The Oracle of Delphi (audio story)

 was the thirty-third Bernice Summerfield audio story released by Big Finish Productions. It was the fifth story of the seventh season.

Publisher's summary
430 BCE. Greece is in turmoil: Athens is at war with the Spartans, the Athenian women possessed by a horrifying cult... and then Bernice Summerfield strolls into town.

Benny's on a desperate mission to save the Braxiatel Collection, millennia in the future. But she's only gone and lost her husband - last seen skinny-dipping somewhere near Delphi.

She needs help, and it comes in the shape of a talkative bloke called Socrates.

Together they must find Jason, survive the fate awaiting Athens and ensure that the future is saved. But divine powers are at work in Ancient Greece. Powers the archaeological record neglected to mention...

The Oracle will see you now.

Plot
Using a time machine from the Braxiatel Collection to travel to 430 BCE Greece, Benny locates the cavern of the Oracle of Delphi and Jason goes skinny-dipping. The cavern is empty, however, and Benny finds that Jason has disappeared in her absence. She follows the trail of two horses to Athens where she meets Socrates and learns that Jason has been seen in the company of Lady Megaira, who has enslaved him and been using him to report what is said about her cult at the assembly. In the morning, Benny goes to the assembly disguised as a man and warns them of the oncoming plague in addition to asking about Jason, but she gives herself away and is expelled.

Jason reports news of the plague breaking out at Piraeus to Megaira and is forced into telling her about Benny, whom he briefly saw at the assembly but was unable to make contact with. Benny and Socrates, disguised as a woman, attend one of Megaira's cult meetings at which they are served a liquid which makes them all slaves to Megaira, but Socrates vomits and is thus unaffected. He reveals himself after Megaira says that women must rule, after which he carries the enslaved Benny back into the city whilst the cultists chase them. Benny tries to kill Socrates before falling unconscious, waking up free from control the next morning but aware that part of Megaira remains in her head.

to be completed

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Jason Kane - Stephen Fewell
 * Socrates - Paul Shelley
 * Megaira - Brigid Zengeni
 * Plato - Scott Handcock
 * Athenian Women - Sharon Gosling, Amanda Lindsay

Continuity

 * Bernice and Jason were given the time rings by the Seventh Doctor. (PROSE: Happy Endings) They last used them to escape the Grel. (AUDIO: The Grel Escape)
 * The war between Athens and Sparta ended in 421 BC. (AUDIO: Mask of Tragedy) However, they were at war again by 410 BC. (COMIC: The Chains of Olympus)
 * Bernice and Jason are on a mission from Bev, and Megaira mentions Bernice leaving her son in the care of a dog . (AUDIO: Summer of Love)