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]

"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."

[imeanforever]

"Right. The other option is - escalate."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Go after Thorn with an army?
If I had gotten Blossom's name, maybe they could make her get rid of Thorn's protections, but I don't see more people getting farther than I did."

[imeanforever]

Promise shakes her head.

"Go after Thorn," she says, "with the Queen."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"HAhahaha, yes let's do it.
I'll give Thorn the fact that he seemed to be interested in stopping the end of the world when he found out, but the Queen's unlikely to be worse. Even if we fail, what've we got to lose?"

[imeanforever]

"Well, we have to lose the fact that she doesn't currently know we exist. Also, I won't be readily able to go in personally without taking enormous risk, since I'm a fairy and she knows my name. But she knows Thorn's. And Blossom's. And everybody else in that court. If we get the Queen - if we can hold the Queen and be halfway intelligent about deploying her - we win Fairyland forever. If we fail, well, we're her pets, but probably she's not worse than Thorn."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I captured Thorn's top vassal by running in and grabbing them. It was the darts that stopped me before I got up to Thorn himself, and somehow I doubt the Queen has traps set up designed to make people her vassals."

[imeanforever]

"Yes. But she has every fairy it has ever occurred to her to want. She doesn't have to maneuver for them like Thorn. Her vassals are going to be better quality, more numerous, and more densely packed. You were overconfident last time, don't do it again."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Every fairy. Ruin.
How strong and fast do fairies get? Thorn seemed to expect it to be impossible to effectively snatch Verve without magic, so I'm guessing not very, but there's anything other than sorcery that can stop me I should probably know about it."

[imeanforever]

"It varies widely with kind and I don't know all the kinds. I would be - a little surprised if any fairies could fly more than five times as fast as I can, without magical help, but not astonished; in terms of moving around not in the air I think there's less variance. I'm on the large side for fairies in general but I know they can be up to half again as tall as me, some kinds, and correspondingly or moreso strong. I think if you throw enough magic at the problem you aren't going to be physically outclassed, but you might not be able to positively curbstomp every fairy you meet."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I have kind of absurd quantities of most relevant magic.

Verve mentioned that sorcerers have to worry about air currents, and that they're sensitive enough to notice an invisible person breathing from across the room. Would it disrupt casters if there were suddenly, say, a gigantic gust of wind?"

[imeanforever]

"It depends on how good they are. Sorcerous spells depend heavily on the conditions under and targets on which they're cast. A very good sorcerer will be able to correct for multiple sudden disruptive factors at once, especially if all they're casting on is themselves and the disrupted place is one they otherwise know well, because they'll be very familiar with themselves and their turf. A middle-range sorcerer will have to spend time recalibrating to get anything significant done."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"And we can assume the Queen has the best. If you transmute me some cadmium first, I'll be able to do heat and wind any time I don't mind being seen. Having that probably wouldn't hurt.

Would you be able to affect the Queen's court with sorcery from a distance if you were familiar with it?"