J&L: Game, Sutekh & Match (3)

The Red Tavern

Ellie: "Right you are lads, two pale ales for the regulars, and a pot of tea for the visitor."

HGJ: "Ta, Ellie."

PGL: "Much obliged."

Doctor: "Molto Benne! Although, won't suppose you have any of those tiny biscuits?"

Ellie: "..."

Doctor: "Thought not. Ohh, there's a look that could melt steel..."

Ellie: "So, what did I miss?"

PGL: "The Doctor has just been informing us that Sutekh is an alien warlord with genocidal tendencies, and inspiration for the myth of the Egyptian gods."

HGJ: "And he was imprisoned here on Earth by dying race, by shackles he is currently attempting to shrug off."

Ellie: "So, business as usual then?"

Doctor: "Ellie Higson, you are brilliant, you know that? If I was looking for a companion, you'd be top of the list."

Ellie: "Appreciate the thought Doctor, but I've got my hands full looking after these two. "

HGJ: "The thing I fail to understand in all this is why the need for all the cloak and dagger mystery Doctor? Why use Ellie as a messenger and turn up at the eleventh hour?"

Doctor: "This is the earliest I could arrive, actually. Since Sutekh is trapped in a time corridor, his attempts to break free caused, ripples, in time. My TARDIS was unable to penetrate this time field until..."

PGL: "Until the Quantum Flux Generator interacted with the time corridor!"

Doctor: "Exactly, that shorted out the interference patterns, allowing me a brief window of temporal calm in which I could safely materialise. All I needed to do was land safely eighty years ago, and wait."

Ellie: "Wait for me to come stumbling along you mean."

Doctor: "I'm sorry Ellie. But you were already destined to be zapped by the angel. From my perspective outside the time stream it had already happened, so I just took advantage of a bad situation."

Ellie: "Suppose you did give me bed and board while I waited for time to catch up."

HGJ: "So how does that dagger fit into this sorry mess?"

Doctor: "Ah yes. The ceremonial dagger of Anubis. The jewel in its hilt is the same material as the Eye of Horus. A densely packed mimetic crystal structure, basically it can absorb a person's life energy. With enough sacrifices, Sutekh can build up enough energy to break free of his prison."

PGL: "And the damned thing fell through the portal straight to him. Along with Galvani."

Doctor: "Yeah... my grand plan did sort of require us to keep possession of the blade. Ah well, plan B it is."

HGJ: "Which is?"

Doctor: "Er, a work in progress, mostly."

HGJ: "Ah. Helpful."

Ellie: "So, Sutekh has everything he needs to break free, and we have no leads about anything."

Doctor: "There's always the Eye of Horus."

PGL: "Limited use Doctor. Sutekh possesses that."

Doctor: "No, the other eye. For all their power, Osirians were not very creative when it came to names. Eye of Horus refers to the soul crystal that Sutekh possesses, but also the mechanism which they used to dampen Sutekh's latent power."

HGJ: "Ruddy confusing if you ask me. So where is this other Eye located? In some perplexing Egyptian pyramid? So terrifying tomb teeming with terrible traps?"

Doctor: "In a manner of speaking. Except this pyramid is not in Egypt. It's on Mars."

PGL: "What?!"

HGJ: "Ellie, we're going to need a second round."