And the Answer is...

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 8619

Trillling then pauses in surprise as....the Other is no longer cursing and trying to wrest away his rightful control from him.

Trilling looks up to the ceiling (and perhaps to the skies above), he silently gave thanks to the Silvery Mistress, the Moon, for his deliverance from that vile....dark and twisted soul.

He then turns blearily and slowly pads over quietly to the group of what he remembers as the two mages (the Regent and Consort of Ethiopia) and a priest of some type (the Ethiopian Pope....Trilling suddenly remembered). They apparently are deep in discussion over something.

Along with a bald man who is apparently dressed.....in some type of pajamas?


"Of course it's hot," the Doctor says, surprised. "Back in England they serve tea hot. The Admiral here drinks his Earl Grey like anyone who was raised in England. Why shouldn't I drink it hot?"

"Sir, while I agree with you up to a point," Admiral Picard interrupted. "I'm afraid that you are operating under a false assumption. I was born and raised in France back.....before the Enemy hadn't reduced my Earth to a smoking cinder....."

The crowd grows silent as the Admiral composes himself.

"I...wasn't aware of that....but your accent," the Doctor eventually says, trying to switch the mood to something less.....sad. "It sounded like you were from England, despite your rather French name."

"Oh, I suppose I could have shot for mediocrity.....instead of actually shooting to really sound like the instructors," Picard frown into his tea. "That's what I might have done, but there was this one instructor who had a condescending attitude about my language abilities. I went on and outscored him in his own precious English language in use and vocabulary....as well as pronunciation!"

Picard remembered the satisfaction of the moment.

"In the end it really makes little difference but," Picard gives a rather Galic shrug and goes back to sipping his tea.

"I see," the Regent nods, while resting in her human form. "But why is it a mark of civilization to drink tea hot? Because it's the British thing to do?"

"Those of Terra Prime drink the tea cold," Sigin Dronocis smiles at the sour looks he garners. "On our world it's a mark of....shall we say....higher culture. Now, whether it's hot or cold isn't worth an Anglish farthing, God help their Wanax......if they had one......"

The aisle of Angland, like many stretches of land all over Terra Prime were still in a state of anarchy.....or declining levels of civilization even. There were even cults forming in some of those areas who preached that the gods had struck down Terra in her arrogance for tampering with science....with magic. These "Wobblites" were interconnected and were worrisome, but only for a time. See, it was approaching their prophesied a time of.....release. Having forsaken all the tools and comforts of modern life, they had reverted to brutal hunter/gatherers in an attempt to cleanse themselves for the next step. None of the cultist would listen to reason, to the truth. The next step was a mass suicide. Attempts to prevent earlier attempts by splinter groups of the Wobblites had failed miserably.

Not enough resources....enough people to act as a suicide watch. Left a bad taste in one's mouth.

That was another reason that the Regent wanted to unite what was left of Terra under one government....to help bring what was going to be left out of the approaching darkness for many....and into a new and perhaps brighter future.

They decide to drop the whole subject, and instead turn to a rather....tastey candy that had become something of a craze in Ethiopia.

"What do you call them again," Picard asks as he takes a small handful.

"Jelly babies," the Doctor murmurs as he takes a bite out of one of his. "I must say, I don't know much about my supposed fourth incarnation....but what ever else you have to say for him....he has rather good taste in snacks."

Still, it sometimes struck the Doctor as....bizarre.

But then again, the whole business here had been bizarre.

The Betties, upon seeing him eating a jelly baby, had laughed so hard that they'd fallen out of their chairs!

The Doctor sighed, and nearly choked on his treat when Trilling gives off a rumbling cough to catch the mages attention.

"Trilling! You're awake!" the Doctor smiles while the griffin stands patiently still as the Pope checks for the "Dark" Trilling.

"And feeling much.....betterrrr, thankssss to you," the griffin says softly as he bows his head in gratitude. "I will sacrificccce a ssstag in the holy month ahead and make a prayerrrr to the Moon, the Sssssilvery Misssstressssss, forrrrr good forrrtune to you and thosssse who helped you, Doctorrrrr Who."

The Doctor smiles and nods, accepting the griffin's gratitude (and silently wishing that that nickname hadn't become....so popular).

The Pope of Ethiopia pronounced Trilling spiritually clean and free of spiritual freeloaders (and wondering aloud just how such as what had happened....had happened). Dark Trilling hadn't been forthcoming even up to the very end, where he screamed and cursed up to the last.

The Pope hoped that the dark soul of this Zular would be properly.....rewarded. He hoped that all of God's children would seek his light, but that dark soul just would NOT repent. Sad, but it happened.

"Malachi!" shouts the leader of the Manimal Nation as he bounds through the door (along with some rather concerned looking officials). "We may have a problem. It concerns what this elfin woman has to say."

All eyes turn to the elfin Melissa, who pauses in a sudden fit of stage fright. She swallowed her fear, and then began.

The Doctor looks down at this red headed elf...and then over at the stunned looking Betties and Stacy....then over at the smiling human Melissa who's put a comforting hand on the smaller....elfin version of herself?

"Doctor, you have been cordially invited to enter your new TARDIS and speak with the beings within," the elf begins.

"Would you be so kind as to explain yourself," the Regent says calmly.

Between the two Melissas, the story they tell makes the room go deadly quiet.

The Doctor knows why. When he had his courses in magic "online" he'd learned of the beings called Rules....and Agents of Chaos. Rules were powerful and frightening (Akin to perhaps the White Guardian? the Doctor asks himself, concerned and unsure). There was little really known about them, except that they overlooked keeping cosmic order in an assigned.....universe, prolonging it's existence. Almost NOTHING was known about Agents except....they were supposedly the polar opposite of Rules.

If an Agent was somehow involved....it could prove disastrous.

Nobody even bothered to protest as the Doctor and the others went out to the courtyard where the Master's TARDIS was. There were odd looks as as the last ward was removed there came...from within the odd looking statue (the Master's TARDIS) twin sounds of what some would call asthmatic elephants are heard within.

A spell is cast and the "statue" flies open. It's too dark to see within.

The Doctor is about to take a hesitent step within when two voices call out.

One says "Come on in."

The other says, as the adventurers suddenly stumble about to find themselves facing two figures within the statue.

  1. "Be welcome," says Agent 1, smiling a warm smile.

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3/31/2000 2:08:54 AM

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