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]

"To a first approximation, they will let you think fast enough to stop time relative to your opponent. If you also need physical movement for sorcery, I can get you another spike to match."

[imeanforever]

"I might need to move my eyes, turn my head, to see more of the space."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Oh. Right. I use them together so much, I tend to think of that as part of the mental one. Suppose I probably should, then."

[imeanforever]

She nods. "I'm not sure where to put a third chunk of metal that won't get in my way..."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"You could put it where your bronze earring is. Since you already have two spikes made of bronze, and those are touching your skin, you could store the alertness in one of those instead.

The next spike goes through your heart. Do you think you might want to rethink it?"

[imeanforever]

"I didn't know the spikes could be dual-purposed like that but I suppose it makes sense; I'll do that. It can't kill me. What other side effects might I need to consider?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"More spikes can make you more susceptible to Allomancy that affects emotions. The first few barely matter, but if you're racking them up like this I imagine you'll want to be warned."

[imeanforever]

"...I can layer my spell a few more times. Does it make me more susceptible to anything else?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Not unless you get a lot more. Inquisitors have enough spikes, enough pieces of soul tacked onto their own, that they need a linchpin spike holding them together. You'd be up to seven Hemalurgic spikes with the next one; that's less than I have."

[imeanforever]

"Okay. It seems like a win to add it, probably. If at some point the disadvantages of having a lot of spikes outweigh the advantages of some particular subset of spikes I can take them out."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"They are conveniently interchangeable that way. I can get the relevant one in probably five minutes."

[imeanforever]

"If you take a spike out of a mortal's heart, what happens to the mortal?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"They heal the damage because they're an Inquisitor and have stored up enough health to do that. I would have mentioned this when you asked about downsides otherwise."

[imeanforever]

"Okay. Good."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I think you still have to explicitly allow me to go."

[imeanforever]

"You may in general operate in ways conducive to the good-faith advancement of our mutual goals."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Thank you." He was hoping for something broad.

He takes off and returns in a few minutes with a six-inch piece of pewter partially sticking out of his chest.

[imeanforever]

"You still know my name, I don't think I can pull it out of you," she says.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Right."

He pulls it out of himself (with a distinct lack of squelching sound; he's regenerating from the wound as soon as it occurs) and hands it to Promise. He looks down at the hole in his shirt and makes a mental note to change that next time he's not doing anything important.

[imeanforever]

Promise ignores the presence of her leafy dress and takes a deep breath and impales herself. She fixes her dress with a touch of sorcery.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Her organs rearrange themselves around the spike as soon as it stops moving. Her body is now convinced that there is no physical injury, and when she reactivates her senses there is no pain. Her heartbeat may feel rather differently shaped now.

Alendi hands her a piece of steel. "And this is physical speed. It's the single most useful attribute for catching future vassals by surprise."

[imeanforever]

Promise takes off her redundant earring, looks at the piece of steel, and reshapes it and puts it on.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I think we're both about as prepared as we can get now?"

[imeanforever]

"In terms of assorted metallic assets, as far as I know, yes. We still need the gate to settle so I can look through it and find where to put a second gate, which will also need to settle, and choreograph your attack plan."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"First person to look isolated gets grabbed, I thought. Since I won't know who's valuable by looking I'm going to have to do that at least once.
If I have some darts made, will you be able to do sorcery on them? I didn't even notice Thorn's hit me, and they injected whatever they had to at least one time in three."