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]

"I'm going to make this gate very small. It'll be less conspicuous that way," says Promise. "I'll make a separate one you'll be able to walk through when I've seen candidate sites." She hands him the lump she's transmuted. "That's done."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Thank you. And here's your spike back." He exchanges it and the tinminds for the cadmium, and stores a bit of breath. "On second thought, would you be able to increase the amount of this? I'd need more for the wind thing anyway, and I'm curious about what happens if you duplicate something with a charge in it."

[imeanforever]

"I do still need a chunk of something to transmute. I can't make it out of nothing." Promise re-spikes herself, then gets her writing materials and makes two diagonally positioned crosses on the wall to mark her eye-level little tiny gate where it will settle. There's just enough room to poke her face through, or there will be when it settles. "What would be a particularly interesting experiment is to see what happens if I transmute something that is already charged."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Try this bit of copper," he says, catching a large scrap of copper. "It's charged with the memory of, um, the cube root of eight trillion. I'll hopefully never need to know that, and can just re-derive it if I do."

[imeanforever]

"I have spent a while deriving cube roots. The way Thorn phrases it, you can't just have already done it, you do have to rederive every last one. But all right. What should I turn it into, more cadmium?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Yes, please. They're both charged with different things, so I've got no idea what happens. Is this instantaneous, or should I go get the other spikes while it's going?"

[imeanforever]

"It'll take a couple of minutes. Go ahead and get the other spikes."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I'll be back in probably more than a couple. Not a lot longer, though."

He leaves, and closes the door behind him.

[imeanforever]

Promise watches her gate settle and transmutes the copper into cadmium and makes fairylight notes-to-self that wink out after existing barely long enough to read.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

When the Lord Ruler returns, he has two extra bronze spikes. "This one will let you think and react faster. It goes in your right side," he says, pulling it out of his own. "And this is the sleep one." He points toward one sticking through his wrist.

[imeanforever]

Promise notes these locations and spikes herself, filling tin with discomfort until the wounds heal. And she hands over the transmuted ex-copper.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

It still contains the cube root of eight trillion, despite not being copper. But drawing on it felt like drawing on cadmium did, and it now stores breath not memory. He relates this to Promise.

And he hands her a piece of zinc and one of bronze, each charged with a stupidly large amount that only he could do.

[imeanforever]

"Can I reshape these so they're wearable without it affecting their contents?" she asks.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Yes, you could even break them and it wouldn't affect the total contents."

[imeanforever]

Promise studies their current shapes, and then turns each into a snug anklet.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

It occurs to Alendi, "I should probably warn you that if you ever happen to have a Mistborn angry at you, wearing metal is a strong disadvantage. That doesn't apply if it pierces your skin, unless they're an Inquisitor or me, but it matters for the anklets."

[imeanforever]

"But if it goes under the skin it's fine?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Correct. Then it's impossible to affect without Hemalurgy, hence the exception for Inquisitors and me."

[imeanforever]

"Right, where can I put it that won't get in the way of any spikes I might need to add later?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Depends on what spikes you might want. Making it an earring is probably safe; I doubt you'll need that space open.
If there's too much metal for an earring, you can break it in two and empty the larger piece while filling the smaller. The upper limit on how much a bit of metal can hold is really high."

[imeanforever]

Promise removes the anklets, peers at them, reshapes them into complicated winding earcuffs that loop over the backs of her ears and have piercing components, and puts them on. "Will this do?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Alendi checks that they're each one piece. "Yes, definitely. It shouldn't come up, but preparedness doesn't hurt.

I have all the materials I'd need for my part, that I know of. More quantity of those two new metals would be convenient but I'd be surprised if it actually mattered. So since we're pretty much prepared magically, should we decide on what to put in the public announcement?"

[imeanforever]

"You know more about what the considerations are there than I do."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I'm definitely going to have to warn people about the orders. Which is inconveniently also the part that threatens you. At least my recent decree that all new children are to have their names kept secret will make more sense now.

Do you mind if I claim to have enslaved you as an explanation for why you're working against the invaders, or would you rather be credited as our glorious savior?"

[imeanforever]

"I don't... I don't require credit but I may require acknowledgment of my own initiative. If people think I'm wandering around in a haze of variously obsolete commands, unresponsive to new information, this may not end well."