The Exiles of Time - Season One

[Eternally Lost Zeppo]

Originally, one of my players was going to do the write-ups for our campaign, but he got bogged down in other stuff, so I decided to just get on with it and do it myself.

So, here are some quick descriptions of the characters, followed by write-ups of each episode. I've embellished somewhat, especially on earlier sessions, as my memory is fuzzy from the amount of time that has passed between the sessions and these write-ups.

Hopefully the result will be both entertaining as well as being mostly accurate accounts of our campaign thus far.

The Cast
Robyn Dalton (played by Heather W): A UNIT researcher for the top-secret Project Broadsword, Robyn is haunted by a shameful past, but her history gives her knowledge and expertise that make her a valuable asset to UNIT. She is dark eyed and has dark hair cut in a bob style with green or blue highlights depending on her mood. (Kinda like Claudia from Warehouse 13.)
Malik (played by Luke): A Silurian from a time when his species' reign on Earth, displaced in time by the Cardiff Rift, Malik has been living in a TMNT-style pad in the sewers of the Welsh capital, feeding on criminals and becoming the subject of urban legend, the 'Lizard Man of Cardiff'. He wears a hessian cloak and cowl to hide his features when he walks among the apes that have taken over his homeworld.
Pan (played by Maggie): A student of Archimedes, and the real inventor of Archimedes' screw and the fabled 'heat ray'. Possesses technological knowledge beyond his time, owing to his precognitive abilities. Pan is tall and has messy 'mad scientist' hair, dressed in a Grecian tunic and sandals.

EPISODE 1.01: 'Liminus'
Cardiff, Present Day: In a dark alleyway, a man is held against a wall at knifepoint; the mugger is interrupted by a hooded figure who orders him to let his victim go. When asked what he's going to do about it, he drops his hood to reveal his reptilian features and says: 'I'll make you look like me!'
Mugger and victim alike run from Malik's inhuman visage, and as Mal is about to jump back down into the sewers he feels the world shiver around him, and he doesn't stop falling when he should hit the sewers...
Same Time, Elsewhere in the UK: Robyn Dalton watches TV with her dog, letting her mind drift after a long day in the lab, working for the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, the United Nations' main defence against extraterrestrial activity. The world shivers, disturbing the dog from its dozing and, as it barks frantically, Robyn feels herself falling; blinding light envelops her vision and a throbbing rhythm beats at her ears...
Greece, 2000 years earlier: Pan sits in a lecture theatre, not really paying attention, his mind bombarded by a painful series of visions: a flaming, screeching bird...a blue box in flames...a lizard man swinging a sword wildly...a woman with short, blue streaked hair waving some sort of device in the air...a sensation of great loss and loneliness from some other intelligence...and then he feels himself falling, a strobe light pulsing blindingly in his mind's eye, hammers ringing in his ears, pain searing his mind...

All of them fall for what seems like forever, before landing together on a dusty barren plain. Pan is out cold from the psychic overload of the journey, and as Malik and Robyn adjust to the dull light and see one another they both accuse each other of being responsible for bringing them here. Then they look over the edge of the cliffside they are on, to discover the island they are on is one piece of debris among many caught in the accretion disk of a black hole. They should be dead, and yet somehow, they're alive. Pan awakens, and is likewise awed and horrified by their predicament.

Before they've really had time to adjust, a winged creature - which Robyn recognises as a Reaper - appears out of the gloom and chases them across the flat plain. Fearing that there is nowhere to hide or escape to, they team up and come up with a plan to trap it, using Pan's belt and Malik's cloak to form a makeshift blindfold. Malik leaps on the Reaper's back and ties the blindfold over its eyes. It goes into a nosedive, trying to shake Malik off and loose itself from the blindfold, when it is struck in the chest by a blast of fiery blue light. It crashes to the ground. Mal rolls off, and lies on the ground, dazed and exhausted.

From the darkness, the figure who fired the blast steps forward, wielding a staff with a glowing blue gemstone at its tip. She introduces herself as Anith, claiming to have been stranded here for a long time, but she has been working on a way to escape from this place. They're welcome to join her, but she'll need their help if her plan is to work. They don't necessarily trust her, but they don't have many other options, so they follow her as she tells them she has something to show them.

She leads them up a mountain pass, to where a scorched blue 1960s police box stands with its door ajar. Robyn recognises it right away as the TARDIS; the time machine used by the Time Lord known as the Doctor. Anith leads them inside. The TARDIS interior is only dimly lit, operating in low power mode because its power supply is running low. Anith's plan becomes clear: if they can get the TARDIS back online, they can use it to escape this strange realm. But first they need power. Anith has been scouting this island for a while, and two ships recently crashed that might have salvageable power sources, but the inhabitants don't seem friendly. Indeed, once Anith has described them, Robyn recognises them as Cybermen and Daleks. They decide to head for the Cyberman ship, as Anith has only sighted one survivor standing guard over the wreckage, whereas multiple Daleks guard the other ship. After a visit to the TARDIS wardrobe to replace Pan's belt and Malik's cloak - his new cloak, unbeknownst to him, belonged to the Doctor's third incarnation - the group heads out to the ship in order to retrieve the power source.

They have to sidle down a crevasse to reach the ship, which has a gigantic hole in its rear after crashing on the island. They decide to enter through this hole, rather than use the entry hatch. It leads them into a corridor filled with what look like giant glass coffins frosted over at the front; cryovats, containing partially-converted Cybermen. With one fully converted Mondasian Cyberman standing in the middle of the corridor, head bowed in stand-by mode. Robyn warns them all to be quiet, but Malik walks on ahead, past the dormant Cyberman, not even trying to be stealthy. The Cyberman lifts its head and comes online, speaking in monotone: 'Intruders detected. You shall be like us.'

Luckily, expecting they would encounter Cybermen and knowing that some versions of the cybernetic race had an adverse reaction to gold, Robyn had brought the remains of a broken star badge with gold plating on it that she found in the TARDIS. She jammed it into the Cyberman's chest cavity, causing it to asphyxiate.
With the threat dealt with, they head into the ship's engine room and take the power source needed to recharge the TARDIS. Before they leave though, Robyn decides to decouple one of the cryovats and fits anti-grav units to it so they can take it back with them. They can't rescue all of the Cyberconverts, but they can at least save one.

On their way back to the TARDIS, they are ambushed by a patrol of three Daleks. Malik laughs at how ridiculous they look, much to Robyn's horror, which angers the Dalek leader. Well, Daleks are angry anyway, but in any case the Daleks attempted to exterminate the group. Anith tries firing her staff at them, but it's barely doing any damage. Robyn points out that the eyestalk is a weak point on these models, and when Anith starts targeting there, she blinds one of the Daleks. Pan does the same to another of them by lobbing a ball of Greek fire at it, and they soon eliminate the third Dalek and each other by firing blindly in panic.

Hearing more Daleks on the way, they race back to the TARDIS and slam the doors shut, hook up the power source and then Anith - somehow able to fly the TARDIS, albeit poorly - puts the ship in flight, taking them towards the rift in space-time that brought them here. As the TARDIS shakes violently as Anith clumsily pilots it through the rift, it seems doubtful they're going to make it out in one piece...

NEXT TIME...

A ship, adrift in deep space...
"Who the hell are you?" A man and a woman in military-style uniform demand of Mal as he stands in front of the TARDIS. He points to the top of the TARDIS, "I'm with the police!"
They aim at him more intently, nervously even.
A young woman wakes up strapped to a bed as a strange man tries to help her get free, "What's your name?"
She looks down at the clinical overalls she's been dressed in and reads off the first three letters of the serial number, "Aru?"
A door slides open to reveal an android with a holographically projected smiling face in front of its otherwise blank mannequin-esque head: "You should go back to bed."
The man from before steps back from the door, "I'd rather not, thanks."
"I insist." The holographic face glitches briefly as it steps forward, becoming a screaming mask of rage and pain...

Next Episode: 'The Avatars of Madness'

[Eternally Lost Zeppo]

The Cast
Aru (played by Clara O): An amnesiac girl in her late teens with psychic powers and an inexplicable fear and distrust of men. Aru is stick figure thin and tall, with short spiky dark brown hair, ocean blue eyes and wears a black bodysuit with bright blue inlays, and has a laser gun holstered in her chunky belt.
Robyn Dalton (played by Heather W): A UNIT researcher for the top-secret Project Broadsword, Robyn is haunted by a shameful past, but her history gives her knowledge and expertise that make her a valuable asset to UNIT. She is dark eyed and has dark hair cut in a bob style with green or blue highlights depending on her mood. (Kinda like Claudia from Warehouse 13.)
Malik (played by Luke): A Silurian from a time when his species' reign on Earth, displaced in time by the Cardiff Rift, Malik has been living in a TMNT-style pad in the sewers of the Welsh capital, feeding on criminals and becoming the subject of urban legend, the 'Lizard Man of Cardiff'. He wears a hessian cloak and cowl to hide his features when he walks among the apes that have taken over his homeworld.
Pan (played by Maggie): A student of Archimedes, and the real inventor of Archimedes' screw and the fabled 'heat ray'. Possesses technological knowledge beyond his time, owing to his precognitive abilities. Pan is tall and has messy 'mad scientist' hair, dressed in a Grecian tunic and sandals.

Guest Starring
Andrew (played by Luke in first half of session)
Anith (recurring NPC from episode 1)

EPISODE 1.02: 'The Avatars of Madness'
The shaking subsides as the TARDIS breaks through into the normal time vortex, and Anith sags against the console as if suddenly drained, planting her staff firmly on the floor to steady herself. But before the group can celebrate their escape, the TARDIS starts to rock violently once again. Anith struggles with the controls, and manages to land them safely, but it seems the TARDIS has been caught up in the energy field of a time scoop, and they must locate and disable the time scoop in order to fly away safely. Robyn and Pan check the scanner to find they have landed inside a spaceship, sometime in the 51st century. As soon as they venture outside, Anith collapses; she is time sensitive, and now that she is in this universe she can feel something is terribly awry, though she can't place exactly what.

Malik heads straight outside into a large cargo hold with a blue column of light in the centre of the room, spanning from floor to ceiling into the other decks. He pokes his head in it, assuming it's an elevator, but pulls it out again when his head begins to tingle. It's about this point that two people arrive with guns, one man and one woman demanding to know who he is. He claims to be their boss, but they point out that their boss is dead. He claims to be a replacement from the Galactic Council, but they don't buy that either, so he points at the top of the TARDIS and says he's with the police. They don't seem very pleased to hear that.

Meanwhile, somewhere else on the ship, a woman wakes up to find herself strapped into a hospital bed by metallic restraints, with no memory of who she is, or how she got there. She's not alone, there's a man in futuristic overall-style hospital scrubs similar to hers, shaking her to try and wake her; which causes her to panic, since she doesn't like men. The man tries to calm her down, introducing himself as Andrew, but saying that's all he remembers about himself. He asks her what her name is, but since she doesn't know, she looks down at the serial number on her overalls - which reads ARU56 - and decides to call herself Aru for now.

Andrew has technokinetic powers, which he uses to tell the lock on the hospital bed to open. Aru leaps out of the bed and is off, running down corridors, tearing off without Andrew. She finds a spanner lying around, and picks it up, when she encounters an android with a smiling holographic face projected in front of its otherwise blank head. It suggests she go back to bed, but Aru beats it with her spanner and runs away. Andrew runs into an identical robot, mouthing similarly creepy "helpful" advice before lunging for him, its holographic face glitching into an expression twisted in a silent scream of pain and fury. He puts a hand to its face and lets out another technopathic pulse, frying the robot's nervous system. He runs off as it begins to get up again, calling out to Aru.

Back in the cargo hold, Pan and Robyn have stepped out of the TARDIS to bail Mal out. The man and woman are Zach and Mercy, and they seem to be part of the ship's crew; they're dressed in camo, but don't seem to be military. And clearly their activities are illegal, judging from their response to Mal claiming to be with the police. They argue with the crewmembers, trying to get them to lower their guns, until the lights flicker and an ominous voice speaks gibberish over the PA system.

Mal asks their 'hosts' what the voice was, and they explain that it's the ship's AI; it's gone a bit funny, started referring to itself as WARDEN and taken over all the androids onboard - referred to as Avatroids - as well as the ship's systems. From the statement it made over the PA, and the name it has chosen for itself, it seems to regard all aboard the ship as its prisoners and seeks to punish them, though Zach and Mercy claim - rather unconvincingly - not to know why. Robyn convinces them that, given her skill in engineering, she might be able to help fix the AI.

The two crewmembers consider this, but before either one of them can say anything, an Avatroid appears from the blue column of energy. It identifies the TARDIS crew as stowaways to be expunged, and Zach and Mercy are to be made to pay for their sins. The Avatroid swings at Zach and misses, and Robyn calls for everyone to get inside the TARDIS. She, Mal and Pan pile inside. Zach and Mercy waver outside, unsure how they're all going to fit inside, but Robyn grabs Mercy by the scruff of the neck and pulls her inside, and Zach stomps in after them both. The TARDIS door is slammed shut, and the Avatroid stands outside. Waiting.

Meanwhile, Andrew catches up with Aru - who has, by now, found a bodysuit, belt and stun blaster that she felt a sense of familiarity from, and has put them on - but stays a few paces behind her since she still doesn't trust him. They find the cargo hold with the column of light, and decide to jump through it. They arrive in what appears to be the exact same part of the cargo hold, only now the TARDIS is there, and so is the Avatroid that was standing guard in front of it. WARDEN, speaking through the Avatroid tells Andrew that he shouldn't be fighting the droids, he should be helping them. While the droid is distracted talking to Andrew, Robyn opens the TARDIS door and Aru runs and slides past the droid and through the TARDIS door. Then Andrew uses his technokinesis to zap the droid and knock it out.

As Andrew is about to join the others inside the TARDIS, someone calls from the doorway at the back of the cargo hold - leading to the engine room. Listening on the scanner, Mercy and Zach recognise it as the voice of their ship's apprentice engineer, Willard Harvey. Willard peeks out from the engineering doorway and, once he's sure the coast is clear, joins Andrew to enter the TARDIS.

Once they're all gathered inside, Malik once again demands to know what's going on. Mercy and Zach are still reticent about talking, but Willard is only too happy to explain: while this ship is primarily a free trade and passenger vessel, the senior members of the crew had a side job going on. Under contract from a mysterious corporate benefactor, they had been using time scoop technology provided by their employer - which is far beyond 51st century time travel capability - to kidnap people from different time periods and mindwipe them for use as slave labor.

Zach and Mercy are shocked, and Mercy turns to him to ask how he knows this. He wasn't a senior crew member, he wasn't in the loop. He replies, 'No, I wasn't.' And then he stabs her with a screwdriver he had been concealing. Aru knocks him out with her stun gun. At this point, Malik is all for just disabling the time scoop and leaving the crew to their fate, but Mercy protests that they still have passengers aboard, hiding in their quarters, who are innocent in all this. She begs them to save the ship for their sake, if not the remaining crew. Robyn and Pan try to save her, but she bleeds out and soon dies. They figure out that Willard has cybernetic brain implants, and WARDEN must have been controlling him through those. They now know why WARDEN believes the crew must be punished, but not how the ship's AI became WARDEN.

Regardless, they need to regain control of the ship, and to do that they must make their way to the bridge, where Robyn can access the AI core and perform a system reboot. The group leaves the TARDIS and makes their way up to the command deck, where they are confronted by another Avatroid controlled by WARDEN. WARDEN appeals to Andrew to not let them do what it knows they intend, because if they do he will never be whole. Andrew doesn't understand, but Robyn works something out: WARDEN is an anagram of Andrew. When Andrew was being mindwiped, he must have tried to use his technopsychic abilities to escape, but ended up transferring a large portion of his mind into the ship's computer. But the experience must have been so traumatic it drove the transferred persona insane. And under the circumstances, restoring his persona would be ill-advised at best, and likely impossible in any case.

Andrew uses his technokinetics to fry the Avatroid's CPU and clear a path for the group, choosing to sacrifice the slightest chance of restoring his own identity in order to save the ship, its crew, and its passengers. Robyn races ahead into the AI core on the bridge and the group barricade themselves inside the bridge as Avatroids converge on their position. Robyn initiates the system restore and the Avatroids stop dead. The system reboots, and the ship's AI expresses its confusion as to what has transpired. The crisis is over.

Afterwards, they check the mind-wipe system, but it seems that the crew were under orders by their employer to completely erase Aru's memories and retain no backups, leaving Aru with no identity and no place to go. Except perhaps with the TARDIS crew. As they prepare to leave in the TARDIS, having convinced the crew to turn themselves into the authorities, they are approached by one of the passengers, Thomas Webb. Webb identifies himself as an undercover agent for the Temporal Security Agency investigating reports of the Warui Ōkami's temporal slave trade operation. It's unfortunate that he wasn't able to identify the ship's mysterious employer, but he's grateful for their efforts in resolving the crisis. He then recognises the TARDIS and is shocked, asking if the Doctor is with them. They say no, and he checks his wrist as if for a watch - but it's bare - then asks them to wait right there and runs off. Maggie sees a vision of a woman in a suit and hat looking rather angry at someone - most likely one of them - from across a desk in a police-style interrogation room. Worried by this, they decide to step into the TARDIS and leave. Andrew tries to join them but is left behind as the TARDIS dematerialises...

NEXT TIME...
A janitor glances over at a mirror in a public toilet, to see a little girl banging her fists against it from the other side, with nobody there to cast that reflection.
A UNIT mobile command centre is parked outside an old-fashioned private school; a sign declares it to be Farrington Boarding School.
The Exiles, headed by Robyn, are escorted by UNIT troops to a man in a UNIT officer's uniform: "So! You're the geek they sent down to lead the investigation, eh? Well, come on in..."
We cut to the janitor from before, stares in horror as cracks spontaneously form on his reflection - but not the mirror itself - before his very eyes. "...see if you can crack this one..."
Cut to the girl in the mirror, she looks back over her shoulder, looks back through the mirror and screams: "Doctooooooooooooooor!"

Next Episode: 'The Shattered Reflections'

[Eternally Lost Zeppo]

THE CAST
Aru (played by Clara Owen): An amnesiac girl in her late teens with psychic powers and an inexplicable fear and distrust of men. Aru is stick figure thin and tall, with short spiky dark brown hair, ocean blue eyes and wears a black bodysuit with bright blue inlays, and has a laser gun holstered in her chunky belt.
Robyn Dalton (played by Heather W): A UNIT researcher for the top-secret Project Broadsword, Robyn is haunted by a shameful past, but her history gives her knowledge and expertise that make her a valuable asset to UNIT. She is dark eyed and has dark hair cut in a bob style with green or blue highlights depending on her mood. (Kinda like Claudia from Warehouse 13.)
Malik (played by Luke): A Silurian from a time when his species' reign on Earth, displaced in time by the Cardiff Rift, Malik has been living in a TMNT-style pad in the sewers of the Welsh capital, feeding on criminals and becoming the subject of urban legend, the 'Lizard Man of Cardiff'. He wears a hessian cloak and cowl to hide his features when he walks among the apes that have taken over his homeworld.
Pan (played by Maggie): A student of Archimedes, and the real inventor of Archimedes' screw and the fabled 'heat ray'. Possesses technological knowledge beyond his time, owing to his precognitive abilities. Pan is tall and has messy 'mad scientist' hair, dressed in a Grecian tunic and sandals.

Guest Starring
Anith - Mysterious woman who can fly the TARDIS (somewhat), regular since episode 1.01.
Sister of Mine - Returning character from Doctor Who: 'Human Nature/The Family of Blood'.

EPISODE 1.03: 'The Shattered Reflections'
Mr Whitlaw, caretaker at Farringham Boarding School, is polishing the school's trophy cabinet during the night shift when he hears a strange noise. Assuming it's one of the students out of bed, he follows the noise to the gents' bathroom, where he spots a red balloon floating over the cubicle in the mirror. He pushes the door open, but there's nothing there. The balloon is gone. He looks back at the mirror, and the balloon is still there. A little girl is staring at him from inside the mirror, pounding it with her fists and yelling. His reflection in the mirror begins to splinter, a strange silvery crack forms over his face from his eye. He screams, and turns to run, not seeing that his reflection has not moved. It instead turns its head towards the little girl and grins, beginning to shamble toward her as she screams: "Doctoooooooooooorrrr!"

Elsewhere in time and space, Pan concludes a long scream of psychic agony after attuning himself to the TARDIS via the telepathic circuits. Anith pries his fingers away from the telepathic interface pad, muttering that she could have handled the attuning procedure much more smoothly. From the hammock he has set up in a corner of the console room, Mal retorts that there's no way they were going to trust her to be linked with the TARDIS. She huffs and stalks away, hiding a wounded expression. She's stopped in her tracks when a bell - the cloister bell - starts tolling throughout the TARDIS. Recognising this as a bad sign, Anith races over to the console, but the room shudders violently and knocks her and everyone else to the floor as the TARDIS is hurled through the time vortex and then, with a crash, is still.

Aru and Robyn step outside to find out where they've landed. The TARDIS is in the middle of a large lawn outside the Farringham Boarding School, surrounded by people in military outfits who Robyn recognises as UNIT forces. Partially due to her blagging, they believe her to be the scientific advisor who was supposed to be coming in, and are lead to the head of the project - an older man with wispy blonde hair and mighty sideburns. He introduces himself as Captain Baker.

Baker isn't pleased to see the group of "scientific advisors" - and especially not Mal, who they explain is an 'external consultant' - on his crime scene, and continually refers to them as geeks as they find out the full story from him: over the past few weeks, people have noted their reflections moving independently of their bodies, before vanishing completely. So far no-one has been hurt, but they considered it a good idea to bring in UNIT to control the situation.

Robyn shoos them away and she and Pan manage to concoct a hypothesis: there is a split in the dimensions between this one and the one on the other side of the mirror, and something is trying to squeeze through. They concoct a device - the Dimensional Pathfinder - to open the breach and enter the other dimension in an attempt to commune with it. They fire the device at the offending bathroom mirror, and jump through the tear. As they're jumping in, they see their reflections come out to replace them.

They find themselves on the other side of the mirror, where everything is backwards. However, behind them the mirror begins to crack. Mal, who was reluctant to come through the mirror in the first place, tries to run back through the mirror before it splinters completely, but his hand begins to crack when it comes into contact with the shattered glass. The crack on his hand slowly begins to spread up his arm, glowing ominously - however they manage to use the Pathfinder and other jiggery-pokery to stem the damage and stop it from escalating.

They find the little girl and chase her, finding her eventually hiding in a closet. She claims to be Daughter of Mine, of the Family of Blood, and she has been trapped in the mirror. She claims that the Doctor "left her there to guard this dimension", and that she has not been able to contact him about this threat. They distrust her immediately, but are partially convinced by her story; mainly due to the fact that she seems terrified by the splintering glass and the crack in Mal's hand. When Mal asks to clarify that this thing that's happening isn't her doing, she screams and points over his shoulder at what she says is the real threat.

They turn and see two people approaching. They're both riddled with cracks, spreading throughout their entire bodies like spider web. One of them is the reflection of the caretaker. The Exiles bunch together and ask who they are. They identify themselves as the Shattering. They have squeezed through into the mirror dimension, and are attempting to use the reflections of humans as bodies. Robyn attempts to bluff them out by threatening to destroy them with the Pathfinder, before she blows it up by accident, leaving them with no way out of the mirror dimension.

The Shattering chase the party, but Aru trips them up with a telekinetic shock-blast and the Exiles retreat into a sports hall. Mal locks the door on them (with the help of a trusty mop), but now they're trapped and the only exit has the Shattering rattling at the door. Utilising a trampoline, Pan volunteers to be bait. He stands at one end of the court and everyone else hides by the door. They pull the mop out and the Shattering run for Pan as everyone else escapes. Pan jumps over the Shattering and follows the rest of the team out of the door. They mop the door shut again.

They run off down the corridor, leaving the Shattering locked in the sports hall, and seek out a science lab to construct a replacement for the Pathfinder. Pan and Robyn enter the room first, but the others are still outside the door when it slams shut and locks them out. The others are left banging uselessly on the door while Pan andRobyn find they're not alone in the room; there's a man wearing a lab coat with a splintering crack lining his skin, and he's shambling towards them...

TO BE CONTINUED!

NEXT TIME...
Shattered Reflections bang on mirrors from the mirror side...
On the real world side, UNIT troops aim their rifles nervously at a tarp covering on of the mirrors in the school, as the banging from the other side sends vibrations through the mirror, loosening the tarp...
A hoard of Shattered Reflections shamble down a hallway in the mirror version of the school...
A shining crack lines the surface of a wall in the school hallway.
"I've seen this before..." Robyn whispers...
"So?" Malik demands, "What do we do about it?"
Robyn turns to him, her expression grave...

Next Episode: 'A Prison of Mirrors'

[Eternally Lost Zeppo]

THE CAST
Aru (played by Clara Owen, absent): An amnesiac girl in her late teens with psychic powers and an inexplicable fear and distrust of men. Aru is stick figure thin and tall, with short spiky dark brown hair, ocean blue eyes and wears a black bodysuit with bright blue inlays, and has a laser gun holstered in her chunky belt.
Robyn Dalton (played by Heather W): A UNIT researcher for the top-secret Project Broadsword, Robyn is haunted by a shameful past, but her history gives her knowledge and expertise that make her a valuable asset to UNIT. She is dark eyed and has dark hair cut in a bob style with green or blue highlights depending on her mood. (Kinda like Claudia from Warehouse 13.)
Malik (played by Luke): A Silurian from a time when his species' reign on Earth, displaced in time by the Cardiff Rift, Malik has been living in a TMNT-style pad in the sewers of the Welsh capital, feeding on criminals and becoming the subject of urban legend, the 'Lizard Man of Cardiff'. He wears a hessian cloak and cowl to hide his features when he walks among the apes that have taken over his homeworld.
Pan (played by Maggie): A student of Archimedes, and the real inventor of Archimedes' screw and the fabled 'heat ray'. Possesses technological knowledge beyond his time, owing to his precognitive abilities. Pan is tall and has messy 'mad scientist' hair, dressed in a Grecian tunic and sandals.

Guest Starring
Anith - Mysterious woman who can fly the TARDIS (somewhat), regular since episode 1.01.
Captain Baker - UNIT field ops commander.
Sister of Mine - Returning character from Doctor Who: 'Human Nature/The Family of Blood'.

EPISODE 1.04: 'A Prison of Mirrors'
Reflections infected by the Shattering throw themselves against the shattered mirror in the boys' toilet of the mirror version of Farringham Boarding School. In our dimension, the tarp covering the mirror in the staff toilet shudders as the impact is felt from the other side. Captain Baker stands behind a team of UNIT troops with rifles ready for anything that might come through. Two UNIT soldiers march along a corridor elsewhere. Between them are a pair of scientists, Malcolm Taylor and his intern, Ingrid Osgood. They're marched into the staff toilet, where Captain Baker turns and asks who this pair are. When Malcolm introduces himself as the scientific advisor from UNIT, Baker points a finger and asks: 'Then who the bloody hell are they?'
He's pointing at the frozen, translucent reflections of Robyn, Mal, Pan, Aru and Anith standing before the covered up mirror, through which they entered the mirror dimension.

Meanwhile, back in the mirror dimension, Robyn picks out a chemical from the supply cupboard in the science room and throws it at the advancing Shattered Reflection and Pan immediately follows up by throwing one of his balls of Greek fire at it, which causes the chemical to violently combust, setting the cracks along the Shatterling's body alight and causing it to writhe in agony. Soon afterwards, Mal busts down the door with a table from one of the other rooms, and enters alongside Anith who blasts the Shatterling with her staff, weakening it a little more, allowing Mal to finish it off with a swing of his sword.

They don't have a lot of time before more Shatterlings come after them, so Robyn grabs all the gear she needs to build a new Dimensional Pathfinder and the Exiles retreat and find another room to hide in. It's at this point that they notice Sister of Mine has run off in the midst of all the excitement. Robyn quickly cobbles together a new Pathfinder, and they use it to track down the point where the Shattering entered this dimension from, finding a spiderweb of dark cracks leading off into different parts of the school from one massive glowing crack (similar to, but not exactly like the one you're probably thinking of) in one of the hallways. Anith seems to know what it is, making an oblique statement about it being 'a scar from the War', and Robyn mentions she has encountered something like this before: it's a breach in the universe, and she knows how to close it.

The last time she saw this, the Doctor stepped in to resolve it. Anything that has crossed the Void between universes is saturated in a special background radiation unique to the Void. If they use the Pathfinder to widen the breach and reverse it, anything carrying that background radiation will be sucked through it into the abyss, and the breach will eventually seal itself. The only problem is, all of them crossed the Void when they fell through it and arrived on the Liminus. The only person who might be safe is Aru, but none of them knows anything about her past and they don't know for sure she's never crossed the Void. But one of them will have to remain in the mirror dimension with the Pathfinder after sending the others back through, in order to return to the breach and open it, so that the Shattering will be sucked back through it.

After discussing the problem, they decide not to take the chance with Aru. Instead, they try to track down Daughter of Mine to convince her to seal the breach for them. They head for the Headmaster's Office to find the controls for the school's PA system, and use it to make an offer to Sister of Mine: if she helps them seal the breach, they'll put in a good word for her with the Doctor when they find him, maybe convince him to set her free. They arrange a meeting point and race straight there. A crack rides along the hallways behind them, only stopping after Pan uses his Greek fire and some of the chemical found in the science lab to set fire to the floor. The crack is set alight and stops dead, leaving them to run onwards. Sister of Mine shows up at the rendezvous, and grudgingly agrees to their terms, taking the Pathfinder - which has been rigged so it can only be used to seal the breach after they've returned to their dimension - and opening a doorway for them through a mirror which is not currently being assailed by the Shatterlings.

As they're passing through the mirror, their discarded reflections in the staff room vanish. Upon passing through, the dormant crack in Mal's hand reacts with his reflection, causing Mal to 'shatter' briefly on his way out, but he reforms in one piece on the other side, collapsing from the pain. As they emerge, they are held at gunpoint by UNIT troops. Sister of Mine gives them a solemn nod, before turning away and setting off to fulfil her end of the deal.

Sister of Mine races through the corridors, dodging Shatterlings and running from them as they chase her. Wearing the body of a little girl has its advantages. She reaches the breach and aims the Pathfinder at it, pushing herself back against the opposite wall. The breach opens wide, and Sister of Mine looks away from the bright light that pours forth. An eerie wind catches her hair, but otherwise she's untouched by it. All of the Shatterlings, however, are pulled from throughout the mirror school and sucked through the breach. The cracks in different parts of the mirror realm also recede through from where they've snaked throughout the school and vanish back through the breach.

The Exiles are brought into the staff toilet and about to get the third degree from Baker, when the mirror behind him suddenly repairs itself. Robyn tells him his men will probably report similar from throughout the school. He radios to check. His men do indeed report that the other affected mirrors are also repairing themselves. As the last of the Shattering and its creatures is pulled through, the breach closes itself and the light and wind die out. Sister of Mine slides down the wall and hugs her knees, alone once again in her prison of mirrors.

With the situation resolved, and the Exiles seemingly to thank for it, Baker decides to be lenient and tell them he'll let them go...this time. Before they leave, Robyn runs into Malcolm and - recognising him as one of her former co-workers - hugs him. While pleasantly flustered by Robyn hugging her, Malcolm is somewhat confused and asks: 'Have we met?"
Robyn is distressed by this, because she and Malcolm worked together for at least a year, and not all that long ago. How can he not remember her? Aru reads his mind, but there's no sign that his memory has been altered. The only explanation the Exiles can think of is that Robyn has somehow been erased from the timeline. She and the other Exiles leave, with Robyn quite unnerved by the possibility that her past has somehow been altered.

As they fly away in the TARDIS, Pan has a worrying vision of himself fighting Mal, possibly to the death. And as Mal is looking elsewhere, his own face is reflected in one of the shiny pillars of the TARDIS console room as it turns and laughs malevolently...

NEXT TIME...
The Exiles are on the run from something in what appears to be a castle, stopping in their tracks as their find the TARDIS where they parked it, surrounded by a holographic cordon line, and a woman in a suit and fedora is leaning with her back against it, arms folded as she locks eyes with the Exiles: 'We need to talk.'
A futuristic command centre, with a similar layout to the Torchwood hub...
A uniformed officer listens to a transmission over his headset: 'This-kzzt-Tartarus Base--something--coming out--"
A man in a WW2 greatcoat turns and greets the Exiles, specifically Robyn: 'Hello! Captain Jack Harkness. And who are you?"
Malik looks out a window at what appears to be a storm of light, looks down, and mutters: 'I'm so sick of black holes already.'

Next Episode: 'Don't Look Down'

[Eternally Lost Zeppo]

THE CAST
Robyn Dalton (played by Heather W): A UNIT researcher for the top-secret Project Broadsword, Robyn is haunted by a shameful past, but her history gives her knowledge and expertise that make her a valuable asset to UNIT. She is dark eyed and has dark hair cut in a bob style with green or blue highlights depending on her mood. (Kinda like Claudia from Warehouse 13.)
Howard Phillips (played by Alex H): A fiercely loyal, by-the-book agent for the Temporal Security Agency.
Malik (played by Luke): A Silurian from a time when his species' reign on Earth, displaced in time by the Cardiff Rift, Malik has been living in a TMNT-style pad in the sewers of the Welsh capital, feeding on criminals and becoming the subject of urban legend, the 'Lizard Man of Cardiff'. He wears a hessian cloak and cowl to hide his features when he walks among the apes that have taken over his homeworld.
Pan (played by Maggie): A student of Archimedes, and the real inventor of Archimedes' screw and the fabled 'heat ray'. Possesses technological knowledge beyond his time, owing to his precognitive abilities. Pan is tall and has messy 'mad scientist' hair, dressed in a Grecian tunic and sandals.
Sister Ian (played by Nikki): A former Sister of Plenitude who has joined the Temporal Security Agency as their chief medical officer in order to atone for her part in the Flesh/New Human experiments on New Earth.

Guest Starring
Anith - Mysterious woman who can pilot the TARDIS. Regular since episode one.
Colonel Smith - Commander of the Temporal Security Agency.
Captain Jack Harkness - Rogue Time Agent.

EPISODE 1.05: 'Don't Look Down'
The episode starts with the Exiles chained to a wall in the dungeons of the Zerothan Empire. The Zerothans are essentially dragons, and the Exiles are locked up awaiting execution because Mal tickled a sleeping dragon while trying to steal a gold coin from it. Aru breaks them and another Zerothan prisoner out using her telekinesis, and a guard pushes in. Mal stuns him with his tongue attack and they flee down the hall. After getting their stuff back from a guard room, they find the TARDIS - but it's cordoned off with a series of rods projecting holographic 'crime scene-style tape'. A woman is standing there in a suit and fedora, arms folded, leaning back on the TARDIS. She introduces herself as Colonel Jenny Smith of the Temporal Security Agency. Her people are looking for the Doctor too, and she asks the Exiles to assist them. The Exiles are suspicious, but she chaps the TARDIS' doors, and it opens for her. When Robyn asks how many hearts she has, she smiles and replies: 'Two.'

The Exiles step inside the cordon and Jenny speaks into a device on her wrist: "Six to beam up." She grins, saying she's always wanted to say that, as a beam of light picks up the group and the TARDIS, and they arrive on a teleporter style pad in the middle of a large futuristic command centre. Robyn turns around and points out that there should be seven of them.

Back in the corridor they were in before, Mal is still standing there eyes wide as a Zerothan pokes its head round a corner. It rears its head to shoot a jet of flame..

"Sorry, we missed one." Jenny says.

The beam of light picks Mal up just as the fire rips down the hall - he lands among them in a beam of light, looking a little bit shaken, singed and angered at Jenny because she almost got him killed. She tells him to settle down, he is still alive, after all. Upon arrival, all of them are given a quick medical scan by Sister Ian - a former Sister of Plenitude, working with the TSA as their chief medical officer - who detects a retrovirus at work in Aru's DNA, killing her slowly. In order to buy time to find a cure, Sister Ian has Aru placed in cryostasis, much to the Exiles' horror.

After they've had time to recover from this emotional blow, Jenny escorts the Exiles to a briefing room, where she'll be able to tell them what they know about the current situation. As she does, one of the agents manning a workstation as they pass by, Howard Phillips, is analysing a signal that he's picking up from one of their inter-temporal comms buoys: 'This-kzzt-Tartarus Base--something--coming out--"

She explains that there are fixed points in time; some are particular places, some are specific moments in history, and some are objects or people. Everything else is in flux and can be altered, but these fixed points must always stand. Changing them is, at best, impossible; at worst, it can damage the fabric of reality. The Doctor is one such Temporal Nexus Point, and he is not simply missing; beyond a certain point in his Eleventh incarnation he has been removed completely from the timeline. This has left gaps in the timestream, through which some unfortunate people have been displaced in time and space - like the Exiles were. That's not the worst of it though. The Doctor's removal from the timeline has created tears in the skin of the universe itself, and things have been entering our universe from outside it through these tears. These 'reality incursions' are growing more frequent, and many of the objects or beings that come through are dangerous or even hostile.

When the Exiles ask what they can do to help, Jenny explains that they need to repair the damage that's been done to the timestream, which means finding out what happened to the Doctor and, if possible, bringing him back. Right now, their best lead on the Doctor's fate is his TARDIS, which the Exiles have been travelling in. Before she can explain further, Phillips shows up. Jenny is annoyed at the interruption, but lets Phillips explain himself. Phillips tells her that they've received a transmission from Tartarus Base; it's a research station in their own future that's positioned on the event horizon of a black hole. Their distress signal claims that something is emerging from the black hole, and it's going to smash through the station on it way out.

Jenny is disturbed by this news - since nothing comes out of a black hole - and says they'll need to send a team out to rescue the station personnel and investigate this anomaly. When Phillips points out vortex manipulators are too inaccurate to risk the trip and they have no craft that can get anywhere near that close to a black hole safely, Jenny agrees; they don't have a ship that can make the trip...but the Exiles do. She asks them if they'll respond to the distress signal, and they agree. Jenny assigns Phillips as TSA liason, and calls Sister Ian to have her accompany them and offer medical aid.

The Exiles, Phillips and sister Ian fly out to Tartarus base. It's a rough and bumpy ride, but they make it to the station. Looking out a window into the pitch black sphere below them, surrounded by a maelstrom of light, Mal notes that he's getting rather sick of black holes. They head for the command centre to introduce themselves, but when they arrive the commanding officer tells them that they already have a time agent aboard. Enter Captain Jack Harkness, who greets the Exiles and co, flirting shamelessly with Robyn and several others as he does.

Together with the captain, Anith and Sister Ian head out to go round up the injured, while the others remain behind, with Robyn attempting to analyse the readings on whatever is coming out of the black hole. She intercepts a transmission coming from the object, which seems to be of immense size: 'Kzzt--Adar--kzzt--'Kraitha--kzzt--Anith--kzzt--surrender--kzzt--C'Toni--kzzt--will destroy--kzzt--if we must--kzzt--"
She cleans up the signal and it goes as follows: 'This is Prince Adar, prince regent of A'Kraitha, addressing Princess Anith. You must surrender the Staff of C'Toni to us. If you do not, we will destroy you if we must."

Around the same time, Pan starts getting a vision: Sister Ian is struck from behind by a blast of blue-white energy...as she falls forward, Captain Jack stands behind her, lowering the blaster pistol in his hand...Anith whirls around, raising her staff...Captain Jack draws his Webley...the two of them take aim at the same moment...

And then they all hear the gunshot echo down the station corridor. They race through the corridors to find Sister Ian out cold, Anith lying on the floor clutching the bleeding gunshot wound in her chest. Her staff is gone, Captain Harkness took it. Mal and Pan continue running down the corridor, chasing after Harkness, who is keying in coordinates on his vortex manipulator. Pan shoots Jack with his slingshot and misses. Mal shoots his venomous tongue out and hits Jack in the neck. Jack shrugs it off, rubbing his neck as he runs, yelling: 'At least buy me dinner first!'
A trickle of silvery blood runs from the wound on his neck; this can't be the real Jack Harkness...he's not human. Before they can attack him again, Jack teleports away in a burst of light, out of their reach. And the station starts to shudder violently around them...

TO BE CONTINUED...

NEXT TIME...
The huge two frontal prongs of a massive starship begin pushing out of the black hole, cleaving through the station as it emerges...
"It was the day my past caught up with me..." Anith says in voiceover.
The moment from Pan's vision: Mal is charging at Pan with his sword raised, Pan has his Greek fire ready to throw at Mal.
"A day of betrayal..." Mal says, also in voiceover.
"...and loss..." Pan adds.
A man in futuristic knight-like armour turns in the middle of an ornately decorated starship's bridge, Anith's staff held in his hand...
"It was the end of peace..." Robyn says.
The TARDIS spins away from the massive dreadnought still not completely free of the black hole, which fires a brilliant beam of white light at the spinning blue box...
Fade to white as Howard says... "...and the beginning of war..."

The Season Finale: 'The Legacy of A'Kraitha'

[Eternally Lost Zeppo]

Took me a while to get this write-up done for last season's finale for our Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space campaign. There are almost certainly aspects of the play session I have forgotten (for example, I know Malik manages to talk himself out of the tight spot he winds up in later on in the session, but I forget how), and some embellishments. As for the session itself - and, in all honesty, the season as a whole - it is very Anith-centred, which is a bad thing because Anith is an NPC. Happily though, that becomes much less of a problem after this session, for reasons which will become apparent by the end...

THE CAST
Robyn Dalton (played by Heather W): A UNIT researcher for the top-secret Project Broadsword, Robyn is haunted by a shameful past, but her history gives her knowledge and expertise that make her a valuable asset to UNIT. She is dark eyed and has dark hair cut in a bob style with green or blue highlights depending on her mood. (Kinda like Claudia from Warehouse 13.)

Howard Phillips (played by Alex H): A fiercely loyal, by-the-book agent for the Temporal Security Agency.

Malik (played by Luke): A Silurian from a time when his species' reign on Earth, displaced in time by the Cardiff Rift, Malik has been living in a TMNT-style pad in the sewers of the Welsh capital, feeding on criminals and becoming the subject of urban legend, the 'Lizard Man of Cardiff'. He wears a hessian cloak and cowl to hide his features when he walks among the apes that have taken over his homeworld.

Pan (played by Maggie): A student of Archimedes, and the real inventor of Archimedes' screw and the fabled 'heat ray'. Possesses technological knowledge beyond his time, owing to his precognitive abilities. Pan is tall and has messy 'mad scientist' hair, dressed in a Grecian tunic and sandals.

Sister Ian (played by Heather W, standing in for Nikki): A former Sister of Plenitude who has joined the Temporal Security Agency as their chief medical officer in order to atone for her part in the Flesh/New Human experiments on New Earth.

Guest Starring
Anith - Mysterious woman who can fly the TARDIS. Regular since episode one.
Captain Jack Harkness - Nanite-cloned imposter.
Prince Adar - Commander of the White Star of A'Kraitha.

EPISODE 1.06: 'The Legacy of A'Kraitha'
As the research station begins to tear apart all around them, due to distortions caused by the object coming through the black hole, the Exiles hurriedly evacuate everyone still on board the station into the TARDIS, while Robyn uses Howard's vortex manipulator to track the co-ordinates Captain Harkness teleported to. She cuts things a bit close, being the last person left on board, and almost doesn't make it out in time. Luckily, the TARDIS gang have her back. The TARDIS materialises in front of her as the artificial gravity starts to go a bit weird, and she jumps off the wall - which has become the 'floor' - and in through the TARDIS doors. They briefly materialize at the Temporal Security Agency to drop off the rescued researchers, and Robyn tells them that the co-ordinates Harkness teleported to lead to whatever is coming out of the black hole of Tartarus...

ROLL TITLES!

The Exiles debate whether they should bother going after Harkness, but Anith insists that they must retrieve the staff. She reveals that the staff is a part of a key to a powerful artefact, known as the Key to Infinity. This Key would grant terrible power over reality to whoever assembles it, so the pieces of it were scattered throughout the multiverse and assigned guardians. According to legend, the A'Kraithan royal family were entrusted with the Staff by the goddess C'Toni, hence its name: the Staff of C'Toni. Even on its own, the Staff is a dangerously powerful artifact that can not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.

Reluctantly, our heroes set off in the TARDIS and take a bumpy trip through the black hole as they trace Harkness' coordinates, materialising inside what appears to be a starship of enormous size. The interior walls are crafted from a metal not unlike gold in appearance, and bear signs in strange script which the TARDIS struggles to translate. However, Anith recognises it as the language of her own people, and from the signs she realises that it is the Royal Fleet's flagship, the White Star of A'Kraitha. The ship was presumed destroyed with all hands lost, including her brother, Prince Adar.

Malik grows impatient with all this chatter, and seems more irritable than usual. With Anith still wounded from the gunshot, they find an old wheelchair - the very same one used by the Fifth Doctor during his post-regenerative phase - and seat her in it before setting off to explore the ship.

It isn't long before they run afoul of a guard patrol accompanied by Harkness, who is no longer carrying the staff. Harkness tells the guards his work here is done, and he'll leave the rest to them, before teleporting out with his vortex manipulator. Anith attempts to use her status to talk them down, but when it becomes clear they will not follow her orders and are preparing to fire on the Exiles, the others must come up with a means of escape. Luckily, Howard is able to use his sonic blaster to make a hole in the floor, which they all retreat through. Mal lands less than gracefully and doesn't get out the way before Anith rolls her wheelchair over the hole, landing on top of him.

This does little to improve his increasingly volatile temper, even less so when she seems to have mysteriously recovered from the gunshot wound and therefore no longer needs the wheelchair. When questioned as to how she healed herself, she says she doesn't know. Unlike the Time Lords, her race has no regenerative capabilites to explain this sudden recovery. They are interrupted by an announcement broadcast over the ship's communications network, from Anith's brother, Prince Adar. He orders Anith and her companions to surrender peacefully and promises no harm will come to them. Anith is adamant that this cannot be her brother, he is either an imposter or possessed, but one way or the other she is certain he has become a pawn of the Archivists.

The Archivists are a swarm of intelligent machines that consume - or 'archive' - entire civilisations and replicate them as soldiers to further their expansion. The Archivists claim to seek the preservation of all that is precious in reality, but their method for doing so leaves something to be desired.

The Exiles make their way back to the TARDIS, evading guard patrols along the way, and once inside they decide to confront Adar head on. They materialize on the bridge and attempt to negotiate with Prince Adar, but Adar is not open to negotiation. He has the Staff in hand, and soon his ship will exit the black hole and he will begin his conquest of this universe in the Archivists' name. He would like Anith to join him. She seems conflicted for a moment, but refuses. Malik taunts Adar, who decides to teach the lizard some manners. He slams the staff into the floor. In an instant he is in front of Malik and the two of them fight. Malik gains the upper hand and is consumed with bloodlust as cracks appear on his neck and face. Before anyone can stop him, he stabs Adar through the chest. The fallen prince bleeds silver from his wound. The crew, busy flying the ship out of the black hole, are unable to assist.

Pan faces off against Malik, who seems beyond reason and ready to kill them all, starting with him. Pan readies Greek fire as Mal raises his sword. But at the last moment, Malik pulls himself together and stops, confused as to what is going on. They grab the staff and flee the bridge before the remaining crew can stop them, dematerialising.

As they are leaving, Anith clutches her head. She's hearing voices; the voices of the Archivist collective. Robyn determines that the bullet Harkness shot her with must have been composed of nanites, which repaired the wound and then went on to infiltrate her body. They are wondering how much damage the nanites can repair when the TARDIS is caught in a tractor beam while making its escape from the White Star, which is now poking through the black hole, debris from the station falling into the black hole around it. Adar appears on their viewscreen, ordering them to return the staff or be destroyed.

Meanwhile, both Anith and Malik are taken to the Zero Room where they are tied up to keep them from harming the rest of the crew. Anith pleads with them to let her do one last thing: send the Staff away so that Adar can't get his hands on it. They're sceptical, but eventually Anith convinces them to untie her and hand her the staff. She has a battle of wills, encouraged by the Exiles, and just manages to reset the staff's security settings and sets it to teleport away to an unknown location in space and time. Then she succumbs to the nanites, and is possessed by the Archivist collective. The Exiles tie her up and leave her locked in the Zero Room along with Malik.

Adar is infuriated when he learns that the Staff has been sent away, but is determined to capture the Exiles and 'archive' them all the same. Robyn and Pan work together with Howard to break the TARDIS free of the White Star's tractor beam and escape into the vortex, leaving the White Star to slowly drag itself out of the black hole...

TO BE CONTINUED...

The Exiles Of Time will return in 'The Retcon Protocol'

Note: Although I am writing them as I go, I'll be holding off on posting the actual play reports for season two until the season is over, since there is some stuff included from certain PCs' POV which is not known to all the other PCs or their players yet.