[Campaign] The Mirrors of Acros

[monkeylite]

Session One

The Mirrors of Acros

The Doctor
Saluk Tar
Thomas Gunn

Captain Gunn, the Time Agent, made his way onto the shore of Mona. It was 60AD. Strange stuff had been happening here, and he wanted to find out what. According to reports, the invading Romans had been repulsed by a force of Druids who had been wielding ‘coloured fire.’ The Time Agency knew this was a glaring anomaly that could have far-reaching repercussions for the future of Britain, especially as Boudicca’s rebellion was due soon, and the Romans needed to be able to put it down.

Gunn, dressed in the local British garb, stealthily slipped through the undergrowth making his way towards the sacred groves of the Druids, knowing that there he would find the answer to what was going on. And hopefully he would be able to put things right.

Then suddenly, he looked up to find himself discovered. Many dark figures surrounded him, their faces concealed by their heavy robes. And the robes depicted a symbol, some sort of celtic knot motif. Not something that Gunn would be surprised to find, around here at this time, but also not something he had seen before.

But Gunn still had a trick up his sleeve. He reached for his vortex manipulator, but before he could jump, one of the figures pointed what could only be described as a Delta Wave Annihilator at him, and said in perfect English ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’ Then everything went white...


Saluk Tar activated a series of standard scans as his one-Selindarian scientific vessel cruised through deep space. Suddenly his six colourful tentacles began twitching across his back: never a good sign for a Selindarian to have his tentacles twitch.

And sure enough, a mystery anomaly appeared as if from the very fabric of time and space and swallowed the vessel. In a few moments, the ship was spit out again, in a completely different part of the galaxy, and in fact, a completely different dimension. And the small science vessel was heading directly towards a huge sand planet, out of control. The Selindarian used all his skill as a pilot to keep the ship from crashing, but even so, the forced landing buried the vessel deep under the sand.

Collecting his senses, the strange grey alien tapped instructions into his bio-scanner with his chitinous exoskeletal quadradactyl limbs. Double-checking the readouts, Saluk decided that several bodies, up to 4 Flargls (c.1km) in size, were rapidly converging on his position. These things could probably eat his tiny vessel whole. Saluk’s Selindarian sixth sense told him this must be the end. Then everything went white...


Who was this man making his way dazedly across the burning deck of the intergalactic luxury liner? He couldn’t quite remember. He had been somebody else, it seemed to him shortly before, but that was a dim and distant past. Now he had only one thing on his mind, but couldn’t quite remember what that was.

He couldn’t quite remember why he was aboard the starliner, why it was empty and why it was on fire, but he knew he had to find something, something blue and box-y. And he had to find it quickly, because this space ship only had a few more seconds of structural integrity remaining. Then everything went white...

*woooo woooo*

The man found himself in great gloomy halls surrounded by blue marmalade-like pillars. All around his feet were silver shards like broken glass. He grabbed one and licked it. Chronoleum Vinyl he realised. He also realised he was called the Doctor. He wasn’t sure what the Doctor was for, but Chronoleum Vinyl was a handy bit of malleable time-sensitive stuff that came in sheets. It was often used to conduct arctronic refraction. Ie, it was used in transtemporal transmaterial teleportation. He wondered what this place could be, its huge halls and countless transmit ports.

The Doctor didn’t have time to consider this too deeply, however, as from around the next pillar came a nasty, brutal and short figure wielding some sort of photonic weapon. He pointed it at the doctor.


Amidst similar endless dull blue halls, Thomas Gunn appeared. At his back was a screen, too, and at his feet the same silver shards. It was as if the screen had broken the split second he had become aware of his new surroundings. Something odd was going on and he intended to find out what it was. He pushed a couple of buttons on the vortex manipulator on his wrist and attempted to home in on alien tech. He could sense a whole array of powerful conductors all radiating from a central point, and all ending in one of these shattered silver screens.

Tommy moved stealthily towards the centre, using the countless alcoves and blue pillars for cover, well accustomed to such activity. As he went, he sensed too, in the distance, a small creature skulking in the shadows too. It was only about a metre high, and had three strange pointy lobes coming from the back of its head. Tommy had seen these Graske creatures before and didn’t think much of them. They seemed mean and spiteful, but despite their affinity for high technology, he didn’t consider them too much of a danger. All the same he approached the centre of the complex very carefully.


The Selindarian appeared, too, suddenly in the blue halls, glass-like stuff at his exoskeletal feet, not needing his tentacles to tingle to tell him that something was definitely wrong. He had only made a few steps before he heard a call from behind him, ‘no go mo fo.’ Saluk turned to see a large, black leather-clad rhino-headed law enforcement officer. Even though Saluk did not recognise it, there was no mistaking the weapon it had raised, and so the alien decided to go quietly and raised his arms (the gesture is obviously transdimensional).

The Judoon said a few more unintelligible words and thrust some red thing into his face. Saluk said a few words in reply, and in a few moments, the thing began translating.

The Judoon explained that Saluk was unauthorised and would therefore be placed in custody for the foreseeable future. In fact the entire complex they were in was unauthorised and needed to be arrested. The Judoon looked a bit confused and couldn’t seem to find his station so Saluk decided to lead it somewhere, although he was just as confused.


Meanwhile the Sontaran was about to shoot the Doctor, but before he could fire, the Doctor instantaneously dismantled the photonic gun with his sonic screwdriver. Despite the Sontaran recognising the Doctor’s name and acknowledging their enmity, the clone thing had the wherewithal to realise that the pair of them needed to work together at this time. The Doctor tried a couple of times to get the Sontaran to turn its back on him, but the creature was quick-witted enough to see what the doctor was up to.

And so they came to a truce and agreed to explore together. The Doctor offered to let the Sontaran lead the way, and as it did so, he smacked it in the probic vent. The thing fell like a sack of potatoes and as it lay winded on the ground, the doctor welded its shoes together, stole the power pack from his photonic blaster, and then ran off.


Meanwhile Tommy had reached the centre of the complex. He could see hundreds of screens around him, and many more fading into the darkness. The central control systems were arranged around a circular donut-like mound. Tommy got on with seeing how the thing might work and what it might do. As he worked he could sense the Graske still lurking around in the shadows.

Tommy could make out that the control panel seemed to be constructed around a series of simple logic gates, but couldn’t really work out what sort of utility they had, especially wired up to loads of transmats.


Meanwhile the Judoon and Saluk continued to explore the blue halls. They found an endless orange wall of energy approaching them slowly. The Judoon ordered it to stop but the wall continued. The Judoon fired at it, but it had no effect. He put his hand against it, and recoiled in pain. The Judoon’s hand was suddenly withered and aged.

Saluk peered through the orange energy wall and he could see a scene on the other side, ruined blue buildings on a windswept plateau. And he stepped through it and found himself upon that plateau. He looked around and could see the orange wall from the other side. And now he realised that it was not a wall that was moving but rather a sphere that was slowly shrinking. He could see that it was several hundred meters across and that in a matter of minutes it would be gone, shrunk to nothing.

Other than that, there was very little to see except many ruined blue pillars, and Saluk realised that this was all that was left of the blue halls. Stepping through the orange energy field had sent him thousands of years into the future (or rather the field was suspending the blue halls outside of its real time, or something). The Judoon had been harmed by the aging of passing through the time bubble, but those sort of forces, in this dimension, did not seem to affect Saluk. Saluk could see that little remained outside the bubble and that he should go back inside it in search of his way home. When he stepped back inside the bubble, the Judoon had gone.


The Doctor made his way towards the centre of the halls, and as he went, he noticed that one of the transmats was not broken. It had its silver Chronoleum screen still intact. A bit of investigation found that it had a lose capacitor. The Doctor fixed it, and the screen burst into life, although it had no destination programmed into it, and so was just a mass of white noise. The Doctor loosened the capacitor again and continued on his way.

At the control centre he met Tommy and the pair of them warily questioned each other without giving too much away. But the pair of them both came to the conclusion that they could probably trust each other, at least temporarily, and their best bet to get out of here was to work together. They both seemed to know vaguely what they were doing.


And, soon, aiming for the centre of the orange sphere, Saluk found himself at the control centre. The other two had never seen anything like him before. Saluk waved his tentacles in a polite Selindarian greeting. Tommy instinctively backed away from the scary alien waving its tentacles around. Saluk tried to explain where he was from, but it didn’t really make much sense. Everyone agreed they had been outside this place, somewhere else, and they wanted to get out of here. Saluk explained about the shrinking sphere and so you decided you needed to work quickly.

By modifying the Sontaran photonic power pack, the Doctor and Saluk managed to power up the control systems, and worked out that the things needed to be given coordinates. The doctor searched through the records of space-time coordinates to find the one that would get him back to his Tardis. And he sent Tommy off to re-fix the capacitor on the unbroken screen.

Tommy sorted it out, alright, but noticed the orange wall approaching. He ran back to the Doctor and Saluk saying they only had a few moments before the working screen got swallowed by the time bubble. Quickly, t he Doctor chose some coordinates that he hoped would get to the Tardis, and the three of you ran as fast as you could towards the screen, tentacles flapping. As you went, Tommy checked to see if the Graske was going to follow you through the screen, but as far as he could tell, it was not. As you approached the screen, you could see in it a scene of some sort of luxury space craft with many humans walking about and some other figures too.

This was not quite the scene the Doctor had remembered being in, before he had transmatted here. But as the orange time bubble approached you didn’t have time to change anything, and so you all plunged into the transmat screen. Then everything went white...


And so you arrived on the deck of the luxury starliner Sharaz. The people looked frightened. But you could see the Tardis safely in the middle of the deck. And you hid behind some pot plants. There were a number of tall battle-armoured figures striding about the deck. They wore grey armour with intimidating fins, and their helmets were kinda fish-shaped and painted with shark faces. And behind their visors you could see that their environment suits were filled with water.

The fish marines strode up to the Tardis and knocked on the door. And soon enough a figure emerged and allowed himself to be ‘arrested’ by the fish men. And as you watched that happen, the Doctor remembered that indeed that had been him, not long ago and he had gone with these ‘Selachian’ marines. He told the others that that was him, but they were confused because that Doctor looked nothing like this Doctor.

When the Selachians had gone, you nonchalantly made your way to the Tardis and sneaked inside. After some chat about transcendental dimensions you were ready to go. But first the Doctor had an irresistible urge to change his clothes. Some time later, he emerged.

The Doctor decided that the passengers and crew of the Sharaz would have to be saved somehow, and that you were the people to do it. Tommy, however warned him against interfering, and said that it might cause more harm than good, especially if you didn’t know what you were doing. And so the Doctor delved into the Tardis records to prove that the interference could be harmless. He discovered that you were on board the luxury liner Sharaz in the thirty-first century.

This was a ship famous for being hijacked by Selachian marines (or maybe pirates) and destroyed, which had caused the start of the Second Selachian War. The Doctor decided that this might be an important (and even immutable) point in time, and that perhaps you shouldn’t interfere after all. You decided that perhaps everything would be alright: the old Doctor would turn into a new Doctor who in turn would reach the Tardis and fly off leaving the old Doctor to regenerate into the new Doctor, etc.
So the Doctor quickly flicked a few controls on his console, and the Tardis dematerialised.

*woooo woooo*

Next Time:

The Doctor walks around the burning deck of the Sharaz looking dazed and confused

The three of you sit in a pub sipping pints. Saluk is covered by an ill-fitting parka

Some strange figure stands off against a bunch of shark marines and threatens to press a big red button, while declaring ‘I am the Doctor.’

A cityscape of London reveals Nelson’s column with the statue of a shark atop it

Tommy and Saluk are in an unseemly wrestle with this so-called ‘Doctor’ outside the Tardis

The Sharaz blows up spectacularly

[monkeylite]

Session Two

The Wreck of the Sharaz

The Doctor
Saluk Tar
Thomas Gunn


*woooo woooo*


And so the Doctor flicked a few of the controls and sent the Tardis semi-randomly into the future, trying to cover the fact that he had lost the argument about interfering in events on the Sharaz.


You landed, it seemed in the middle of London. According to the Tardis controls it looked to be about 3838, and the new extension to St Paul’s Cathedral seemed to confirm that. You used the scanner to get a good view of the London cityscape. The sky was dark and it was raining. People seemed to be rushing about through the darkness like any other London evening. As the scanner panned you noticed, however, that sat atop Nelson’s column was not Nelson, but a statue of a Selachian marine.

You wondered what could have gone wrong and went through your knowledge of history. There was no way there should have been a Selachian on top of Nelson’s column, and the Selachians had lost the Second Selachian War quite conclusively. The Sharaz incident had happened in 3027, so there had been plenty of time for things to get back to normal.

Saluk didn’t really seem to know what was going on or what the issue was, but he used his mind probing powers to get the gist of what the other two were concerned about. He couldn’t penetrate the Doctor’s mind, but got a decent impression of what Tommy thought about things.

You decided things were bad, and that it needed investigating. You got an over-sized parka from the Tardis wardrobe and managed to pull it over Saluk’s tentacles, as some sort of disguise and made you way out into the London night. You could see the odd Selachian militia walking around on patrol and the people of London looked downtrodden and depressed (so at least that hadn’t changed).

You had a look round the streets and things were quite similar to what you would expect, except the Selachians were definitely in charge, and there were no fish and chip shops. You went to a pub and Tommy managed to swipe someone’s mobile comm.

Back in the Tardis you hacked the phone to get all the info you could find on history since the Second Selachian War and also hack into the Selachian military computers. According to that, the humans had started the war in 3070 but the Selachians had had the bravery and technology to defeat them. It was clearly a lot of propaganda.

You contrasted that with the Tardis records which spoke of the Sharaz incident being the spark to war in 3027 when Selachians had raided the Sharaz and taken the passengers and crew into slavery. The Selachians had always denied that this was its military and insisted the perpetrators had been renegade pirates. But the Human Empire blamed the Selachian government and declared war. The Selachians, despite being a predatory race, had not been ready for a major war, unlike the Human Empire, who eventually won the war.

You considered that the Sharaz incident not happening had actually been the indirect cause of the Selachian victory, and that you should go back to the Sharaz and ensure that the Selachians were successful there.


The Doctor managed to land the Tardis a few minutes before you had even left, which was risky but it gave you more time. Unfortunately, you landed inside the Selachian vessel, and the Tardis materialised under water in a salt-water tank with dozens of Selachian fish-like beings swimming around inside it looking at you most quizzically. You quickly dematerialised and materialised again on the far side of the Sharaz, hidden from the Selachian vessel, but you decided that that was the incident that had alerted the Selachians to the (old)Doctor’s presence and had got him arrested.

After a few minutes of arsing about you managed to get a visualisation of the (old) Doctor on the bridge of the Sharaz with a number of human crew and half a dozen Selachian marines. The (new) Doctor could just remember doing this. There was a stand-off going on. The Doctor was threatening to press a big red button wired to a strange contraption, which he was saying would destroy the Sharaz and the Selachian ship. You also caught a quick glimpse of a mysterious Graske skulking in the shadows.

In the end, the Selachians decided to withdraw, accepting that having their ship blown up wouldn’t help anything. But the (new) Doctor did an analysis of the big red button contraption and decided that all it could actually do was make the coffee. And as the Doctor discovered this, he did immediately remembered that that was exactly what he had done, not that long ago.

You realised that this is what had gone wrong, and if the Selachians left the Sharaz then the Second Selachian War would not happen for another 40 years, giving the Selachians time to build up their military and they would defeat the Human Empire and that would change history forever in a bad way. And so the (old) Doctor had to be stopped.

The (new) Doctor temporarily boosted Tommy’s vortex manipulator so that it could carry Saluk, too, and the pair of them beamed over to the Sharaz. They waylaid the Doctor before he could get back to his Tardis. He was accepting the thanks of the crew and passengers for saving the Sharaz and looked a bit too keen on himself. Tommy And Saluk tried to convince him that what he had just done would alter the unalterable course of history, but he seemed pretty confident that time would take care of itself and that you didn’t need to worry about such things.

You insisted that this shouldn’t happen and the (old) Doctor was extremely patronising about your understanding of space-time and causality. He told you he didn’t care what you had to say, and made to get into his Tardis. Tommy and Saluk tried to grab him, and there followed an unseemly struggle in front of the Tardis between the Doctor and Tommy and Saluk.

Meanwhile, the (new) Doctor phoned the Selachian commander on his 3838 mobile, which was conveniently backwardly compatible, and told him that the Doctor had just been bluffing him and that he really need to come back to the Sharaz and get his slaves. The commander took a bit of convincing but the Doctor managed it.

And so as the (old)Doctor was fighting Tommy and Saluk, half a dozen Selachian marines turned up and arrested him again. You decided it was time to leave and vortexed back into the Tardis. And at about this time, in all the excitement, almost unnoticed, the Tardis disappeared, too. And so you watched as the Selachians rounded up the passengers and crew and took them away to a life of slavery. The (old) Doctor tried to stop them but he was shot by a Selachian marine and fell to the ground, seemingly dead.

As the Selachian vessel departed it fired several blasts at the Sharaz, and the starliner was soon burning and breaking up. Suddenly the Doctor got up, but his face had changed, and you could see it was your colleague, the new Doctor. He staggered around the deck of the starliner, dazed and confused, as if looking for something he couldn’t quite remember, as the starliner began to disintegrate. And almost at the same time, the Doctor disappeared, and the Sharaz blew up.

You watched all this satisfied that this was the right sort of outcome, maybe. To test things, you decided to head back to London in 3838. You materialised outside St Paul’s Cathedral. The sun was shining, the people were going about their lives happily, Nelson was back atop his column, and there was not a Selachian in sight. And so you went off to get some fish and chips.

*woooo woooo*

Next Time (provisionally):

Tommy in ancient British garb walks across a muddy field in ancient Mona while a heavily cloaked figure points a Delta Wave Annihilator at him

The Doctor is in conversation with a Roman centurion

A long-limbed alien creature with a blue cap seems to be selling the Tardis to a bunch of Graske

Saluk’s tentacles quiver and he dives for cover, just as a wave of delta stuff fires at him

Some Graske put transmat clamps around the Tardis, and it disappears

A legion of Roman soldiers march along all armed with high tech laser-like weapons

[monkeylite]

btw, here's a Selachian:

[da professor]

Two episodes on one day, you are spoiling us.
Looking forward to episode 3.
Karma.

[wulfgar22]

Just thought I'd drop in and say hello, at last (I've been lurking for a long time). I'm Tommy Gunn.

I'm really enjoying the game. As a big Who fan it's great to finally be able to play in the Whoniverse. I'm also loving the system...simple but comprehensive nevertheless. It gets a big thumbs up from me.

[monkeylite]

Session Three

The Romans and the Graske

The Doctor
Saluk Tar
Thomas Gunn
Lowfi

The session started in the middle of an argument between the Doctor and Tommy about whether it was wise to meddle with events in time and about how things could be changed. The Doctor said it was never wise to do so, but Tommy said that the Doctor seemed to think it was alright when he did it. He said that changing events on the Sharaz was meddling in time, but the Doctor said that was putting things back how they should have been, which didn’t count.

The Tardis materialised in a muddy, windswept field under grey skies and drizzle. The Doctor flicked a switch and the scene appeared on the scanner. It looked to Tommy that this could be the same place he had been transmatted from earlier, so he put back on his muddy ancient British disguise and went outside to check.

Doing a quick scan for alien tech he found the familiar reading, some sort of anomaly in the middle of the druids’ sacred grove, so knew he was back on the island of Mona, in western Britain. And then he noticed another blip on the screen. This was stronger in a way, than the first, but also weirdly primitive (for alien tech): some sort of mixed signal.

He told the Doctor and Saluk. The Doctor thought splitting up and checking out both readings might be a good idea. But Tommy thought that staying together would be safer, especially with Delta Wave Annihilators about. Saluk just waved his tentacles in a non-committal sort of way.

About ten minutes away, Tommy, scouting ahead, overheard a couple of men talking about the scary druids and how they wield magic. He looked over a ridge and saw it was a patrol of about a dozen Roman soldiers. He went back to tell the Doctor. Tommy thought they could still avoid the Romans and get to the tech-blip, but the Doctor thought it might be more polite to introduce himself.

The centurion demanded to know who he was and the Doctor convinced him that he was an emissary from Rome, sent by Nero himself. He learned that there was a Roman fort nearby, just over the straits, and the governor of Britain himself, Gaius Paulinus was heading this way, in order to wage war against the Druids. The Doctor explained that he was scouting around for Druids. The Romans were clearly scared of the druids, as they had wiped out the last Roman army that had tried this. The centurion suggested that they scout together, but the Doctor said that it would be better if he did it alone (with his own agents) and that the Romans should wait there for a bit and then go back to the fort, which the centurion was pretty pleased about.

Meanwhile, a short, skinny, long limbed sort of creature with scaly skin and a blue cap made his way towards the Tardis. He attached a couple of transmat clamps to the side of the blue box, and flicked a switch. And in an instant, the creature was gone, and so was the Tardis.

*woooo woooo*

The Tardis and Lowfi the Twarek reappeared on the back of a decrepit looking spaceship that had landed (or crashed) into a nearby wood. The ship was of the ‘flat bed’ design, and was stacked up with countless pieces of what looked like junk, all secured by space-bungees, cosmic straps and the odd piece of frayed astro-rope.

Lowfi got a screwdriver and started going at the Tardis hinges to see if he could get the thing open. He still wasn’t having much luck when the other three of you turned up. The Doctor quickly used his sonic to detach the transmat clamps which fell to the floor. Lowfi decided you looked like potential customers and tried to flog you some of his junk, including the Tardis.

The Doctor told him he’d just had a Tardis stolen, but Lowfi insisted this one was legit. The Doctor asked to look inside, but Lowfi said he’d just mislaid the key temporarily. He used his strange psychic powers on the Doctor to convince him, but the Doctor wasn’t having any of it. While you were arguing over who actually owned the Tardis, the Doctor said he was going to get a cup of tea. And so he disappeared inside the Tardis and returned a few moments later with tea.

Tommy wondered whether Lowfi could be the root of the mad temporal stuff going on here, but considered that Twareks were contemporaneous to this time zone and that Lowfi’s wreck of a junk-ship didn’t have time travel capability. But, otoh, he was in a restricted zone with a load of anachronistic tech and so really needed to be dealt with.

You asked Lowfi if he could get hold of some Delta Wave Annihilators for you, and he gave the impression that he didn’t have any in stock but he did know where to get hold of some for you, at a price. Saluk tried to penetrate the Twarek’s mind, on this issue, and got the impression that he was largely telling the truth, but was being a bit cagey. You asked Lowfi if he had sold any weapons to the Druids, and he told you that he hadn’t which seemed believable enough. But he said he had brought some general supplies and some upgrades to some Graske who were hanging out nearby, which peaked your interest, especially as you had seen a Graske on the Sharaz and also one in the blue halls inside the time bubble.

Eventually, you agreed that the safest thing (for everyone and the timeline) was to transport Lowfi’s ship into the Tardis, and give him a lift to somewhere he could get his ship fixed, or something. Lowfi, seemed to think that the Tardis had now become his new salvage vessel. And it seemed to have a lot of extra room inside for more scrap. The Doctor insisted that Lowfi was not allowed to sell anything from either the inside or the outside of the Tardis, but that seemed to leave a grey area, in Lowfi’s mind at least.

So you made your way back to the Roman scouts. You wrapped Saluk and Lowfi in heavy robes so that they looked like lepers, or something. The centurion was impressed that the Doctor had a British slave. Tommy explained that he wasn’t a slave but in fact a tribune up from Rome and an ace spy. The Romans offered to escort you back to Segontium (the local Roman fort across the straits) but you told them you were so good that you worked better alone without a load of legionaries slowing you down.

So the Doctor managed to materialise the Tardis in the wine storage area inside the Roman fort of Segontium. Again you put robes on Lowfi and Sulak to make sure they did not attract too much attention but you were surprised to see that the Graske had an area of the fort cordoned off for themselves and the Roman soldiers were treating them like their presence was entirely normal.

Once in the Graske area, you could see that most of the inside of their wooden hut was in fact some sort of time ship that probably went on further underground. They also had many racks of laser rifles stacked up at the front of their hut. Lowfi asked to speak to Vak the Graske, who he had dealt with earlier, and told him he had turned up a v1.2 graviton array which was a significant upgrade on their current v1.01 one and that they should do a deal.

Then you questioned Vak about the Graske’s work on Earth, while Saluk psychically probed his pointy head. Vak said he was ‘just trying to redress the balance.’ He said that come tomorrow morning the Romans would be armed and they would march on the sacred groves of the Druids and destroy them all. He assured you that he would take the guns back afterwards, however. The Doctor asked how many Graske there were at the fort, and Vak said 12, and how many Romans were they planning on arming, 100. So he asked how they planned on disarming the Romans afterwards. Vak had to admit he hadn’t thought of that.

You asked who had put them up to it, but he said that Graske never reveal their sources, which you took with a pinch of salt. Saluk probed Vak’s mind and managed to come up with a vague and intermittent picture on a grainy screen showing someone with robes, a grand collar and a skull cap ordering the Graske. Saluk didn’t know what it was, and beamed the image to the other three, and the Doctor concluded, that it was unclear, but it could have been, perhaps a Timelord.

Vak had had enough of being questioned and began to think you may be trying to stop him, so he ordered his Graske and they levelled their weapons at you. Tommy insisted they couldn’t do that because he was a Time Agent. The Dcotor insisted they could not because he was a Timelord. Saluk wibbled his tentacles a bit. Lowfi, immediately dived down into the Graske ship and hid himself among the banks of instruments.

The Doctor admitting he was a Timelord seemed to impress the Graske and they decided not to take you prisoner after all. But, as he was already down there, Lowfi decided it would be a good opportunity to reclaim some salvage and he swiped a field inverter.

The Doctor told the Graske that they were doing a good job and should get on with it, he also enhanced the function of Vak’s laser. As he did so, though, he was careful to modify it slightly so that it would be ready to break at a specific signal from the sonic screwdriver.

And so you headed back to the Tardis.

[monkeylite]

Session Four

The Druids of Mona

The Doctor
Saluk Tar
Thomas Gunn
Lowfi

The Tardis landed on Mona a few miles from the sacred groves of the druids. Tommy decided to scout around first to make sure it was safe. He made his way stealthily towards the groves. After a few minutes the Doctor decided to go for a walk, towards the groves on his own. Lowfi busied himself with messing around with the Tardis’s equipment, seeing what sort of scanners it had, and if there were any spare bits, while Saluk looked on, trying to help.

After scanning for alien tech Tommy began to approach the source of his signal, but noticed a small sensor embedded in a tree. It was clearly hi tech and it would have already sensed him, so he decided to withdraw to the Tardis. Meanwhile the Doctor walked through the sensors obliviously, and came to a wooden hut, built in the local style. He peered through a window and inside could see a local tech interior with an altar and a circle, and some pews.

Suddenly a voice interrupted him ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’ He was surrounded by robed figures. They prodded him into the temple, where they chained him to the Altar. The Doctor could see hints that beneath their robes these figures were actually metallic. These were not the druids he had been looking for. They also wore celtic-knot type emblems which were the same as the logo he had seen dotted around the blue halls of the broken Chronoleum screens earlier.

The druid-droids began to sing songs of praise to trees and nature and prepare to sacrifice the Doctor to their gods. The Doctor responded that they were making a big mistake, and that he had been sent by their gods. The druids weren’t fazed. They replied that if he had been sent by the forces of nature, then it would be respectful to send him back again, and complete the circle of life, or something. As the Doctor lay on the altar he also sensed more druids entering the temple, as if they were rising up out of the ground, or something.

Meanwhile back in the Tardis you were wondering where the Doctor had got to. Saluk decided to look for him psychically. He found him, near the edge of his psychic range and determined he was tied up. He could sense the druids around the Doctor, about to sacrifice him. The Doctor sensed Saluk’s presence and managed to convey his location back to Selindarian. Saluk beamed that to Tommy, who used his vortex manipulator to teleport in to the temple and before the druids could react, he had grabbed the Doctor and teleported out again.

As Tommy and the Doctor reappeared in the Tardis, Lowfi quickly put away the screwdriver that he had been using to try to prise open one of the panels in the Tardis console. The Doctor decided that this celtic knot logo was worth investigation and interrogated the Tardis’s computer banks for relevant information. This was scant but he managed to discover that it was the symbol of the Acrosian chapter of the Timelords, which had disappeared from Gallifrey, possibly expelled, many millions of years ago, and that the Timelords didn’t talk about them anymore. The Doctor announced his theory that you all might be dealing with Timelords, which he explained, were just like him but worse.

Tommy suggested that you enter the druid temple by Tardis, but the Doctor rejected this, as if there was a Timelord involved, he thought there might be a danger of it being stolen. To test the theory, the doctor and Lowfi gathered together some bits and pieces, including an old umbrella with a question mark handle, and made a psychic lens and you all contacted your psychic minds in order to search the area for Timelords. The thing blew up but not before you were pretty sure there was no sign of a Timelord anywhere.

Lowfi managed to wire up a solar powered invisibility cloak to put over the Tardis while you were gone, so that no one would be able to find it. Lowfi and Saluk put on some robes as some sort of disguise. The Doctor created a bunch of Tardis keys in the design of the celtic knot and handed them out to everyone, without telling them they were keys. Tommy set his vortex manipulator to auto-return to the tardis, but couldn’t get it any more powerful than to teleport three people.

So, you made your way to the temple, past the sensors, which you made sure were transmitting. And as you neared the temple you were surrounded by druids. The Doctor tried to convince them that he was on their side, but he could not. He pulled down their hoods to show them that they were actually robots, but they seemed oblivious to this and refused to believe it, insisiting they were lovely children of nature. Faced with these deluded things and their Delta Wave Annihilators, Tommy decided to teleport out and Lowfi and the Doctor hitched a ride.

This left Saluk alone facing the druids. He probed the head druid’s mind, and found it entirely convinced of its human nature and its identity as a druid. Saluk managed to psychically show the druid its true form however, and this snapped its mind. It entered a sulky malaise of existential angst. Meanwhile the other druids dragged Saluk onto the sacrificial altar.

Hurriedly, Lowfi got together a Venusian whale prod, and the Doctor helped enhance it to make some sort of EMP bomb, and you quickly Tardised into the temple. You emerged to find the druid droids all chanting around Saluk and one of them about to kill him. Tommy activated the whale prod and all the druids immediately ceased to function.

You did not know how much time you had so Lowfi quickly set about trying to deactivate the druids, and the Doctor collected up the Delta Wave Annihilators, although Lowfi managed to secretly swipe one. He also grabbed a few droid heads and limbs.

Saluk wondered where the head droid had gone. And you all became aware of a rising humming sound coming from below. Tommy noticed under a bearskin there was some sort of elevator that had also got jammed by the EMP. The Doctor unjammed it with his sonic and you descended down to a capsule beneath the temple. This was all hi tech: the circular chamber had room around the circumference for twelve droids to plug themselves in for a recharge, and there was a power generator in the centre.

The hum became increasingly loud as the generator approached overload. And you decided in a few moments it would blow and destroy the entire island, at least. The head droid had rigged it up to explode, because, as he quickly explained, he wanted to end it all because life wasn’t worth living if he was only a robot and didn’t have real feelings. Lowfi sprang into action and, experienced at jury rigging stuff like that, was able to disconnect it safely, and save the day. He also kept a load of the pieces he had disassembled.


The Doctor noticed a chronoleum beacon in the chamber, too and grabbed that. He decided that it might be a way of calling for a transmat to the blue halls. Checking out the droids he decided they had positronic brains which was a technology for emulating sentience. The brains had been programmed psychically, but neither he or Saluk’s psychic probing could determine anything about who had programmed it. You decided to keep 'teen-angst' droid with you in the Tardis. The Doctor was careful to incinerate all the Delta Wave Annihilators that he had. And he took back Lowfi’s and Saluk’s celtic knot logo/ Tardis keys.

Then you paid a brief visit to the Graske explaining that you had done their job for them and that they should leave now, and take the droid capsule with them.

*woooo woooo*

Next Time:

Tommy taps his vortex manipulator and gazes into the distance across a vast burning desert

The Doctor, inside some wrecked space ship, says, ‘He’s here. I can sense him.’

Lowfi’s face lights up as he looks in awe at a huge cityscape of hi tech scrap

An alien with a fox-like head and big ears sniffs at Saluk’s wibbling tentacles

Suddenly from nowhere, a spaceship appears above a huge yellow planet, looking like it is about to crash

A massive shape looms from beneath shifting sand dunes and someone shouts, ‘Look out!’

[monkeylite]

Session Five

The Sands of Death

Saluk Tar
Thomas Gunn
Lowfi

The Doctor declared that he wished to travel to the place that Saluk had been, before he got transmatted to the blue halls. Saluk hoped to find his spaceship while Lowfi thought there might be some decent opportunities in salvaging Saluk’s Selindarian vessel. The Doctor hoped to find out more about who was behind the transmatting. He used some technique he didn’t bother explaining for homing in on the location. Tommy asked him about it, but the Doctor wasn’t in the mood to answer his questions. And so you materialised and the Doctor suggested you go out and check the place out, while he stayed in the Tardis.

And so you emerged into a vast, almost featureless desert of bright yellow sand and windswept dunes that continued as far as you could see, under a burning red sun. Saluk used his psychic powers to home in on the psychic mutant cactus mushroom that he kept as a pet on his spaceship, but there was no sign of it. Tommy used his vortex manipulator to scan for alien tech and again, there was no sign, but he sensed a disturbance in the dunes coming from more or less directly below you all. Then the ground began to shake.

Quickly, Tommy managed to grab Saluk and Lowfi and teleport away. He had hoped to teleport back to the Tardis control room, but didn’t manage it, and you ended up on a dune a few hundred meters away. You watched as the ground gave way around the Tardis and a huge worm-like creature emerged from beneath the desert and swallowed the Tardis whole. The kilometre long creature rose up above the desert and then buried itself in the sand again. And soon there was no sign it had ever been there, and no sign of the Tardis.

*woooo woooo*

You were shocked that a humungous worm had come from nowhere and eaten the Tardis, but Saluk nodded knowingly. ‘I’d meant to tell you about that,’ he said. You thought that the Tardis and the Doctor could probably look after themselves and that you had better look after yourselves. You didn’t give yourself too long to survive in such a burning heat and with no sign of civilisation anywhere around. You decided to trek up the highest dune which might give you a good view of the area and hope there was something to see. And sure enough when you did survey the scene, you could just about make out, many miles away, what looked like a Bedouin type caravan crossing the desert.

And so you teleported to its vicinity, still out of sight. Tommy sneaked up to view the caravan. He could see that it comprised about 12 smaller worms (about 15 metres or so long) which were loaded up with all sorts of scrap metal and pieces of spaceship, and each worm was ridden by a short fox-like creature with big ears, wearing long flowing white robes. They were all armed with an eclectic range of weapons. Tommy went back down to tell you what he had seen and you all decided that this was your only chance to get out of the desert whether they were friendly or not. So Lowfi scrambled over the dune and stood where they could see him, and introduced himself.

The lead fox-thing dismounted from his worm-thing and greeted you. He was Malek of the Fenek and was pleasant enough for a reserved desert wandering fox-thing. He asked if you fell from the sky and wanted to know if your ship was still around. He was disappointed to hear that it had already been eaten by sand worms. You got the impression that if it hadn’t, the Fenek would have gone through it and put anything useful he could find on the back of their worms; a fox Lowfi could relate to. He offered to take you back to the city, and so the three of you joined the caravan.

On the way back to the city you questioned Malek about the planet. It seemed that spaceships were always falling from the sky and the Fenek tried to get them, before the worms did. But there was only one known city on the planet. The worms ate everything else, leaving only bare metal behind, but never attacked the city.

Malek explained how the various salvage gangs of the city used to vie for power, but recently one Fenek had rose to prominence, the Emir Ackmad, who had the service of a Djinn, or something, that ‘came and went like the desert wind.’ Tommy asked what the Djinn looked like, and Malek said it looked almost exactly like Tommy. He said that the Emir was an evil Fenek who used coercion and force to rule the city.

You asked about other aliens in the city, and Malek explained that occasionally an alien would survive falling from the sky, though the vast majority died, and they would have to live in the city. But, aliens were usually very greedy for water, which meant their stay in the city was very hard, and they did not usually survive for long. Malek said that an alien often needed twenty times as much water as a Fenek would need.

Eventually, after a long journey of interminable noon, you reached the city. It was quite a sight, especially to Lowfi. The whole city was made up of piles of scrap, seemingly with bits and pieces from every era and culture of the galaxy, with every sort of ship and technology all randomly mixed together. Lowfi could make out, too, that although the place looked haphazard the footprint of the city actually formed a near perfect ellipse. At the very centre of the city, the rear half of a starliner stuck up from the sand, as if it had crashed in that very spot and the rest of the city had been built up around it.

As you entered the city, Saluk felt his tentacles bristle, but the feeling soon passed. Malek took you to his clan depot and wished you good luck. He said you might be able to find somewhere to sleep near the edge of town, and to be careful. You wondered how you might survive and earn water. Lowfi dug around in his bag to find something to trade. He had an SP converter, which just happened to be the very thing Malek required to finish a jury rigged project he had been working on. He agreed to trade it for enough water for the three of you for a week or so, and an old grappling magnet and a battered chameleon cloak.

Then you set off into the city. You thought you might try to get an audience with Emir Ackmad. He occupied the crashed ship in the middle of the city. The entrance was guarded by four black clad guards, but you found a quiet place, around the back, amid the piles of scrap, where you launched the grappling magnet into the top (ie rear) of the ship. Lowfi put on the chameleon cloak and climbed up the wire. When he reached the top he threw down the cloak, and Tommy climbed up. Then they threw down the cloak for Saluk and the pair of them pulled him up.

Tommy made another scan for alien tech and found a concentration of the stuff in a section of the ship below ground. You made your way through the sideways corridors of the crashed ship and got to the correct level. There were two guards standing outside the room with the tech, and so Tommy teleported into the chamber. Inside was a veritable Aladdin’s cave of technological gadgets and bit and pieces. Tommy found a device similar to one the Doctor had picked up in the droid capsule on Mona, which he had said was a chronoleum beacon. He teleported out, grabbed Lowfi and Saluk, and back in again. Lowfi was in Twarek heaven among the innumerable shiny gadgets and hurriedly stuffed his bag full of bits, and then grabbed some more containers to fill with more bits.

Then suddenly the door opened and a grand Fenek covered in digital watches demanded to know what you were doing in his treasure room. For it was the emir. Lowfi quickly dropped some of his loot, while Tommy tried to take charge. He explained that you had fallen from the sky and were yourself like djinn, for did he not look like a djinn? And he explained that you were here to bring him fortune and power, or something. The emir seemed to think this was all very reasonable, and invited you up to his harem for tiffin.

So after politely sniffing the backsides of some of his wives, you got down to business. The Emir told you that he was in charge and everyone did as he ordered, and that his djinn was very powerful. He suggested that you should fight his djinn for the honour of serving him, which you agreed to.

And at that moment, the doors to the harem flung open and in walked a humanoid figure adorned with blue robes and a skull cap bearing the celtic-knot device. And he was flanked by two metallic guards which you recognised as Psy-droids like the ones you had encountered on Mona, wielding Delta Wave Annihilators, which they pointed at you.

*woooo woooo*

[monkeylite]

Session Six

The Interrogators

The Doctor
Saluk Tar
Thomas Gunn
Lowfi

And so the blue robed fellow, flanked by DWA-wielding Psy-droids, introduced himself. He declared that he was Gallanor of the Acrosians and that you had repeatedly violated restricted time-spaces beyond the parameters of reasonable coincidence. He said that you were now his prisoners and that you would be interrogated. Immediately, Tommy grabbed Saluk and Lowfi and vortexed back into the treasure vault.


Meanwhile, the Doctor was still in the Tardis. The worm thing had swallowed it whole and continued on through the desert. Inside the worm, the Doctor was confident that the rest of you could take of yourselves for a bit, and so he surveyed the planet. He found that the city was the only settlement on the entire planet. He noticed that the worms seemed to be homing in on anything out in the desert they might feed on, except they were avoiding the city. He also analysed the wormhole for clues about the nature of the place. Eventually, not one to miss an opportunity to go exploring, the Doctor decided to check out the insides of the sand worm.

The body of the worm was all red and gooey. The Doctor decided to take a walk towards the worm’s head. He noticed a few metal objects flow past him; they were covered in goo and were in the process of being stripped of all non-metal bits. He also noticed that the Tardis was slowly drifting towards the tail of the worm. The Doctor quickly went back to the Tardis’ wardrobe and swapped his zoot suit for a suit of medieval armour, and then made his way up to the worm’s head in that. He decided he needed to be quick or the Tardis might disappear out the back end of the worm.


Back in Ackmad’s treasure room, Lowfi frantically searched through the gadgets trying to find something that might be useful and he came across a psychic amplifier. You decided that you could use it to try to direct Saluk’s psychic powers against the positronic brains of the psy-droids and perhaps control both of them at once.


Meanwhile, the Doctor could see by the brightening red goo that he was approaching the mouth of the worm. In a flash of light the worm swallowed something that rapidly sped towards the Doctor. The wedge-shaped spaceship smashed into the doctor, but his plate armour saved him from injury. He could see that the goo all over the ship was already eating into it and the windshield was cracked. Behind the screen he could make out a fish-like creature in a brass breathing mask in a bit of a panic. The Doctor signalled for it to let him in. The Hath quickly bubbled its confusion and the Doctor convinced it to make a run for his Tardis, as goo was already seeping into the ship.

You did manage to reach the Tardis before the Hath’s equipment got too badly damaged by the digestive juices and the Doctor got some wire wool to help clean it up. The Hath explained, in his bubbly way, what had happened to him, which was similar to what had happened originally to Saluk, and to every ship, it seemed, that found its way to this planet via the wormhole.


Back at Ackmad’s palace-ship the three of you teleported back to confront Gallanor. You quickly focused the psychic amplifier and Saluk probed the minds of the psy-droids. In a moment he managed to convince them to arrest Gallanor. Ackmad looked on pleased with his new djinn as Gallanor was restrained and helpless. You interrogated him. Gallanor admitted he was from Acros and that they were related to the Timelords. He said that they had the power to control time just like Timelords, hopefully one day, maybe, and that he was here to see why you had been so keen to meddle in their affairs.

And the Tardis arrived. The Doctor noticed that there was some sort of force field around the city. The Tardis got through it easily enough, but he decided it might be the sort of thing some spaceships used to protect against asteroids. The Doctor had been quite enjoying the medieval feel of his outfit, and decided to stick with the suit of armour, and so clanked into the harem room. Gallanor seemed pleased that the Doctor had arrived at last. He managed to grab a chronoleum beacon from within his robes. He held it up, declared you would never catch him and disappeared in a white flash.


You piled the two psy-droids into the Tardis and dropped the grateful Hath off and then headed for Acros in order to get to the bottom of all this time-meddling. It was hard to find Acros, and it seemed to be a bit forgotten, in a forgotten corner of space. There was however a transduction-barrier-style chronoleum filter around the time-space, and try as you might to breach it, you decided it only allowed chronoleum through-flow, or something. The Tardis was also concerned that the Acrosians might be able to steal his Tardis, so you parked up on a moon of Acros, turned the psy-droids off, and left one of the Chronoleum beacons there next to the Tardis. And you activated the other one, hoping it would bring you straight to the blue halls.


Tommy found himself in a debriefing room back at the Time Agency, which may have been a bit odd. He couldn’t quite remember getting there, but this would not have been the first time he suffered amnesia in the course of his duties. His friend and mentor Major Robley was there, asking him what had happened after leaving the Acrosian moon. Tommy had to admit he couldn’t remember. Robley told him to go and relax and return the next day for more debriefing, but told him that he couldn’t leave the base as he was still technically under arrest for dereliction of duty and insubordination.


Saluk was in his ship doing a few experiments with coloured liquids and test tubes. He was chatting psychically to his mutant cactus mushroom as he often did. The cactus mushroom seemed particularly interested in the Doctor. It kept asking about him and about what Saluk had done since he met the Doctor. Saluk was happy enough to tell it everything he knew, though he didn’t seem to know enough to satisfy the cactus mushroom’s curiosity. The psychic plant kept repeating things back to Saluk hoping that he could expand on that.


Lowfi found himself on the legendary Scrapteroid of Goss. He found an atomic powered sentient alarm clock, which was a gadget in high demand throughout the universe. He brought it back to his flat-bed salvage ship and headed for home. When he woke up the next day, the alarm clock asked him when he had met the doctor. Lowfi hit snooze, and nine minutes later, the clock again asked him when he had first met the Doctor. This unnerved Lowfi, and he tried to get back to sleep several more times, only to be woken every nine minutes with the same question.


The Doctor sensed some anomalous shift in the time-space vortex and found himself in a forest filled with strange purple-flowered plants. After a while, he got the impression that in fact he was in some sort of building. The blue hue above was not sky but of a distant ceiling, similar to the blue halls you had been in before. He scanned for power sources, and found that some sort of sensor-like tech snaked throughout the forest, and there was a dense matrix of computing power not too far away. He headed for that.

On his way he came across some techie type in a simpler blue uniform tending to a flowery mass. It was Saluk’s body covered in the plant, and seemingly inextricably entwined with it. The Doctor suggested that the techie should help him get rid of the tendrils. The techie was shocked by this and explained that that would almost certainly kill the victim.

The Doctor asked the techie if he could release Saluk from the plants, but he explained that he couldn’t as he was only a grade ‘B.’ The plants were Kyropites, which had psychic powers and linked to the subject and eventually took over its body. The victims must make his own escape from the psychic dreams the plants use to feed upon their prey. The Doctor considered merging his mind with Saluk’s and the kyropite to help him out of there, but decided it would leave him too vulnerable in the real world, especially with the techie right there.


Tommy spent some time back in his room trying to work out if something was wrong and considering his predicament, but it was suddenly time for debriefing. Major Robley asked Tommy to go over again what had happened in the lead up to meeting the doctor. Tommy, loyal as ever to the Time Agency, painstakingly went over everything he could remember from his landing on Mona to using the Chronoleum beacon. After that it was all a bit blank. During this time, Robley mentioned ‘the Chronopticon’ to describe the blue halls of Acros. Tommy said that he didn’t even know it was called the chronopticon, but Robley said that that was what Tommy had called it earlier. Robley told Tommy that he had to use a mind probe to help him remember and aimed it a Tommy’s mind. It was very painful but seemingly did no lasting damage.


Again, Saluk found himself at his experiments, idly mixing stuff in test tubes, enjoying the space-scape view from his science vessel, while chatting to his psychic cactus, telling it everything it wanted to know about the Doctor. The cactus seemed particularly interested in the time bubble that Saluk had discovered, and a future in which Acros was utterly ruined.


Lowfi woke up again to the sound of his alarm clock asking about the Doctor. He hit the snooze button, but this time got an electric shock. He quickly threw the clock across the cabin, and the atomic battery fell out. He left the room and set about navigating for home. Everything went as expected as Lowfi’s salvage ship approached the Twarek homeyard. He cleared his approach with air traffic control, but then the ATC guy started talking about the Doctor. Lowfi quickly switched the radio off, and got another electric shock.


The Doctor moved on to the two other bodies the techie had shown him. They were not Tommy and Lowfi, as he had been expecting, but two ‘navigators’ one looked quite fresh with only a few flowers and shoots around him, while the other was barely still humanoid, and only his face seemed to remain discernible among the mass of flora. The Doctor cleared the plants away from the newest navigator with his armoured feet, and sure enough after a few moments the man died. The Doctor waited for a regeneration and eventually had to concede that the man was likely not a Timelord after all. A few moments later, flanked by four Acrosian guards, two grandly-robed Acrosians turned up. One of them was Gallanor, who triumphantly declared that the Doctor had fallen into his meticulously crafted trap.

*woooo woooo*