Episode One

Time Eddy

They rest after their last mission.

When Romana tries to lock onto the next segment, the trace is weak and keeps flickering in and out. She just manages to engage the Time Capsule while the co-ordinates are visible.

After a short time, the Capsule’s engines begin to struggle. Alerts flash on the console and Romana fights to keep control. The next segment appears to be wrapped inside a dangerous, unstable time anomaly.

There is a violent judder and everything goes out of phase — with time echoing unnaturally: with-with-with, time-time-time, echo-echo-echoing…

Intruder

The doors of the Time Capsule suddenly open. A bright yellow light streams in with a strange sound. Romana warns the others not to let the effect touch them: it is the Time Winds, and they will age them to death.

A lion-like creature steps inside, unaffected by the Winds. It walks straight to the console, operates the controls, and then leaves.

The doors close, the Time Capsule resumes flight, and quickly lands. Romana checks the instruments: they are on the planet Tara. The scanner shows green, rolling countryside, but the tracer gives no signal.

Find the Gateway

Maria’s temporal anomaly device goes wild. She sees a vision of a gateway. With no tracer signal, they decide to leave the Capsule and follow Maria’s sense of direction.

They walk through beautiful countryside in bright sunshine, passing a rider on horseback. They speculate the local technology is still around the 18th century.

Count Grendal and his hunting party appear. The Count recognises their energy weapons and himself wields an electric sword. Karl freezes time and disarms the Count and his men. He forces the Count to lead them to the gateway. The Count calls it the Warriors’ Gate, warning them it is not safe to enter.

The Warriors' Gate

The gateway looks like a simple wooden door, standing open, but beyond it nothing can be seen. Inside they find a long-abandoned banqueting hall: dusty, silent, with several suits of armour arranged like statues. At the far end stands a mirror radiating an uncanny aura. Maria senses something beyond it.

They notice that whenever they disturb the room, it resets itself after a short time.

Armoured Statues

Karl smashes a chair. A fragment strikes one of the armour suits, which suddenly comes to life. With an axe raised, it pursues Karl, chanting in an electronic voice: “Kill the Masters.”

Energy weapons have no effect. Karl’s attempts to tackle it only injure him — the thing is impossibly heavy and unstoppable.

They retreat. The armoured robot does not follow. Outside, Count Grendal explains that whether they enter the doorway from the front or the back, it always leads back to the banqueting hall.

They re-enter and see the robot has reset to its original position. They resolve to try the mirror. Romana worries about leaving the Time Capsule behind, since piloting it through may be impossible.

Shrink the Time Capsule

At Thaddius’s urging, they return all the way to the Capsule. The Count does not follow, though some of his men trail at a safe distance.

Romana shrinks the Capsule down to a few centimetres and carries it in her bag. Their wrist devices allow them to shrink and enter it.

When they re-enter the hall, they see the lion-creature from earlier gesturing at them. He walks through the mirror. The Time Travellers follow.

End of Episode One