A forest that was not there yesterday

[unprophesied_of_ages]

The Lord Ruler is in his palace, when he sees a sight he hasn't seen in centuries. Trees, sunlight...is he hallucinating? The fact that there's a forest in his living room isn't the surprising part. The fact that there's a forest on his planet is. As soon as he walks through the door to where his living room isn't, it's definitely not a hallucination.

His stores of Allomantic metals abruptly disappear. They're still physically there, but the power is completely gone. He immediately turns to go back, only to see more forest.

At least his Feruchemy still works—he can tell because he's still alive—but that won't last him forever. He only has so much stored youth, and without both sets of abilities he can't replenish it. He hasn't been in so much danger since the beheading that one time. Returning to Scadrial is the highest and currently only priority. If spontaneous forests are a thing, he needs to find someone who can explain them and more importantly how to get back.

The next few hours are spent walking in an essentially randomly chosen direction, with the sun to his right. He's quite certain that suns are supposed to be moving across the sky, but that's not a pressing emergency. He already knew he wasn't on his own planet when he saw proper trees and plants instead of ash-covered monstrosities. Whenever he calls out, nobody responds. If it's an empty spontaneous forest, he's probably doomed.

After some time, he hears his stomach growl. He hasn't seen much that looks edible, but possibly that's just because he's not used to real plants. Berries. Berries used to exist. Those berries look tasty, and if they're poisonous it's not like he needs to worry about it. As always, he has a truly ridiculous amount of stored health in his gold jewelry. Tapping gold just in case, he eats a handful.

Comments

[imeanforever]

"There's nothing to eat there right now, just a monoculture of grass. I would become nonfunctional in fairly short order unless I was allowed to collect and cultivate fey food or you decided to have a mortal feed me mortal food. The Steppes are also only slightly farther from Thorn's usual operating area than the place I most recently tried to live was, although a population of mortals with whom I had a reasonably free hand could protect me if they were smart enough to pick up sorcery, or had local magic to use, and luck and timing cooperated."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Growing fey food too wouldn't ruin anything, as long as it's contained enough to not interfere with the future mortal food.

Thorn...it's probably a good idea to neutralize Thorn anyway. How precisely do you know where he is?"

[imeanforever]

"I know where he keeps one of his courts, but he has a number of satellite courts and I don't know where the others are except that he can get to and from most of them and conclude business there in less than a single waking cycle."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Can't easily go after him then.
Not with current resources, anyway. How long would it take you to make a pure metal in quantity if I supplied a useless form of it? It'd be roughly analogous to transforming rust into iron."

[imeanforever]

"A few hours, maybe longer if it's more complicated than rust to iron, for the first amount, and then I could probably do it in small chunks every few minutes in the same work area indefinitely."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Excellent. Follow me and I'll supply the material." It's a short distance from the dungeons to another hidden room with a similar Allomancy-based lock as the one to the pool.

"The problem is that I'm the only one who'd be able to use it properly, so I'd have to go after Thorn personally."

[imeanforever]

She follows him.

"Thorn doesn't have your name and can't get it now unless you tell it to him. He could still force-feed you or kill you, potentially."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Both of those are harder than he'd expect, but he could have defenses I don't know about."

Once they're in the room, a dull green mineral flies into Alendi's hand.
"This is eskolaite. Most of it, by weight anyway, is chromium. If isolated, that metal should at the very least let me get to whichever satellite court Thorn happens to be at."

"And this one," (a tiny hexagonal crystal) "is called greenockite. No idea why, seeing as it's orange. It's less important, but if you can make the pure cadmium from it I'll come in useful."

[imeanforever]

"Do you have any pure samples of the things you want to turn these metals into?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"No, unfortunately. There's no known way to purify them, and even the ores are rare enough that we can't do much experimentation."

[imeanforever]

"I'm going to need to eat something in the time it will take me to make any progress."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Of course; I'll bring you food.
Would it go faster some place you've done sorcery before?"

[imeanforever]

"Yes, at first."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"The room with the pool, then. You may come."

[imeanforever]

She follows him.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

They reach the room shortly. "Do I need to order you to make chromium, or are you going to do it because it's for a good cause?"

[imeanforever]

"I'm still under 'take no new action' with exceptions," she points out. "I can't do it unless you say I must or may."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Oh. You may try to create those metals."

[imeanforever]

"I would also like to sit down, if I'm going to be here for hours. And water and permission to drink it. My medium- to long-term usefulness for any task that requires me to think will be very much increased if I am also allowed to either draw or make fairylights in genuine privacy on a daily or near-daily basis."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"You can do minor things like that as long as they aren't in some way a threat to me or an attempt to get out of an order.

I'll bring writing implements when I bring food, and can refrain from eavesdropping. Nobody else even knows this place exists."

[imeanforever]

As soon as he's said you can do minor things like that Promise construes storing her hearing as being ever so similar to fairy lights. They are both easy accessible magic that she can do right here and now.

She doesn't want to miss a useful caveat, but he says "as long as", and then she stops hearing him until she sees a pause that looks like it's probably between sentences.

He's talking about writing implements. Good.

She sits. "I'll get started."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I'll be back in a few minutes with food, water, and things to draw with. Anything else you need?"

[imeanforever]

"Not relevantly."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Alendi leaves.
He's smiling on his way out; he hasn't had a meaningful increase in power in centuries. Promise is the best minion.

[imeanforever]

Promise works on the metal.

And thinks about what things are "minor" and "like that". She is allowed to sit down; is flying like sitting? (Yes, at least short distances.) She can do fairy lights; this allows a wide variety of sorcery. She can speak freely and she still remembers her own name, so if anyone who might be willing to help her comes along and seems like the best chance, she can pull the exact same trick to get away from Alendi that she did to get away from Yellow. They would, however, have to help of their own will at least to start: speaking freely does not let her enforce commands. She could speak them (and even with Alendi's real name forgotten, they might startle him if she timed it right) but they will have no power behind them. Enforcing commands is probably not "minor" or "like that" even without whatever caveat she skipped.

Think, think. (Work, work.)