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]

"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?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"If they find out you're dangerous, they'll burn the metals they find most useful in a fight, maybe take out weapons, but not attack unless you do something overtly hostile. Giving me an order probably counts as hostile depending on what it is and what it sounds like. But if I introduce you as an ally, they're vanishingly unlikely to disregard that.

The biggest reason the Inquisitors are a downside for you at all is that right now, you have the advantage that nobody knows there's an unknown quantity. And you'd have to give that up."

[imeanforever]

"Yes. But I doubt I can accurately impale myself in a specific spot on a chunk of copper without help and you're incapable, so if I'm going to take that, someone will have to know about me anyway."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I can't do it, can I. I was thinking of it more as a gift than an injury, but fairy magic doesn't need to share my opinions.
In that case we're up to four people. Three Inquisitors to lend the spikes, and one person who can see your arm to insert them. I can call in an obligator to do it; their entire job description is to be trustworthy.
And many of them are fanatically loyal to me. No Inquisitor is going to act against my orders in front of an obligator no matter how much of a threat they think you are. And it'll make swearing everyone to secrecy more official-looking.

I'd strongly recommend that you take it."

[imeanforever]

"Do obligators have trustworthiness-related magic of some kind or is that just how you pick them?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"No magic. But we're going to need someone, so they naturally come to mind.
If enforced secrecy is necessary I could give you the names of the people involved afterward."

[imeanforever]

"Then they'd know I was a threat."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"How about this, then. I'll have the Inquisitors spike me, so the materials don't need to spend time outside a body and nobody even slightly dangerous ever meets you. Then only the person who transfers them from me to you needs to know about your existence. It can be someone with no magic. You'd have your pick of trusting their promise of silence or of enforcing it but revealing your capabilities.

The secrecy problems all seem solvable, not to mention unimportant next to the ability to ignore orders."

[imeanforever]

"I'm weighing various options," she says. "Letting someone know I am a threat is not a dealbreaker, it's a drawback I'm weighing against other possibilities. I will want time alone to think and I am not yet sure I want to leave you alone, considering that left to your own devices you kill people and instantiate emotion bubbles and so on."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"As far as I can tell, the main difference between mass Soothing and ordering a kingdom's worth of vassals is that I can't do anything so effective. As enforced control goes, yours is the more invasive.

I'd be happy to fly off and collect the objects if you want to be alone for a bit. I am planning no significant actions other than things we've discussed and expect that you would have no cause for complaint when I return."

[imeanforever]

"All right. Go ahead and do just exactly that, navigating in such a way as to retain the expectation that I will have no cause for complaint."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Very well. I'll return in, oh, let's say an hour."

He exits through the secret door, closes it behind him, and launches himself out the nearest window. Retrieving some memories about exactly which Inquisitors have the spikes he needs, he forms some educated guesses about where in Luthadel they'll be. Soon he's floating above one such place, flaring iron to sense metal strongly enough to pick out human shapes.

Few people wear metal. Most show up only as thin outlines where there's iron in their blood. A few, soldiers or guards or suchlike, wear breastplates (easily removable in case they have to fight an Allomancer). Inquisitors look unique to this sense: They have the trace metals in the bloodstream, but there are spikes all around the outline of their bodies and most are carrying metalminds.

When he spots an Inquisitor, the Lord Ruler of the Final Empire dramatically drops from the sky. Surrounded by awed and more often than not terrified onlookers, he states, "You're not Yelbon, are you," and launches back up. The next Inquisitor he spots is the right one.

After collecting four relevant spikes from three Inquisitors, he returns to Kredik Shaw. He directs the first obligator he sees at the palace to wait outside the large domed room because she may be called on. It's intentionally not a high-ranking one whose name Promise might accidentally hear mentioned if she decides she doesn't want to know. Then he unlocks the secret door mechanism, and knocks before opening. The entire process has taken slightly over an hour.

[imeanforever]

Promise doesn't have any paper, and wouldn't want to commit her thought process to it even if she did. She's been writing in brief fairylights, doable after having been in the room long enough to know how all the little details sorcery depends on are lined up and prone to changing. She's going to take the deafness ability. Can't pass it up, not really, not when her name's out of her hands.

She opens the door.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Hello again," Alendi says. "Have you decided what you want to do?"

[imeanforever]

"I'll take it," she says. She's pretty sure she can turn invisible again in here if she needs to unless someone does something to affect light sources or draftiness or temperature, and they don't know enough about how sorcery works to try it. She turns visible.