In our previous episode, we detailed the aftermath of the Lord Ruler's demise,
the earliest stages of the Siege of Luthadel and the deposition of King Elend. Chaos was
to engulf Luthadel once more, as it was bereft of leadership and surrounded by enemies on all sides.
Yet into the fray once more would step Elend Venture, assuming the mantle of a true leader,
even if all seemed too late. The fight continued, and through the unceasing
efforts of Kelsier's former crew in conjunction with Elend, it would be fought to whatever end.
Elend was disheartened, but he refused to give in and accept the situation he now found himself in.
Tindwyl, at this point, had already begun tutoring the young man, and her initial
efforts focused on improving his presentation. A new uniform tailored for him, a military form
of garb in a gleaming white and a new haircut made him look less scholarly and more regal.
Her further teaching was centred around improving his directness and degree of
authority among his comrades and subjects. However, Tindwyl's patience finally vanished
upon the deposition of King Elend based on a by-law he had himself inserted.
Initially, the Keeper chastised the deposed King before insisting that he has to seize the throne
of the Central Dominance by utilizing force, ignoring the Assembly's will. Elend refused and
insisted that it would be through lawful means if he were to reclaim his position as King.
Tindwyl, irritated by this decision, continued stating that now was not the
moment for a legal battle, but Elend refused to listen to her. Questioning his naivety,
the Keeper asked what the former King would do if his attempts to be recrowned diplomatically
were to fail. He said he would continue to help the Kingdom in whatever way he could.
Despite her fury, Tindwyl helped to prepare the speech Elend was to give at the Assembly,
the crux of which related to his connection to Kelsier's crew through Vin. As the Assembly began,
Elend nominated a former Noble, Ferson Penrod, to preside over the meetings in the absence of a King
of the Central Dominance. The nominations for the successor to the role of the King were announced:
Penrod had been nominated by a Skaa worker, but he then nominated Elend in return for his
appointment as Chancellor, and at the last moment, a former merchant Philen Frandeu
proposed the candidacy of Ashweather Cett. The latter had been hiding among the crowd and,
unbeknownst to Kelsier's former crew, preoccupied with the events in the Assembly,
had taken up residence in Keep Hasting with a thousand soldiers. A week would pass with Elend
parleying with Cett regarding the stalemate, although this ultimately proved unsuccessful.
The fate of Luthadel hung in the balance until the day of the election. In a last-ditch attempt to
sway the Skaa workers of the city, Elend announced his conversion to the Church of the Survivor,
hoping this would cause a deadlock in the vote, allowing him to maintain his position.
However, another player was about the enter the fray: The bastard son of Straff Venture,
Zane, who was ordered to kill Vin, was obsessed with her. In an attempt to show her that she did
not belong in Elend's world, he sent half a dozen of Straff's allomancers to attack Elend
and Vin during the election. Vin was forced to kill them, which reminded her that she could
be a brutal and efficient killer and made her question if she was worthy of Elend yet again.
Following Vin's successful defence of the Assembly, the election occurred in Penrod's
mansion. Penrod received fifteen votes, Cett two and Elend seven, which caused a deadlock ensuring
that Elend would retain his position; however, his honour was to be his undoing once more. When
the Assembly members asked if they could change their votes, Elend felt obligated to let them
know it was possible. The individuals who voted for Cett changed their vote for Penrod, breaking
the deadlock and making him the second-ever King of the Central Dominance. Unbeknownst to Elend,
Straff had bribed the merchant members of the Assembly to vote for Penrod with the promise
of new titles and convinced Penrod to ally with him against Cett. The only thing which stopped
Straff from immediately invading Luthadel was the threat posed by a Mistborn as potent as Vin.
In the aftermath of this crushing defeat and rejection by his people, Elend continued working
tirelessly to ensure that the citizens of the besieged city would not die due to the plummeting
temperatures and also to figure out who may be poisoning the water supply of Luthadel.
In one of his more reckless actions, however, Elend entered the camp of
Jastes Lekal to attempt to persuade his old friend not to attack the city with his Koloss.
Unwittingly this further played on Vin's inherent insecurity, with Zane undermining his fellow
Mistborn to such an extent that she believed she could not even protect the man she loved.
Using that, Zane convinced Vin to assault Cett in Keep Hasting with his aid. The attack was brutal
in its ferocity as the two Mistborn were able to wipe out a third of the garrison in a matter of
moments. The pair then made their way to the inner chamber where Lord Cett and his son Gneorndin hid
before threatening them. Although she initially believed that one or both of the Cetts were
Mistborn, this theory was quickly disproven, causing Vin to intervene when Zane attempted to
murder the pair in cold blood. Still, following such an efficient decimation of his forces,
Cett withdrew from the siege, realizing he was outmatched. Vin, for her part, fearing she had
turned into a shade of what Kelsier once was with his inherent need to justify wholesale slaughter,
hid out in an abandoned thieves' hideout. While the attack on the Keep Hastin was
taking place, the negotiation between Elend and Jastes had failed, with the former King
learning that Jastes barely controlled his Koloss by paying them in worthless coinage.
Afterwards, Elend, with the Kandra OreSeur in tow, went to meet with Vin, who finally
told her beloved that she was concerned about her propensity for violence in dire situations. During
this conversation, Vin realized that she must leave the city to seek out the Well of Ascension.
In the meantime, Sazed and Tindwyl used their copperminds, older texts and the rubbing of
Kwaan's inscription to study the Deepness, based on Sazed's belief that it had returned
with the death of the Lord Ruler triggering the catastrophic event. During this period,
the two became particularly close, with Tindwyl acknowledging her feelings for her fellow
Terrisman and the ever-cautious Sazed, eventually asking her to remain by his side in the city.
Their study of the rubbing brought to light many inconsistencies, chief among them the
motivations of Kwaan for sending Rashek to kill Alendi during the quest to defeat
the Deepness. Why would a man of wisdom send someone disreputable like Rashek, and why did
he fear that someone as honourable as Hero of Ages would take power rather than give it up?
Without further information about Kwaan or Ruin's ability to alter all but that which was
engraved upon metal, the pair remained unable to decipher the true meaning of the rubbing.
Still, both of them were aware that something was inherently wrong.
The situation in Luthadel continued to worsen when Vin was confronted again by the smitten Zane.
He initially attempted to convince her to leave the city behind and run away with him.
However, her love for Elend and duty to Luthadel caused her to refuse.
This enraged Zane, who attacked his fellow Mistborn. During the fight,
he openly told her how he had attempted to manipulate her throughout the siege. A further
revelation was made that the Kandra OreSeur who had befriended her during this period was,
in fact, another Kandra named Tensoon, who was contracted to Zane. Tensoon had slain OreSeur and
taken his place, however he had become immensely fond of Vin and now considered her a friend.
The fight once more seemed hopeless for Vin, as Zane burned atium and her attempts to draw from
the mist proved to be in vain as she remained unaware that her earring continued to act as a
hemalurgic spike. However, it was to be TenSoon's fondness for her which was to prove fortuitous
in the fight, as he subtly showed her that a Kandra could be controlled by a Mistborn using
a duralumin-enhanced soothing. She then commanded the Kandra to attack Zane, but that wasn't enough,
and Vin was wounded. Now cornered and without atium, she had to use her wits and inherent
talent as a Mistborn to beat her counterpart. She turned the foresight granted to Zane by atium and
his madness against him, stabbing Elend's half-brother in the neck and killing him.
She was forced to listen to TenSoon's confession in her injured state. Breaking a contract was a
great shame, as the Kandra were supposed to be utterly loyal to the holder of their contracts.
As such, TenSoon left the city to return to the Kandra Homeland to be tried for his crimes.
Meanwhile, Vin made her way to Elend, who immediately insisted that Sazed heal her. Although
she consented to his request, it would be upon one condition: Elend accepts her marriage proposal.
The couple was wed in fittingly unconventional ways, with Sazed acting as the officiant.
Soon after, the pair left the city with Spook, as Vin remained confident that she must now find the
Well of Ascension and give up the power, as Alendi was allegedly supposed to in the time before
Rashek's ascension. To get them as far from the city as possible before the Koloss were unleashed
upon Luthadel, Sazed falsely informed them that the Well was in Derytatith, a mountain high in
the Terris Dominance. However, a group followed the trio, foremost amongst them Jastes Lekal.
Elend, angered beyond all belief by the reckless acts of his friend in bringing a Koloss army
to the gates of the world's largest city and leaving them bereft of any form of leadership,
had Jastes executed. Having witnessed the execution, the timid Spook revealed Sazed's
deception. An immediate realization then occurred to Vin that the Lord Ruler had moved the Well to
Kredik Shaw when he remade the world to ensure he would be in control once the Well was refilled.
In a desperate dash back to the city, Vin utilized pewter, before pulling and pushing
horseshoes to get her back to Luthadel. The situation back in the city on the eve
of the Battle of Luthadel was desperate. Straff Venture making use of the advice of
his now deceased bastard son, decided to hold back his army until the Koloss had effectively
ravaged the city, leaving it easy pickings for his fifty thousand-strong contingent.
In the absence of Vin and Elend, the desperate defence of the city fell to Dockson, who was
forced to place a paltry thousand soldiers at each of the gates. Aware that they would not hold
long in the face of the ferocious onslaught of a Koloss charge, contingencies to retreat to the
keeps of the nobility were further put in place. Sazed and Tindwyl also joined the defenders.
The battle began with Clubs' scouts raising the alarm as the Koloss started to work themselves
into a bloody frenzy. The Tin Gate to which Tindwyl was granted the command was the first
to face the onslaught, with the Pewter and Zinc gates coming under immense pressure soon after.
While the defences held firm, particularly that of the Steel Gate with Sazed fighting fiercely there,
it was not long before the unending tides of Koloss proved too great for the defenders. The
Zinc Gate was to fall first, followed by the Tin Gate as Tindwyl was cut down while attempting to
lead her men back to Keep Venture, a decision that was followed by many of the commanders of
the other gates. The retreat was a desperate affair with casualties mounting, Clubs and
Dockson among them. The former died saving Breeze from a Koloss blade, while Dockson was brought
low by the overwhelming might of the enormous blue warriors as his strength began to fade.
By the time the sun set, Keep Lekal and Keep Venture had been stormed by the Koloss.
As a result, only Keep Hasting stood firm, with thousands of soldiers gathered to protect King
Penrod from the blue tide. Half exhausted from her travels, Vin arrived at dusk, and
although her arrival was a welcome boost to the defenders, it did not turn the tide immediately.
Initially, all the Mistborn could do was cover the soldiers' retreat as
they made their way from the faltering battle lines, yet despite the success,
Vin knew she could not maintain such an effort indefinitely. At that point in the battle,
only five thousand men remained to face down the bloodthirsty twelve thousand Koloss.
As the struggle became increasingly desperate, Vin's thoughts turned to the knowledge she got
from TenSoon, and she discovered that a sufficiently strong Mistborn could
control the Koloss through a combination of brutal decimation of their strongest warriors
and the burning of brass. Fortunately for the city's defenders, Vin represented one
of the greatest Mistborn of her age, and the remaining Koloss were soon brought to heel.
However, the battle was not yet won, as Straff Venture and his fifty thousand remained outside
the city, poised to take the former capital of the Final Empire. However, as the sun rose upon
a battered city, Straff Venture gazed not upon a broken people but a force of twelve thousand
Koloss upon the plain to the west of the city. The earth shook once more as the Koloss charged,
yet Straff's end came long before the two lines met. Vin utilized duralumin once more,
in conjunction with steel on this occasion, to make one mighty leap across the battlefield.
With an immense Koloss blade in her hand, she proceeded to cut down the head of House Venture,
and the city was saved. Soon after Ashweather Cett arrived with his forty thousand soldiers
to support the city, Vin, now ascendant in her power, forced Penrod, Cett and Straff's second
Janarle to submit to the New Empire, with the absent Elend declared its first Emperor.
Upon his arrival, Elend was informed of his new position. However, there were more
pressing issues at hand, so the newly married couple quickly made their way to Kredik Shaw,
where they discovered the refilled Well hidden within the storage cache. Sazed had,
at this point, discovered the broken body of Tindwyl and had lost all faith in his religions,
which caused him to return to his studies of the rubbings. However, before he could intervene in
Vin's unwittingly destructive endeavours with the realization that the rubbings had been altered,
the Terris Keeper was attacked by Marsh and survived only with the intervention of Ham,
who had recovered from the battle with the aid of Vin's remaining pewter.
Inside the Well, what remained of Preservation appeared to the couple as a Mist spirit.
Preservation attempted vainly to dissuade them from their current course of action,
aware that Vin, like Alendi before her, was so pure of heart that she would give
up ultimate power to save Scadrial, unaware of Ruin's interference with the prophecies. When
this initial attempt proved futile, Preservation mortally wounded Elend by stabbing him, hoping Vin
would take up the power to save him. However, Vin believed that even as he lay there dying,
Elend would only want what was best for his people and as such, he gave up the power and felt a great
dread as Ruin was now freed from his prison. Preservation, although he now despaired at the
release of his great nemesis and the imminent destruction of his prized creation, ensured
Vin she would not be left alone in the struggle to come. A Mist Wraith led the heartbroken Vin
to what remained of the Well and convinced her to give a lerasium bead to her dying husband.
This turned him into a Mistborn and, through the burning of pewter, saved the life of the Emperor.
Ruin had returned to the world, and with him came the full brunt of the Deepness,
effectively ensuring the coming of an apocalypse of proportions
not witnessed since Alendi first took up the mantle of the Hero of Ages. However,
this is the tale of our next video in this series. The following few videos
in this series will be dedicated to the dying days of the first era of the Mistborn series,
but we are planning to cover the battles of many other fantasy, sci-fi, and space opera universes,
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