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]

"Do you want me to start the gate right now? Where do you want it?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Anywhere in here. Back wall's good."

[imeanforever]

Promise goes over to the back wall.

"Last chance to decide you don't want a door to a court of a sadistic sorcerer-collector in your basement."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I am pretty sure I do want the door to the court of the sadistic sorcerer-collector. Putting it in the basement is just for convenience."

[imeanforever]

Promise swallows and makes the gate.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

There is not visibly a gate.

While it settles, the Lord Ruler breaks off a speck of chromium. He stores all the luck he can in it, which isn't very much. He swallows the speck, then burns it, releasing many times what he put in. This, naturally, goes straight into a different speck, and he iterates the process several times. This metalmind makes him quantifiably the luckiest man in the world.

[imeanforever]

Promise sits and shivers.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

After a non-instantaneous time, the back wall turns into a cave that sounds like there's a waterfall at its mouth.

The Lord Ruler stands up. It's been so long since he's felt like he had an actual challenge. He reflexively starts topping off his metalminds. (This is a very logical habit to have before doing something potentially risky, but it means he's slower, older, sicklier, physically smaller, and generally not very impressive-looking.)

He tells Promise, "When I'm gone, you may do anything you think is in the interests of protecting this world and its population, provided it does not involve opposing my Empire or trying to prevent me from giving you any future orders."

[imeanforever]

She stops listening after "provided".

And nods.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"You'll probably want to be on the other side of that door. Remember, I'm the only one on this side who can actually operate the lock, so if someone breaks through you should run very fast.
If all goes according to plan, I'll have Thorn next time you see me."

[imeanforever]

She starts listening again at around "want". She nods again, and goes for the door.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

When she's on the other side, he telekinetically closes and locks it.

Then he turns toward the gate. Resources: Metalminds charged with implausible amounts of everything. Special mention to luck. Hemalurgic spikes making him stronger and faster. (The ones increasing Allomantic power are completely irrelevant here.) And a plentiful supply of atium. If his theory about why Allomancy doesn't do anything in Fairyland is correct, burning atium should work. And anyone burning atium is all but unstoppable.

He walks through.

[alicornucopia]

He is behind a waterfall. It is damp here.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

The first thing to do is kidnap a fairy for information on how to get to Thorn. After all, all he knows right now is that his target is somewhere around here sometimes.
He strengthens his senses of sight and hearing, and takes a quick look from behind the waterfall for whether there's a convenient place to lie in wait. One that wouldn't lead straight to the portal. Zinc makes sure he'll fully notice everything within his field of vision, and chromium protects him from being seen.

[alicornucopia]

There is a six-inch-high fairy weeding a garden of flowers, and fairy closer to three feet tall making repairs to a roof on a large house with bizarre but beautiful architecture. Neither of them notices him right away.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

No witnesses would have been better. He's perfectly capable of checking again every few hours until there's only one fairy visible.
But he does have atium. He's more than fast enough to reach both fairies within his seconds of precognition. He sees ghostly shadows of them running from him, but they don't appear to be yelling or otherwise raising an alarm. So he charges.

He easily grabs at where they're going to be. Hand over the mouth of the smaller one; if it wants to bite him that's fine. Jump to the roof and do the same to the second. It's almost too easy.

[alicornucopia]

Now he's got two handfuls of fairy.

They don't bite him. Or do much of anything. The one who was fixing the roof drops her tools.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

He rushes back to the cave. Force-feeding a fairy with both hands full is inconvenient, so he irresponsibly throws the smaller fairy through the gate. Then he can start shoving a vial of metals down the other one's throat.

[alicornucopia]

The larger fairy is very upset about this but can't do much about it.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Once he's pretty sure some of the metal flakes have been swallowed, he tells the fairy, "Take no new action." He makes a mental note to thank Promise for the phrasing.

[alicornucopia]

The fairy takes no new action.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Other fairy's turn. No reason for loose ends. He retrieves the smaller one and attempts to repeat the procedure.

[alicornucopia]

It's a little awkward to forcefeed something six inches tall, but he can get the job done eventually.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

He places both fairies in the cave, and asks the larger fairy, "How can I find Thorn? What defenses does he have? Tell the truth."

[alicornucopia]

"Thorn is in the court on the mountain today," says the larger fairy. "He has a lot of sorcerers."