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PMDU Dungeon 1: Temporal Travelers - Part 2

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The next room they entered, by comparison, looked much more like a regular underground cavern. Also, much to Sarah’s relief, it was a good deal warmer than the ice room. The Doctor stopped a few steps away from the door to survey the area. Sarah moved past him to explore more on foot. She hadn’t gone more than a couple feet before there was a sudden sharp pain in her foot.

“Ouch!” she cried out, lifting her foot off the floor quickly. However, the pain remained. As she went to inspect her aching foot, she saw what neither of them had noticed before. The floor of this room was covered with shards of wood…one of which was now lodged in her foot quite painfully.

“Sarah!” Just like that, the Doctor was at her side in an instant, his deep blue eyes filled with concern. Under normal circumstances, she would scold him for calling her “Sarah” as she made it very clear to everyone she met that she disliked being called such. However, right now, she was too busy focusing on the stinging pain in her foot.

“I got…something stuck in my foot,” she said rather dumbly. The Doctor only nodded, his atmosphere becoming much more focused and serious. He swept away any nearby shards of wood with his hand before helping Sarah gently to the ground. He held up her foot a bit in his hands.

“I’ll need to pull this out. Otherwise, it could get even worse,” he told her. Sarah nodded silently. She knew that…not that she was looking forward to it. The Doctor gave her a sympathetic and reassuring smile, knowing exactly what was going through her head by the look on her face.

“I’ll do it quickly. Just relax and don’t tense up; otherwise, it could hurt even more. Don’t look at your foot,” he said as her eyes drifted towards his fingers gripping the splinter, “Just look at me. Ready?” Sarah nodded stiffly, but tried to follow his orders. As promised, he pulled the shard of wood out quickly. Sarah dug her claws into the floor at the near immediate burst of pain. All the while, she never broke her gaze on the Doctor.

“I wish I had my coat,” he muttered as he set her foot back down, “What we could use right now are some bandages…” It was then Sarah remembered that she had grabbed a roll on her way out for fear that the Doctor would be the one getting hurt. She reached into her bag and pulled out the roll.

“Good thing, I do the planning for both of us, huh?” she remarked. The furret broke into a grin as he took the roll from her.

“What would I ever do without you, Sarah Jane?” he asked as he always did while he wrapped up the wound on her foot. The cut was deep as the shard had been a couple inches long, but it was very small and only effected a small area. Once he was finished, he helped the purrloin back to her feet and returned the leftover bandages. Sarah tentatively put weight on her foot before smiling and standing tall.

“Good as new! Thank you, Doctor,” she looked out across the room, “I guess we’ll just have to be more careful in here.” While some were small like the one Sarah had stepped on, most of the shards of wood were rather large and easy to see. They were spread out fairly thin as well, meaning it would not be too difficult to maneuver around them.

“Shall we?” The Doctor was excited and grinning like an idiot once again, now that Sarah was alright. She nodded and followed after him as he carefully made his way across the floor. This room was a good deal smaller, lucky for them. The Doctor came to a sudden stop, and Sarah accidentally ran into him. Sarah didn’t miss the quick intake of breath and the way her partner bent over a bit in pain as she hit where she knew he had burns and bruises.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “Are you okay?” The Doctor nodded, straightening up as soon as she asked.

“It’s alright. I’m fine,” he replied, masking any pain he felt in an instant. Sarah had to bite her lip to withhold a sigh of frustration. He still won’t admit he’s hurt. Doesn’t he realize I’ve already seen it?

“Why did you stop?” she said instead, deciding not to push the issue. The Doctor moved to the side to show her what looked like a large ball of thread with rocks poking out of it on the ground. “Spoolstone!” He nodded.

“Aren’t we supposed to collect resources while we’re here as well? I think we should take it with us.” As he said that, he reached down to grab the soft, bizarre stone.

“What do you think you’re doing, heathens? Trying to invade and steal our riches no doubt!” a voice suddenly resounded. Sarah jumped at the sudden shout while the Doctor only looked up. A barboach with beads on its whiskers stalked towards then. “Don’t you know this is the royal and most awesome kingdom of the great King Wussy Whiskey Montgeomery Mudsuckery Sedimus Munge IV?”

“What a remarkable title,” the Doctor said.

“We were warned us about these yahoos too,” Sarah remarked lowly, “They think this whole dungeon belongs to their king, some whiscash, and that all the guilds are invaders.” The Doctor nodded slowly in understanding. Putting on a grin, he walked right up to the hostile barboach, friendly as can be.

“You must pardon us. We are just passing through your great king’s domain. We’re only travelers, you see, and we mean you no harm.” The mud fish eyed him warily.

“How do I know that’s true? Any outsider is dangerous, and you two are the most suspicious of all of them!” Sarah tensed up a just a bit, but the Doctor remained calm and amiable.

“We come in peace, my good fellow. You must believe that. If you will only let us be on our way, then we will trouble you and your king no longer.” The Doctor was optimistic as he always was that this could be taken care of without conflict, but Sarah somehow had a feeling this would not be one of those times. The barboach suddenly gasped as he noticed for the first time the Spoolstone in the Doctor’s hand.

“Theives! You are here to steal our treasures! I shall destroy you both!” With a war cry, the barboach launched a Mud Bomb at the both of them. The attack, however, was sloppy and they both were able to get out of the way easily, the ball of mud hitting the floor with a splat.

“Why does it always come down to barbarianism?” the Doctor lamented. Sarah on the other hand gathered up dark energy in one of her paws before Sucker Punching the barboach right in the face. The mud fish squealed before land on the floor with a thud (and another squeal). She was disappointed to see the water-ground type get up again, though.

I’ll need to use something stronger to make sure he stays down. I don’t want to be fighting in this minefield any longer than necessary. As the barboach readied another attack, Sarah’s tail began to glow white. The mud fish shot a Water Gun at her just as she leapt up, her tail flashing to become metallic and silver. However, she did not realize that by moving she had left her partner right in the path of the Water Gun. The Doctor had only been observing, pacifist as he was, and was taken off guard by the blast of water coming towards him. It hit him square in the chest, causing him to cry out and stumble to one knee. Sarah could do nothing to help him at the moment, so she instead slammed her Iron Tail down on the pathetic fish as hard as she could. He screamed and had fainted before he hit the floor. She didn’t give the barboach a second thought as she rushed to the Doctor’s side.

He clenched his eyes shut at the searing pain the spread across his chest. Briefly, he wondered if he really had broken a rib while fighting alongside Tyr so many days ago. His thoughts were broken up again as he tried to take a deep breath and the resulting pain caused black splotches to appear in his vision. It took him a moment to realize that Sarah Jane was talking to him.

“Doctor? Doctor! Are you alright?” she asked for the third time, starting to get really worried. She was also starting to second guess their choice of exploring the dungeon despite the Doctor being hurt. She had a hand on his shoulder and was about to ask him the same question yet again when he spoke up.

“Yes…I’ll be alright…Sarah Jane. Just needed…a moment to catch my breath,” he said, his voice a bit strained and breathy. Slowly, he rose back to his feet. “I’ll be fine. That attack wasn’t even that strong…just hit a sore spot,” he tried to assure his partner. Sarah only stared him down, neither malice nor relief in her gaze. He's hiding it from me again. How can he just lie to my face like that? Well…it might not all be a lie, but I wish he wouldn’t keep pretending that he’s okay! She had seen the clear pain in his eyes before he had expertly covered it up. He gave her a small smile of reassurance. Sarah was silent.

“If you truly are okay, then I guess that’s fine. I trust you know your limits better than I do,” she said slowly. What else was there to say? He would only brush off any attempt to penetrate his armor and ascertain the true nature of his injuries. No matter what she did, she somehow knew he would do whatever he thought would keep her from worrying. They were both stubborn like that.

“Would you like to carry this?” he asked, holding out the Spoolstone. He smiled lightly and his eyes were hopeful as though the stone were a peace-offering, a way to relieve the tension in the room. She sighed under her breath before putting on a happy face and holding out her bag.

“Of course! Make the woman do all the work. You men are all the same,” she teased. The Doctor gave a genuine grin, certain he had made things right. Sarah just let him believe that and put the whole thing behind her. “So, where should we go now?” They stood in about the center of the room and could see two doorways from here. One doorway was simply an opening in the wall while the other was a wooden door like the one they had just come through.

“I say this way,” he said heading for the first exit before immediately correcting and heading for the second. Sarah only shook her head at his antics. Once they reached the door, the Doctor jiggled the handle only to find it locked.

“How strange. Who would lock a door in an underground dungeon?” Sarah wondered, “I guess we’ll have to use the other door.” Before she could take a single step, however, the furret grabbed her shoulder.

“Why? I think this door is perfectly fine! Besides, the best things are always hidden behind locked doors!” Sarah folded her arms across her chest.

“That may be true, but we have no key and therefore no way of getting past this door.” As she said that, the Doctor suddenly dropped to the ground and began searching through the shards of wood on the floor. “What are you doing?” No answer. “Need any help?” Still no answer. Sarah huffed impatiently.

Finally, the Doctor seemed to find just the splinter he was looking for. He knelt down in front of the door and put an ear to the wood. He then started poking the stick in the lock.
“What are you-” Sarah began again.

“Shh!” Sarah felt a wave of irritation and indignation flare up within her at his rude response. She took a deep breath then let it out slowly and silently. If the Doctor wanted her to be quiet, it probably was for a good reason. She waited a few minutes more before an “aha!” brought her attention back her partner. With a lopsided grin and a mischievous glint in his eyes, he poked at the lock one last time resulting in a satisfying click. He stood back up and pushed open the door.

“Did you…just pick the lock?” Sarah asked, truthfully a bit surprised. The furret nodded proudly.

“A simple enough art to pick up. I’ve had many great teachers…Harry Houndini…Marie Antoinette-”

“Who?” Sarah was utterly confused by his gibberish. The Doctor sighed.

“Nevermind. It would take too long to explain.”

“So, you just put an ear to the door and listened for the lock to disengage?” Sarah was still a bit shocked. She had tried that before with mixed results. It all came down to how well the door transmitted sound…and how good your hearing was.

“My senses are a lot sharper than those of you humans,” he said simply before heading through the door. Now Sarah didn’t know what to think.

“Humans? What in Parai are those? You’re not making any sense, Doctor.” However, her words fell on deaf ears as the Doctor had already walked into the next room. Sarah sighed and massaged her eyes in exasperation before following her partner through the doorway.
Gosh, I should so be working on my homework right now. I've got some tough stuff to do too! But, inexplicably, I keep being drawn back to DA and this mission. *sigh* So, I stopped fighting it and have decided to post one more chapter today, before I get really behind in my work (and end up panicking late at night about the due date). What can I say? I'm just so excited to get to the meat of this story, and I'm really liking what I'm coming up with writing wise (which happens extremely rarely). 

So, this chapter's a bit longer as a bit more happens in this room of the dungeon. There are new dangers and new enemies. The Doctor and Sarah are in for a bit of a hassle, but nothing they can't handle together (though, I'm just getting warmed up EVIL Laughter! ) Little character quirks in their dialogue too, don't get to do that often. Get to see a bit more of the Doctor's..."Doctor-ness" in here as well (pretty much just little Who facts that make me feel smart :D ) Also get to see the Doctor's adventure with Tyr having some importance to the events of this story as well. ...and that's all I can think of...anyway...

As they enter the second room in the Basalt Halls, the Temporal Travelers begin to see this dungeon has a couple of tricks up its sleeves. New phenomenas and new foes all further try to slow their progress. Resilient as ever (or stubborn), the Doctor and Sarah are ready to push past anything. However, Sarah can't help but worry about the strain this is putting on her still-injured partner...

(yep, that's the best I got. Really not in a summary state of mind today...)

Enjoy!

Temporal Travelers: Written App

Previous: Part 1

Next: Part 3
© 2015 - 2024 DuskLugia
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lightninglana's avatar
Oh now this is getting really good. I think I don't need to say how good this is now cause it just is. And all the little references. I get some, but don't get others. Likely cause I haven't watched enough of four yet.