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

[alicornucopia]

This seems to satisfy Harp.

She puts him down in the garden. There is no sign of Clock or Rosewood. Alendi has been visible for some time now; Blossom handled it after his initial confrontation with her.

"Go on," Harp says.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

He goes behind the waterfall into the cave, and through the gate. The door unlocks and opens.

[imeanforever]

And Yellow's voice says:

"Stop."

And Promise shoves past Alendi into the room with the gate and closes it.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Alendi stops. Again. He turns into the seven-hundred-year-old version of himself, and he can't breathe and will probably die in a matter of seconds, but he's never been happier about being enslaved by a moron.

[imeanforever]

"Tell him, 'you may perform basic maintenance magic only'," Promise tells Yellow.

Yellow parrots this order. He looks tired.

"Tell him that all orders you didn't give him are rescinded," Promise says.

Yellow tells Alendi that too.

"Tell him he may not enforce any orders but that he may otherwise speak freely."

Yellow does that too.

"While you're at it, tell him he's an idiot."

"You're an idiot," Yellow yawns at Alendi.

"Tell him to obey me as though I were his master."

"Obey her as though she were your master," repeats Yellow.

"Now you can sleep."

Yellow tips over right where he's sitting. He drools.

Promise scowls at Alendi.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"HAhahahaha thank you.

How'd you know Thorn was going to get me?"

[imeanforever]

"I spent a long time in his court! I have met him! I didn't escape, he got tired of my attitude problem! You didn't listen to me so I got Yellow's name and jailbroke him and have been keeping him awake ready to stop you as soon as you got back, hoping you'd be sent alone instead of with - I don't know, Rainfall, I would lose in a fight with Rainfall even on my turf."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Speaking of that, Harp is outside the waterfall, and if she notices the cave doesn't contain a gate someone'll be here as soon as she can make another one. Otherwise I have eight days before I'll be missed."

[imeanforever]

"...Harp. Harp. Do I know Harp... Oh, Harp. She's not a sorcerer herself. She could come check, but if she stayed behind to begin with that's probably going to be her plan for the next eight days. Just to be safe I'll open it up again, conceal myself, go through, and put a gate behind the waterfall to the - burnlands, is that what they're called - it'll look like I made it unstable or something unless they haul out Blossom personally, it'll take them an extra little while to figure out what's going on -" She goes on muttering to herself, and performs various sorcerous rituals, briefly leaving the world and then coming back.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Good idea. So now they won't walk in on us and we still have the full eight days to save the world from the army of sorcerers some of whom can give magically enforced commands to us personally. Excellent."

[imeanforever]

"Yes. For at least that long can we figure out some way to - act in good faith? I am not Thorn, I don't like borrowing his tricks, you've gotten out from under me once, can we just - not? You've gone and attracted bigger problems than our power struggle."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I do recall a distinct lack of you threatening to make me bite off body parts.
And yes, I strongly suspect we have the same goals on this one."

[imeanforever]

"Good. We are in an asymmetrical position here in the long term because you fed me and when you're winning you can make me forget your name - I'm not even going to take it again right now because it would be a distraction - first question: did you indicate to anyone anything they could use to conclude about the forgetting or the deafness?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Asymmetrical in my favor? Which one of us is...nope, not doing that.

No. Thorn knows that I can store attributes for later use. He might guess that hearing is one of them, and could conceivably jump to the deafness, but will definitely not suspect you have it. The forgetting didn't come up at all."

[imeanforever]

"Second question: do they have any reason to believe that sorcery can be used in this world? I suspect not because they didn't send you with a sorcerer..."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"It didn't come up...
Wait. I caught Verve, and interrogated her on this side of the gate. She turned me invisible on that side, but I did ask if this side would work for her. And they know I've been in contact with you, so if sorcery didn't work here then they'd know I knew that.

So, probably? Might depend on how strongly they'll assume it doesn't."

[imeanforever]

"That... could go either way. But if you caught Verve she's probably not thinking through a lot of logical implications right now." (Shudder.) "So that will depend on how thoroughly she's been debriefed, but to the very best of my knowledge they'll have a strong initial assumption that I can't do any sorcery here and that gates have to be made from that end."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Does the sorcerer have to be at the gate when they make it? Because they know the other end of that one is at one of Thorn's courts, and that you made it, so that could cause suspicion."

[imeanforever]

"Yes. At least, I think so; there might be some version where you can make gates between two locations neither of which you are at, but I don't know of one existing. Who was around when you came out on the far end?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Clock and Rosewood. They helped me get Verve, and she helped me get Blossom, but it turned out Thorn had gotten me as soon as I stepped into the garden. Darts."

[imeanforever]

"Darts. That's disturbingly clever. He must garden his own whatevers for that to work on anybody but the occasional improbable mortal. I don't know Rosewood; I loosely remember Clock; I don't think either could confidently say that I definitely didn't approach the cave behind the falls to make a gate for you."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I was thinking more that even without witnesses, you being there at all would sound implausible.
But if the remaining choice is impossible, they'll assume the improbable one is true. So we can safely worry about something else."

[imeanforever]

"They'd have to assume you ordered me there. Did you imply that you'd been running the show between the two of us the entire time and that this was stable or do they know that I have had and could get the upper hand?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"First thing. They do know how we escaped Yellow, but as far as anyone knows I took control right away."

[imeanforever]

"Good. While we're having this conversation anyway, rescind my orders - they left lots of wiggle room but not enough. Thank you for making Yellow forget my name, though."