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]

"Why is it almost always fatal? What's going on when it's not?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"It's effectively ripping off a piece of their self. They wouldn't be the same person afterwards, except physically. The damage is variable but always large. To a first approximation, you can think of it as lifelong brain damage of unpredictable type. There's a reason this is only used on condemned criminals."

[imeanforever]

"Can feruchemists share stored things?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"No, you can only tap your own metalminds. If someone's Feruchemy was obtained through Hemalurgy then they can use anything of that attribute that was stored by the previous Feruchemist, but that's the only exception."

[imeanforever]

"Do you have any live victims of hemalurgy lying around?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"No. It'd usually be fatal even if it weren't being intentionally used as a way of executing criminals."

[imeanforever]

"Yes, but if you had any who were still alive, since it's not invariably fatal, I could see if I could fix them or something."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I would be very surprised if that's even theoretically possible, but it's a moot point. There haven't been any in centuries.

I hope you won't refuse the spikes that can give you the deafness ability because of their origin?"

[imeanforever]

"I haven't decided yet. Relatedly - one thing that occurs to me is that there might be fairies who don't want to be immortal, who've gotten tired of being alive. I haven't met any who've expressed such an opinion to me but there could be some."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"That is possibly the strangest preference I've ever heard of," says the man under a truth compulsion. "But once we're established as a group that exists in Fairyland we can spread the word that it might be an option.

If it helps, there'd obviously be no need to even ask if it involved killing anybody. There are some Inquisitors who don't need Feruchemical tin as much as you do; I can just take the spikes that they're getting the ability from and stick them in you instead."

[imeanforever]

"Is that as uncomfortable as it sounds?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Yes. To start with, anyway." He could use mind magic to make it so that she doesn't mind the discomfort, but that's extraneous to the answer and he chooses not to bring it up. "Once the first spike is touching your blood, you'll have the ability to store senses, and if you use that it'll be much less uncomfortable. By the end of it of course you'll be able to block out a sense entirely; that is the point after all.

And it will heal much more quickly than a mundane spike would, but I'd suggest not using sorcery to speed it up. I don't know how it'll interact."

[imeanforever]

"Why might it interact with sorcerous healing particularly? And where are these usually put?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"It works fine with Feruchemical and Allomantic healing, but I don't know how sorcerous healing works. And it does slightly change the structure of the body. Mostly it reroutes blood vessels but in extreme cases—which this isn't—it might shift organs or even bones.

As for where, there are hundreds of bind points around the body. This one is rarely used and kind of obscure. I stored the information in a coppermind and can't answer your question without first using copper Feruchemy."

[imeanforever]

"Copper is the one that does memory?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"That's right."

[imeanforever]

"You may use copper feruchemy."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

He draws on a coppermind—it comes with an intuitive sense of which one—and then says "It's on your arm just below the shoulder, at an angle of about sixty degrees in either direction from straight sideways. At least for a human it is. If fairies are different, we'll find out as soon as it pierces skin and nothing happens."

And then, since he doesn't know if he'll get another chance, he stores a bit of knowledge for later in an empty coppermind.
That knowledge is that he can use Feruchemy to selectively forget things.

[imeanforever]

"How big are these things? Will they be obvious to anyone besides, I imagine, Inquisitors?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"They'll be visible when your shoulders are bare, otherwise they'd look like bumps under your clothes. If that's too obvious, there's theoretically nothing stopping the spikes from being pushed down until they're completely inside; if Hemalurgy works on you then your body will reshape itself around them."

[imeanforever]

"And you already have some of these spikes accessible, they transfer just fine, you don't have to kill anyone for them," she clarifies, "just take them from people who will be fine without."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Correct. The spikes do gradually lose their power if left outside of a body, which means that you and some Inquisitors ought to be in the same place at the same time. Alerting them to your existence is the closest thing I can think of to a downside from your perspective."

[imeanforever]

"What would they be likely to do with this information?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Nothing I don't tell them to, unless they have some way of guessing that you're a danger to me. I can prevent this by burning copper so that they can't read my emotions. They will be curious about a person whose body contains no metal, but will not become hostile without reason."

[imeanforever]

"The wings, I assume, would also be noticeable. What happens if they do find out that you find me a threat?"