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

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Does the sorcerer have to be at the gate when they make it? Because they know the other end of that one is at one of Thorn's courts, and that you made it, so that could cause suspicion."

[imeanforever]

"Yes. At least, I think so; there might be some version where you can make gates between two locations neither of which you are at, but I don't know of one existing. Who was around when you came out on the far end?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Clock and Rosewood. They helped me get Verve, and she helped me get Blossom, but it turned out Thorn had gotten me as soon as I stepped into the garden. Darts."

[imeanforever]

"Darts. That's disturbingly clever. He must garden his own whatevers for that to work on anybody but the occasional improbable mortal. I don't know Rosewood; I loosely remember Clock; I don't think either could confidently say that I definitely didn't approach the cave behind the falls to make a gate for you."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I was thinking more that even without witnesses, you being there at all would sound implausible.
But if the remaining choice is impossible, they'll assume the improbable one is true. So we can safely worry about something else."

[imeanforever]

"They'd have to assume you ordered me there. Did you imply that you'd been running the show between the two of us the entire time and that this was stable or do they know that I have had and could get the upper hand?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"First thing. They do know how we escaped Yellow, but as far as anyone knows I took control right away."

[imeanforever]

"Good. While we're having this conversation anyway, rescind my orders - they left lots of wiggle room but not enough. Thank you for making Yellow forget my name, though."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Ignore any orders you want to.
And you're welcome.
They don't know we have Yellow, by the way."

[imeanforever]

"They might have thought to check his house, but the fact that I set it on fire might mean that he's been transient anyway," muses Promise. "Thorn is... missing a lot of information. It's sloppy of him; I'm not sure it's suspiciously sloppy... how did you avoid bringing it up?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Nobody brought it up. And it didn't seem important at any point, so it's not like I was avoiding it.
I am surprised he didn't find out more about this world's magic, though."

[imeanforever]

"He might think that I'd be better at explaining it comprehensibly to him than you would and didn't feel provoked enough to hurt you until you produced descriptions that he felt were sufficiently informative. That's psychologically realistic, anyway, even if it's not serving him tactically."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"It helps us, in any case.
Eight days from now, they'll find out something's up. If they don't think sorcery is an option, what happens next?"

[imeanforever]

"Probably something like - Thorn distributes your name and probably mine too to his favorite non-sorcerers or sorcerers who are competent without magic and sends them looking for you."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"And after they fail to report back? My people should be able to handle non-sorcerer fairies once they know what they're up against. Easily, even, if you allow the use of emotion bubbles.

Then we end up with prisoners who have already been selected for knowing the names of Thorn's vassals."

[imeanforever]

"How are emotion bubbles going to help? These fairies will be under orders regardless of how they feel; Thorn prefers to bludgeon them into real loyalty but he doesn't let them use their own initiative that much."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"That's true, isn't it.
In that case it'd still help, for advance warning and for convincing them to walk into traps," (and possibly getting some fairies to form enough of an intention to work against Thorn that they trigger a passive order, but no need to mention that to Promise) "but it's not going to be an absolute win.

Still, non-sorcerers don't sound very threatening at all. Am I missing something important?"

[imeanforever]

"Well, they can all fly, some of them will have weapons, and we know fairies don't necessarily contain any metal, so they could be annoying to subdue and might be able to feed someone."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"And there's no reason it has to be a direct attempt to get us. That's what I'm missing. No matter how forewarned everyone is, all it takes is one dart and they can get the names of everyone that person knows."

[imeanforever]

"I might be able to ward a small number of people against darts, but we don't have nearly enough time for me to cover everyone. Same problem only worse with installing voluntary deafness abilities."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

It's worse. No need to bring up the rather distasteful actual limiting factor, though.

"I can partially protect names by sticking people with a needle to give copper Feruchemy. But to make any given person truly safe I'd have to reach everyone who knows them. And there's the same time problem.

We should probably assume our enemy can conquer the world at will."

[imeanforever]

"We could evacuate? Eight days is long enough for a gate to settle and for people to pack."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"We could. But we'd be putting a population of people who know everyone's real names in Fairyland. We'd almost be safer here.

The other option would be for us to warn everyone, then hide, and try to subvert whoever Thorn sends to rule the place. Preferably after dosing as much water as possible so you can counteract any orders if they do try taking over that way."

[imeanforever]

"The trouble is that Thorn's not going to just stop; going on the defensive just erodes our advantages over time as he and his learn more. They'll notice that sorcery works here - I did by complete accident - they'll notice if we ever have to go deaf and don't time it carefully, they'll notice if we catch and force forgetting on any of them and then don't maintain perfect control over those captives. Me he can take or leave - did leave, when Yellow made him an offer - but you he will want to keep if possible, kill to protect those of his vassals you caught otherwise. ...Did you get any of their names that you could tell me?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"No, I didn't.

Thorn doesn't know we planned to evacuate or where, so he wouldn't immediately check the Steppes, but there can't be that many places to put a nation of mortals. We'd gain time, but give up some of our advantages here."