Kingdom of the Blind Part 2
"Megopolis should be thriving now. What's happened here?" The Doctor paced around the ruins of the computer lab. The echoes of the last log entry by the poor scientist still ringing in his ears. "What kind of catastrophe could have befallen them to destroy them so completely in so short a time?"
"No offence Doctor, but it looks like this place hasn't been used for well over a hundred years, that's hardly a short time." Rose interjected.
"I mean relatively speaking Rose. There were no signs on the Tardis sensors of any natural disaster, no meteor strikes, no tectonic pressure, there are also no visible signs of external activity."
"External activity?"
"He means, nobody attacked them. The buildings are still standing, any kind of attack, and they would have been destroyed. A plague? Some kind of biological attack?"
"No," The Doctor replied to Jack's question. "The Tardis would have picked up any biological agents in the atmosphere, even after this long, there would have been some trace left." The Doctor looked away from his companions as though trying to glean the answers he sought from the wall in front of him.
"Maybe one of those guys knows what happened!" Rose said.
The Doctor didn't look around "What guys?"
"The guys who are standing right behind us with spears pointing at us." Rose replied. Jack and the Doctor both spun to face the newcomers.
"You have breached the heathen temple. For that you must die." One of the figures stepped to the front as he spoke, obviously a leader of some kind, he was dressed in basic animal skins with a few metallic adornments that the Doctor couldn't quite see from his vantage point, but he felt that he should recognise them..
"Die? Heathen temple? This is a place of knowledge, not a temple." As the Doctor spoke, the new arrivals winced in terror. "What? Why are you afraid of knowledge?" Again the panicked looks, genuine terror filled their eyes. "This situation seems frighteningly familiar to me." The Doctor said. "What happened here 100 years ago? Why did you all take a step backwards on your developmental cycle?" Before anyone could attempt to speak further a shrieking noise filled the building.
"Grishakk. Flee." The leader of the group shouted to his bretheren. "Leave the heretics to their fate." He was turned on his heels and running as he shouted, followed rapidly by the rest of the group.
"Uhm, what just happened?" Rose asked.
"They're more afraid of the 'Grishakk' than they are of us, apparently." The Doctor replied.
"What exactly is a Grishakk Doctor?" Jack asked as he looked around gripped as he was by the most basic human instinct. The fight or flight response. He knew he would rather flee, but he couldn't, not with the Doctor and Rose there. Someone had to look after them. They were smart, but stupid too. They wanted to stay, put things right, Jack could tell.
"I don't know what a Grishakk is, but from the noise it makes, and the reaction of the locals, I'll bet it's not friendly."
"If it really had been a Grishakk, you would most certainly be dead by now." A new voice resounded through the large room. All three travellers turned to try and locate it. In the wall that the Doctor had been looking at, a door suddenly appeared, and opened. "Welcome. I assure you, I am much more friendly than the tribesmen you just met. They worship the fallen one. I however do not. Please, enter and perhaps we can talk?"
"The Fallen one? Now that's an interesting name. Some kind of mythological character?" The Doctor asked as he walked through the now visible door.
"If only it were that simple. No, this creature truly did fall from the sky, some two hundred cycles since." The man, dressed in the same simple but elegant fatigues as the now deceased scientist in the other room, led the three travellers down a dimly lit stairway. At the bottom, he touched a red control, the panel turned green. "There. The holo display will disguise the door, we shouldn't have any more problems from them. If they do return, they will simply think that you have been devoured by the Grishakk. Now, I can tell simply by your attire that you are newcomers to our world. From where have you come?"
Jack almost pushed the Doctor out of the way in a bid to introduce himself, "Hi. I'm Captain Jack Harkness, this is the Doctor and Rose, I'm from a planet called Earth, so is Rose, and the Doctor here, well, he just travels about a lot." Jack wore his most ingratiating smile, without turning around he could feel the Doctors flicker of annoyance, he chose to ignore it. "We came here 'cos the Doctor said you were a technologically advanced society. For a moment there, I doubted him, " Jack turned to the Doctor "sorry."
"We were once as your friend said, a highly advanced and cultured society, from logs that we have managed to recover from before the dark times, it seems that we were devoted to higher purposes, higher ideals." The figure sagged somewhat in his chair. "I am Androsa. I am the last of the keepers of light. A haughty title to say the least, I keep and maintain the records of out people, the knowledge we gained, the power we once had. All of it, stored here, out of the reach of the regressives, and their overlords."
"I'm sorry." Rose reached over to Androsa and placed a hand on the mans shoulder, to try and ease the pain. Androsa flinched away.
"I am not used to being touched, I have been alone here for many cycles, since my father passed to the next world." Androsa smiled wanly at Rose, with tears welling in his eyes.
"Androsa?" The Doctor stepped forward, "what exactly happened here?"
"Ha, we became victims of our own thirst for knowledge Doctor. At an archaelogical dig on our Southern continent, we discovered what appeared at first to be a meteor crater. Upon closer inspection, it was found that something had crashed to our world many millenia ago, something that still lived." Andros turned from the group and flicked some controls on the panel in front of him. "This." An image filled the screen that made Rose recoil in horror. "She called herself Ariella. She..."
"Shouldn't be alive." The Doctor finished the sentence for Androsa. "Ariella was destroyed, before life even emerged on your world. The Queen Mother of all Vampires."