Traudl continues her quest to… what is she doing exactly? She was supposed to be finding her friend’s husband, now she’s mucking about fighting monsters and earning gold???
After many battles, earning gold for her new armor, Traudl began to feel a little weak again. Rather than let another monster beat her, and take half of her hard-earned money, she retired to the Inn in Thalengarde. She wasn’t actually sleepy; it was a different kind of weakness. Something she had never experienced before. She paid the eleven gold required to spend the night and suddenly the world went black again. At the moment it happened she thought some evil spell had fallen upon her. She feared she would wake up in a dungeon, or maybe even the king’s audience chamber again, but it was not so.
Light came back and she was fully rejuvenated. She hadn’t dreamed. Her mind hadn’t drifted. For all she knew no time had passed. By some enchantment she was made whole again. She suspected this should disturb her, but the desire to contemplate the absurdity of her situation was fading. She wanted to continue. There were monsters to fight. Gold to earn.
Soon she had enough for the better armor. Once equipped she headed south then west to the town of Porzoin. The monsters that had been attacking her before were completely ineffective now. She had grown so skilled with her axe and her armor was so strong that they could barely touch her. Some of the smaller monsters even ran from Traudl on sight, which she thought extra strange since they were the ones that attacked her in the first place. She never thought of herself as looking for a fight, the fight always seemed to come to her.
As she crossed the hills west suddenly the monsters became stronger again and began to put up a decent fight. Traudl felt as if there was some strange evil will set against her that made things harder the further she traveled away from her initial quest.
The hills suddenly gave way and perfectly green grassland prevailed again. Traudl could see another little town straight to the west of her, and then a sea beyond that. To the south the grasslands went on, broken only on the western side of the lake and river where the mountain range continued.
Finally, she arrived at the town. She expected to find similar looking people, and she did, only nobody was walking around. They were all sleeping on the ground. The weapons dealer, the item seller, the woman who ran the inn, they were all fast asleep. Traudl found a little shop that had flowers all around it, but just like everyone else, the proprietor was fast asleep. Traudl fancied for a moment that she might just leap over the counter and take the flower seeds to bring back to Linden in Thalengarde, but thought better of it.
After searching for some time, she found one lone old man on the top floor of a building who wasn’t asleep.
“A Wizard came and put a curse on this town after his son ran off with the town elder’s daughter. They say he lives in a tower south of here, near the town of Uleag.”
“So, I have to go south to wake up the flower dealer, huh?” she said to the old man, but, as always, expected no reply.
Traudl was wary of heading all the way south without buying new weapons and armor or sleeping at the Inn, but she had no choice. She needed the flowers to get the ship, to get to the east, to defeat the Fiend, to return the crown, to bring peace to the land, to find Sylva’s husband.
The journey south, toward the tower was quite dangerous. The monsters were getting more and more powerful, and she was having trouble defeating them quickly.
The grasslands went on and on to the south as far as Traudl could see. Just south west of Porzoin the grasslands began to stretch west again until they sank into a black swamp, and then beyond that was the sea she spotted earlier. To the east, the mountain range curved into a crescent shape, and had a large cave at its center. South of that, the mountains receded to grasslands, indicating there might be a passage straight east to Ailehan. Finally, over the horizon, a tower and a town appeared, beyond that was a mountain range that stretched from the sea to the west, all the way across the river towards Ailehan.
Traudl staggered into the town of Uleag, weary and beaten. Before talking to anyone, before stopping at the inn, before anything else, Traudl headed straight to the weapons and armor dealer, which there seemed to be in every town. She had so much money from fighting all the monsters, she could buy whatever she wanted on the list.
Traudl purchased the fire sword, which just as the name sounded was on fire whenever she removed it from its sheath. Then she picked up the full plate armor, silver helmet, and silver shield. After that, she headed to the potion store and picked up more healing potions, then she started talking to people.
“The Wizard is angry at his son.” A child said.
“The silver key was taken by the bandits to their cave to the east.” A man said.
“The monsters in the wizard tower are weak against fire attacks.” A woman said. Traudl was glad to hear this, because she just bought the sword made of fire, very convenient indeed.
“The cave to the south is blocked by a dangerous troll.” An old man said. This was very distressing news. Now Traudl was hearing about caves, and not just about a tower and wizards. So far no one had told Traudl anything that didn’t somehow relate to her quest, except the occasional bit of nonsense about someone waiting for their husband, or talking about smoking. She assumed it was about smoking, anyway, since someone was always asking if she wanted a “puff puff”. She knew at some point these caves would come into play.
Without hearing anymore, Traudl ventured south to the tower. To her surprise the door to the tower was closed and would not open. The door was silver in color and had a keyhole. Traudl let out a long moan. “Awwww! Do I need the silver key to open the silver door to get into the wizard’s tower?”
Angrily, Traudl stormed away from the tower and headed east to the bandits cave she had heard about. The cave was well defended by monsters more powerful than those she had encountered while wandering around outside. Thankfully her new armor and weapons proved very potent in their ability to dispatch her foes.
After a long and dark journey, Traudl came to a small room where three bandits were standing around a treasure chest.
“No! The key is ours!” the lead bandit said, and then they attacked.
Traudl was afraid to fight these men. So far she had only been fighting monsters: goblins, puddles of goo, giant centipedes, baby dragons, orcs, formless magicians wrapped in giant cloaks with only glowing eyes for a face, and evil looking monkeys. She didn’t want to have to hurt a person.
They had no such reservations. In the end Traudl defeated the three men, but had to use all of her healing potions in the process. She felt well rewarded after the fight though. They left behind a lot of gold, the silver key, two healing potions, and a device called the Magic Ladder.
Traudl used the magic ladder device and found herself standing outside of the cave. This was a welcome surprise. She didn’t want to have to fight all of the monsters in the cave again just to get out. After using the device it occurred to her she had seen such an item in the shop at Uleag. She thought maybe if it could take her out of a dungeon without having to fight all the monsters maybe it could put her into a dungeon without having to fight monsters. Then she could have just walked in and gotten the treasure without nearly getting killed.
“How silly!” she exclaimed, “Then I wouldn’t get to fight monsters and earn gold!”
Armchair Screenwriter 