User:Najawin/Sandbox 1

Did not cover SJA, TW, or Class. --- If comments are treated as text in TARDIS Eruditorum ---

Notable examples include.


 * Lindy Orthia asking for essays for the anthology Doctor Who and Race in the article for The Talons of Weng-Chiang. (Relevant website)


 * Rob Shearman commenting on the relationship between Jubilee and Dalek, as well as why he's stopped writing quite so much for Big Finish or Doctor Who. Talking about how his delays in writing The Chimes of Midnight impacted Invaders from Mars, and explaining what writing that season of McGann audios was like. Talking more generally about Chimes and how it was written, as well as some comments about the emotional resonance at the climax of Dalek. Most notably, he commented here about the scrapped Absence of the Daleks script.


 * John Freeman comments on some specific Seventh Doctor comics in Doctor Who Magazine.


 * Lance Parkin commenting on what it was like working for the novel line around the time that the revival show was starting back up.


 * James Wylder under his arcbeatle handle commenting on the state of the BBC Books range.

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Aside from commenting on production issues, these people would also at times comment with their views on particular episodes, such as:

Parkin talking about on The End of Time.

Wylder doing so throughout the site, so much so that it's difficult to list just a single one.

Kate Orman commenting on the differences between writing for Doctor Who and other types of sci fi.

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 Cousins Octavia and Ursula arrive in Peking through an abandoned train station - the chi lines of the world disrupting normal transit in and out of this time - and travel to the British Legation, where they meet with a variety of foreign nationals, such as the archaeologist Grieves and his wife and reporter Munroe and have dinner. Grieves tells a story about his recent expedition.

On a prior expedition, they had found reference to the location of the White Pyramid of China, a great structure with mythic import, and reference to Kuan Yin. Grieves then mounted a new expedition, finding a massive, undisturbed pyramid. The hired local workers began an expedition, though Grieves felt they were superstitious, with their rituals and prayers and such, as well as apparently seeing Kuan Yin in the stone, which Grieves did not. Entering the tomb found two desiccated corpses, treasures, terra-cotta warriors, and in the burial chamber itself a jade coffin, with a body preserved inside of it, and a casket made out of jade resting inside. The expedition then returned to Peking, through horrible weather, bandits, workmen leaving, and the Boxers attacking and stealing most of what they had recovered from the pyramid.

Upon recounting this story, Grieves then brings his dinner companions into another room to see the mummy and jade casket in another room. The dinner party then asks Octavia to have a mystical peak into the jade casket, since they've been unable to open it. At their bequest she conducts a seance, using her witchblood and living shadow to examine the casket, noticing that it had been tampered with by someone else with witchblood. the next day, Octavia returns to the Legation, to find that Grieves has been shot.

Soon after, sedan chairs carrying two officials and their translator arrived, requesting to speak to Grieves, and conducting an investigation when it became clear that he was dead, insisting that it was suicide, before demanding the return of the artifacts and storming off. Octavia, worried that other Wartime powers were involved in the situation, sent out a call to Prester John requesting the backup of the Red Burial, of which twenty soldiers came.

Octavia returns to the now abandoned Grieves residence, to look for the artifacts, but finds none, before being attacked by the Boxers. She fights them off, before seeing them flee towards one of the officials from before, a general who carries a basket about the size of the jade casket. She moves inside the Legation to find that Mrs Grieves has been shot. As she is dying, she calls out to the spirit of the tomb, prompting Octavia to finally understand an influence she'd been encountering throughout this affair, a timeship from the Great Houses interfering with her mission.

Octavia then uses her witchblood and the dead body of one of the workers who uncovered the jade casket to the Forbidden City, where she finds another intruder, also looking for the jade casket. The two women fight, before touching the casket at the same time. Octavia then turns to look at her alternate number.

"You!"





Liu Hui Ying, and her kau fu Xu arrive in the Forbidden City and met with Ci Xi, the Dowager Empress of China, who tasked them, as well as Commander Meng, with the negotiation and recovery of sacred artifacts stolen by Grieves, though first hearing what one worker saw on the excavation.

Mao Lie Wei recounted his tale, of traveling to a great burial mound, and how rituals were performed to ward off spirits. They dug until they reached a warning stone, upon which was seated Kuan Yin, weeping, and they knew the resting place was not to be disturbed. The workers were promised silver upon the return to Beijing if they would enter the mound, thinking of his parents, Mao accepted. He removed the goods from the grave, and felt empty inside. On the return, men disappeared in the night and members of the Righteous Harmonious Fists attacked the group. Mao fled with the silver, before feeling guilty and begging forgiveness from the court.

Liu and the other two traveled through Beijing to Grives' house the next day, having previously met with her si fu and exchanged discussion related to a Han rebellion the night before. Upon their arrival, Xu and Meng ascertain that Grieves is dead, and insist on inspecting the body. The two insisted that his death is suicide, and demand the return of the relics. Liu attempts to soften the phrasing, but Xu and Meng refuse to listen.

The group leaves, returning to the Empress to inform her of a completed task. Liu then returned to her house, before darting out at night. She intended to recover the jade casket she saw - a Han artifact, to rally the rebellion she served. She discovered that Meng had acquired the casket, tracked him down, attacked him over the casket and fell back.

When Liu returned home, Xu chastised her for sneaking out at night, and, upon learning what she did, confronting Meng. Liu then left her house and went to her si fu's house. In discussing the revolution and their plans, she's told not to pursue the casket, that it might bring ruin on them all. However, that night she had a dream of the casket and insists on going after it, leaving her si fu's house as well, becoming truly disowned from her family.

Liu then broke into the palace to find the jade casket. As she approached it, a spirit dressed in white distracted her, before finally reaching the casket at the same time as a woman she saw earlier at the Grieves residence who noticed her and said.

"You!"



As the two touched the jade casket together, the two shared memories, a product of the witchblood the two of them each possessed. Fighting against this shared past, they pull the casket apart into two halves, before fighting each other for the half the other one possessed, Liu with martial arts, Octavia with her shadow. Then, interrupting them, came Compassion, who was manipulating the chi of the land into holding the faction operatives prisoner. Octavia, knowing the implications of her presence, flees, while Compassion, in her guise as Kuan Yin convinces Liu to use the jade casket and her witchblood to track Octavia down.

Octavia arrives back at the train station where Ursula, the Red Burial, and other members of the Legation who have escaped, are hunkered down. Ursula tells her that they've called on Prester John for retrieval. Morrison, the reporter, was dying from a bullet wound. As this happens, Octavia remembers that he had a journal, but when she goes to look for it it's gone.

Ch 2 finished