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.

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[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."

[imeanforever]

"What would too much Preservation do?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Preserve things. Preserve everything. Put the world in permanent stasis. It's a force of stability, not a force of good."

[imeanforever]

"And it can put Ruin in stasis, but not permanently, at least not without side effects? I may need you to explain these things from something resembling the beginning."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"In the beginning, those two were equal. Nothing of import happened or for that matter existed, because they were equal opposites and whatever one did the other would undo. Eventually they reached an agreement. Preservation wanted to create humans, and Ruin would refrain from immediately destroying them because sentient life contains more of Preservation than it does of Ruin. The fact that some of Preservation's power was placed in humans is why Ruin is now more powerful, and the fact that it's more powerful is why it accepted the deal. It was assured of being able to destroy the world eventually.

Preservation betrayed its counterpart. The prison it built keeps Ruin's mind separate from its power, so it can't affect the world except very subtly. Its power is still out there and people can use it; it's stored in a valuable metal best known for its usefulness in combat.

But even though their powers are usable, Ruin's mind is imprisoned and Preservation's is dead, so neither is in a position to accomplish their goals directly. The end result is that the prison needs to be re-created and Preservation can't do it itself. Why it's temporary in the first place I don't know. The side effects of the holder becoming more like Preservation are just a consequence of having something of that scale attached to your mind.

That's all from the mythology of an ancient religion that was followed by the Terrismen. During Ruin's last attempt to get out, it managed to help the real Alendi conquer the world, and arranged for him to fit the Terris prophecies about the Hero of Ages. It changed those prophecies to say that the Hero must lay down the power and resist the temptation to use it. All very noble, but had Alendi done so it would have freed Ruin. I stopped him.

And having been Preservation and seen this for myself, I can say that the mythology is correct at least as to how the imprisonment works."

[imeanforever]

"So now you rule the world. I approve of it not being destroyed but disapprove of it containing emotion bubbles. What is your best guess about what other things going on are likely to be similarly displeasing?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Similar to the existence of Soothing?
Maybe the class division. The nobles are, among other things, smarter than the skaa. This is because I made them that way, intentionally giving some people's descendants an advantage as a favor to my friends from before. The division has been gradually lessening because of interbreeding, but I imagine you might dislike the idea."

[imeanforever]

"Not as bad, but yeah, I don't like that. Anything else?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"The Terrismen still exist. I've been keeping them exiled from most of the Empire and forbidding interbreeding because one type of magic comes from Terris and another from the noble families hundreds of years ago here, and if anyone happens to be born with both then they'd be able to challenge me directly."

[imeanforever]

"Do they object?" she wonders. She is fuzzy on people caring about being able to breed and this doesn't seem like a very nice place to live anyway, but maybe they object.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I can safely assume that they do."

[imeanforever]

"What, is it even ashier and more generally unpleasant in Terris?" she mutters, but she doesn't pause for an answer. "What else?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Insufficient oversight over subservient fiefdoms, probably. Most of them treat their serfs fairly, but I don't pay close enough attention to say they're all reasonable about it."

[imeanforever]

"Why do you rule the world? It seems like all you strictly need for world-saving is access to this room and to stay alive - or for anyone else to have that and behave halfway reasonably with Preservation power - and you don't seem to be interested enough in world-ruling to be thoughtful about it."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"By staying in control I can guarantee that I keep access to this room. Ruin has already shown the ability to take over the world using a thousand years' worth of subtle effects, and once it got enough indirect power it could neutralize me. Any other empire that arises will almost certainly be its pawn, so I prevent any from arising.

Besides, ruling the world lets me maintain order where there wouldn't be any otherwise." Rashek did spend some time as Preservation, and not all the changes go away.

[imeanforever]

"Can the room be moved?" wonders Promise. "Its world-saving features, I mean."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Last time around, I had to rotate the entire planet so that the pool would end up in one of the habitable parts."

[imeanforever]

"The entire what?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"The planet. Giant ball of mostly rock that circles around its star once a year. It also spins once a day and that's what causes days, but I know yours doesn't, so it might be different in other ways."