Christina glanced quickly at the young woman's attire as well as checking for a wedding ring. The young lady was dressed well, yet a bit conservatively. This was not the Lady of the House she surmised, more like a friend, niece or a charge.

"Yes. I am the Lady Christina de Souza, and guests," she said as she gestured to the others. "We are here to see the Lady Phryne Fisher on an extremely important matter. If you could announce us we would be much obliged."

The words and niceties just seemed to flow out of her, and for just a moment she reminded herself of her mom. A bit of her died inside just then realizing just how similar the two of them had become and she sighed inwardly. Then she just blinked it all away and smiled at the young woman, awaiting an answer.

Had these people looked like riffraff, Dot would have told them to go away and promptly shut the door. If there had been any trouble, Mr. Butler would have handled it.

"Pleased to meet you," Dot replied instead. "I am Dot, Miss Fisher's companion. Won't you please come in? Make yourself comfortable while I inform Miss Fisher that you are here. Would you care for some tea?"

She had no doubt that Lady de Souza was, indeed, the lady she claimed to be. In her short time with Phryne, she'd learned to look past appearances. She would never have thought Phryne a lady merely from appearance; she now knew, though, that Phryne was every bit a lady... perhaps not the fluff kind that most of the upper crust expected, but everything that a lady should be.

She at least saw some of that in Christina.

Dot showed them into the parlor, and told Mr. Butler to serve them some tea and crumpets with jam. She then went and told Phryne she had visitors. Phryne, in the kitchen, was reading through that children's book.

The Doctor gives a partial bow to Dot and says, "Thank you, I would love some."

As they are left in the parlour, he glances around, just taking in the details as he waits to meet this Lady.

"Thank you, I would love some as well. Cream and sugar please." Christina placed her bag down close to the hearth in the parlor. She looked around at all the furnishings and realized that there was money in this house. Fine china, decorative ornaments and just the right amount of tastefulness to bequeath prosperity. Definitely a woman's touch, not a trace that a man would live within the confines of these walls.

She sat. "Seems our Lady Fisher might not be attached, Doctor. But the furnishings, butler and opulence does give the impression of money. I wonder what she does for a living?"

"She doesn't do anything for a living," a woman says entering the parlor. "I am, however, a detective."

"Hello. I'm Phryne Fisher. To what do I owe this visit?"

Even as she talks, a butler comes in with a tray with tea service and sets it on the sideboard, then begins serving Christina, the Doctor and Alan.

The Doctor opens his mouth to say something, but when the Lady arrives, he turns to give a bow before sitting as well. "A detective, how wonderful! I half expected as much, given that Amelia turned to you for help. And the number on the door, which is a nice touch. Sherlock Holmes, a classic character, but an amateur compared to the detective he was based on."

He smiles as he takes a sip of tea, perhaps realizing he's getting sidetracked, and then says, "I'm the Doctor, and may I present Lady Christina de Souza and Alan Quartermain. We're trying to assist Amelia as well, and she said she had left a certain book in your care. We would like to look at this book, please."

20:33, Today: The (15th) Doctor rolled 15 using 2d6+10.  Presence + Convince + 2 for Charming.

(Well played off of my last words...very nice!)

It was almost like getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar...but Christina recovered quickly. She stood and extended a hand as she was introduced by the Doctor. "Enchante' What a beautiful home you have." She didn't have to say much more as the Doctor had everything well in hand; just as he usually did.

She sat back down and took the tea cup from the Butler adding a splash of milk and a lump of sugar. She stirred it gently with a small spoon that was provided and listened. She leaned a bit forward, arm on the armrest and crossed her legs.

"Pleased to meet you, Christina... may I call you Christina? You can call me Phryne. I really don't like standing on formalities," Miss Fisher replies.

"First impressions can be quite telling, don't you think? You do not strike me as one of those that subscribe to normal conventions. Neither am I. If I did, I'd grow old serving tea and gossiping with my peers, and, frankly, I don't believe I have any."

"Not that I like to brag, but I can fly a plane. Have you tried it?"

She then studies the Doctor, as if to ascertain whether he is being serious or trying to be provocative.

"Do you mean Auguste Dupin? Or perhaps you are referring to Monsieur Lecoq, or even Tabaret himself. Both Joseph Bell and Henry Littlejohn should also be considered. Personally, I prefer Maximillien Heller. Holmes is the only one that was a consulting detective... a term he himself coined. His approach wasn't solving crimes, unless his assistance was requested, but solving problems that baffled everyone else. He filled a niche--he did what police wouldn't and often couldn't do."

"Yes, Amelia's situation is... unusual--one of those cases that the police wouldn't touch as they are incapable of believing their own eyes."

"For the record, she did not entrust the book to my care--she gave it to me. She wanted it out of her house and out of her life. I have yet to figure out what the book means. I have examined it; to me, it is just a child's book of dubious merit. Sigmund Freud notwithstanding, I do not see anything within its pages that should provoke such concerns."

"However, you may examine it if you wish. I left it on the kitchen table."

She heads out of the room for a moment. Then you hear her voice from presumably the kitchen.

"Dot! Did you move the book I left on the table?" You can't hear a response.

She returns quickly.

"Mr. Butler. Do you know what has happened to the book I left on the table? Has anyone else been in here since this morning?"

When she gets negative answers from Mr. Butler, a partially angry, partially concerned look appears on her face.

"It is gone. Perhaps young Samuel came back for it. Quick! We must go to Amelia's. I do believe the game's afoot!" she finished with a bright smile.

She seemed ready to go out at a moment's notice and headed for the front door, grabbing only a scarf off of the hatrack near the entrance.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:39, Mon 14 Jan 2019.

Alan was baffled by this woman. He was being ignored by her, and yest she was chattering along at a mile a minute while saying precisely nothing. As she discovered her "book" missing though Alan wondered had she deliberately misplaced it not wanting the group to see it?

"Do you mind if I see where the book was last left?" He asked quickly.

As Phryne hustles out the front, Mr. Butler shows Alan to the kitchen and points to the table where the book had been resting.

Using his binoculars he scans the area checking for anything he might find, particularly any psychic residue.

In reply to Phryne Fisher (msg # 85):

The Doctor smiles, and says, "No, I'm referring to a Madame Vastra." No more details, as other topics demand attention.

When the book is revealed to be missing, he hops to his feet, grinning cheerfully as he follows after. He does, however, give a small nod to Adam, before they leave the house.

Not really back, just testing my throat and didn't want everybody to wait for me.

Alan scans the kitchen table with his binoculars and does pick up a faint psychic trace. It's fainter than what he found in Amelia's house.

The trace has a rectangular shape to it consistent with a smallish book. Oddly, though, he cannot detect any trace of how it got there or how it left. It almost certainly was moved via some sort of teleport, but he cannot find any trace of the method used.



Meanwhile, back at Amelia's house, Johnny has been entertaining Sam with wild west tales, most of which weren't true.

Suddenly, a small scream from the other room draws his attention. He rushes in with gun drawn to find Amelia staring with a horrified look at a table... at a book on the table. She points to it.


The Doctor and Christina have followed Phryne out of the house as she rushes back to Amelia's house.

The Doctor may look like an old man, but he has a lot of stamina — and a lot of practice in running. So he follows along after Phryne as easily as a young man.

He'd only slightly picked up on what the others had been talking about earlier. He was still learning 'Doctor-speak'.

He couldn't see anything threatening, certainly not the book. The Baltimore Kid had once told him about a place called Boston where they burned books. Perhaps this was one of those books that needed burning.

If it scared Amelia, though, then he was there to protect her. He drew his gun and pointed it at the book... just in case.

"Ma'am, I'm sure the Doctor will be here soon, but till he does, ah think it's best if you step away from the... book," he told Amelia as he cast another glance around the room in case he missed something.

He put his hand on Amelia's arm and guided her out of the room even as brandished his revolver at a threat he couldn't see.

It couldn't have been more than a few minutes before Phryne, the Doctor, Alan and Christina arrived back at the house.

Phryne doesn't stand on formality now, and just barges into the house. She doesn't seem fazed by finding Johnny pointing a gun at the book that's now sitting on the dining room table.

Following Phryne, Christina hurried through the door and saw the same sight that she did--Johnny pointing his gun at a book on the dining room table. In the opposite doorway into the room, she saw Amelia with Sam peeking out from behind her skirts.

"He's with us," she quickly told Phryne.

"So that's the evil book. What do we do with it, Doctor?"

She didn't think for one minute that there was anything supernatural about the book. In her experiences, 'supernatural' was just an excuse that people used to do something mean and nasty, perhaps even outright evil... as Christina had just said.

She circled around the table keeping an eye on the book. Almost subconsciously holding her breath because the only thing she could think of that would do what this book was supposedly doing was some sort of chemical or drug, she examined the book without touching it.

"That depends on what we find out about the book," Phryne answered.

"I suspect it is giving off some sort of chemical, so burning it will be the safest way of destroying the chemical. Of course, that doesn't explain how it got from my house to here."

"Sam, did you take the book from my kitchen table and bring it home?"

She directed her question at the little boy. She really didn't think that he'd done it, but that would have made things much simpler if he had.

He shook his head and said no.

That would seem to indicate that someone else was involved in this nefarious plot. Perhaps someone wanted Amelia and Sam to move out of the house, sell it maybe. But why?

Alan took out his binoculars... more like opera glasses... and directed it at the book.

He shouldn't have been surprised by what he saw, considering how much residual psychic impressions had been left behind wherever the book had been.

The book was like a glowing sphere of brilliant white light... as seen through the binoculars. He couldn't even see the book through the glow.

"That is not good," he muttered. "Big ball of psychi-whichy stuff!"

"Don't touch it," the Doctor says in answer to Christina, even if nobody seemed inclined to do so. To Phryne, he adds, "Good thinking, but I don't think so in this case. At least, no chemical made by a human."

Pulling his sonic screwdriver, he starts to scan the book as well. Not just looking for the psychic energy, but also at the composition of it. Looking for any clues that might indicate origin or purpose.

16:14, Today: The (15th) Doctor rolled 18 using 2d6+11.  Awareness + Science + 2 for sonic screwdriver.

The Doctor was able to determine that the book was made completely of psychic paper.

However, there was something else about it that made it more than just the sum of the parts. That much psychic paper together shouldn't have made that much of a psychic impression... BUT... it could have made it possible for something to... enter the book... something psychic and not quite real.

That would be the Babadook.

He didn't know what the Babadook was, though, which he needed to know in order to... well, defeat it. He was going to have to force it out of the book, something it now seemed reluctant to do. He doubted that destroying the book would do that, but maybe the Babadook didn't know that...



===== FOR KATRINA JONES =====


She'd been looking for awhile... looking for something that didn't exist. Except... she believed it did. She knew just about everything there was to know about... him. Well, everything that had been 'published'. She didn't for a minute think that it was ALL that there was. She wasn't even sure if all of it was real. Some of it was. Sort of. Maybe.

So, she should have known better. DID know better... when she saw the Weeping Angel. Don't blink. Get out of there but keeping watching it! When she turned to run away... there was the second one!

And then she was somewhere else... somewhen else. In the past.

Even as her present faded away, she caught a final glimpse of the two weeping angels shattering into a million pieces! It was a small consolation as the past faded into view.

She could now understand how disconcerting the 'trip' was to others who would have no idea what was happening.

Her 'new reality' was a room in a house. At least, it looked like the inside of a house. She was standing in a corner of what appeared to be a dining room. There were other people there... all staring at a book on the table.


===== FOR JENNY =====

There was an urge... a desire... a whim... call it what you will, but she was off looking for the Doctor again. Only this time, it was like he was calling to her. No, that wasn't quite right. She was definitely being drawn to him, though. She didn't quite have his experiences, so she wasn't sure, but she felt it was some sort of psychic tug.

She homed in on that tug using her time hopper... what was it, now? The seventh? The eighth? Sure, she'd cobbled it together purely by instinct, yet... there was something... missing. It kept burning out.

"What the? Where or rather when am I?"

Triney looked around for a moment as she fairly bounced with excitement. Weeping Angels! Real weeping angels and if they were real? That meant that she was right! She Was Right an He Was Real! She pulled a metal box off of a hook on her belt from under her lab coat. The box seemed sort of slap dash but it was covered in meters and gauges and dials. It would even go ding when there was stuff. She checked her device ignoring the others for the moment.

"Please tell me I caught the data from that temporal transfer!"

She looked at the others in the room finally. Maybe one of them could tell her where and when she was. Another thought did occur to her though. If she ever wanted to get home she would Have to find Him now. But now she had proof and she was so close now!

"I'm sorry could someone tell me where I am? Also the date please?"

If she did find The Doctor she would have to tell him about those angels exploding. She didn't think that was supposed to happen. The tiny american girl ran her hands through her disheveled hair. She looked much too thin but didn't seem to notice as she looked at each of them with her large eyes.

Johnny had sort of appointed himself as a bodyguard... or maybe watchdog was more accurate. In any case, the woman had materialized directly across the room from him... in the corner. Was there a significance to that?

On occasion, he still had to resist the urge to slap leather. He'd learned, though, that his six gun didn't always do much against the threats that the Doctor encountered. As innocuous as this one appeared, he sure hoped it wasn't one of the dangerous ones.

And then she spoke. It sounded like English, but with the TARDIS, one couldn't really be sure. She sounded a bit like he had when the time tunnel had scooped him up and took him somewhere... and somewhen else.

"Howdy, ma'am," he replied to her. "Ah don't rightly know the exact date, but the year is 1928, a bit ahead of mah time. And you are in a place called Australia... the city of Melbourne to be exact."

"Ah don't suppose you'd care to tell us how y'all got here?"

The Doctor had a tendency to answer a question with his own question, but Johnny had learned that it was because the Doctor's mind was already 5 or 6 steps ahead of them. Not that he necessarily knew what his companions were still trying to find out, but he'd already figured most of that out and skipped over it as unimportant.

The Doctor pockets his sonic screwdriver again, and then reaches into another pocket on his colourful suit, as his eyes flick for just a briefest of instants towards the new arrival.

She's new. Human? Time traveller. Accidental. Scientist? All of that goes through his mind in that instant. And then his attention is fully back on the book. He'll greet her once they are all safe.

"Babadook, or whoever you are!," the Doctor shouts, his voice suddenly angry. "Do you think you can just terrorize children and then hide away in psychic paper without being discovered?"


Then his hand snaps out of his pocket, holding… a chess piece. A knight, to be specific. Or, at least, what looks like one.

"Come out and face us or I will burn your book and you along with it!"

He flicks the top of the chess piece to ignite a small flame, and he holds it over the book.

02:37, Today: The (15th) Doctor rolled 18 using 2d6+13.  Resolve + Convince + 2 (Lie area-of-expertise).

Of course, all of this probably looks very strange to anybody who doesn't know him, with him shouting at a book.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 07:47, Wed 27 Feb 2019.

The timing is perhaps a little too good to be a coincidence, or the universe has a wonderful sense of the dramatic. Or both. Either way, when the Doctor declaims defiance to the book, of all things, there comes a loud crash from the room next door. It is accompanied by a voice - definitely female - apparently appearing half way through a loud yell. Not a scream, more of a whoop of anticipation, or to give oneself confidence.

The crash, however, sounds like it might be expensive.