Zoe giggled. "Of course, and funny little man is he! Rather, he is still taller than me, but he sometimes so comical, with his little flute thing and his rumbled clothing. I was just starting to truly know him..."

She paused. "Wait a mo... Are you saying all of us, and not just the Brigadier and I, know him? Why goodness, I never saw any of you!"

"Oh... time lines!" Sarah sighed. "Well, you haven't met me yet, Brigadier, but I can assure you, a few years from now, we become very good friends! I spend a lot of time with the Doctor in his TARDIS. I think we all have, at some point, from what everyone is saying!"

She then tugged at her chains, and went immediately to take out her lipstick. She opened it, activated it, and began working to remove the shackles. "I've had quite enough of this, thank you very much! I never found it useful to stay tied up for more than a couple of minutes, and I vote we all leave just as soon as we can."

Always to the point, and ready for a bit of hands on detective work. Whoever locked them up couldn't have been at all serious about it, or they wouldn't have left them with weapons and equipment. It did not occur to her at first that perhaps this was because they wanted them to escape. Or something more sinster...

River is likewise attending to her restraints, a set of picks has emerged from somewhere and been put to good use freeing first hands and then ankles. She rubbed at the areas they had encircled before standing and stretching, cat like. "Mine is somewhat different to yours I suspect, all of them. You must know him before I do." She offered a bright smile to the cat suited Zoe. "Brigadier you are likewise rather older when we first meet...or when I first meet you I should say. And since I definitely recognise the rather unique lipstick, that would make a hat trick. Ms Smith it is a pleasure...I don't suppose you have K-9 stashed in a pocket somewhere?"

She looked around the small circle of light that surrounded her, stepping away from her chair and extending a hand towards the darkness. Were the spotlights merely interrogation chic or did they have some other purpose beyond emphasising the separation of the four? "I am River, Dr Song if we are being formal, and the Doctor and I have...quite a lot of past, present, and future together." She smiles again, mischief twinkling in her grey eyes.

Any exploration beyond the lit areas, or attempt to cross from one to another, seems to be fraught with peril. The biting cold out there, and the lack of air, suggest that outside the pools of light, there is nothing but a vacuum, or a total void. Which also raises the rather worrying thought that the supply of air inside the light may run out rather quickly.

And then from somewhere ahead, and quite a way vertically upwards, there comes a rich, rather mocking laugh. The voice has a dark timbre, and contains a hint of something that could only be defined as... malevolence.

Zoe pulled at her restraints. "Um... Guys? I still am locked up here. Someone want to get me out?"

She looked to River. </rose>"Nice to meet you. And you as well, um Smith?"</rose> She looked uncertain. "Oh well, I'm Zoe. Zoe Heriot. From the Wheel, you know. And..."

And then the voice spoke. Or rather didn't speak. She looked up, still pulling at her chains. "Oh, that's creepy and unnecessary, isn't it? Who are you?" replied crossly.

"I'd be happy to help!" Sarah said, and tried to step out of the light... and went right back in again, gasping for air. "I can't breathe out there! There's no air... and it is freezing!" She'd experienced bitter cold, and asphyxiation, before. And she was in no hurry to do so again. It looked a little like it was rather far to try to throw her lipstick - and given that the environment outside the light bubbles was so hostile, she couldn't be sure it would even survive the trip. "Sorry..." and then the laugh came, and she looked upwards, not entirely certain where it came from. "Oh, that's just wonderful! What next? A hunchback butler and pale woman with a beehive hair-do?"

It was all a bit Hammer Horror. Chains, evil laughter... Someone was rolling out the horror clichés one at a time. It would be laughable... except it was happening to her, right now. Instead, it was really unnerving.

The Brigadier just froze, for an almost imperceptible second.

"Impossible."

He knew it wasn't, but maybe if he was firm enough in his convictions it would become true?

"Should have known this was all your doing."

"Miss Heriot, Miss Smith, Doctor Song, do not react to that man."

Only the Brigadier could possibly carry off being in charge whilst in handcuffs.

Zoe stomped her foot. "Bogs!" She looked at the Brigadier. "With all due respect, you and I are stuck, Sir! And while those two are not, they cannot get out. So who in the world should we talk to?"

She looked up. "Hey! Hey there, Mister 'I can only laugh like a demented clown person! Let us loose! Or tell us why we are here!"

She backed up. "That should get his attention!" she stated smugly. Of course, she had no idea what was in the Brigadier's mind when he said not to react.

River frowned at the voice, she knew it all too well and has...opinions about anything including his involvement. "You." She snarled. Do not react to him the Brigadier had suggested, it was reasonable, the Master (who else could inject such pure jovial malevolence into a laugh) would feed on their responses and use them to twist anything they said into something for his own ends. But he was also undoubtedly the reason they were here in the first place - embarassment at being captured by Him fed River's already building anger at the situation in general. Zoe's words brought a faintly vicious half smile to her face, the woman's words would indeed get his attention and provoke a deal of ire. Her own fingers twitched towards the blaster at her hip, wondering if she could get a shot off before he decided to crawl back under whichever rock he'd been hiding under lately.

"Well put Ms Heriot, although in this particular case I must agree with our military colleague. Ignoring the fool behind the curtain is likely to make our little sojourn here far more pleasant. If past experiences are anything to judge by he will indulge in a little tedious, self satisfied, ranting sooner or later without our prompting."

"Since you asked so nicely," the voice purred, and another sphere of light appeared. It shone some distance away, and higher up, as if the speaker was on a balcony overlooking the captives. He was dressed in black, with a very tell-tale beard, and piercing eyes. "I am the Master. I am the Master, and you will... probably try to disobey me. I do not advise it, as I have brought you here in order to save your lives."


"It appears that you have already handled some of the introductions. But please indulge me. Let me clarify exactly who you are, so your new friends can better understand what is going to happen to you." He produced some form of remote control device from somewhere, and pressed it. At once, a larger-than-life sized holographic image appeared - and it displayed selected excerpts from the life of River Song. Apparently they were specific memories. Someone had used a mind probe. It did explain why the four captives had headaches...

"Doctor River Song. Archaeologist. Adventurer. Soldier of Fortune, for the right reasons, and professional miscreant, for the right price. Criminal record is quite breathtakingly expansive. To summarise; theft, fraud, confidence trickery, tomb robbing, bigamy, trigamy, possibly quadrigamy - you really do need to remember to divorce before marrying again, you know. Temporal chicainery on a grand scale. And then there's the problem you have with murder. You're supposed to not get caught when you do that. But perhaps you enjoy escaping from prisons. You seem to have that habit. And while your historical skills are useful, your ability to manipulate social situations, and shoot people in the head, are of more use to me now than any other little quirks you may have developed."

A flick of the wrist, and the Brigadier's life was exposed for all to see. "Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart..." The Master seemed to taste the words with a degree of glee. "At last the tables have been turned! I am sure you are not remotely enjoying your captivity. Perhaps it will help you develop some empathy, next time you try to place me into a cell. As everyone can see, your life has been one tedious stream of service and self-sacrifice, interspersed with moments of idiocy, and the occasional minor attempt at genocide of any creature that you don't particularly like the look of. How the Doctor could stand to be around you for so long is quite beyond my comprehension. But for once, you can put your determination to solve every problem with a bullet to the head to some constructive use. Believe me, you will have plenty of opportunities to shoot some aliens, since that is what you apparently do best. And yes, your bullets will actually be effective. On some of them. Possibly."

The image changed again, and the holographic cinema played the Life and Times of Zoe Heriot, Girl Genius. "Zoe Heriot. What can I say? Towering intellect, eidetic memory, a stream of degrees that quite beggars the imagination, and a personality so smug and annoying that it is a miracle that you were not strangled at birth. Fortunately for me, you somehow managed to avoid being pushed out of an airlock by your colleagues. I am going to give you every chance to demonstrate your intelligence, young lady, and I do hope you are up to snuff, or you're going to die a particularly ignominious death. Such a shame."

Finally, the large hologram becomes the life of Sarah Jane Smith. "Sarah Jane Smith! What an honour it is to meet you at last... except, of course, you have already met me in the future, if your memory is correct. How curious. Journalist, dear friend of my own dear enemy, and future saviour of the planet Earth. Oh yes... as Doctor Song might say... Spoilers. As it happens, your presence here is not essential. You do not bring very much to the party, as it were, but I had the temporal vortex, and I thought to myself... why not? I expect you are here mostly as cannon fodder. Chances are at least one of you will die, and I decided to choose someone whose demise would cause the greatest amount of damage to that aggravating little bauble you call home. I am so very sorry about that. Do try not to die immediately, it would be rather a disappointment."

The images faded, and his manner became rather less smug and derisive. "Now tell me... Doctor Song, what do you know about Azforth Krenzac, and his infamous Challenge?"

Sarah Jane took a step towards the edge of the light, before remembering how much of a bad idea that was. It did not curb her vociferous response, however. "Now just a minute! I'm not going to let anybody kill me - and certainly not for you! You can send me right back home, this minute! Whatever it is you have planned, we're not just going to go along with it without a good reason!"

The bit about her saving the planet was interesting, but she reckoned it wouldn't have been the first time, and was a little less important than some lunatic alien telling her that he brought her along to die just because he found it amusing!

A grunt from the Brigadier.

"I think the chances of trusting anything you have to say are somewhat low, good sir. I've seen just a few too many good men and women killed for trusting you; so even if you need us right now that doesn't exactly stop you trying to kill us later." He snorted at the references to gunplay. "I can think of at least one alien here for whom bullets do work quite well."

A long pause though. Currently he couldn't do much, but he was military - and the Master was arguably the most wanted criminal in the world.

"For argument's sake, why have you brought us here, supposedly?"

"I... but... who..." She stammered with her annoyance, then took a deep breath.

"I do not know you, but you know me. Odd. And... Master? Master of what?" Zoe actually sounded confused.

"You've done what?!" River's snort of disbelief effectively sums up her opinion on this particular individual making any claim to want to save their lives. "And as to shooting people in the head..." She bit her tongue before she finished that particular statement, best not to let the cat out of the bag since that was the thing currently keeping her incarcerated - in theory at least. "I would be more than happy to prove my skills in that field on a suitable target dummy." The good doctor turned her back on the balcony, in part a deliberate taunt and in part a means of assisting her in restraining the urge to shoot the smarmy git before they had learned anything more of his plans.

She addressed her fellow captives for the time being, "Master of 'overblown plans that are doomed to failure because he thinks he is far more clever than he actually is' mostly." River nodded towards Zoe, answering the question of their host's identity in her own inimitable way.
"Ladies, Brigadier it seems our delightful host wishes us to play treasure seeker for him. Krenzac was good to his mother, or so I am told." Her voice dripped a particular brand of venomous sarcasm known to make lesser beings (such as daleks) quail when it was turned on them but she had no hope that it would produce such a helpful effect on the Master.
"But his favoured pastime is hosting the greatest treasure hunt in several galaxies - the entry cost is the trifling cost of laying your life on the line, to be refunded in full along with a not insignificant prize should you be successful. Unlike the toad in the fancy suit up there, Krenzac is a man of his word and it is generally believed that the prize includes the keys to his galactic criminal kingdom...I do wonder what a time lord could possibly want with giving us such keys."

She would eat her favourite lipstick if he hadn't already signed them up for the damn thing and was planning on using the cost of failure to 'motivate' them. Not to mention the fact that he obviously had no intention of allowing them to keep any prize. They were being used as blood hounds at best and probably more akin to minesweepers. River ground her teeth and entertained herself with mental images of all the ways she could make the Master regret his life choices if she could only get her hands on him.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:06, Tue 24 Aug 2021.

"My dear Brigadier, you do me a disservice! You can most certainly trust me when I say that, if you do not comply with this rather interesting little task, you shall most certainly be dead within forty-eight hours. You see, Doctor Song is quite correct in one thing..." The Master clicked his remote again, and brought up a still image of what might have been human... once. Indeed, he looked more Borg than anything else, but was clearly used to opulence. Many of his cybernetic additions were layered with precious metals and gemstones. This was no mindless drone.

"Krenzac means to keep his word, of this you can be sure. But just because that everybody who has entered into his competition has ended up dead, that does not mean it should always be the case! But every time it is announced, dozens of the desperate and deranged flock to try their luck - and his price is simply that their lives are forefeit should they not succeed. Of course, his fanatical followers have proven one hundred per cent effective at enforcing the rule. But seldom need to - most of the contestants even the odds by elminating their opponents along the way. And you, you four lucky people - have already been accepted! With myself as your sponsor, of course, and as such, the ultimate recipient of the prize. And with Krenzac's empire under my control, ultimate domination of the galaxy will be merely childs play to an intellect such as mine!"

Mad as a bag of spanners.

But if he were right, it was already far too late to refuse him. Whether they were willing contestants or not would hardly matter. The gods alone knew how many lunatics were out there, all ready to shoot first, and not bother with questions at all...

"Oh, so you saved our lives? You're the one who put is in danger in the first place!" Sarah Jane was livid! And she did angry very well. "There's a horde of cut-throats and space pirates and who knows what else out for our blood, and you think we should help you? The whole situation is ludicrous! Mad space-robot mafia boss staging a lethal treasure hunt! And we have to be your patsy so you can take over an empire? It can't be true!" Then she thought about some of the things she had seen, and what she had learned about the Master in the blessedly brief moments she had with him on Gallifrey. She turned to River and asked, uncertainly, "Can it?"

She really hoped this was some elaborate ruse. But if it happened to be true, and they walked away from it all, she was sure the Master would not send them home - nor keep them alive either, for that matter. He could just round up some other poor pawns to take their place. And even if he left them alive, stuck in whatever area of time and space this happened to be, they would still have a mob of murderous malcontents, who would never believe they wanted nothing to do with this ridiculous game. Did they have any other options?

Zoe gave an unladylike snort. "It takes a real man to volunteer someone else's life for a contest. If you were really a man, you would come along and help us, your life on the line."

She looked at her shackles again, then sat down, crossing her legs.

"I shall be helping you, Miss Heriot. In many ways!" The Master gave an avuncular and utterly untrustworthy smile. "I have arranged for you a ship. Papers to visit locations that may well contain clues. And some very muscular friends of mine will be doing what they can to hunt down and - if you will pardon the word - exterminate your rivals. I can assure you, Miss Smith, your situation is very much true, and extremely deadly should you fail in your mission. I can always round up more contestants. You, on the other hand, are not a cat. Nor are you a Time Lord. You only get one life. I will be very interested in watching what you do with it."

She looked at him, trying to look bored. "And my friends? Surely you are game enough to envolve them. And a girl like me needs friends to defend me from... dare I call them... your friends?" She made a rude sound. "A master indeed! You are a puppet, trying to be a big man. I knew one such on the Wheel, a supervisor. The Cyborman killed him."

She gestured at the others, the Brigadier, Sarah Jane, River Song. "They seem to know you, and I pity them. You are are pitiful. Not a Master of anything."

To be sure, she had all the bravado of a young girl from a space station, who spoke bravely even as her feet shivered in fear.

"So a ship. And thugs to kill me. And I never said I was a cat, and truly have never seen one. But I am like a cat, landing on my feet. Bring it on. little master. I am not afraid of you."

River smiled broadly, she has developed a distinct liking for Ms Herriot in the past few exchanges. "Two things." She holds up two fingers to tick off her points, and if they happen to be read as a particular gesture of disdain and defiance...well she is certainly not offering V for victory just yet. "One - You do NOT eliminate our rivals, if we are to run into them we will deal with them ourselves and I will not have you killing people and claiming it is for our benefit."</royared> Her index finger drops...oh dear, another rude gesture? Perhaps the good doctor is feeling a little petty just now. "Two - You transfer us to our ship NOW with all available papers etc, then bugger off so we can have a civilised conversation without you cackling over us like some malevolent little homunculus from a GCSE production of Faust."

If they are going to do this thing - and they have little choice - she would far rather get on with it sooner than later and be able to discuss things with her fellows while not being overlooked or overheard by their...host. "Ms Smith, Ms Herriot, Brigadier, alas we are in the position of being bound to either complete this little task or be hunted down by Krenzac's over enthusiastic little minions. We can however do it on our own terms and without being overseen at every step like a group of school children. And once we have the prize in question we also hold the power in this little...association. I for one have no intention of handing it over without some conditions attached and without its presentation to Krenzac there is no prize." She resists the urge to throw a final glare over her shoulder at the Master, ignoring him is far more likely to annoy the megalomaniac.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 16:16, Sat 09 Oct 2021.

"Now wait a minute!" Sarah Jane said, still utterly at the end of her tether. She did not like being forced into some deadly game, not one little bit. And while she was in total agreement that getting out of their current location - before they all died a lingering, airless death - was the best plan, she was utterly in the dark about a lot of the relevant points of the situation.

"I am all for jumping on the first ship out of here, but we don't even know what we're looking for! I mean, if we are after treasure, what is it? Big piles of gold? The Holy Grail? The Lost Treasure of the Sierra Madres? I solve mysteries every day, but I usually have some clues to go on!" She looked towards the Brigadier. "What do you think?"

This was before they had met, in his personal timeline, but she knew the man. She doubted he was a different person as he was now, compared to who he was a few years later. He had a very good grasp of logistics, and was very good at big-picture thinking. And he clearly knew their captor very well indeed, if their exchanges had been anything to go by. If anybody was going to spot underlying motives, it was going to be the Brigadier.

A grunt.

"Unfortunately, Miss Smith, our beloved captor hasn't given us a lot of options here. Doctor Song may entirely be correct; and there are always ways to turn the tables later on, but for now I feel we must go along with it."

He paused.

"If anything, his feeling no need to divest us of our weapons before we woke does suggest he's already planned for this. TIme enough for plans later on I suspect."

"Perhaps you should all see exactly what our taskmaster has to say. Then you can judge for yourselves." The Master waved the remote, and another hologram appeared. This time, the image was of someone who looked like a Borg - but one who had undergone a makeover somewhere down the line. Still, if this was Krenzac, he had replaced so much of himself to keep himself alive, there was not a great deal of the original left.

Not that it stopped him having fun.

Behind him, a party was in full swing. A glamourous entourage of the rich and the conscience-free were partying in what looked like a gold-encrusted casino. Races from all across the galaxy were there. Some human. Some humanoid. Some... well, there was a blob in a tank, and a tentacled thing with eyes in disturbing places, and what looked like two Ferengi arguing over a roulette wheel. And they were all very, very rich.

Flanking Krenzac were two women. One was green skinned, had one more breast than she had eyeballs, and seemed to be sporting an outfit sponsored by postage stamp manufacturers. The other was purple, similarly attired, and for someone with a head of a giant lizard, really quite attractive. They sprawled over the machine-man and fawned and giggled at his every word.

If not for the setting, it had all the hallmarks of a used car salesman making a cheap television advert.

"Weellcccooommmeeeeee, you lucky lucky people! Welcome to the contest of champions! The biggest prize, for the biggest stakes! Welcome to the ninth Challenge! You feel lucky? You got what it takes to claim all this?" He waved an appendage which might once have been an arm. "All the money! All the ships! All the planets, moons, and servants... and all the giiirrrllllssss!!!" The fawning women fawned, as appropriate. And then a man dressed as a Greek god, with physique to match, walked by and handed the mechanical mobster a large glass of something black and steaming. "And the guys - and those with whatever gender they wish to acknowledge! I'm an equal opportunities hedonist! It could all be yours! All you got to do is enter the challenge! And it's the best one yet! A doozy! A humdinger! First team to arrive in my throne room with the target will get it all! ALL! You think you got what it takes... well, then. All you got to do is this!"

The hologram zoomed in until his face filled the whole of the image. "Bring me the Prisoner of Xentar!"

And over his rich, plummy laughter, the image faded out. Then at eyewatering speed, tiny, tiny text race up the field of view, persumably listing all the complexities of the contract.

Sarah gaped even more. "That was... that was dreadful! He's like some cheesey second hand car salesman! Arthur Daley in space! And we're supposed to believe him?"

She scowled deeply. "And he wants us to break someone out of prison? Who is the Prisoner of Xentar? Why are they in prison? Is he asking us to bring him one of his insalubrious mates? Oh, I don't like this at all!"

But she knew they had absolutely no choice at this point, so pulled herself together, and glared at the Master. "All right then, let's get on with it, I suppose! Put us on a ship and send us to break out the... the... Spaceman of Alcatraz, or whoever it is!"

"It's a myth." River didn't comment on the merits of breaking a prisoner out of their cell, she was of the general opinion that if one could not free themselves then they clearly needed more time to sit and ponder the matter - there was a way out of almost any predicament. However, her voice was unimpressed at the pronouncement of their target and her nose was wrinkled in distaste at Krenzac's appearance, attitude, and general existence in the same universe as her. "Considered no more credible than Atlantis or Mu, or a privatised rail service that runs on time and has clean lavatories. More than one skilled archaeologist has lost their reputation simply by suggesting they might once have considered it a legitimate thing to search for."

She turned to glare in the direction of the Master. "I was under the impression that any 'impossible' task set by Krenzac was at least hypothetically achieveable, so we are faced with three options. A - The cast we just watched has been tampered with. B - Krenzac is finally bereft of his few remaining marbles. C - He knows something that I do not. And on that last point, I am considered something of an expert in terms of archaeology and mythology alike. The Prisoner is rumoured to be some entity so dangerous that they could not be allowed to roam the galaxy and they were thus imprisoned on, or in, Xenetar; a planet that had been turned into such a blasted wasteland that no other population in the galaxy had been able to use it in any way. To be entirely certain, the powers who imprisoned this individual there caused the planet to vanish somehow. Several thousand years down the line and even the records of it are mythical. No one knows where the planet might have been never mind where it might be now. Assuming it ever existed in the first place."

There were other details of course but River wasn't much in the mood for storytime at the moment. Privately she had wondered of course, the only person she could think of who fit the bill of needing to be imprisoned alone on a radioactive cinder of a planet then have that planet vanished was Him.