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]

"And it can put Ruin in stasis, but not permanently, at least not without side effects? I may need you to explain these things from something resembling the beginning."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"In the beginning, those two were equal. Nothing of import happened or for that matter existed, because they were equal opposites and whatever one did the other would undo. Eventually they reached an agreement. Preservation wanted to create humans, and Ruin would refrain from immediately destroying them because sentient life contains more of Preservation than it does of Ruin. The fact that some of Preservation's power was placed in humans is why Ruin is now more powerful, and the fact that it's more powerful is why it accepted the deal. It was assured of being able to destroy the world eventually.

Preservation betrayed its counterpart. The prison it built keeps Ruin's mind separate from its power, so it can't affect the world except very subtly. Its power is still out there and people can use it; it's stored in a valuable metal best known for its usefulness in combat.

But even though their powers are usable, Ruin's mind is imprisoned and Preservation's is dead, so neither is in a position to accomplish their goals directly. The end result is that the prison needs to be re-created and Preservation can't do it itself. Why it's temporary in the first place I don't know. The side effects of the holder becoming more like Preservation are just a consequence of having something of that scale attached to your mind.

That's all from the mythology of an ancient religion that was followed by the Terrismen. During Ruin's last attempt to get out, it managed to help the real Alendi conquer the world, and arranged for him to fit the Terris prophecies about the Hero of Ages. It changed those prophecies to say that the Hero must lay down the power and resist the temptation to use it. All very noble, but had Alendi done so it would have freed Ruin. I stopped him.

And having been Preservation and seen this for myself, I can say that the mythology is correct at least as to how the imprisonment works."

[imeanforever]

"So now you rule the world. I approve of it not being destroyed but disapprove of it containing emotion bubbles. What is your best guess about what other things going on are likely to be similarly displeasing?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Similar to the existence of Soothing?
Maybe the class division. The nobles are, among other things, smarter than the skaa. This is because I made them that way, intentionally giving some people's descendants an advantage as a favor to my friends from before. The division has been gradually lessening because of interbreeding, but I imagine you might dislike the idea."

[imeanforever]

"Not as bad, but yeah, I don't like that. Anything else?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"The Terrismen still exist. I've been keeping them exiled from most of the Empire and forbidding interbreeding because one type of magic comes from Terris and another from the noble families hundreds of years ago here, and if anyone happens to be born with both then they'd be able to challenge me directly."

[imeanforever]

"Do they object?" she wonders. She is fuzzy on people caring about being able to breed and this doesn't seem like a very nice place to live anyway, but maybe they object.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I can safely assume that they do."

[imeanforever]

"What, is it even ashier and more generally unpleasant in Terris?" she mutters, but she doesn't pause for an answer. "What else?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Insufficient oversight over subservient fiefdoms, probably. Most of them treat their serfs fairly, but I don't pay close enough attention to say they're all reasonable about it."

[imeanforever]

"Why do you rule the world? It seems like all you strictly need for world-saving is access to this room and to stay alive - or for anyone else to have that and behave halfway reasonably with Preservation power - and you don't seem to be interested enough in world-ruling to be thoughtful about it."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"By staying in control I can guarantee that I keep access to this room. Ruin has already shown the ability to take over the world using a thousand years' worth of subtle effects, and once it got enough indirect power it could neutralize me. Any other empire that arises will almost certainly be its pawn, so I prevent any from arising.

Besides, ruling the world lets me maintain order where there wouldn't be any otherwise." Rashek did spend some time as Preservation, and not all the changes go away.

[imeanforever]

"Can the room be moved?" wonders Promise. "Its world-saving features, I mean."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Last time around, I had to rotate the entire planet so that the pool would end up in one of the habitable parts."

[imeanforever]

"The entire what?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"The planet. Giant ball of mostly rock that circles around its star once a year. It also spins once a day and that's what causes days, but I know yours doesn't, so it might be different in other ways."

[imeanforever]

"Huh. I don't think Fairyland is or contains planets." She taps her chin, not that he can see this; she's still invisible. She doesn't want to have to redo the spell unexpectedly if something comes up. "At this time my motivations are to arrange for your world to continue to exist, for it to be run less awfully, and retain my personal safety in so doing. Annoying you is not a desideratum but neither is not annoying you a priority next to those three things. I am willing to expend considerable amounts of my own time and magic - which turns out to work here - to achieve these goals. Comments? Suggestions?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"If you're not familiar with planets in general, I'm even more sure that I'd rather have me at the pool in three hundred years. The reason this world is so unpleasant now is because of a relatively small error I made regarding its distance from the sun. Anything bigger could have killed everyone.

It would not destroy the Empire—let alone the world—to change everything changeable that you've objected to. The worst consequences would coming from stopping the Soothing; I'm not sure you appreciate the fact that the order it keeps helps save lives.

Your safety can be perfectly guaranteed by going to the South Pole, er, the other side of the planet. There's a civilization there, or at least there was seven hundred years ago, but I can't easily get across and nobody else knows you exist. But that would obviously interfere with you affecting anything on this side, so you probably don't want to."

[imeanforever]

"Mind that I do have to eat - not to live, but to function at reasonable capacity - and any mortal food I eat that doesn't come directly out of your hand is a problem." Pause. "Never induce or allow anyone else to feed me. Do you honestly have no other ideas for maintaining order than emotional manipulation? I would certainly need to know more to generate same but you've had plenty of time to think."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"That's the most effective one. Ordinary bread and circuses can also work for keeping populations happy, and a tyrannical rule with a steel fist can enforce laws, but making people not want to harm society is a ruler's dream come true. Since I imagine you're going to make me stop the Soothing, I'll have to increase policing and probably have some public executions or pillories or similar.
I've spent more time thinking about how best to expand the emotion project than about what lesser methods exist."

[imeanforever]

"I suspect I also disapprove of executions."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"What, all the time? It has never not been the assigned penalty for attempted assassination and suchlike. While it's probably theoretically possible to run a country without ever executing criminals, I've never heard of it being done successfully. And wouldn't you want to execute Yellow?"

[imeanforever]

"I can't, he's immortal. I want to make him and the master I had before him forget my name and prevent them from acquiring more vassals and free the ones they have. If they weren't immortal and the only way I could stop them were killing them? Maybe I'd do it. You seem to simply not be very creative. You wanted to move a bunch of colonists to Fairyland. What were you going to do if fairies you could not possibly execute tried to assassinate you?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Get their names, order them to do their level best to never interfere with me again especially regarding any efforts to get this order removed, and drop them off on whatever corner of the human territory is farthest from any coconspirators they might have. Possibly also publish their name and picture as extra incentive to stay very far away indeed.

For the first few, I might also try bringing them here to see how and whether the magic I'm familiar with can steal their immortality."

[imeanforever]

"Well, I can't technically fault your imagination, but I think I can improve on 'blatant evil' as a system of government."