Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or Terry Pratchett's wonderful Discworld books. All of the characters and many of the ideas (the Roundworld Project, Ankh-Morpork, etc) are from either of those franchises which I don't own.
A/N: This is episode one of a series of Doctor Who stories. Each episode/chapter will be it's own story, but still connect to the rest of a story arc.
Clara was very bored. After weeks of watching the Doctor fix up a coffee maker she'd accidentally blown up, she needed more adventure. Finally he'd finished. Hopefully he'd also forgiven her…
"So... Where to now?" Clara asked as they stood in the TARDIS console room.
The 11th Doctor grinned at her. "Well, I think we need a break from all the serious stuff. A holiday."
This sounded suspicious. "Nothing dangerous, I hope."
"Nothing dangerous," The Doctor replied cheerfully.
"You're sure? No… armies of Cybermen?"
"No…"
"Green bug-eyed monsters?"
"Nope."
"Triffids?"
"What the heck is a Triffid?"
Clara rolled her eyes. "Whatever. But seriously, Doctor, where are we going?"
"Sightseeing!" he shouted gleefully, opening the door.
The strange sight before them made Clara gasp. "What the...?"
They appeared to be in a horrible cross between Elizabethan London, New York City, and 19th century Yorkshire. It looked grimier than any sewer Clara had seen on her travels with The Doctor and smelled like decomposing road kill. The people wandering through the marketplace the TARDIS had landed in were dressed in a wide variety of styles… and some of them didn't even look like people! Seven-foot-tall creatures humanoid made of badly carved rock (mainly granite) didn't exist on Earth. Neither did little those grayish… zombies that wandered around.
"Ah, good old Ankh-Morpork. City that all roads lead away from!" The Doctor exclaimed brightly.
"Why are we here?" Clara asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I wanted to visit some old friends who might even want to meet you. Lord Vetinari, the current tyrant, probably won't want to see us… but most of the Unseen University's professors enjoy the sight of a female who isn't their 60-year-old cook. And I'm sure dear old Lady Sybil would enjoy tea with you."
"Maybe. But will I enjoy tea with her?"
To Clara's annoyance, The Doctor wasn't listening anymore. He was too busy hailing a horse drawn cab.
"Where to, sir?" the driver asked.
"Unseen University, library entrance."
After only a few minutes they were in front of a huge building. The Doctor paid the cabbie, while Clara stared at the dramatic architecture in front of her.
It looked like the designer must've had five different personalities. Each wall or window was a different style, yet it all looked the same age.
"Welcome to the Unseen University for wizards!" The Doctor exclaimed, gesturing dramatically at the building in front of them.
"What sort of wizards are they? The dangerous sort?" Clara asked, raising an eyebrow.
"They're the sort that eat too much and spend most of their time telling people magic is not for messing with. The most dangerous I've ever seem 'em is when they played paintball. They can get really competitive."
Mentally chuckling at the idea of these silly sounding wizards, Clara happily followed The Doctor into the university. They walked through impressive hallways for a while. Then, they walked into the library.
To Clara's confusion, an orangutan greeted them.
The Doctor grinned. "Ah, good to see you! It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"Ook?"
"Yeah, Clara's new."
"Ook."
"Who?"
"Ook, ook."
"You've got a department of Inadvisably Applied Magic? Since when?"
"Ook!"
"Okay, fine. We'll go meet him."
Clara stared blankly at The Doctor. "What?"
"The Librarian says that Professor Ponder Stibbons is having trouble with some advanced maths. He wants me to help check some of it."
"Are you trying to get rid of me?"
"I do believe you'd enjoy looking through some of the Librarian's books."
"You are trying to get rid of me!"
By then he wasn't listening. He'd wandered off, presumably to find Professor Stibbons. Clara wasn't really sure what to do… but maybe a little sightseeing would be interesting.
Since she didn't know how to leave the place, she just wandered aimlessly through the hallways. Nobody seemed to notice her.
Unknown to her, this was because the wizards who saw her believed her to be a hallucination brought on by magical radiation. Wizards don't think the way other people do, especially since invasions of demons from the dungeon dimensions are quite commonplace at the UU.
After a while she came upon an unlocked door. She couldn't help but wonder… what would the Doctor do? His answer would definitely be to enter the room just because it was locked.
So that's exactly what Clara did.
A moment later she wished she hadn't. What she found there horrified her. It couldn't be…
We interrupt this programme to annoy you and make things generally irritating.
Clara was in shock. Sitting there on a table was a snow globe (of sorts) with the Earth inside it. Except… it couldn't be. The Earth wasn't the size of a tennis ball. But something in Clara's brain told her that it was most definitely the Earth.
That made her mind hurt. It was just weird. Trying to wrap her head around the fact that all of London was smaller than a pinhead didn't… work.
"Who're you?" said a voice behind her.
She spun around to see a fat old man wearing a robe of some kind adorned gaudily with sequins. Atop his head sat a monstrosity of a pointy hat. It too had sequins of equal extravagance. For some reason, a crossbow hung from it. And a few boxes of matches seemed to have been tied to its brim.
Something about the look on his bearded face gave her the feeling that she was in trouble. Serious trouble. Sent-to-the-headmaster's-office-and-shouted-at-by-the-entire-faculty trouble.
Attempting to talk herself out of things couldn't make matters much worse…
"Um… I was lost. My name is Clara and I'm traveling with a professor called the Doctor…"
"Very funny. Just follow-"
"I'm not leaving. My friend is helping a professor here. He's helping Ponder Stibbons figure out some kind of-"
"You know that lad who's helping Professor Stibbons? He's quite the chap, I must say! Any friend of his is a friend of mine. Why didn't you say you knew him in the first place?"
Clara didn't reply. These wizards were quite ridiculous.
"Never mind. I'd better take you right to young Ponder's department. Can't have a girl like you wondering about!"
To avoid telling him off for being sexist, she literally bit her tongue. These wizards weren't dangerous… just bloody annoying!
They walked through the University's many winding halls for a while. To Clara, every hallway or door looked nearly identical.
Finally, they found themselves outside a room with words painted on the door. None of the others rooms had signs, for some reason.
In large, friendly letters someone had painted: 'WARNING: Department of Inadvisably Applied Magic. Do Not Enter without permission of Professor P. Stibbons. This includes you, Archchancellor Ridcully.'
Clara chuckled to herself. It reminded her of something a teenager might write on their bedroom door when they didn't want their Mum to go through their stuff.
"I always ignore that sign. Young Ponder is rather foolish, thinking that a bit of paint can keep me out."
"You're the Archchancellor?" Clara asked. She wasn't really sure what an Archchancellor was, but it sounded impressive.
"I am," he replied as he opened the door.
As Clara stepped into the room, the Archchancellor wandered back into the hall.
Clara was glad to see the Doctor sitting at a table in the middle of the room. Next to him sat a man of about 30, wearing robes similar to the Archchancellor's. Unlike the Archchancellor, however, he was extremely thin and beardless.
"Hello, Doctor," Clara said cheerfully.
The sound of her voice clearly startled him.
"I'm busy!" he shouted.
Clara raised an eyebrow. This wasn't normal behavior for the time lord. Something must be very wrong.
"With what?" she couldn't help but ask.
"Stuff you won't… can't… understand. Stuff that'll upset you."
"I'm already upset enough after finding that squishy Earth-globe thingy!"
Ponder Stibbons stared at her in absolute horror. "You know about the Roundworld Project?"
"I came cross that… thing while wandering through the hallways."
"I told you to go to the library!" the Doctor wailed.
Clara burst out laughing. "Haven't you learned a thing about humans? Telling us to do something boring often makes us want to do the opposite. It's called Backwards Psychology… I think."
"Reverse Psychology," Professor Stibbons quietly corrected.
An expression of somberness suddenly appeared on Clara's face. "Seriously, though. What's the Roundworld Project?"
"Well, um… your entire world was accidentally created when a magical experiment went too far," Ponder Stibbons explained nervously.
"These fools keep meddling with half the things on Earth. I've been trying to stop them, but they never listen," the Doctor replied, pouting childishly.
"Really?" Clara asked.
Embarrassed, Stibbons nodded. "Really."
"Please stop. I mean… why would you do such a thing? I'm sure nobody on Earth knows about this. Either tell my entire planet or stop."
The Doctor cleared his throat. "Clara, I think you should stop-"
She glared coldly at him. "What would you do if you found out that your planet's history was being influenced by a bunch of overweight men in red dresses and an anorexic Harry Potter lookalike?"
"I would probably be quite angry. But don't you realize we are the reason your world exists?" Ponder Stibbons replied fearfully.
"My parents are the reason I exist. Have they been controlling every bloody thing I do all my life? No!"
Tears suddenly welled in Clara's eyes at the memory of her dead mother. Fortunately for her argument, Professor Stibbons thought that those tears were shed for her planet.
"Er, I think maybe I should inform the rest of the faculty that we aren't supposed to go near the Project anymore," said Ponder, smiling nervously.
"Finally," the Doctor muttered to himself.
Clara smiled slightly and, after a while, her tears subsided.
Professor Stibbons then showed the both of them out of his office. After bidding them a quick goodbye, he locked himself away and began writing a memo to send to everyone in the entire Unseen University.
"I think I'll chat with the Librarian for a while, since he's an old friend," the Doctor explained as they walked down the hallway.
They soon found the Librarian shelving a few newly returned books to their shelves.
"Ook?" he asked once he noticed them standing there.
"I – well, Clara- convinced Professor Stibbons to stop with that stupid project of his. If you ever need help again, just contact me. You know how."
"Ook."
"Good!"
The Doctor and Clara both turned to leave…
"Ook!"
"What's wrong?" the Doctor asked, suddenly very worried.
"Ook, ook."
"A mysterious message for me?"
"Ook."
"Really? It just appeared? And addressed to me?"
"Ook!"
"Of course I believe you. Do you have it here?"
"Ook."
"Well, hurry then. I've got to leave soon."
The Librarian climbed up a nearby bookshelf to a secret loft in the ceiling. Before Clara could ask what was going on, however, the Librarian reappeared. He clutched a piece of paper in his, er… hand?
The Librarian carefully handed the note to the Doctor. He stuffed it into his tweed jacket's pocket without even glancing at it.
"Ook?"
"I'll read it later," the Doctor replied solemnly.
Without further ado, the Time Lord and his Impossible Girl left the University and returned to the police-box shaped TARDIS.
To Clara's surprise, it hadn't been stolen. "I thought everyone is this city was a thief or something."
"There are coppers, too," said an unfamiliar (to Clara) voice.
The Doctor smiled when he noticed the tall young man standing nearby. "Carrot! You guarded it for us!"
"Kept Nobby Nobbs from stealing it, in fact."
"Thank you so very much!"
"You know me, Doctor. I'd do nearly anything for an old friend," the young man proclaimed happily.
After a bit of small talk with the young copper, Clara and the Doctor ended up back in the TARDIS.
"You didn't tell me that you knew an orangutan Librarian or Wizards," Clara said with a smile.
"I didn't tell you that I knew the true heir to the throne of Ankh-Morpork, either," he replied with a wink.
After a moment, Clara understood. "That guy is royalty?"
"But there hasn't been a king in years, so he doesn't want anyone to know. His boss also happens to be a direct descendant of the man who beheaded the last king."
Clara cringed.
A little while later, after Clara had left the console room, the Doctor read the note he'd been given. He frowned in confusion at its cryptic phrasing.
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