She’d met him when she was in her early twenties at a Victorian fairground in London. She’d been visiting with her then husband-to-be James. James had been killed by a race of aliens that she and the Doctor had discovered where called the Hoopex. She’d taken his death badly and had struggled to find any definition to her life after that.
She had returned to her regular life in Victorian London, but the Doctor had kept a close eye on her. When she finally reached rock bottom, he had returned - about a year later - and had whisked her away into time and space. Of course then he was young and dashing and she had almost fallen in love with him. Almost. The Doctor had never shown any romantic interest towards her, and Ivy had kept her feelings secret. Deep below the surface. After all, she was still missing James.
She had spent, relatively speaking, around five years with him, travelling from galaxy to galaxy defeating Daleks, Sontarans and Hoix. Finally, after five years, she had decided that it was time to go on her own way. That’s when he gave her the time ring.
In five years she had been transformed from a proper Victorian lady, to a intergalactic space and time explorer.
He'd kept a steady pace ahead of her and Bridges, but every now and again seemed to peep out of his little world, realise he had left them far behind, and then drop back a few metres. Now the Doctor was level with Ivy, but she could tell he was beginning to hurry his pace again.
“Slow down, Doctor,” said Ivy.
“I'm sorry?” asked the Doctor, obviously lost in his thoughts again.
“I said slow down.” She pointed back the way they'd come at the diminutive figure of Bridges in the distance. “We've left poor Bridges right back there.”
“Oh, he'll be okay.” The Doctor cupped his hands to his mouth and called back. “You okay Mr Bridges?”
Bridges waved his confirmation.
“You see,” smiled the Doctor.
“I still don't see what the rush is. We'll arrive there ahead of the others at this rate.”
“Exactly,” said the Doctor clicking his fingers. “We get there before the others and do a bit of investigating before they get there.”
“The place is called the Dream Path. What do you expect to investigate there?”
“Our dreams, perhaps?”
There was a yell from back through the trees. It was Bridges and he seemed to be struggling with some kind of twisting vine. Ivy and the Doctor rushed back the way they had come to help the man.
When they arrived a large green and yellow vine had somehow wrapped itself around Bridges foot. He was scrabbling in the sand to get away, but the thing wouldn't give in. He clawed at it and stamped on it with his free foot but it wouldn’t release him.
The Doctor grabbed the vine and felt around it.
“What are you doing?” asked Ivy in desperation.
“I'm trying to work out the nerve points,” he said, concentrating and squeezing the vine like it was an inner-tube to a bicycle wheel.
“And what will that do?”
More vines lashed up and grabbed the Doctor's arm. He grimaced out as it began to wrap itself tighter around him. Ivy had her blaster aimed at the thing in an instant and shot a red-hot plasma beam at the vine. A strange and eerie scream came from within the roots of the plant, but more vines lashed up to replace the charred one.
“Do something!” pleaded Bridges in agony.
“Aim for the source,” said the Doctor through gritted teeth. “Follow the vines.”
“The source! Of course, why didn't I think of it?!”
Ivy hopped between the snake-like vines that had now tried to grab hold of her as well. Eventually she reached a mass of them that seemed to join together to form a massive lump of vegetable tissue. The smell was terrible and Ivy almost vomited at the stench.
She screwed up her face, held her breath and levelled her blaster at the thing that was writhing around angrily. The beam shot out from the gun and hit the mass. It howled, but didn't stop it's attack as the vines began moving to grab her. She fell to the floor as one of them pulled her over.
“Okay,” she panted, “how about a higher setting.”
She switched the blaster up to a higher setting and fired again. This time the creature pulled back in pain and recoiled along the ground, unfastening itself from Ivy and scuttling into the trees. Ivy lay panting for a few moments and then headed back to the Doctor and Bridges.
“Well done Ivy,” beamed the Doctor, trying to rub the green plant stains from his shirt.
“How's Bridges?” asked Ivy.
Bridges groaned on the floor. “I think I'll be okay,” he said.
“You've got some bruising,” said the Doctor, checking him. “Obviously the pressure from that plant was too much. Oh, by the way,” said the Doctor, looking to Ivy, “you didn't hurt it did you?”
“Hurt it? Of course I did.”
“Fatally?”
“No I don't think so.”
A look of relief appeared on the Doctor's face. “Oh, good.”
“Oh, it doesn't matter that it attacked us, does it Doctor?” said Ivy sarcastically.
“It probably thought we were food. So this planet doesn’t just have humanoid life on it,” he said, looking around the trees. “We'll have to be on our guard from now on. And let's stick together this time.”
Meanwhile Danny had been having a pretty quiet and lonely walk with Grasp and Nivere. He couldn't understand why they all had to separate and go different ways.
“It's all about being an explorer, Danny,” Nivere had told him. “I didn't come to this planet to go straight to the fortress holding the Eye. I wanted to explore the planet as well, compare notes with the others and mark it down in my notebook.”
That blasted notebook, thought Danny. She'd been getting it out of those bloody stupid trouser pockets of hers every single bloody minute and making notes while her lizard friend guarded her back. Guarded her back! Who the hell would want to kidnap her? To Danny she was a pompous, stuck up old cow, but to that Grasp thing she was like some sort of queen.
“Keep up, Danny,” came her cheery, but bossy voice from far ahead.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Danny.
They'd come to the edge of the jungle and were now crossing over a small pond that had stepping stones running all the way through it to the other side. Grasp was the first to go across and was helping Nivere across the slippery stones. At one point she lost her balance but Grasp was at her side immediately.
Now he was trying to get across. The slimy stones were making it difficult to not fall and at one point he thought he'd never get to the other side. When he eventually did Nivere and Grasp were sat on a large boulder munching on some rations.
“So you finally made it?” said Nivere with a mouthful of fake food.
“Obviously.”
“You will have more respect when you speak to Captain Nivere,” warned Grasp, clutching his large blaster tighter around his scaly fist.
“No, no,” said Nivere, “Danny obviously isn't the adventuring type.”
“And why does he have to keep threatening people all the time?” said Danny, nodding towards Grasp.
Grasp growled and Nivere shushed him. “He is my personal body guard. I rescued him when he was young -”
“Yeah I've heard the story,” interrupted Danny. “But why is he here?”
“Protection. My only reason is to protect Captain Nivere,” replied Grasp.
“And he's happy with it,” added in Nivere.
After a while they gathered up their stuff and made their way through the jungle again.
Danny felt a twitching feeling in his face. He felt his cheek – it was cold. He shook off the worries and then followed Nivere and Grasp.
“Come on, Yentob!” shouted Slavin, as he was about to drive his spear through Aamina's throat.
“I have to kill her,” he said angrily.
“Calm yourself and come,” said Slavin, as Caroline and Dennington ran over to the two attackers.
Yentob withdrew and was about to grab Aamina and drag her away when Caroline decided to teach the two men a lesson.
“What the hell do you think you're doing!?” she shouted, marching over to Yentob.
“Caroline, no!” said Dennington, who was trying to help Aamina to her feet.
Caroline stopped dead as she saw Yentob's crooked teeth smile at her. Then, raising his spear, he thrust it forward, like a javelin. It hit Caroline's thigh and she screamed out in agony. She collapsed to the floor and clutched her leg.
“No!” shouted Dennington, running over. He stopped dead when Slavin also raised his spear towards him.
“Go back to where you came from,” warned Slavin. “We will take the girl now. If you move any further, then more of you will be taken and this time it will be fatal.”
Dennington backed off as Yentob slung the injured Caroline over his shoulder and disappeared with Slavin into the undergrowth.
“Now what are we going to do?” asked Aamina worriedly.
Caroline was upside down and her eyes felt sleepy. A sharp pain came from her leg which, strangely, didn't feel as if it was in the right position anymore. Then, after a while of concentrating, she realised she had been slung over someone's shoulder and was being carried through the jungle. She was in too much pain to cry for help and it probably wouldn't have helped her situation anyway, so she decided to just remain like that - upside down and feeling ill.
She could hear the two men talking. The one who was carrying her had a low, but young voice, whilst the other had an older and more craggy sound to him. She couldn't make out what they were saying, though. She seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness.
When will this end? she asked herself.
Branches slashed across her face and sharp thorns whacked into her back as they moved through the dense jungle foliage. She began to think of all the things she'd encountered since meeting the Doctor and how she'd finally gotten her into a situation that she was going to be killed in. The Apparites and Blackmore and the Trixatins. And now here she was, blood pouring from her open wound and no sign of rescue.
Please, Doctor, she thought, please, help me.
Dennington had regretted the decision ever since he and Aamina had agreed on it, but then they reasoned that they couldn't have done anything on their own anyway. If they were to mount a rescue then they needed help from the others. These people were savages. A tribe who didn't like people walking through their jungle. Dennington didn't like the idea, but a few blasters would sort their savage minds out.
Now they were heading across the jungle in a hope to meet up with the Doctor or Nivere's party on their chosen route. Aamina had gone quiet again and hadn't spoken since they'd come to the decision and it bugged Dennington. He liked to talk and those who didn't talk were considered odd by his standards. They trekked through the jungle and avoided swamps and eventually reached the path that the Doctor's party had travelled along, only to realised that they were behind them.
“Great,” sighed Dennington, “we've lost time and missed them.”
“What do we do then?” asked Aamina.
“Do? We follow the track as fast as we can and make the rendezvous at the Dream Path.”
“We'll be a few hours behind the others,” stated Aamina grimly.
“We can't just give up, Aamina.”
“That woman might already be dead,” said Aamina coldly. “I'd rather take my time than rush around the jungle trying to save her.”
“Well I'm not willing to make any decisions until we've spoken to the others. Let's go.” He marched off ahead of Aamina.
The Doctor stood in awe of the strange pathway before him - the Dream Path. It was a strange site. Ahead of them there were no tree's, just shrubbery and low bushes, and winding between the bushes was a dirt track. It reminded the Doctor of the yellow brick road and somehow he felt enticed towards it. For a moment the Doctor felt light headed, as if he were about to fall into a deep sleep, but then Bridges brought him back into focus.
“It's weird, isn't it?” he said.
“Yes,” said the Doctor smiling. “It's very…intoxicating.”
“I've studied it in books. It's part of the defence system that this so called God set up on the planet. Apparently there are a number of tasks and defences that you must pass on the way to the fortress where he lives.”
“And this is one of them?”
“Yeah,” chipped in Ivy. “You have to keep your wits about you or you may end up falling asleep.”
“That's why it's called the Dream Path,” finished Bridges, who was now taking a holo-recording of the path.
“Dreaming doesn’t sound very dangerous to me,” said the Doctor.
“The dreams that are conjured up here, though,” said Ivy, “are so deep that you may never wake up. Those that pass the Dream Path are already on their way to confront Tressure and, perhaps, claim the Gods power. It sounds like a load of old rubbish to me though.”
“And Nivere want's to cross this?” asked the Doctor.
“Indeed I do.”
The Doctor turned around at the sound of the woman’s voice and saw Nivere, Danny and Grasp emerging from the trees.
“Hello, Danny,” smiled the Doctor.
“Evening all,” said Danny, wearily. “That was a bit of a trek. Where’s Caroline?”
They had waited two hours and the sky had turned dark. The air had cooled down considerably and the explorer's had lit a fire to keep warm. Now they were huddled around it, sat in silence.
The silence was broken when Dennington rushed out of the jungle followed by a calmer-looking Aamina.
“What is it?” asked the Doctor worriedly. “Where's Caroline?”
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