In the prior episodes on the World of Scadrial, we have focused on the downfall of the Lord Ruler,
the state of affairs in the immediate aftermath of the collapse, the siege of Luthadel and the
return of Ruin from his captivity. In this episode, we will focus on the return of the
Deepness and the seemingly inevitable end of the world. Despite an ever-darkening day,
there remained some who would not go gently into that good night. The remnants of Kelsier’s crew,
alongside Elend Venture, continued to struggle and fight for the world they had initially freed from
the cruel yoke of the Lord Ruler. After the Battle of Luthadel,
Vin and Elend made their way to the Well of Ascension located within Kredik Shaw.
Despite the best efforts of Preservation, Vin’s innately good nature ensured that even
when presented with nigh on immeasurable power, she would do what she believed to be correct.
As such, Ruin returned to the world, and Scadrial was altered fundamentally in many ways.
Chief among them the return of the mists during the day. As Sazed had discovered
at an earlier point, these mists were capable of laying low even the strongest of warriors,
seemingly killing at random as some remained unaffected. With the mists spreading throughout
the outlying dominances, more and more of the world became uninhabitable as the dragnet
tightened upon those who had persevered through the Collapse and now faced the end of times.
“This force was time infinite. It was the winds that weathered, the storms that broke,
the timeless waves running slowly, slowly, slowly, to a stop as the sun and the planet cooled to
nothing. It was the ultimate end and destiny of all things. And it was angry.” - Kelsier
In these times of chaos, the New Empire, with Elend as its monarch, provided an island of
stability and calm. Yet consolidation alone would not be sufficient as the world seemed
to be imploding before the very eyes of the foremost members of the Empire. Therefore a
proactive approach was taken, with the strategy by Vin and Elend revolving around the recovery
of five storage caches. The Lord Ruler put these caches in place as a failsafe should he be deposed
prior to the Well of Ascension refilling. Just this situation occurred, and the caches provided
critical resources and knowledge essential in the fight against the Deepness. Or so Vin and Elend
came to believe. They also provided evidence that despite his cruel methods and tendency to lean
towards outright tyranny, the Lord Ruler cared for the people of Scadrial and their ultimate fate.
The first cavern containing such a cache was uncovered on the night the Well was revealed
beneath Kredik Shaw. Within this cache was shelving containing canned food and a large
metal plaque upon the far wall of the cavern. It showed a map of the Final Empire with Statlin City
circled, indicating that the next cache was there. Each cache would contain such a metal
engraving as Rashek had known that despite Ruin’s supposed imprisonment, it could still corrupt all
that was not written on metal, altering it to fit his purposes. The Kelsier’s former crew had
discovered the Ruin’s corruption of the texts after the Siege of Luthadel. Sazed, heartbroken
by the death of Tindwyl, realized that the rubbing of Kwaan’s inscription had been changed.
Aware that their only hope of countering Ruin and his Deepness lay in these caches,
they set about tracking down the remaining caverns.
In the process, Vin, Elend and their soldiers were forced to fight the Inquisitors,
who Ruin now controlled through their hemalurgic spikes. The New Empire wond a number of battles
in this period and each victory would bring increasing numbers of Koloss to their side.
In the meantime TenSoon had returned to the Kandra homeland in order to face judgement for betraying
the Contract and disobeying the holder of his contract Zane during the latter’s battle with Vin.
For his actions he was imprisoned by the first among the Second Generation of Kandra - KanPaar,
who utilized ChanGaar. This ritual essentially consisted of the breaking of the Kandra’s bones
and after this they were sealed in a pit with only a singular hole with which the
prisoner can be fed. The offending Kandra wass then left there for ten generations
of claustrophobic isolation and after this period was allowed to die of starvation.
Sazed had assumed the role of Chief Ambassador of the New Empire with his first task being
negotiations with Audil Lekal. Audil was the uncle of Jastes and had assumed the
Kingship of his faltering domain following his nephews execution at the hands of Elend Venture.
Although he ultimately acceded to the demands of the Emperor, swearing fealty and surrendering
his independence. he did so reluctantly. Despite this success and a year passing since the death
of Tindwyl, Sazed remained a mere shade of the man he once was. In his despair,
he would no longer wear his copperminds and would instead go through each of the religions he had
formerly proselytised. In his search for an answer as to the existence of the divine, he would seek
out contradictions in their respective creeds and should he find any, would write alongside
the debunked mythos, “Religion not true”. As Sazed despaired and TenSoon faced a slow death
at the hands of his Kandra brethren, Elend and Vin continued to act as solitary beacons of hope
to the ever-dwindling populace of Scadrial. The second cache was found easily within the Central
Dominance and contained large amounts of lumber alongside a description of the metal aluminum.
While a helpful discovery, it was not the silver bullet they sought and that would
require the upper echelons of the New Empire’s leadership to range farther afield than the
Central Dominance in search of answers. Spook was sent to Urteau to investigate
the new rulership there under a Skaa named Quellion, who took the title of the Citizen.
This government worshipped Kelsier as the Lord of the Mists and propagated a brutal campaign
against the nobility in their Lord’s name, which led them to believe they were the only city to
have genuinely adhered to the tenets laid down by the Survivor. Unfortunately for the residents
of Urteau, even their deity couldn’t supply their city with water. Spook was soon joined
by Sazed and Breeze, accompanied by a few hundred soldiers to secure the cache there.
Vin and Elend were not idle during this period either as they made their way to Vetitan in the
Southern Dominance. This city was now ruled by a Skaa named Fatren, who had assumed leadership
when the local nobility and members of the Steel Ministry had abandoned the region.
Through clever political manoeuvring, Fatren kept his people safe and raised a garrison of
a thousand soldiers supplemented by a thousand unskilled reserves. However, as the mist grew
denser, the city’s crops failed, an issue which was worsened when an army of Koloss destroyed
the nearby city of Garthwood, drawing some hundred refugees into the city. Although preparations were
made, including raising an earthen rampart outside the city, some three months after
the destruction of Garthwood, a force of ten thousand Koloss set their sights on Vetitan.
Despite being a capable leader in many respects, Fatren was now sure that his people were doomed.
That was, of course, until Elend Venture entered the fray.
The Emperor arrived in the nick of time to teach the garrison how to fight the Koloss.
In return, he demanded that Fatren bend the knee to him. Despite Fatren’s immense hatred
towards the nobility due to his treatment at their hands during the Final Empire,
he recognized in Elend a ruler worth following and acquiesced to his demands.
From this point, Elend would take charge of the garrison and use the leadership skills
that Tindwyl had imparted upon him to inspire his men to sally out and meet the Koloss.
This surprised the gargantuan blue warriors as they were setting up their camp in preparation
for their assault, and hundreds of them were slain in the initial sally.
Although this shocked the Koloss, the battle soon hung upon a knife’s edge with nought more
than Elend’s charisma to keep his soldiers in check until Vin finally arrived. She immediately
engaged the inquisitor who controlled the Koloss. In a fierce duel, she dispatched the inquisitor
in time to save much of the fighting force of the city. This allowed Elend to utilize
his emotional alomancy and take control of the Koloss, ending the battle and saving the city.
As soon as the battle was won, Elend and Vin searched for the storage cache,
which they quickly located. Within the cache was a substantial amount of supplies of food,
water and the first eight allomantic metals. The metal inscription contained information on the use
of emotional allomancy on Koloss and Kandra, the existence of an eleventh metal known as malatium,
which was a counter to atium, and the location of another cache within Fadrex City.
Elend was then forced to evacuate the city, bringing the peoples of
Vetitan to Luthadel with him, as the city, despite being capably run and independent,
was well outside the defensive perimeter maintained by the armies of the New Empire.
This decision was not taken lightly, as many of the Skaa that Elend brought with him died from the
sickness caused by the mist. There were no easy choices in the dying days of Scadrial. Nor was it
an easy decision on Elend’s part to march a force of some forty thousand soldiers, twenty thousand
Koloss and a sizable detachment of allomancers to Fadrex City. However, the storage caches and
the ever-darkening days of the world he fought so bravely to protect justified such a move.
Upon his arrival, the imposing fortifications and garrison, in conjunction with the casualties which
would be wrought should he unleash the full wroth of his Koloss upon the city’s people,
effectively forced Elend’s hand. At the same time, the implacable leader of the city, Aradan Yomen,
was a former obligator who still yearned for the days of the Final Empire and maintained his
loyalty to the Lord Ruler. To avoid bloodshed, Elend dug in, deciding to besiege the city.
Spook meanwhile displayed a newfound confidence and capacity for leadership in Urteau, undermining
Quellion’s government and inadvertently falling in love with his sister Beldre. However, this
came at a cost, as the continued excessive use of his powers as a tineye left him so sensitive to
light that he was forced to wear a blindfold at all times. Fortunately, his other enhanced sense
compensated for this. During his time in Urteau, he attended the execution of ten noblemen and made
his way to Beldre, where he inadvertently revealed himself to Quellion’s allomancers.
They quickly swarmed the tineye, managing to wound him. A tip of the sword broke off in Spook’s arm,
becoming a hemalurgic spike which allowed Spook to burn pewter. However, it also
allowed Ruin access to his mind allowing him to impersonate Kelsier and manipulate the young man.
By following the advice of Ruin, Spook would escape his execution by burning
down the building that served as his prison. The escape allowed him to meet with Breeze and Sazed,
with the group making their base in the cavern containing the cache. This cache contained an
immense amount of water to fill Urteau’s canals, alongside information on Electrum which allowed
the allomancers burning it to see potential futures for themselves a few seconds ahead.
Confirmation of Rashek’s oddly caring nature despite the state he had founded in the aftermath
of taking power was also evidenced upon the metal plaque: “If I am dead, then these caches
will provide some measure of protection for my people. I fear what is coming. What might be. If
you read this now, and I am gone, then I fear for you. Still, I will try to leave what help I can.”
Although Spook wanted to confide in Sazed about the nature of the voices he now heard,
the Keeper’s unusually despondent nature in the face of his lost faith made him relent at the
last minute. Now maintaining the title Survivor of the Flames, Spook continued undermining Quellion’s
leadership by interfering in his executions and killing his soldiers due to Ruin’s influence.
Leading the group sent by Elend, he further convinced Sazed to reverse
engineer the water supply found in the cache to allow him to bring a miracle to Urteau.
Ruin’s influence had grown exponentially, and the kind, unassuming Spook was making
decisions firmly out of character, ultimately bringing the city to the verge of destruction.
He initially met with Beldre and hoped to sway her to his side.
However, he took her captive when she rejected his advances and brought her back to the cache.
He would then return to the city proper and interrupt one of Quellion’s speeches.
Utilizing the discontent within the city, Spook attacked the platform. Empowered by pewter,
he was able to slay Quellion’s guards and was about to take his foe’s life when his
sister Beldre having broken free, shot coins at Spook, revealing herself to be an allomancer.
This enraged the populace, who realized that Quellion had been an unrelenting hypocrite,
slaughtering those who possessed noble blood but keeping his sister safe throughout his
time as King. Riots broke out, and the city was set on fire. Spook also felt betrayed,
and Ruin’s voice pushed him to kill her and take her spike to use her power. Instead, this
led Spook to understand that they were manipulated through the spikes. Spook first removed Quellion’s
spike before his own, regaining full awareness for the first time since his initial battle with
the Citizen’s soldiers. The tineye now gazed upon a city aflame. However, the water from the cache
was not forthcoming, which led Beldre to admit that she had slain the guards in her escape.
With Sazed in tow, they rushed back to the cache. The building housing the cache was likewise
aflame. As the trio seemed set on abandoning their initial plan, Kelsier’s voice once more came to
Spook, encouraging him to continue the fight. Spook rushed into the building, but as the heat
and smoke began to weigh upon him, sapping the tineye of his strength, he could barely throw his
weight against the machine to get it moving before he collapsed and lost consciousness. However, he
saved the city in the process and redeemed himself of the taint with which Ruin had infected him.
With Ruin growing in power and the Heroes of this age still grasping uncertainly in the dark,
it seemed that the Deepness was fated to bring Scadrial to its doom,
but the destiny of shard worlds was never set in stone as we will come to see. The next 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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