The Bizarre Adventures of Doctor Who

Library of the Damned Pt. 5

Hearing that Basil's brain liquified, didn't ease Theodore and Lila's concerns as they stood around talking with the Doctor about what killed Basil. Few things able to liquify brains and if not the conventional means, then what else's there that caused Basil's death.

Theodore went over to Basil's body and checked his head, he sees the liquid oozing from his ear holes, and he affirmed that it wasn't natural causes that killed Basil. He asked if the Doctor's sure that Basil didn't have any enemies and the Doctor affirmed that Basil didn't have any other guests except him.

"Someone killed him," Theodore stood up as he pulled on his stitched coat. "Someone with reason, I'm sure."

The Doctor disagreed, as he pointed out if anyone caused problems, it wouldn't be hard to sic the Vashta Nerada on them.

"Maybe not directly, but someone killed him," Theodore elaborated his conclusion.

The Doctor raised a bushy brow at this as he asked what Theodore's thinking and he shrugged his wide shoulders as he said that he doesn't know.

Someone else found out about Basil and killed him, that much he's figured out.

Not human, that much's clear.

Not the conventional sort of suspects fit the bill, either, and it's a short list as Theodore went through it.

That's not even touching motives, what motives someone could've had to kill the alien, on account he only wrote about humans, and didn't seem bothered to leave his prized library.

The Doctor's correct, nobody else came to this library, and if they did, Basil would've told him about it, so whoever killed him did it with the Doctor away. Either by coincidence or knew, Theodore didn't know for sure, but it meant that whoever killed Basil wanted to make sure he was dead, and his mind irreparable.

"If there's a motive, we're better off finding it," the Doctor decreed as he pulled on his brown pinstripe jacket. There's a reason for Basil's death and he wanted to find the person responsible.

For now, they needed to find the motive, and go from there, but that alone's problematic. They don't know it or if there's any evidence in the library. It's too systematic for it to be random, Basil doesn't have any riches or anything of perceived value to outsiders, only his books.

Made no sense at all, it's bothering him.

"Maybe someone didn't like the mention?" Lila guessed the reasoning behind the murder. Basil might've not written about aliens directly, however, he might've referenced them. Like how he referenced the Doctor's father in his mother's biography. Someone took offense or had a good reason for not wanting anyone to find out about it. Of course, this is just speculation, with trillions of books, it's a difficult process. Even Basil couldn't find the Doctor's mother's book that easily, because the volume of books written.

Thinking, Theodore agreed with Lila, that there's a possible motive, but they have nothing to go on, and the Doctor sucked air through his teeth while prattling along the area, trying to find clues.

Basil kept things near him if needed, an extra pot of nourishment for the long nights he writes about a human, pens, inkwells, papers, binders, the pressers, everything he needed to process and finish his books.

Hurrying around the side of the counter, the Doctor searched through the counter, he found empty pots of fermented berries that've long since lost their scents, twine Basil used to tie the pages together before he glued them to the back of the spine. Large inkwells he hadn't touched yet, there's an opened one half-full that Basil recently opened, and the Doctor searched for the pages that he wrote.