AustLit

'Tom bribes Iris with a plate of rum balls and convinces her to let him drive the bus to the Hard Place Resort, a resort complex built on an asteroid in the heart of the Time Vortex and powered by energy drawn from the elemental forces underlying time and space. Moments after Iris steps out of the bus, however, a young man appears and apparently disintegrates both the bus and Tom with a blast from his magic wand. Iris finds the resort entirely deserted, apart from a lone grey wolf and the young magician, Suneku, who attacks her when he realises that she's not the one he's looking for. Iris evades him and searches the entire resort, hoping that whoever Suneku is looking for will prove to be friendly. She fails to find anyone else, but sees her bus trying to rematerialise in the resort, and realises that Suneku merely banished it back out into the Vortex and that it's trying to return for her. Suneku and his wolf then confront Iris again, but Iris' leopard-skin coat unexpectedly comes to life and attacks the young magician. The lights begin to go out in the resort, and Iris panics, believing that this means the Vortex itself is dying. However, the wolf transforms into another young man -- Suneku's partner, Urufu -- and reveals that, in fact, the elemental forces are tired of being used as a cheap source of energy and are striking back at the resort. Suneku and Urufu evacuated the staff and holidaymakers and have remained to calm down the angry elemental forces; they had placed beacons to warn new arrivals away, but the inexperienced Tom failed to recognise them. Once Suneku has assured the elemental that no one will ever return to the resort, he and Urufu summon back Iris' bus, allowing her to leave. Suneku and Urufu then depart, and the elemental manifests itself within the abandoned plate of rum balls and reduces the resort back to its constituent particles.'

Source: drwhoguide.com (http://www.drwhoguide.com/nw_n01.htm). Sighted 20/5/11