OH Fortuna!, a discworld fanfic

OH FORTUNA! - A Discworld Fanfic

Movement I: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi

Written by: Martin Eriksson AKA Ausir

Beta Reader(s): WargishBoromirFan, Thaumaturgy, Vella

Revision: 1.00 – Official Release

Date: 2008-04-18

Legal Disclaimer:

The following story is a work of fan-fiction. Discworld and all of the associated events and characters are the sole property of Terry Pratchett. I do not in any way claim to own any of these rights whatsoever, and should the original author so wish it, this story will be deleted.

OH FORTUNA! – A Discworld Fanfic

Movement I: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi

One early morning (that is, around eleven a.m.) a highly unorthodox procedure was taking place at Unseen University.

'I don't want to!' Rincewind bellowed and scratched at the floorboards. Ponder Stibbons was currently dragging him by his ankles, kicking and screaming, towards the HEM.

'Don't worry, I guarantee it'll be perfectly safe!' Stibbons assured and put a bit more back into it since Rincewind had managed to get a hold of one of the round pillars.

'That's what you said the last seventy-five and a half times as well!'

(This had been a highly unusual experiment, including a rubber duck, the Luggage, some poorly misunderstood quantum and a highly confused Chihuahua.)

'Did I? Oh my I can't seem to recollect… you know how it is, forget my own head next...'

Stibbons took a final pull at the struggling wizard and was able to make him let go, which resulted in the two of them shooting away like a rubber band and landing in a heap a few feet away.

'What's with all this bloody ruckus then!?'

The Dean, wearing a pink night-cap with little stars on it, shot his round face into the corridor and glared at the two with all the malice of a mutated angry tomato.

'Er… nothing much…' Ponder ventured.

'Well keep it down then! Some people are trying to get their well-deserved twelve-hours of sleep here!'

The fat man's face disappeared back into the room and the heavy door slammed shut right after, which, ironically, woke up the rest of the hallway. Rincewind and Stibbons quickly scurried away.

'So what's this about then?' asked Rincewind once they were out of range of any indiscriminate retribution from half-awake wizards. After all, being chased by fireballs was never a good start to the day.

'Ah,' Stibbons said and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, 'See, you remember that Randomness Calculator the students and I showed the faculty last month?'

'No.'

'We've improved it!' Ponder exclaimed, clearly not paying attention. 'Now we're not just able to calculate how much of a fluke you'll need to, say, land on the moon without your head exploding…'

'I thought we'd done that already?' Rincewind noted cautiously. Ponder had begun to sparkle with ill-contained excitement.

'Yes, yes, but you know what I mean! We can actually influence the distributions of luck among things and people!'

'You mean like with a shaved dice?'

'Yes! I mean no!' He tugged at the hapless wizzard's arm. 'Come on, I'll show you!'

Thus Rincewind was dragged the remainder of the way to the HEM-building where a number of students were busily at work on Hex, while others were gathered around a device that looked like a large abacus with tiny pictures painted on the broad, flat beads and a big red lever on its side.

'Is everything ready?' Ponder asked. The students looked up and nodded.

'Excellent, and I've got the guinea p--… er… that is, the volunteer right here.'

Rincewind sighed. Since his appointment to Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography and whatnot, he had been the volunteer-apparent for all of Stibbon's work.

This was because the rest of the faculty generally regarded anything going on in the HEM building as Cruel and Unusual geography.

He sighed again.

'I just want to ask one thing - what is the worst possible thing that might happen here?'

'Wha-?' Ponder looked up from the notes handed to him by one of the students.

'Oh, well… um…' He consulted his notes. 'Ah, yes, "may cause nausea, chaos and disorder throughout Time and Space, the destruction of civilization as we know it, etc. etc…'

Rincewind nodded glumly.

'That's what I thought. So where do you want me?'

'Right in front of the randomness-calculator over there would be capital,' said Stibbons and pointed at the one-armed abacus.

'Is that all?'

Rincewind was feeling slightly better about this already. Then he remembered how those things usually ended and gave another grave sigh.

'Oh, no of course not, hahah…'

Ah yes, here it comes, Rincewind thought.

'You'll have to initiate the BRL as well.'

'The what?'

Ponder hesitated for a moment.

'Er… the Big Red Lever.'

'Aha, I should have figured. And then what?'

'Then we'll watch what'll happen next.'

'Of course…'

Cautiously Rincewind approached the device, agonizingly aware that Ponder and the others were taking refuge behind Hex and various pieces of toppled furniture. He gulped and reached out with his hand.

The switch was pulled.

And the world creaked slightly as it shifted gears.

Wrrrrrr-wrrrrrr-wrrrrrr-

'Is it supposed to do that?' Rincewind asked, stepping away as octarine sparks began to fly everywhere. The beads were all spinning furiously.

'Well, theoretically speaking it might not be entirely…' Ponder began uncertainly.

Wrrrrr-Wrrrrr-WRRRRRRR-

Rincewind made a run for it. That is, he would have made a run for it if his robe hadn't quite unexpectedly gotten caught on the BRL. Stibbons made a short note on this.

'Er… a little help here?' Rincewind ventured.

'You're doing great!' Ponder called out, scribbling so fast that smoke was coming from his notepad.

And speaking of smoke…

WRRRRRRRR-WRRRRRRRR-WRRRRRRRR-

'Er, I say…'

WRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-

They all shut their eyes tightly, praying to whatever gods were currently listening.

click

Rincewind and the others opened their eyes. The machine had stopped, and the wizzard, with the sudden clarity of one who has just seen his life pass before his eyes, noted that it was showing three horseshoes in a row.

'What does that mean?' he asked, turning to Ponder and the rest.

However they all seemed to be rather more interested in what was behind him, judging from their vivid pointing and inconsistent blabbering. Rincewind gulped.

There's something behind me. That's never a good thing; I think I'd better go see what's for breakfast…

Before the wizzard had even managed a single step, he felt a hand land on his shoulder, which was sort of a relief since this obviously meant that whatever was behind him had a human shape.

Of course, some of the scariest things in the world are human-shaped, he added as an afterthought.

'Hello, Rincewind.'

Rincewind jerked slightly and turned around. He was met by a pair of emerald green eyes that were devoid of both iris and pupil.

'Umm…' he said.

It was later, though not much later - say fifteen to twenty minutes - that Ponder returned to the HEM with Unseen University's senior faculty in tow.

'I must warn the faculty that the, er… nature of the magical anomaly might be somewhat shocking…' Stibbons warned as he nervously opened the door.

'Oh, come on Stibbons, how bad can it be?' Ridcully said impatiently and boldly strode inside. 'Oh…'

Ponder swiftly joined him, with the rest of the senior faculty – who were more experienced in these matters – curiously peering inside from behind the heavy oaken door. The Dean's normally red face had taken on a shade of crimson.

'I say! It's a-!"

'A member of the female persuasion,' Ponder interrupted smoothly.

'I think I recognise a woman when I see one!' the Dean bellowed.

'Er… technically it… I mean, she is the magical anomaly I mentioned earlier.'

'A woman?'

'At ninety-eight point zero nine percents certainty.'

Ridcully gave the young Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic a long stare.

'Is this that quantum stuff again, Mr Stibbons?'

'Afraid so, sir…'

'Bloody quantum,' Ridcully muttered. 'Now tell me, what's that Rincewind fellow doing next the wo- magical anomaly?'

The wizards simultaneously looked at Rincewind, who had the definite expression of someone who'd very much rather be in a different location. His legs were also noticeably twitching.

'Is he in shock? Somebody, get the dried frog pills!' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

'Err… not in shock, not as such…' Ponder explained. 'Actually, I think he's trying to run away. However, due to the highly unstable nature of the experiment, it is quite possible that even the slightest movement may cause Rincewind's morphic field to collapse and implode in on himself. Or turn him into a duck.'

'And you told him about that did you?' Ridcully asked.

'Of course, sir.'

'I see…'

Ridcully cupped his hands around his mouth.

'I say, Rincewind! Do you feel like your wossname is about to collapse?'

'Nnnnnnn-not as s-such, no…' Rincewind replied with the minimum amount of lip-movement.

'Try and hold on to that though alright?'

'Trying like hell, sir…'

'Good man.'

The Archchancellor then turned to the magical ano- err… woman. She was beautiful, in a distinctively nondescript way; that is to say, you couldn't describe it. The only two facts that any sound wizard would accept from empirical evidence was that she was smiling, and had luminous eyes like a pair of emeralds.

'Ah, you are a goddess then,' Ridcully said with the confidence of someone whose younger brother was in fact the High Priest of Blind Io, chief of the Discworld's deities.

'Yes,' the goddess replied sweetly.

'The one they call… the Lady, I presume?'

'The same.'

There was a hubbub of low gasps and frantic whispering among the wizards.

'And what brings you here, then?' asked Ridcully.

The wizards simultaneously took a step away from the Archchancellor. Gods were known to be easily offended, and Ridcully was an easily offending kind of person.

'I am not… entirely sure,' said the Lady, frowning and gaving Rincewind a sideward glance.

'But I suspect this person has something to do with it.'

'Really?'

'Nnnnng!' Rincewind said urgently while trying not to shake his head.

'Rincewind did in fact initiate the Randomness Calculator,' said Ponder smoothly, as attached to his material existence as the next guy.

'That infernal device, is it?' Ridcully queried, pointing.

'Indeed.'

'And who was the one that built it in the first place I wonder?'

Ponder broke into a light sweat. The Archchancellor had the unnerving quality to be sharper than a razor when you least expected it.

'Err… yes, that would be me, sir.'

The wizards peered at the Randomness-calculator.

'Ah, it's that thingamajig that counts the wossname in the la-di-da,' the Dean proclaimed smartly.

The Dean had been the first of the senior faculty to fall asleep during Ponder's initial presentation. Since he'd also been forced to attend all the other ones, he nonetheless thought of himself as having a fair grasp on what Ponder's inventions usually did.

'How did it work again?' Ridcully asked. He had somehow teleported himself from the door to the RC and was currently, in good wizarding tradition, poking it.

The aged wizard was paying special attention to a lever labelled "Do Not Pull!!"

'It makes a calculation of any given event and the percentage of the possibility of it actually occurring…'

'Really?' the Lady said candidly. 'How interesting!'

Stibbons swallowed nervously and glanced at the Lady. Gods could be pretty touchy about the topic of copyright. In fact, they were known for it. Just think about that poor bloke who stole fire from the gods, whatshisface? Ponder found himself unconsciously listening for the flap of eagle wings…

'There must have been a malfunction…' he stuttered, 'this is just an ahah, un-lucky co-incidence.'

Ponder laughed nervously. It was the laugh of someone who had a noose tied around his neck and had just been asked if maybe it was a bit too tight.

'Well, I'm sure that if it's just an accident we can look through our fingers on this,' Ridcully said in a jolly voice and nodded at the Lady.

'Sorry to have bothered you, your ladyship. Don't let us keep you.'

'Yes, I'll be on my way then,' the Lady said in a deceptively courtly manner and sent the RC a short glance.

The machine abruptly began to twist and bend with the sound of someone walking in deep mud with heavy boots until it had contorted into a molten glob of iron before disappearing completely into nothingness. In the background Ponder could be heard whimpering.

The Lady nodded with the air of a job well done.

'Goodbye,' she said, and the wizards dove to the floor as they simultaneously recognised the sudden increase of magic in the air.

The space around the Lady was suddenly alive with octarine and green smoke that spiralled upwards, crackling with small outbursts of highly concentrated magic. The pillar of smoke extended up to the roof and soon hid the goddess completely as it twisted and coiled around itself…

And then it disappeared, as suddenly as it had come, and left the Lady standing in the same place looking quite bewildered.

'What the…?' she asked and blinked. Then she gave the cowering wizards an accusing look.

'What did you just do?' she demanded. The emerald eyes were pulsating in a dangerous way.

Even Ridcully seemed to have become noticeably paler.

'Err, we haven't done a thing, your ladyship,' he said in cautious defence.

'Then why am I still here? You damn wizards must have done something!'

She began to approach the huddle of elderly wizards, like a lioness descending on her prey. And then she abruptly hit an invisible wall.

A few good punches and a plague of locusts didn't seem to affect it either.

I: What Is the Meaning of This, she demanded.

'Is she talking in commandments?' the Chair of Indefinite Studies asked in a whisper.

'Apparently…' Ponder whispered back.

'And that's a bad thing, is it?'

'Afraid so.'

'Oh.'

'MR STIBBONS!' Ridcully bellowed, making the bespectacled wizard jump two feet into the air.

'Y-yes, Archchancellor?' he peeped.

'An explanation please!' Ridcully demanded.

However, Ponder was spared the effort of explaining, for the time being anyway, since at this point Rincewind had reached the conclusion that, while the act of moving might spell certain death, not moving while an enraged god was about to start a rampage would spell a most certain death.

And so, he had started running. Yet when he ran past the Lady, she inexplicably began to pursue him, with her feet struggling for purchase on the floor.

II: Stop This At Once, she commanded.

This only convinced Rincewind to run faster, and subsequently forced the Lady to go faster as well.

The wizards stared.

'Will you look at that,' the Dean said, 'it's like that game, wossname, where two blokes run with their legs tied up.'

'How do they do that?' asked Runes.

'What? Oh, that's easy, you just…'

Ponder wasn't listening to the ensuing discussion. As pompous as the Dean was, he had just hit the nail on the head (metaphorically, obviously), and that bugged him to no end. Nonetheless, he cleared his throat. Maybe he could make it seem like it'd been his idea…

'Sirs, if you'd be so kind, I think we'll have to make Rincewind slow down.'

'What for?' Ridcully asked.

'Because if he keeps dragging her ladyship round like that there is a high probability there won't be any Rincewind in a few minutes. And quite possibly no Ankh-Morpork either for that matter.'

Now the wizards were all ears. When it came to the important stuff, most notably their own survival, their actions could be as fast as dark (which is, as we all know, faster than light, on account of always being able to move out of lights way).

It only took a few minutes of looking at each other to see who would make the first move to reach a decision.

'Well then, what are we waiting for? After him!' Ridcully bellowed. They all set after the wayward wizzard.

'Hut-hut!' The Dean yelled, noticeably at the back of the line.

Consider for a moment the geas, a humble species of Discworld fowl that might be described as a cross between a flamingo and a Sumo wrestler. Its only defence against predators is its ludicrousness, which will make even the most starved creature laugh to tears.

This has nothing to do with our story, except that the sight of seven wizards running through the halls of Unseen University after another bloke with attached screaming goddess, is just about as likely to cause anyone serious rib-trauma.

And it is a fact that an unusual amount of students that day had to seek professional help. They were generally advised to take two pills in the evening and drop in on Monday.

Oh, and stay off the strawberry jam and mayonnaise sandwiches, please.

'So… what you're saying then, is that the Lady has been magically sealed to Rincewind here, through your infernal little machine, and is unable to move more than around twenty feet away from him, is that right Mr Stibbons?'

Stibbons nodded morosely. With time he had learned to fear the times when his boss would actually set his mind into understanding things that, Ponder felt, was really none of his business. He had a distinct feeling that somehow, somewhere, Ridcully was going against the natural order of things.

'Me?' Rincewind asked in bewilderment.

The capture of Rincewind hadn't been an easy task, since years of running away from all sorts of things had made the wizard as quick and cunning as a weasel.

It was only after he slipped on a banana peel (which was strange, since the Librarian was generally a very clean being) and got caught under the weight of three full-grown wizards that his flight was halted and he brought back to HEM.

And now he had suddenly found himself in a situation from which it was impossible to run away.

'This is unacceptable!' the Lady proclaimed. Sitting next to an extremely nervous wizard, she was still seething, though she had at least stopped talking in commandments.

'Erm… nevertheless, it's a fact your, um, ladyship ,' said Ponder.

'I demand that you release me this instant!'

'Yes, get to it man,' Ridcully urged, 'We can't have goddesses running around the University grounds. It's unnatural.'

'Err, I would, of course I would, if I could, that is…'

'What?' the Lady and Ridcully asked simultaneously.

Ponder was starting to feel quite Bursar.

'I would need the data from the Randomness Calculator to backtrack what went wrong,' he explained gingerly, 'but since it's, um… unavailable at the moment, I don't know how to go about it. I might build a new one though and work from there…'

'How long?' the Lady asked.

'Er… err… ummm… t-two months?'

Luckily, the magical seal protected Ponder from the ensuing Rain of Fire. Rincewind however, on account of being inside the seal, had to jump around for a while striking out fire from his robes.

The Lady sat back on her chair, breathing in a way that to the smouldering wizard brought to mind thoughts of mashed potatoes…

'Alright, if it can't be helped…' she said and added, 'I guess it's Fate that's been meddling around with things anyways, that would be just like him…'

Ridcully rubbed his hands together.

'Jolly good! Get to it Mr Stibbons, I'll be checking up on your progress on regular intervals.'

'With all due respect, sir, I think some arrangements need to be done before we can…' Ponder began as a sudden thought struck him.

'Yes, yes we'll see to it you lads get all the materials you need. On your salary, of course.'

'Thank you sir, but we need to…'

'Enroll as many students as you need, Mr Stibbons!' the Archchancellor boomed happily, 'Keeping their minds sharp and busy, that's the ticket!'

'But sir, this is important!' Ponder insisted, again feeling a closing kinship with the Bursar.

'What are you blabbering about, man?'

Ponder took a deep breath.

'What about… sleeping arrangements, Archchancellor?' he managed.

Ridcully looked over at the Lady and Rincewind, realisation dawning on him.

'Good grief!'

'Glad you agree with me Sir,' said Ponder mirthlessly.

To be continued…

A/N: Alright, this is then the first chapter of a story that's been lurking at the back of my skull for at least two years. Hopefully I'll get a decent night's sleep now that I've finally begun writing it.

Now, despite being listed as Romance/Humour, I just want to say that I'm not keen on fluff, at least not with characters that you'd have to bend through multiple dimensions in order to fit them inside it. I'm actually more in it for the humour and making this fic funny while exploring a virtually non-existent (as far as fandom is concerned) pairing. But don't be alarmed, those of you who enjoy romance will hopefully find something to their liking as well, even if it's through a pair of Pratchett-vision goggles.

Also, I had some great help from my beta-readers WargishBoromirFan, Thaumaturgy and Vella, who all helped me a great lot with adjusting grammar and plot to run nice and smoothly. Thanks guys!

Finally, I want to thank all those reading this fic (and these self-indulged author's comments) and hope that you'll stick with it till the end. And I wouldn't mind a few comments on how you think I'm doing so far either ).

Ausir.