
= = =
FANWORKS
Flying Cavalier (photomanip) by Sealgirl
Dinner (photomanip) by Sealgirl
Waterfall and Lake (photomanip) by Sealgirl
Venger by the Maze (photomanip) by Sealgirl
= = =
Previous Episode - PRESTO Spells Disaster
Next Episode - Treasure of Tardos
= = =