The Master's Game (Doctor Who)

Old gods

The TARDIS shook violently as the Doctor scurried around the console to stabilize their flight. Right now he was proving once more why he had never passed his flight exam at the academy, as the Master never got tired mentioning.

Hearing the familiar landing sound of the old lady made Roka smile though. That sound always was like a promise, a call to adventure. Especially this time, since the boredom was gnawing on her a lot more than she had ever imagined it could.

Very obviously the Master did have the very same problem, maybe even more since he also had to drown out the drums somehow. Both had worn him down enough to finally, and not without a bunch of protests and snarky remarks, agree to follow the Doctor outside to some adventure.

Maybe it also had something to do with Roka checking her ear-stud to find out she would be visible to everyone for at least the next fifteen hours or so. And then - just maybe - had been a tiny little bit annoying about it.

There had been rules though. The bracelets stayed at the Master's wrists, much to his and Roka's demise. But the Doctor had deactivated the shocks, so he wouldn't zap the other one by accident. However, they still would prevent the Master from teleporting.

Right now he leaned against one of the walls, arms folded and a sour look on his face as he was clearly not delighted about being defeated by boredom. Roka, standing next to him, was indulged in reveries about in what way this would end in some disaster, having not the slightest doubt that exactly this was about to happen. She peeked at the Master and moments later they grinned at each other, both having their own thoughts how this might end.

When the landing sounds faded and the Doctor opened the doors they found themselves inside a huge cave, filled with stalagmites and stalactites, that were spiralled by freckles of some slightly glowing fungi. From here it was hard to grasp the actual measurements of the place, but the eerie green glow showed enough to let one guess that it might reach thousands of meters into the stone. A turquoise shimmering stream of water slowly snaked a path through the ground. Roka crouched down to look inside and found patches of glowing algae softly waving in the stream.

"You must have dreamed seeing trapped people in here," the Master groaned as he took in his surroundings. Nothing indicated any signs of life apart from the plants. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and then folded his arms. "Whatever, where are we anyway?"

"Ahm, the Thekarat-G nebulae. Uncharted sector, very promising." The Doctor swiftly hopped to the water and ran a hand through it, before taking a sip and spitting it out again. "Wouldn't drink that. Not poisonous, but... err... probably not very good for your stomach either." He swirled around and jumped up to grab some of the fungi from a stalactite, lettings his sonic whir over it. "Doesn't produce spores, interesting. Very harmless... could use some as decoration... want to take some with you, Roka?" A toothy grin spread on his face. "I know you like collecting souvenirs."

"It will just rot away, Doctor." She smiled back. "But if we find some glowing stones I'll totally take one."

It was as if she had never been away and she snapped back into the usual adventurous mood that always overcame her when she was out with the Time Lord. Although back in the old days she had never been that enthusiastic, never enjoyed it that extensively. With a smirk she turned towards the Master. "Wipe that sour face away. This is actually pretty cool."

He did... only to replace it with annoyance. "It's a dull cave... nothing fancy about it."

"But it glows!" Roka spread her arms and grinned. She could see the slight smile playing around the corners of his mouth, although he seemed to try very hard to not enjoy this at all.