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

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Mainly it means I deal with the suspicion after the fact instead of during. And, of course, that they don't see you with me.

I can store my sense of hearing for future use. Be halfway deaf for a time, in order to be twice as sharp for half the time later, that sort of thing. If I store all of it at once, then I'm temporarily completely deaf with no outward signs.
The ability is, with a lot of inefficiency, transferrable. Do you want it?"

[imeanforever]

"Do not use this ability to wholly or in part ignore orders that I produce of my own uncommanded will. Do deploy it to prevent any other fairy from countermanding orders that I produce of my own uncommanded will, including at multiple steps of remove in a longer plan. Why are you offering?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"You did recently become indispensable to one of my plans to save the world. It would be unfortunate if you got incapacitated in the next three centuries."

[imeanforever]

"Where would be a good place to have the rest of this conversation?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Easiest is just some tower not being used. Even if people see that it's occupied, they won't know who we are. I can find one easily enough."

[imeanforever]

"What, from my perspective, are the drawbacks to relocating to such a tower right now?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"You'd have to relax the order about not doing anything and might conceivably give me more freedom than you meant to." This enforced completeness thing sucks. "As for actually being in some other tower, it's effectively the same from your perspective except with much lower risk of being seen by anyone who poses a threat to you."

[imeanforever]

"And if I turn you invisible and you lighten yourself and I carry you to another tower through the window?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Then you wouldn't have to remove very much of the order.
The downside there is that the Inquisitors—that's the magical law enforcement—do always have their vision on, and seeing two invisible people floating about might draw their attention. Safer to let me burn steel and iron and get us there quicker under my own power."

[imeanforever]

"How can I get there unseen, if being invisible won't cut it?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"The Inquisitors see by sensing metal. This includes metal in people's bodies, their blood and so forth. Any place surrounded by metal can block that, but I know of no way to disguise it. Which was why I suggested traveling my usual way. If anyone does happen to look, they'd see me moving around Kredik Shaw with someone who must be another Mistborn.
If anyone sees me being carried slowly through the air, that would be multiple kinds of hard to explain.

[imeanforever]

"I am not sure there is metal in my body. Can you check?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"There shouldn't be a lot of metal, but if you have a circulatory system you've probably got some. I can check for sure; I'd just need to do a bit of magic.

Although, if you plan to accept the ability to not hear orders, we'll need you and some Inquisitors in the same place at as close as possible to the same time anyway. If it doesn't look like you're trying to smuggle me out a window, I could just tell them not to ask too many questions."

[imeanforever]

"Performing no extraneous actions, check for metal in me."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Burning iron...that's odd.
Flaring iron harder...

"I can't see any metal. How? Do you not have blood?"

Not containing metal actually sounds useful. Maybe he should make his own body work that way next time he's omnipotent.

[imeanforever]

"I have blood. I don't see why that implies metal, but apparently it doesn't for fairies. So these people won't notice me if I'm invisible?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"They shouldn't.
Inquisitors are better at this particular thing than I am, since detecting metal is their primary sense. But if you don't have the amount of metal a human would need to stay alive, you're probably right about having none."

[imeanforever]

"Performing no extraneous actions, deflect suspicion in a way that will not lead to follow-ups later insofar as you can while leading me somewhere we are less likely to be disturbed. You may pause during the walk if this helps with the suspicion part."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Alendi gets up, walks out of the room, and goes down some stairs. Nobody challenges him, because why would they?
They reach a large room on the ground floor covered with murals. It contains a smaller structure with a wooden door. Once inside, he makes a visible effort despite not moving—he's using Allomancy at a strength difficult even for him. A hidden door opens, and he goes inside.

"Literally nobody else knows about this room; I'm showing you because you're immortal. For our current purposes, the fact that we won't be overheard is sufficient."

[imeanforever]

In goes Promise. "Why is my being immortal relevant?" she asks.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

He closes the door. This is much easier than opening it from the outside.

"Further down that tunnel is the location of Ruin's prison, at least as much as it has a physical location. I don't trust oral tradition, especially since Ruin has shown the ability to alter or fake any records not written in metal. As the only other person likely to live three hundred years, you're now my only credible backup plan other than saving the world myself. Congratulations."

[imeanforever]

"I will save the world if I can," she says. "I am not out to get you, I'm still incapable of attacking you, I will not unnecessarily inconvenience or agitate or constrain you, I am very annoyed about the emotion bubble but have no reason to believe that apart from a severe values difference as concerns such things our goals are incompatible generally."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"If I didn't think saving my world was the first thing you'd do with the required omnipotence, I'd have picked a different secret room. I should warn you though that it is both difficult and dangerous and I've—barely—done it before, so there's a reason you're the backup plan."

[imeanforever]

"How does it work?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"There'll be a brightly glowing pool. The liquid is the physical form of the power of Preservation. It'll be waiting for a holder; it'll flow into you on its own. It was put there with the specific intent of making it easy to pick it up and re-imprison Ruin, back when Preservation was capable of specific intents.

When you're holding it, you are Preservation. It affects what you want and how you think, and you can't destroy anything even if you successfully manage to want to.
Using it is mostly just a matter of trying to do a thing, and if it's a thing you can do then it happens. That...makes more sense when you've felt it.

If you hold on to it permanently, too much unchecked Preservation could be almost as bad as unchecked Ruin. And releasing that power was the hardest thing I've ever done."