A/N: Welcome to Lore Lore Land.

Chapter 2: To Who it may concern

Playing entry 6/?.

NALTAN: My name is Naltan. I am the elder of this village. I know that you are the Doctor.

DOCTOR: How?

NALTAN: Because my grandfather told me.

DOCTOR: … What?

The elderly man leant forward a little on his stick, regarding the Doctor with piercing purple eyes. 'Many years ago my grandfather, a young man at the time, was hunting in the forest when he was injured by his prey. He was about to die, when a stranger found him. The stranger took my grandfather back to our village and stayed until he was sure my grandfather would survive his injuries. My grandfather asked the stranger how he could repay him. The stranger said he only asked one thing. To deliver a message to someone our family would meet in the future. And then he described you.'

'How did he describe me?'

'He said one day we would be visited by a traveller - most likely with companions - looking to go into Tuvala like all the others. He said the man would be different. He'd be white-skinned and tall and skinny with brown hair, and refer to himself as the Doctor. He would also have a metal-covered arm and would be blind.'

'Kinda uncanny,' Jack muttered.

'Who was he? Do you know this stranger's name?' the Doctor asked.

'No. He never gave a name.

'Any description?'

'No. My grandfather only described him as "wise".'

'Maybe that means old?' Leah wondered.

'I do not know,' Naltan admitted apologetically. 'The stranger only stated that he was leaving Tuvala and we should expect your arrival in around a century's time.'

'Wait … he was leaving Tuvala?'

'Yes, as he claimed.'

'But that's … oh!' Leah realised suddenly, wide-eyed. 'It's the person who found the cure before us! The one in the medical journal! It's gotta be!'

'But who is he and why does he know so much about me?' the Doctor asked, scratching his head. 'Did he say anything else?' he directed at Naltan.

'Yes, he left you a gift.'

The Doctor's eyebrow raised as Naltan placed a beautifully-carved wooden chest on the table, roughly the size of a tissue box. The Doctor reached out, tracing it lightly with his hands to ascertain its structure. He then ran his fingertips across the lid, carved with …

'Hold on,' the Doctor muttered, wide-eyed. 'It can't be.'

'What?' Leah asked.

'Millennia, qe'wi-iaref gallinao?' the Doctor directed at Millennia.

Millennia leaned forward and looked at the markings on the lid. She immediately drew a breath of surprise.

'Qe'aff?' the Doctor persisted.

'Fii. Wi-fia,' she replied, stunned.

'Je? Pohh, i'ei'looi, naqu?' Leah asked pleadingly.

'What?' Jack wanted to know, his eyes playing tennis between the conversing gallifreyans.

The Doctor's gaze averted to his direction. 'This writing is in ancient high gallifreyan.'

'Really?'

The Doctor traced the carving with his finger again, and muttered something inaudible to himself before raising his voice once more. 'Oh … this makes things interesting.'

'What does it say?' Leah pined to know.

'This basically means the Menti Celesti.'

'But how?' Millennia asked, shocked.

'Wanna tell me what the hell that means?' Jack wondered.

'The collective name for the gallifreyan goddesses,' the Doctor supplied.

'You serious?' Jack asked as Leah clapped her hands excitedly to the chime of, 'oh that's so cool!'

'What colour's the box?' the Doctor asked.

'Red and black,' Jack replied.

'Oh.'

Jack noted his tone as Millennia winced. 'Bad?'

'Those are the colours for the Goddess of Pain,' the Doctor explained.

'Couldn't have been the Goddess of Ladybirds, right?' Jack supposed, sighing.

The Doctor half-smiled before it fell away and he ran his hands around the box again, clearly trying to open it.

'Wait,' Millennia said suddenly, placing her hand on top of his to stop his movements. 'Careful, Nei'Veeto. Real or not real, n-Cegizo-Alok'i'afa ce'cealzo. '

'Fola, bionala ei'jikoa-o u'cealzo-ia,' the Doctor replied, and felt the box again. Millennia relented, letting him continue. 'I can't find how to open it.'

Leah leant over to check the box. 'Um, it doesn't look like it has a lid.'

'Maybe it's not a box, it's just like … a decoration?' Jack asked hopefully. 'Y'know, something quirky for the mantlepiece?'

The Doctor frowned, picking up the box and shaking it gently to his ear. 'There's something inside,' he concluded. 'Glass.'

'So we can't smash it open,' Jack mused.

'Do we scan it?' Leah wondered.

'Looks like it,' the Doctor replied, and looked back up at Naltan. 'Thank you.'

Naltan nodded. 'My family's legacy has been fulfilled today, I hope, whatever purpose it serves, it is useful to you.'

The Doctor nodded in return. 'Now, I need to help you. Why exactly is your tiny village being attacked by armoured soldiers?'

Naltan looked grave. 'It has been an ongoing problem. We are a village on the outskirts of our King's territory. The neighbouring Kingdom of Justia sends frequent attacks. We have managed to survive so far, but it is a losing battle.'

'Have you sent word to your King?' the Doctor asked.

'Yes, but we are a small village and he will not spend resources on sending his knights to help us,' Naltan explained. 'This has only happened because our psionic force field has failed. In the past it has protected us from Justia.'

The Doctor blinked, confused. 'Your … psionic force field,' he repeated slowly.

'Indeed.'

'How exactly do you have a psionic force field?'

'You are not our first visitors from space,' Naltan explained. 'Many have come before on their way to Tuvala and shared their technology to help our small village. We do not share our technologies with the rest of our society.'

'Oh,' the Doctor murmured, running a hand through his hair. 'Let me guess, someone gave you a forcefield generator?'

'Among many other things,' Naltan confirmed. 'But in recent years it has stopped working and we do not know how to fix it.'

The Doctor mused on that, before he grinned and pulled out his sonic from his inside jacket pocket. 'Then this might just be your lucky day. Show me.'

Playing entry 7/?.

LEAH: Um, should we have done that?

JACK: Yeah, isn't future tech in a primitive society a bad thing?

DOCTOR: In this case, I'm letting that slide.

JACK: Why?

The Doctor shrugged a little as they walked the long trail back to the TARDIS, Leah and Millennia a few paces behind him and Jack. The restored force field encapsulated the village behind them in a light blue sheen. 'This planet is the last safe harbour before Tuvala, and this village is the place everyone drops out of regular space-time. Plenty of people have already been here on expeditions and we definitely won't be the last. It's a primitive culture who have been exposed to advanced technology and there's not much we can do about it.'

'But it's kinda dangerous, ain't it?' Jack asked.

'Yes, and pretty unsustainable,' the Doctor agreed. 'But visitors will keep coming and one day they might not be lovely, helpful people who give pretty wooden boxes and protective force fields.'

'Greater good,' Jack supposed.

The Doctor nodded.

The conversation sank into silence as Jack looked back at Leah and Millennia to check on them, and suddenly frowned. 'Leah, you're bleeding,' he said.

'What?' Leah asked.

'From where?' the Doctor asked immediately.

'Leg,' Jack answered, pointing.

The Doctor frowned. 'Same place? I thought you said it was a scratch?'

Leah looked down at her leg. Her tights were progressively becoming redder with a steadily increasing stain of blood from the cut. She leant down to pull apart the ripped edges of her tights of her afflicted leg, to reveal her small cut looked a little bit bigger than it had earlier. There definitely seemed to be much more blood. 'Oh.'

'What's it look like?' the Doctor asked, already reaching in his coat pocket to feel out his first aid kit, pulling it out.

'It's not a lot, it's just not stopping bleeding,' Jack explained.

The Doctor bit his lip. 'Millennia, can you check and dress that wound?'

'Yes,' Millennia said, taking the proffered first aid kit.

'This ain't normal, is it?' Jack said as he lifted Leah under the arms to sit her on a nearby rock.

'No,' the Doctor confirmed, feeling out a place to sit down next to Leah. 'Cut that size should've taken seconds to clot.'

'Am I sick?' Leah asked, confused.

The Doctor reached up to press his blood and flesh hand to her forehead, before running his fingers around her neck, checking her heartsrate and her breathing. 'You don't sound sick, and you don't feel sick,' he concluded. 'Haven't eaten or absorbed anything affecting haemostasis, have you?'

'Um, no, I don't think so,' Leah replied.

'Anyone holding some aspirin I don't know about?' the Doctor directed at the other two, who both verbally denied that. 'Okay, no idea then. Millennia, how's it looking?'

'Looks like cut ten seconds ago,' Millennia replied. 'Nei'Veeto, I thinking there is problem here.'

'Problem?' Leah echoed.

'It is not … sorry, I don't know English word … sticking and stopping,' Millennia said.

'You mean clotting?' the Doctor asked.

'Exactly,' Millennia confirmed. 'It is not clotting, it is still bleed.'

'We need to get back to the Tardis,' the Doctor murmured.

Playing entry 8/?.

LEAH: So five minutes after we got back into the Tardis I stopped bleeding, but Daddy is taking my blood now. Daddy, what're you looking for?

'I've got a theory, I'm just checking the levels of something,' the Doctor replied. 'In fact, Millennia, take some of my blood, we'll run it through the scan as well,' he instructed, offering his arm to her. She obliged, picking up the extractor and placing it in the crook of his arm, pulling the trigger. The clear vial affixed to the instrument slowly filled with the Doctor's blood, before Millennia pulled it away and immediately the point it had pierced his skin started to bleed at an unnatural rate.

'Whoa,' Jack said, quickly handing Millennia some gauze, which she pressed to the puncture site.

'What?' the blind Doctor asked.

'That's really made you bleed.'

'Interesting,' the Doctor mused.

'Interesting?' Jack echoed, slightly alarmed at the amount of blood coming out of the Time Lord's arm from the tiny prick.

'Raise your arm and press this gauze to it,' Millennia instructed, giving him another piece of gauze to press over the one already soaked with blood.

'Any observations?' the Doctor asked Millennia.

'It is too red,' Millennia told him.

'Whaddya mean too red?' Jack asked.

'Should be orange more,' Millennia said, just as the machine pinged approval in readiness to give its verdict on Leah's blood.

'Scanner, state artron and lindos pressure per single X2, please?' the Doctor ordered.

'600 parts per X2 for artron, and 50 parts per X2 for lindos.'

'Ooof,' the Doctor winced.

'What?' Jack asked.

'Yeah, what?' Leah wondered.

'Yep, your level of artron and lindos are extremely low,' the Doctor supplied. 'They should be twenty times that.'

'What does that mean, though?' Jack asked.

'It's our version of clotting factors and involved in healing,' the Doctor replied. 'The level of them in her body is much lower than normal. Looks like now we're back in the Tardis it's slowly going back up to normal levels.'

'Why's this happening?'

'Not sure. Millennia, what's mine?'

Millennia put his blood through the analysis machine. He was still bleeding as the machine read the results out loud.

'500 parts per X2 for artron, and 30 parts per X2 for lindos.'

'Ouch,' the Doctor muttered.

'Low?' Jack supposed.

'Almost insultingly low,' the Doctor confirmed.

'Any theories?'

Still with his arm in the air, the Doctor furrowed his brow, contemplating. 'Maybe … a sort of altitude sickness, but with time.'

'Say again?'

'You know how in high altitudes the air pressure reduces and there's not enough oxygen for us to respire normally? Maybe this is exactly the same, except with time.'

'Oh!' Leah realised, wide-eyed. 'That's why we won't clot!'

The Doctor nodded. 'X2 production is linked to our time senses and abilities, but this area of space is distorted so much it's affecting that. It's like we're standing on Everest struggling to breathe, but it's not an Oxygen deficiency - it's a time deficiency.'

Jack raised an eyebrow. 'So what does it all mean in the end?'

'It means for as long as we're in Tuvala me and Leah are going to have secondary haemophilia and won't be able to heal. I'll be worse since my baseline is much higher.'

'So if either of you two get cut you're gonna bleed out until you die?'

The Doctor pulled an awkward expression. 'Um, yes. Just have to be careful and keep the Tardis nearby. Easy.'

'Right, cos it's always that simple,' Jack muttered sarcastically as Millennia checked the Doctor's arm again.

'Okay, think you stop now,' she said, pulling off the blood-soaked gauze to reveal he'd finally clotted. 'Yes.'

Jack stared at him and the trail of blood running down his arm. 'I'll stock the first aid kit,' he decided, and rummaged around in the Doctor's coat pockets hanging over the chair for the familiar green moon-emblazoned box.

The Doctor looked in Leah's direction. 'Right, I think we need some protection.'

'Like what?'

He stretched out his hand to her, standing up. 'Take us to the wardrobe, bottom floor, blue rack.'

Leah frowned. 'But that's the gallifreyan section.'

'Yep,' the Doctor confirmed. 'Need some armour.'

'Armour?' Jack queried.

The Doctor nodded. 'Something lightweight but durable. Keep us protected as much as possible.'

'Okay!' Leah said, taking his hand.

'Jack, get that box scanned,' the Doctor ordered as Leah pulled him out of the door.

As they disappeared, Jack shared a look with Millennia that spoke volumes.

'He is difficult,' she moaned.

'Tell me about it,' he agreed. 'Right, first aid kit.'

Millennia left to the corridor as he turned, but his hand caught the Doctor's blood vial, which went flying and smashed into the mysterious box leaving blood to seep over the wood.

Jack swore, diving to try and save the box but it was too late. He was left watching as the blood quickly filled the grooves in the lid, highlighting some pattern that had previously been hidden. Quickly the pattern became absolute, and there was a clicking sound. The box sprang open with a spit of blood, and Jack instinctively leaned forward to peek at what was inside.

Two vials filled with something liquid and orange were placed inside the box, laid on a plush red and black silk-like material. The box interior was clearly being thermoregulated as he could feel a slight heat radiating from it.

'Millennia!' he shouted, unable to take his eyes off of it for a moment. She appeared, and looked confused.

'How did you … what made this?' she asked.

'I knocked the Doctor's blood on it and it opened,' Jack said.

She reached into the box, pulling out one of the vials and examining it.

'Any ideas?' Jack asked.

'No,' Millennia replied, frowning. 'We wait until Nei'Veeto returns.'

Jack nodded, and then noticed Leah's camera was still running. He picked it up and stopped the recording.

Playing entry 9/?.

JACK: Hey, you've dressed yourself.

DOCTOR: Had to happen at some point.

Jack smirked, panning the Time Lord up and down with Leah's camera. He was out of his usual attire, now dressed in lightweight armour matching regal-looking red and gold. He had a long jacket with black trousers and boots, and gold metal plates on his arms that were etched with various marks and symbols. The whole thing looked extremely glorious, while simultaneously making the Doctor seem more alien than ever before.

'That's some serious tailoring,' Jack complemented, but immediately sensed the Doctor's mood had dulled slightly. He knew him far too well these days. 'What's wrong?'

The Doctor sighed a little. 'Just remembering the last time I wore this.'

'Time War?' Jack guessed.

The Doctor just nodded.

'Then it's gotta be time to make some new memories,' Jack said.

The Doctor smiled a little at that, and nodded. 'Get anywhere with that box?'

Jack smirked. 'Yeah … opened it.'

'What?'

Jack took his arm and pulled him to the box, guiding his hands to it. He felt it, and his fingertips eventually found the tubes. He pulled one out, his brow furrowing. 'How did you open it?' the Doctor asked.

'I knocked your blood on it,' Jack replied.

The Doctor grinned a little. 'The Goddess of Pain demands blood in exchange for her gift. Very apt. So what am I holding?'

'A clear glass vial with some orange-coloured liquid in it. There's two of them and they're in a box that's being thermoregulated. No idea what the liquid is.'

'Oh. What did Millennia think?'

'She doesn't know. Want me to put one in the scanner?'

'Yeah.'

Jack obliged, taking the other vial and slotting it in. 'Scanner, identify main constituent parts,' he ordered.

As the machine processed, Leah and Millennia re-entered. Leah was dressed in the same glorious attire as her father, just in a smaller version.

'I'm starting to feel underdressed,' Jack joked, looking between them both.

Millennia grinned. 'You got me,' she joked, shrugging in her casual shirt and jeans.

'95 percent X2 and 5 percent plasma detected,' the scanner suddenly said.

'How much?' the Doctor said in a high-pitched voice.

'That means something?' Jack asked, confused, looking at Leah who shrugged a little.

'It's pure artron and lindos suspended in plasma,' the Doctor told him. 'This is intended specifically for a gallifreyan.'

'But what's it for?'

'Remember about me saying that the reason we won't stop bleeding is how low our level of X2 is? When we get a bit low, give us a shot of this and we'll be okay for a while. It'll top up the level of it in our blood.'

'Like … adrenaline for anaphylaxis, or a juice box for a diabetic in a hypo,' Jack surmised.

The Doctor nodded. 'Exactly. Whoever left this box here knew we were coming and that we'd have this problem.'

'Um, that's probably not good,' Leah pointed out.

The Doctor shrugged. 'This is only helpful. Whoever did this seems to want to help.'

'Yeah, the … Goddess of Pain,' Jack said, if a little insincerely. 'What's the deal with these goddesses, anyway?'

'Deal?' the Doctor echoed.

'I never thought of you having goddesses before.'

'And we don't,' Millennia said.

'Don't be silly Uncle Jack, of course they're not real,' Leah said.

The Doctor pulled a face at his daughter. 'We said we didn't believe in them, that doesn't mean they're not real.'

Jack raised an eyebrow. 'What the hell is that supposed to mean?'

'They came from an ancient race called the Eternals, and our people used to worship them as gods because they were so powerful and immortal. They were most definitely real, and probably the closest you'll get to actual gods in our universe. But they were the Goddesses of Death, Pain, Time, Life, Fate, and Hope.'

'Some people in our time worshipped too,' Millennia added.

'Mainly the Outsiders,' the Doctor said, nodding. 'But the point is, that's all been obsolete for years and years. So whoever made this box either comes from a very different time or knows an awful lot about things they shouldn't.'

'Is it the disease?' Leah wondered.

'If it is, I don't know why it would bother being this cryptic. It never has before,' the Doctor said.

'Then the Master,' Jack said. 'Maybe he's playing you.'

'Seems a bit overcomplicated for him, too,' the Doctor mused, pausing for a moment before taking a deep breath and shaking his head, blowing out some air through pursed lips. 'Oh well. Put them back in the box. Then get to the console room - we're going into the graveyard.'

A/N: Translation

Millennia, qe'wi-iaref nyrva'gallinao? - Millennia, is this ancient high gallifreyan?
Qe'aff? - Is it?
Fii. Wi-fia. - Yes. Yes.
Je? Pohh, i'ei'looi, naqu? - What? Daddy, can I see, please?

N-Cegizo-Alok'i'afa ce'cealzo. - The Goddess of Pain was a devil.
Fola, bionala ei'jikoa-o u'cealzo-ia. - Good, because I don't believe in devils.