The Doctor, as usual, had been right. They landed in Cornwall, in 2008, on a truly glorious day (weather wise) in late June, behind what appeared to be somebody's shed. The closest Rose had ever really gotten to a garden was Hyde Park, and to her, this garden was from a TV show. A large green lawn, bejewelled with Technicolor flowerbeds, surrounded by high hedges on three sides, and a slightly squat looking cottage half hidden under climbing roses and ivy on the other. She took a deep breath, and grinned at the Doctor, feeling sure that Cornwall had been a very good choice. No one was running, no one was screaming (except the children two houses down, but Rose for one thought that to hear someone screaming with laughter was a nice change), and the whole day felt infused with a warm, glowing apathy, telling your mind that all you wanted was a cold drink, maybe some ice cream, and a nice long snooze in the shade.
"Alright, Mr Smarty Pants," she said, nudging the Doctor in the ribs. "What kind of flowers are they?"
"Busy Lizzies." He replied promptly, turning to look at the bright pink cluster Rose had indicated.
"Nope," she replied, grinning hugely.
"No? What d'you mean no?" He demanded, gesturing to the flowers. "They're Busy Lizzies."
She shook her head, still grinning.
"Sweet-peas," she told him.
And they argued about it all the way to the front door, which stood half open, revealing a little of the cool, slightly dim interior. Somewhere inside there were voices; barely audible over the sound of next-door's lawn mower, which had just started up. Still bickering, they were caught off guard when a voice said:
"No, she's right. They are Sweet-peas."
Throwing the Doctor a triumphant look, Rose turned to assess the new comer. Leaning with barefooted casualness in the doorframe was a tallish girl in her late teens, watching them with an easy, friendly smile.
"Have you come about the Thing?" she continued, and the Doctor seized his chance.
"Right! Yes! The Thing. I'm the Doctor, and this is Rose, and we're here about the Thing. What Thing?"
"Well," the girl replied, "we know that isn't really what it's called, but we haven't the faintest idea what it is. We just found it, during Mum's annual clean-the-whole-house-freak-out. I'm Genie, by the way. Yes, that's Genie as in lamp, and yes I've heard them all." She shook their hands, and opened the door further to admit them. "It's in the living room." She told them, and led them inside.
The living room itself was nothing out of the ordinary, but it did seem extraordinarily crowded with teenage boys and massive amounts of paper strewn willy-nilly across the carpet. In the centre of the room stood – impossibly – a perfect sphere, completely still, emitting a glow something like a torch powered by very feeble batteries. Genie ushered them into the room first, and stood behind them, once more leaning on the doorframe.
"That's my brother Robbie," she said, and a slightly younger boy half waved from across the room. The rest are respectively Greg, Jimmy, Buck and Ivor. Guys, this is the Doctor, and this is Rose."
Rose gave the boys a smile, but the Doctor was already on his knees examining the sphere and gave no acknowledgement.
"You caught us at a bit of an odd time," Genie told Rose. "Mum and Dad are away for the weekend, we're having a D and D mini-fest."
"D and D?"
"Dungeons and Dragons," supplied Ivor, a sandy haired boy lounging on the floor. "We're a big bunch of nerds."
This statement was met by various exclamations from the others, including:
"Speak for yourself!" from Buck, who'd scooched over on the small sofa as much as he could to allow Rose to sit down. It was a tight fit with two people already sat on it, and his arm ended squashed awkwardly between them, the papers in his hand falling into Roses lap. Curious, she picked them up and studied them, though after Buck's name written at the top, she could barely make more sense of it than of the monitor screen in the TARDIS. Scanning down the lists of numbers and notes, she realised that there was another sheet stapled to this one, though it did nothing to enlighten her.
"It's a character sheet," Buck told her. "See, you have your name and the character's name at the top, and what they look like, what race they are, and…"
"Character?" Rose interrupted, still perplexed.
"The character you play in the game," explained Ivor, holding up a similar sheet from his place on the floor. "That's why it's called an RPG."
"RPG?"
"It stands for Role Playing Game," Genie told her, picking up her own character sheet and crossing the room. "You make up a character, and so do your friends, and then you can have virtual adventures. Dungeons and Dragons is set in a kinda magic, medieval type place. I happen to be an elf, and a thief. Buck's an orc warrior."
"Oh." If she were honest, Rose honestly did not see the fun in sitting indoors for hours pretending to be an elf when you could be out doing something, but she maintained an each to their own philosophy. "And what's all these numbers and stuff?"
"They're a note of how good your character is at certain things, and sometimes which dice you have to roll. That's how you make an action, and how it's decided if you achieved it or not."
"Right." This game, Rose decided, was utterly beyond her, so she handed the sheets back to Buck and turned her attention to the Doctor, who was now lying on his back, peering up at the sphere and prodding it with the sonic screwdriver. "Any ideas?"
"Oh, hundreds," he replied, resetting the screwdriver. "But ideas about this particular thing, not many." He suddenly shifted. "What am I lying on?" He reached one hand under his back, pulling out a crumpled sheet of paper, just about making out the name "Jimmy" written at the top before blinding flash of light knocked everyone to the floor with a soft whoomph.