Mop Doctor Who Episode 6: Murder at Fairfax Manor

This was made using the Doctor Who Solitaire Story game, it can be downloaded here: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/233361/doctor-who-solitaire-story-game-second-edition

Doctor got upgraded, his brawn has increased to 9, that’s it, cue the theme song.

Lewis went up to me and asked “What should we do now Doctor?”, we had done a bit of space tourism that I didn’t find worth noting down because I’d seen it a lot already, in fact, I saw another police box on one of the planets so I may have even seen the exact same moment of time before… or after, I don’t know… whoops either way. I was shuffling through a drawer when I found an invitation I had forgotten about. Without thinking, I read it aloud: “Dear Doctor, we humbly invite you over to the party we’re having at Fairfax manor…” Fairfax… like the lady I got killed in an explosion… unfortunately, Lewis was sold, saying things like “Ooh a party, that sounds fun!” and “I swear I heard something happen there but I don’t know what…” I put in the date and some sounds later and we were hidden in a corner somewhere to attend the party, after some minor wardrobe adjustments (more on Lewis’ end).

We stepped out to the front door where we were met by the man himself, Mr Fairfax (I forgot his first name). I showed him the invite and he was like “I… don’t remember you looking like that.”, thinking fast I replied “Oh, the Doctor wasn’t able to come, he gave it over to both of his companions, I’m… Richard. This is Lewis”, Lewis did an awkward wave. He accepted that almost too easily and we were let into the grounds of the manor, wide open countryside, we got in and decided to get settled.

This is new, this place counts as a “Holiday” location, meaning I have the option to relax instead of explore until the monsters show up. Sweet!

We settled down into what appeared to be a living room, we had arrived an hour before the party, we were given some tea and we sat around doing inane conversations, one of them went “I feel sorry for his sister, Flora, heard her grandmother went insane! Thought everyone was imposters, must’ve been that post partinum impression or whatever the psychologists are calling it.” 

Mr Fairfax replied “Yeah… we took pity on her, let her back into the Fairfax manor as a maid, it was the best I could do!” 

Yeah so I ignored that person, they kept talking about how cool their home was and maybe some of the dialogue you ignore watching Downton Abbey (so all of the dialogue). Lewis was clearly quite bored by it all. Eventually, Mr Fairfax just randomly bought up there being a secret underground tunnel, then Lewis went to “Relieve himself”. Clearly he was actually going off to investigate the tunnels, good for him honestly, saves me from doing so. No good place has a secret underground tunnel. Then the party was ready, I put on my mask and entered the masquerade ball.

Meanwhile, Lewis was doing this:

Good God how does the Doctor manage to stay around these people, and seriously he has a time machine but chose to arrive an hour before the party!?! I lied saying I was going to go to the toilet, I actually wanted to investigate the tunnels they mentioned. They seemed to go on forever and ever, how does this even fit underneath the manor? I then came across a maid… weird that she’s down there. Still, I asked “Who are you?”, she said “Oh I’m just the maid down here.”, annoyed, I replied “I mean what’s your name?”. She looked nervous, but replied “Flora. Flora Fairfax, Edwinister Fairfax’s sister, well, half-sister, that’s how he justifies having me be a maid.” We talked a bit, she seemed friendly enough so I asked her to join me investigating the tunnels, she seemed to know the ins and outs of this place given she’s the maid here. She also told me that a lot of distrust was going around, no one thinks anyone is there for a reason other than profit.

Transparent Man 2:

The Lewis Turn after this was redone because it was the same as the last one, he found more tunnel and Flora again, it would’ve been repetitive.

We investigated across the tunnels and discovered a body! That’s where I remembered this place from, there was a murder… suddenly, a woman came from the other end of the tunnel, I tried to talk to her but she accused us of murder, we had to run as fast as we could! We did so successfully, but now we look suspicious… I need to tell the Doctor about this.

Back to the Doctor:

As the party winded down, I found myself talking to one Lady Seraphina Garbert-Smithe (though she asked me to just call her Sera, a demand I am thankful for), we lounged about after the party had ended but barely anyone left. That’s when Lewis burst in like a stampeding elephant, followed by a maid. He screamed “DOCTOR THERE’S BEEN A MURDER, MURDER!”, everyone erupted into screams, Mr Fairfax told everyone to calm down, but more importantly that no one should leave. Not until the police arrive and certainly for me, not until I’m done investigating. 

Lewis ofcourse tried for take charge. After the shock of finding a body had worn off, he was positively giddy at the prospect of solving a murder. He said to me “Ok so I’m familiar enough with the case, the suspects are Edwinister Fairfax and Flora, mainly because he had the motive and she had the opportunity-“

“I didn’t!” Flora ejected.

“I know you didn’t now, you came from the same direction as me, just being honest. Would your brother have a grudge against that man?”

At that point I had to cut in with “Look, as far as I’m concerned, any of them could’ve done it, or none of them. Let’s conduct our investigation.”

Sera and the maid stuck with us as we began our investigation. No matter what, we just couldn’t find anything of use. I entered a hall with a view of the Yard, there was a young man and, according to Lewis, the priest that chased them earlier. 

“Ah, Richard,” the gentleman said, “we were just talking about what went down in the tunnels… Lewis found a body did he not?” 

“Come on, he yelled it out to everyone!” The priest replied. “Gonna be a long time before the police arrive.”

She paused before going onto a weird tangent about how recently, red lights have been spotted through the windows in the manor, human in shape. They’d come in bright before burning out. With that blatant hint, I said “Well, are you going to show me this or what?”. They looked at me disappointed, before going on with their demonstration. Their bodies became engulfed in red light before revealing their reptilian form - “Demoreans!” I exclaimed. I could vaguely feel Lewis feeling very disappointed, can’t blame him, he was expecting to solve the case yet the real answer is one that can’t ever be accepted until 2110. “Took you long enough.”, the one on the right replied. A third one entered and said “Ah, missed my cue, sorry!”.

I said “Well then, you can’t exactly do anything now can you? I’m not exactly human here either, if you kill me I won’t be dead. Kill Lewis and you’ll have me angry, kill Sara and well, she’s quite a screamer, well, opera singer, same thing, everyone there will know, and…” I was a bit stumped coming up with something for the Maid, I hadn’t even checked what her name was yet, luckily she chimed in with:

“I can fight back.” she was holding Lewis’ blaster and Lewis just looked mortified, I shot him a disappointed look because he thought to bring a gun to a party, granted it’s helpful but still!

The 3rd one walked up to me and said “And as for you Richard… or should I say, Doctor, you can’t say anything about this. If you mention one of us was by the crime scene, we can say that 2 of you were also at it. So until further notice, this is Matthias,“ the one that was the gentleman turned back into the gentleman, “this is Lily,” the one that was the priest turned back into the priest “and I’m… well, we all have our secrets.”. They promptly walked away from us. 

We then found a room to sit down and talk about this because half of the group didn’t know aliens existed and were freaking out naturally. I love doing this, just telling them aliens are real, it’s fun, it’s like a puzzle in their head you get to solve. Lewis was also helpful I guess. We then decided our next course of action: finding out what the Hell they were doing here. And who are they exactly, I never payed attention to them when they taught us about them back on Gallifrey.

So we walked around, hoping to bump into them, and luckily I did. I also bumped into their priest (not to be confused with the priest from earlier, this one had a bigger head). I asked them “So… tell me all the juicy stuff before I leave! What is your plan? Motive? What did you do again, they never said it on Gallifrey.”

They looked at me and replied “Well. You may have noticed Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin here-“

“No I didn’t.” I interrupted “We were all in masks, for starters but also who the Hell is Stanley Baldwin?”

“I just said, he’s currently the Prime Minister. He’s probably still sitting in the ballroom while they wait for the police to investigate the murder. We’re waiting for a perfect time to strike, then one of us replaces him, we get to cause havoc, lots of lovely paradoxes, that feeds us Doctor, that’s why we do it.”

“Guess some people really do just come to parties for the food. Wait, why did you kill that guy in the tunnel?”

“Jean? Oh, he saw us. Besides, it helped us didn’t it? They had to lock the gates!”

I left, my group in tow, We were going to put a stop to this plan, and maybe I’ll get a bottle of wine out of it. Now, I noticed on their waist was a Rift key, now that’d be how they traveled through time, but there’s also an emergency function on it where if the leader’s one is activated in a special way, they all retreat. Just needed to activate it. Pretty easy, threw a tennis racket that hung on the wall at him, he ran towards me, I fiddled with it with my sonic screwdriver while I was being very quickly moved towards a window on the 3rd floor, and he teleported away just in time along with the rest of them. Now of course we had to wait until the police came to do their fruitless investigation… pretty sad. Managed to steal a bottle of wine at least. 

After it all, we all got talking. Basically, I pitched Sera and Flora the whole Tardis thing after our little adventure. Sera said yes, and Flora basically said “Well if she’s going, I’ll go too.” Yet another Beatles-esque stroll into the Tardis, yet another “It’s interior is larger than its exterior”, etc etc, and we’re off.

Ok so I didn’t need to make them companions, but hey it gives more options as to who dies and if that happens and I did name them. Well now, there’s a rule that every 6 adventures you add +1 to the random location dice rolls, so join us next time where we will be in the 1600’s doing stuff, probably flirting with Shakespeare I dunno. Also here is my Twitter, follow it for updates n such https://mobile.twitter.com/MarvelousMop