A reality eventually known as the Sanctum of the Heretic was an oxbow world, the result of a masterplan by Auteur in an attempt to influence a "Noble-woman" to choose a world of her own over that of her alien guardian's.
- You may be looking for Donna's World.
However, the Noble-woman had unexpectedly chosen her original world over that of the oxbow reality, thus trapping Auteur when she returned to her world. The oxbow reality began to collapse around Auteur, with the stars, the Sun, and the Moon all disappearing first, then break-down of reality itself, becoming two-dimensional, with the sky itself reddening with paradox. As Auteur cried, his tears of tangled biodata formed pools of ink; he then, in a last attempt effort to ensure his survival, wrote in this ink on the sidewalk that he would someday return.
Eventually, a trio of Retconning Crocodiles made their way into the oxbow reality, discussing among themselves about whether the reality was worth utilising as a base of operations. However, the one of the three determined that the reality was too far gone, but he told them that some good use could be made of it. The Crocodile was referring to Auteur, whom the Crocodile had just temporarily restored to life - he had one-thousand words he could speak before he would regress to death. The trio of Crocodiles struck a deal with Auteur, where Auteur would write an abecedarium, a short narrative, that would ensare and destroy the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids in exchange for life to be permanently restored to life.
Auteur was temporarily regressed to his Shadow Spire, wherein he wrote the abecedarium. After it was completed, the Crocodiles were true to their word and restored Auteur permanently back to life, but maliciously left him in the crumbling oxbow world, as freeing him was not part of the deal. As Auteur realised this, he noticed that underneath his writing on the sidewalk was now accompanied by a new message, from the Crocodiles, taunting him.
The "Sanctum of the Heretic" quickly became a denotation used by scholars for the Oxbow Timeline. (PROSE: Resurrection of the Author)
Behind the scenes
Throughout the story, the Sanctum of the Heretic was referred to as a parallel world, an oxbow world, an oxbow timeline, an unreality, and a fallen world.
Donna's World
The "Sanctum of the Heretic" is intended to be Donna's World. This was depicted in the Doctor Who: Lockdown! short story A Better World by Aristide Twain, where it was revealed that while the Time Beetle technically was the one to create Donna's World, the events leading up to and surrounding it had been engineered by Auteur. The story follows Auteur as he influences events and as he follows Donna to the new reality, and how Donna chose to sacrifice herself so that she could return to the Doctor's universe, leaving Auteur trapped.
However, all of the short stories published on the Doctor Who: Lockdown! website are not covered by this Wiki due to them being by and fan fiction, therefore failing rule 2 of Tardis:Valid sources.