Appearing deep within a forest, the TARDIS materialized near a babbling brook, the door opens, and Theodore stuck his head out, confused, his icy blue eyes surveying their new surroundings as he processed where they ended up. A brow raised as he stepped out, with Lila trailing behind him, Theodore crossed his arms as he says with a disgruntled, "This isn't the Symposia."
Blinking as she stood beside him, Lila surveyed their surroundings, seeing they're deep within a forest filled with trees that must've been over two-hundred years old or even older, one close to them's wide and thick enough that it'd take months to make a dent in the thick bark.
Looking up, she sees that the intertwining branches and the lush leaves blotted out the sun, they won't be able to tell time easily, and there's a cool mist coming from the brook next to them as it silently snaked ahead of them.
"It said on the monitors," Lila shrugged as the destination on the monitors said they arrived at the Symposia, though clearly, they weren't there.
Sighing, Theodore swayed as he turned around, calling out to Al inside the TARDIS, "Have you been up all-night writing one of your smuts, again?"
Any time Al had gone past his bedtime writing one of his latest books, he becomes disoriented in the morning, enough to send them astray, which he denied multiple times, but the AI popped up near the crack of the doorway insisting that he took them to the Symposia.
Clearly, they're not, as Al took the time to look around, before wincing, saying, "Okay, maybe something might've been configured wrong, but I'm not senile, yet, kid!"
Disappearing back into the TARDIS, Al attempted to correct course, but he returned to the doorway, stating that he can't get them to the Symposia, something's preventing him.
"It's like a beacon," Al explained what it looked like to him, how it appeared to be an SOS beacon, that he can't leave without them investigating it.
It probably co-opted the destination to get someone to notice it, hence they're here, and not enjoying a performance of a lifetime.
"Considering how dense this forest is, where would we find the beacon?" Lila asks Al how they're expected to find the beacon within the forest, barely seeing the ancient trees through the thickets closest to them.
Al pointed towards Theodore, saying he loaded a way to track the beacon onto the Sonic Screwdriver.
He warned that he's picking up a lot of interference from the iron and other minerals beneath the forest, so it might cause confusion in the Sonic Screwdriver, this extended to even the compass in Theodore's pocket watch.
"Ah, Al, please tell me we're not where I think we're in," Lila remembered similar details to an infamous forest in Japan, before she's relieved by Al informing her that they're not in Aokigahara.
It's strange, but he doesn't know what forest they're in, it's only showing him the Symposia, which shouldn't be possible, as it's a location on Saturn.
Rolling his icy blue eyes, Theodore exhaled sharply, "Why of course, the only time I'm able to get tickets for the Symposia, and this is what happens!"
The Symposia's one of the most prestigious events anyone could attend, tickets near impossible to obtain, and trust Theodore, he used his psychic paper until it nearly broke, but failed to obtain tickets for him and Lila.
Only by chance did he get enough favours saved up, did Theodore obtain the tickets, and it was worth tearing his tendons in his legs for a day, just for the opportunity to treat himself and Lila to a performance of the lifetime.
Lila tried telling him that he didn't need to go through the effort like that, citing her concerns for his health, but Theodore waved it away, exclaiming that it's worth it to him to treat himself and his beloved.
Though it didn't dissuade Lila from jabbing him with her finger for risking his health for tickets like it's the Super Bowl.
With his Sonic Screwdriver giving him directions, Theodore walked with Lila holding onto his free arm, while they traversed the uneventful forest ground, attempting to locate the beacon, see why they were forcibly brought here.
Like Al warned him, there's interference from the bountiful minerals underneath their feet, that it's causing his Sonic Screwdriver ping ponging while trying to obtain the signal, again.
Going deep into the forest, Theodore picked up on whether the signals were coming from the beacon or the high content of iron beneath the soil.
Concentrated enough that the Sonic Screwdriver incorrectly thought they were walking over metal floors.
On Theodore's nose, he smelled smoke, alerting Lila, as they carefully made their way towards the camp ahead, mindful of the uneven terrain, the thick roots poking up from the ground.
The smell's getting stronger, they're closer to the camp, Theodore can tell, his eyes becoming bothered by the smoke sweeping through the breeze that blew through the thickets.
Pulling back the bowed branches, Theodore helped Lila through, as they stumbled across the camp, smoking rising from a campfire in the centre like a snake.
Going over to it with curiosity, his icy blue eyes fixated, Theodore deduced someone put it out just, now.
Warm enough for a cup of tea, almost.
Going towards the tent, Lila checked inside, found a sleeping bag, a map, a compass, and a flashlight.
Checking the compass, Lila sees it going haywire, it spun around like it'd received one too many caffeine pills, before checking the map.
It's not much to go off on, however, as she looked at it closely, seeing how someone attempted to mark everything on the map, trying to find their way out of the forest.
… Though if she sees one bag of teeth, she's running for the TARDIS, that much's certain.
Going around the camp, Theodore found the beacon, half-dug into the ground, stopped by the thick roots underneath that prevented someone from further digging.
There's no shovel, he found a broken nail among the pile of dirt with some blood on it, someone tried to hide the beacon.
Very few reasons why someone went through the effort to dig a hole with their bare hands to bury a beacon.
Especially, a beacon set to SOS mode.
Even if it was a mistake, all someone would need to do's put in the passcode and disable the SOS mode, this beacon was a commercialized product, false SOS were par course the moment the beacons went on sale for the general public.
No, this wasn't someone panicking because they set the beacon into SOS mode by mistake, there's desperation, and no one would continue digging a hole with their own hands after ripping off a nail, unless they were afraid someone would find the beacon.
Playing the scenario in his head, Theodore tried to put everything together with the little evidence they have at the camp.
Someone camped here, from the state of the camp, they've been here for a few days, at most, but something happened that they set the beacon brought with them into SOS mode, and tried burying it before they fled their camp.
Why Theodore deduced that the camper attempted to bury the beacon from someone, animals didn't care about beacons, they're known to repel curious animals with high pitched noises when rattled by a curious bear and a foul smell if something tried biting it.
He's immediately alarmed when there's a ringing gunshot in the distance, echoing through the dense forest, and the silence that came after.
There's no sound of wildlife, no birds startled by the gunshot, nothing.
"We're going back to the TARDIS," Theodore tells Lila, pulling her close to him as they made their way back through the path they took, Theodore watchful of any movement.
Retracing their steps, the pair attempted to make their way back to the safety of the TARDIS, there hadn't been another gunshot ringing out, yet, but Theodore wasn't prepared to take a chance, not with what the camp inferred happened.
The camp didn't have anything suggesting the camper had weapons on them, not even a loose casing, it was his belief that the camper was unarmed when they came into the forest.
More, there's nothing suggesting there were more than one campers staying at the abandoned camp, only one sleeping bag, not big enough for more than one person.
No other tents pitched; the ground remained undisturbed in that regard.
"Ow!" Lila yelped when she felt something sharp prick her, enough to cause her to move awkwardly as the pain shot through her veins.
Slowing down, Theodore stopped to check Lila as she pulled something from behind her right shoulder, blood on what looked like a black thorn.
"Are you okay?" Theodore gingerly touched her as Lila stared at the black thorn, looked like a canine's tooth, no bigger than a blade of grass.
Blinking as she tossed it aside, Lila nodded as she says, "Not my first rodeo getting hurt, spaceman."
Once she recovered from getting jabbed by a thorn, the pair resumed fleeing back to the TARDIS, when they were dismayed, finding themselves in a clearing, not the brook they arrived nearby.
"We went the same way, didn't we?" Lila looked towards Theodore for guidance as he affirmed, they backtracked through the same path they took finding the camp, the brook should've been here.
Slowly, his icy blue eyes swayed as they took in the clearing the pair ended up in, he didn't even smell the brook, just the forest green.
How they ended up here instead of the brook, he didn't know, but with his large hand on her back, Theodore went with Lila as they investigated.
Trying as they might, neither found a way back to the brook, that Theodore thought they should go back to the camp, try again there, and Lila went with him as they retraced their steps back to the camp.
The camp's gone!
Still a lingering smell of smoke, but the whole camp, including the beacon's gone!
Theodore's sure this was the camp, he went around the area, finding the holes from the prongs digging into the earth where the tent was pitched.
They couldn't have been gone for no more than a few minutes.
"Um, I'm alarmed," Lila became weary as she sharply looked around, her chestnut eyes checking every corner of their surrounding area as she stayed near Theodore as he attempted to understand what was happening.
A camp just doesn't up and disappear that quickly, the stones that circled the campfire were about 1.8 kilogram each, uneven with one lopsided than the other, nobody could've taken them within moments of him and Lila leaving the camp.
Checking the forest ground, Theodore didn't see anyone else's footprints except his and Lila.
Going around where the campfire used to be, Theodore saw lone footprints near it that weren't from him or Lila.
There are indentions that looked like it came from hiker boots, a size smaller than Theodore, slightly heavier than him, wide feet, and they pointed towards the direction of the camp opposite from where he and Lila came through.
"What the hell's going on here?" Lila winced as she stood close to Theodore, seeing the imprint of the boots as Theodore quietly made deductions.
When he finished, Theodore uttered, "I don't know, my dear Watson."