Lock, Stocks and Barrel (comic story): Difference between revisions

In the woods of a nearby village, Jebelex believing himself to be safe has gone into hiding before trying to sell the Treed Crystal to another buyer. When the TARDIS arrives in pursuit of Jebelex, the Doctor soon finds himself captured by the local natives and put into a set of stocks by a nearby pond in their village.  Having left Martha in the TARDIS (the natives don’t like visitors), the pond, a living entity, rears up. Inside the liquid the Doctor can make out the half digested body of Jebelex still holding the Treed Crystal. On the Doctor’s instruction Martha emerges from TARDIS and uses Jebelex’s mater transmuter to turn the liquid into a solid. The Doctor breaks free from the stocks, smashes the now solid creature and retrieves the Crystal.  The Zaan arrive to reclaim the Crystal and the Doctor uses the matter transmuter to return the pond creature to its ‘hungry’ liquid state. While the Doctor still holds the crystal he hasn’t won as the Zaan have captured Martha and, unless the Doctor takes the crystal directly to the Zaan homeworld, Martha will die. The Doctor decides its time to end this once and for all.