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  1. After our last major site update all the way back in 2016, we're excited to announce that we'll be updating the forums and everything else to the latest available version of the platform we run on. We picked Saturday, October 21, as the big migration day. This means there will be some disruptions in service you'll have to expect on that day, but we will do our best to get the site back online as fast as possible. At 06:00 UTC (2am Eastern Time, 11pm Pacific Time) on October 21, we'll be putting the site in "Offline Mode", which means regular users won't be able to use it from that point onward. In the background, we'll be performing a move to an entirely new server to host the site so we can modernize and clean up the environment everything runs in. We estimate this migration to take several hours as we'll have to perform some manual steps as well - plus, you all talk a lot on our forums, so there's lots of data to copy! As soon as all that's done, we'll flip the switch and allow you back into our gates. Immediate Changes The update will not be purely technical in nature. The most obvious change will be a new design that you'll see all across the site. We unfortunately won't be able to bring over the existing theme to the new version as there have been a lot of changes to the underlying software in the meantime and it's unfortunately not sustainable to customize the look and feel as much as we did for the current version. Regardless, we made some changes to give the site some character and to hopefully make the move ever so slightly less jarring. In order for you to get an impression of what the updated version looks like, here's a sneak peek of our homepage when you're logged in: The topic view will also change a fair amount with an at-a-glance overview of some interesting statistics about the topic in the sidebar: Another change is that custom member titles have moved a little bit in the user interface. They will be a regular profile field, but everything else about them should stay the same! Planned and Potential Changes You'll also notice in the topic screenshot above that the regular upvote button is gone! Instead, the new forum version allows us to define custom reactions! We'll keep this limited to an "upvote" reaction for now, but will definitely be exploring this and several other new features in the future: Additional reactions that might affect reputation differently Achievements for performing certain actions, e.g. posting enough or having very successful posts These can also be rewarded with fancy badges that show up on your profile page! Updated Social Connections: While some of our older members might still remember ICQ or MSN, we hear that these aren't as hip with the kids anymore, so we'll likely be updating those to reflect the current social media landscape Pronouns Profile Field: Asking for gender (sex, really) in your profile is kind of outdated and unnecessary for the most part, so we'll be replacing this with a pronouns field that should prove more useful and allows for many more options Dark Theme: With the move to a less customized default theme and thanks to advancements in how configurable a theme is, it will be much easier for us to hopefully introduce this at some point We can't give any concrete timelines on any of these and won't promise we'll implement all of them, but with everything else up-to-date, we should be able to iterate on new things a lot more! Future Update Schedule We aim to track updates of the software we use much more closely in the future, which will likely mean an increase in the update frequency. Rather than performing a big disruptive update every few years, there will be more minor and gradual rollouts of new versions. This is very much in the spirit of the books, as I think a wise man once thought
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  2. Hello hello! The last couple of months saw an uptick in the membership of our Patreon page, in both free and paying members, so if you are one of those - welcome, welcome! (And of you are not, could we interest you?) Either way, hopefully you are enjoying your time here, on the 17th Shard, and hopefully the new year is treating you well. To increase the odds that everything is going peachy, we've got a Yumi and the Nightmare Painter fanart commission for you, coming right up! We bring you an art commission from last year, all the way back from August! Yumi and the Nightmare Painter had just come out in July, and we had decided to dedicate the next commission to the book. It was a close call, but Yumi and Nikaro at the Kilahito carnival beat Nikaro painting Yumi back to life (or whatever actually happened there) by a single vote, so that's what we did! We knew we had to bring Botanica Xu back for this piece, as their distinctive style was a perfect match for this book. Real life obligations made this piece take a bit longer than usual (turns out being an artist, editor, and translator makes for a busy life) but we couldn't be happier with it. Hopefully you like it too
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  3. Oh, whee, it's been a minute, hasn't it? Since we showed you art? Well, the end of the year is always a little crazy for everyone - between conventions, new books, exams, holidays, everyone is just a little busier, and things take just a little longer. But! Things are still moving along, and what better way to celebrate the upcoming holidays than with our October fanart commission - a piece as spooky as it is spoilery, so proceed with caution! If you haven't read all of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, begone! Come back once when you've done your homework. But for everyone else... ... this is obviously the moment Yumi realizes she, just like everyone else in Torio, is a nightmare. Your artist for this heartbreaking piece is Megan Murphy, aka comiclysmic, whose iconic style you might recognize from a series of meme-y posts (like this Hoid being very upset with Design's stance on spoilers), but also "proper" fanart (like this Sja-anat). Regardless, familiar or not, Megan did a great job with this piece, just like she does with all her pieces (oh, do make sure you check out this Dustbringer OC), and we are all very happy to have worked with her on this, and are very much looking forward to working with her again in the future!
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  4. Two years ago, when Brandon first announced the secret projects, people were surprised to hear the audiobooks wouldn't be available on Audible. Brandon had spoken out before about how he was worried about their business practices and what that would mean for authors with a lot less success than him, and for the secret projects––where the rights would initially be in his hands rather than going through Tor first, as Dragonsteel would be publishing the books themselves––he took a big risk, knowing most of his readership was through audio, and decided to promote other alternatives for audiobooks besides the Amazon-owned company. Now, after many conversations with the company, he's reached a historic deal, not aimed at himself, but to benefit indie authors in particular, who are the most affected by Audible's policies regarding royalties and exclusivity. Many people have heard about this basic context. You remember Brandon explaining the new other options that weren't Audible. But today, I want to do more than just paraphrase this newest blogpost. So I want to explain the entire context behind the relationship between Amazon, and by extension Audible, and the publishing industry. I'm going to give a big shoutout to the Print Run podcast for a lot of this extra information that isn't pulled from Brandon's blog. If you're interested in the industry, go listen to them! Part 1: Amazon's Origins For those of you who don't know, Amazon started its online retail empire through books. The reason wasn't because of some artistic sensibility, but because books are "easy to ship and hard to break." In particular because with the amount of books and editions of each of those that exist, it is impossible to find them all at a physical bookstore. But it is possible with the internet. Which was the perfect opportunity for the business. The other thing about books is that they say something about us. The kinds of books you buy tells you a lot about a person, which for a business like this, is consumer data. Which helped them expand beyond the book realm. Part 2: The ebook revolution In these early days, Amazon started innovating a lot on distribution. The traditional process is pretty messed up, and Amazon made this a lot easier both for print books, but most importantly for ebooks. The Kindle changed the game. Dan likes to cite a statistic about how in sometime like 2012, the sales of books if I'm not mistaken, in that year alone, were higher than in the rest of history. And Amazon decided to price ebooks at 9.99 USD, and everyone agreed to it. But publishers eventually realized that their books couldn't cost that little. So they suggested switching to a model where they chose whatever price they thought was appropriate, and give Amazon a cut of that. Part 3: The lawsuits In 2010, we get the first large lawsuit with one of the Big 6 at the time, Macmillan. You all probably know that Tor is Brandon's publisher, but Tor is just an imprint of Macmillan. And Brandon has mentioned this incident before. To put leverage on Amazon, Macmillan said they'd window their ebooks. One thing you should know about the publishing industry is that most sales for a book come in the first few months of it being out, or even before. The bestseller list is built on preorders and hype, because you can rack up those numbers with months of marketing and word of mouth which will all count for week 1, rather than doing all that work in a single week. What Macmillan was going to do was not release the ebooks until about 6 months later, where a good chunk of those people would have already read the book in hardcover, which costs significantly more. But Amazon wasn't threatened by this. They pulled the buy buttons on Macmillan books, which means you literally couldn't buy anything from any of Macmillan's imprints on Amazon. I am not kidding, this is literally the nuke of book sales. So Macmillan panicked. Eventually, Amazon got enough backlash from the general public that they put it back, but they'd successfully scared the publishers. So in 2012, the Big 6 at the time––HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette and Random House––came together to try to put pressure on Amazon to adopt the model Macmillan had suggested in 2010. Amazon filed a collusion suit against them, which prompted the Big 6 to settle. The compromise was that Amazon could discount books as much as they wanted, but they wouldn't get back their 9.99 ceiling. However, since Amazon has so much business elsewhere, this allowed them to use books as loss leaders. 7% of Amazon's sales were books in 2016, but 43% of all online retail went through them. Books were extremely insignificant for them, unlike the situation publishers were in. And of course, this accustoms people to go to Amazon first when they want to buy a book because they're more convenient and cheaper. During this time, Amazon also started using this rhetoric of publishers as elitist and gatekeeping, that didn't want the good of the customers and authors, who if they self published on Kindle Direct Publishing would receive a higher royalty rate, particularly on ebooks, even if their books wouldn't be in physical stores as often, because physical stores don't like stocking Amazon published books. In 2014, we get a second lawsuit, this time with Hachette. At the time, this was the biggest of the Big 6, with authors that are both incredibly prolific and popular, such as James Patterson. Who, I am not kidding, had books coming out about every week. Hachette wanted better pricing now that their contract was up and it was time for renegotiation, but Amazon wouldn't budge, and Hachette wouldn't either. Even being the fourth largest trade publisher in the world, it was 12 times smaller than Amazon at the time. Just like last time, Amazon pulled the buy buttons, but they went further than that. They delayed shipping, pulled the preorder buttons, ceased their discounts, letting consumers feel the weight of the full price they weren't accustomed to, and filled Hachette recommendation pages with similar, cheaper books. This caused a huge culture war. Amazon brought back their gatekeeper argument, saying the reason paperbacks took about a year to come out is because publishers wanted to get you with the bigger hardcover purchase, and that if Hachette gave all their online retail share and gave it to authors, they would stand down. Of course, Hachette couldn’t do this. In a way, Amazon lost this fight, but this is when everyone started getting involved. Particularly authors and agents. One of the most famous agents to get involved was Andrew Wiley. He is probably the most well known literary agent, the one people will think of when they think of the classic agent. He is also very notorious for being extremely anti-publisher, saying that "if a book has sold out its advance, he failed as an agent because he didn’t get enough money for his authors." One would think he’d jump on the Amazon bandwagon of criticizing the publishers. But he didn’t. He spoke out on behalf of them. He went pro-publisher. This is because Amazon’s model dries up the money authors would be getting very fast. Publishers have less money to spend on advances or new deals, and become even more risk-averse, which is bad for authors. The fact that someone so notoriously anti-publisher would side with them against Amazon says a lot in my opinion. Part 4: The Penguin Random House merger. This brings us to the Penguin and Random House merger in 2013. Companies didn’t want to wait to have to fight the same fight Macmillan and Hachette had to deal with, and since they’d gotten caught colluding before, the solution was to make that collusion legal with a merger. This made Penguin Random House the biggest publisher in the world, and let me tell you it’s staggering how many imprints they own. You forget half of them until you start looking at their company timeline on their website. What happens here is that because publishing’s response to Amazon is to band together, you get these two giants punching at each other with everyone else crushed in the middle because competition has been driven down, there are less places to submit a book to, less houses to drive up prices in auctions, and a lot of other side effects. You probably heard about the recent merger attempt between PRH and Simon & Schuster. Authors like Stephen King spoke out against that one because of these exact reasons, and Brandon’s Kickstarter that prompted this article also got caught in it because PRH and S&S were trying to use it as an example of how authors could go independent, making it even more necessary for a merger like this to keep business going. This original merger was just the first iteration of what happened in 2022 and early 2023. In 2017, Amazon made a change to their buying page, where instead of automatically buying a new copy from Amazon’s warehouses, you could be buying from third party vendors who would usually be reselling. This means that you can’t trace that money back and that it won’t go to the authors. It also increased the chance of fake books or fraudulent copies. Part 5: Audible in 2022 We’ve been talking about a lot of these policies in terms of ebooks, but they apply for audio too. In the old days, audiobooks were incredibly expensive, because they came in cassettes or CDs, and the process of getting them made was much more complicated. Just listen to any Wheel of Time fan who listened in audio from when the books first came out talk about it, or to Michael Kramer and Kate Reading in their many interviews. With Audible, Amazon made audiobooks viable again, and much cheaper, just like they did for ebooks. In his 2022 State of the Sanderson post, Brandon explained why he wasn't putting the Secret Projects on Audible. He focused specifically on its impact on indie creators. And worse, these are the rates for Amazon exclusive authors. That means they can't have their book available on any other platform, like Libro.fm for example, which is also very popular. The rates for non-exclusive authors drops to 25%. The other problem is that most audio companies turn around and put their books on Audible as well. Brandon cites Apple, Recorded Books, his own publisher Macmillan (who owns Tor), etc. And because of that, most of everyone else pays the same rates Audible does. To even try to compete with them. He urged readers to go to those other providers and try to change the tide. Part 6: The new deal On the 5th of March 2024, on the heels of another secret project announcement in conjunction with the Words of Radiance leatherbound, Brandon announced he'd had conversations with Audible about changing their practices. Like I hope you've been able to realize by now, getting Amazon to budge on anything is HUGE. Even authors with more clout than Brandon gave up pretty quickly. With that in mind, this is what Brandon says constitutes the new deal. Higher royalty rates for both exclusive and non exclusive authors The system will pay more predictably on credit spent, paid monthly rather than quarterly. They will provide a spreadsheet explaining how the money received will be split. Brandon does clarify this is far from perfect. The percentage gap between exclusive and non exclusive authors is still about the same. This change doesn't bring royalties up to the 70% he wanted in the first place yet, authors still won't have control over pricing, and they will always sell for the price of a credit, which won't be raised with inflation. He talks about how his agent, Joshua, spent months arguing for a 2% increase when Brandon was a new publisher to illustrate how important a small increase can be, even if this is bigger than 2%. And I hope this article has illustrated that as well. How difficult even getting them to move this much has been. Brandon explains that the Secret Projects will now be on Audible, and closes, thanking everyone for their support and the pressure they put on these issues. Part 7: Reflecting about how all this affects the publishing industry The publishing industry has always had this dilemma of art vs. business and where to fall on that scale. Treat it too much like a pure art and you get mentalities like the starving writer who does it despite not being able to sustain themselves. Treat it too much like a business and you lose out on the artistic value of works that won't sell as much in the moment. Works that sometimes become classics or will be praised critically but not be incredibly popular. My personal favorite example is Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. It's not accessible to a lot of people because of the layers and the prose, and how much mental energy it takes. But it is an absolute masterpiece, and I don't know if in today's market it would be published because of those commercial considerations. Sad as it is to say, the publishers left the door open for Amazon to fill the space because they failed to think for more than a second about the initial pricing of ebooks. And the way it's going, it only leads to more and more of a blockbuster model with publishers being risk-averse to new things because they are getting squeezed, it just makes the market harder for debut authors with new ideas and innovations, with more diverse voices. This year's Lee and Low Diversity Survey found that publishing is still 72% white, 71% cis women, 68% heterosexual, 83% able-bodied, and 58% living in the northeastern United States. And none of these numbers will change, like they barely did from the last time this survey was conducted, if we don't make an active effort to change them. That's why it is so important that Brandon stands up for these small authors, particularly those who publish independently. Traditional publishing isn't without its problems, but indie authors get affected the most by Amazon's policies that force them to be exclusive or take a huge loss to run ads as the only way to be discovered. Amazon says it's good for consumers by having low prices, but in the long run it isn't good because it will be creating this white noise where nobody stands out and removing quality and variety from people's options because publishing becomes more risk-averse. Not only will those potential classics, or books that are very niche, or that are being revolutionary, ahead of their time, be lost, but the quality on more commercial books will go down. We're already seeing this with controversies like the Iron Flame printing controversy. I hope that all these reflections about how it can affect our culture from multiple people will make an impact, and we'll start to see change. But we can't stay and do nothing. Even if you're not personally involved in the industry, there are still ways to affect it. Stay informed, use your local library and buy books in indie stores, preorder books, read more diversely, talk about the issues online, support indie authors. The list goes on and on. There is hope with a deal like the one Brandon has made. But we have to keep working for a better place, and better conditions for the artists we admire so much so they can keep bringing us amazing art. Part 8: Conclusion This article was originally just meant to go over the generalities of this deal and add information from the stream. But when I got my hands on it after a couple of days of discussion, I realized that it was a chance to talk about something I care about very deeply as a literature student and aspiring author, which lots of people may not know about. One thing I appreciate about the original stand Brandon took is that it showed people how bad the situation is, in a way that they wouldn't have even been aware of before. I hope that this article was a chance for you all to learn more about this beyond the endless paraphrasing of the same original article. And as pessimistic as I feel this sounded for a lot of it, what we need to take out of this is to make it known. Keep putting pressure on Audible to be better. Congratulate them for moving forward, but don't just let it rest here. Feel free to ask any questions and to start more of a discussion in the comments, I would love to know what you think.
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  5. Dragonsteel 2023 is behind us, leaving in its wake plenty of Words of Brandon, a whole new book release (have you finished Defiant yet?), and, unsurprisingly, a ton of news. If, like me, you haven't been able to travel to the lovely Utah this year - or if you were there, but lost your memories to the con flu - here's a summary of all the announcements. Of course, you can watch most of them in the Defiant release event. A quick housekeeping note before we begin - there will be great many pictures in the article, of somewhat small sizes. You can zoom in by clicking on them. New Stormlight Archive 5 Reading Yes indeed, we have a new Stormlight Archive 5 reading! It's an unnumbered interlude, and if you're wondering what happens in it, let's just say... it's weird. If you wanna check it out, you can look it up in the Arcanum, right here. You can also watch it here; the link should take you to the right time stamp, but if not, skip to 1 hour 25 minutes. As for the overall book, it's about 90% done - which puts it on track for release on December 7th, 2024. New Releases and Re-Releases The con also saw the release of a new Cytoverse short story, Hyperthief. Co-written by Janci Patterson (who, of course, wrote Bastille vs the Evil Librarians as well as the Skyward novellas, and is writing Skyward Legacy at the moment), Hyperthief was distributed during the second day of the con. It's not widely available just yet, unfortunately, but you can purchase a bundle that has it on Brandon's site. Presumbly, there will be a digital release sometime, but there's no info on that currently. The Words of Radiance Leatherbound Kickstarter launches on March 5th 2024; almost exactly ten years after the book's original release. The design for the leatherbounds is apparently all done now - in fact, the books have already been printed. And as for the rewards? Well, for one, we'll be getting Dragonsteel Prime. This very, very old book of Brandon's has so far only been available for those who'd visit the Brigham Young University over in Provo, Utah. It's the origin of the Shattered Plains, the Bridge 4 plotline, and cosmere dragons, so it should be quite a treat. For the other stretch goals... feast your eyes on this beauty: Yes, this is in fact concept art for a Syl plushie - and it won't be alone. The plan at the present is to let the backers order plushies of spren from different Radiant orders. I don't know about you folks, but I'm real curious what the Bondsmith ones will look like. White Sand prose will be getting an official release. Or, well... re-release? Remake? Re-edition? Whatever we call it, this is, if you're keeping count, the fifth version of White Sand that we will be getting, after the original prose (still available by signing up for the newsletter), the graphic novels trilogy, the Graphic Audio adaptation, and the omnibus. This prose version should be the final one, though. Maybe. Possibly. Probably not. After all, there is always another White Sand. And finally, a bit of bad news to wrap this section up: there's no Cosmere movie coming up. The odyssey of trying and failing to adapt the Cosmere to the big screen continues, and once more, the news is that there is no news. Although Brandon and his team have apparently reached a point where people in mistcloaks were having script reads together, between the actors' strike and the writers' strike, the adaptation has been postponed yet again. So, if you're hoping to see Mistborn on screen in the near future - don't hold your breath. Future Writing Projects So what's the release schedule for the next few years? Well, White Sand the Final Definitive Prose Edition is the project Brandon will start working on as soon as he's done with revising Stormlight 5. And after that? Mistborn Era 3, semi-officially titled Ghostbloods. While writing that, Brandon also intends to write Elantris 2 and 3 - all before the first book of Ghostbloods even comes out, so the White Sand re-re-re-remake might be the last Brandon cosmere project for a little while. The wait will be even longer for Stormlight Archive 6, as Brandon does not intend to work on that until both Ghostbloods and the Elantris sequels are complete. I said "Brandon cosmere projects," as other than Brandon's stories, there will also be books coming up in both Cytoverse and the cosmere that won't be written by him. There is, as mentioned already, Janci Patterson's Skyward Legacy, the sequel to the main Skyward series. In addition to that, Isaac Stewart is writing a Nikki Savage book (that's the character from the newspapers from Mistborn Era 2 books). This one's apparently pretty far along already, though Brandon has yet to see the manuscript himself. Dan Wells is also working on his own cosmere project, though this one is in very early stages. Stormlight Roleplaying Game If you've been following Brandon news recently, you are probably aware that Brotherwise Games, the company behind the Call to Adventure: Stormlight Archive game and the Stormlight miniatures Kickstarter, is working on the Stormlight Roleplaying Game. This tabletop RPG is based, naturally, on the Rithmatist... no, not really. It's the Stormlight Archive game, of course, and folks attending the con had the chance to watch it be played live, as well as see some of the art that will be present in the final rulebook. So, what do we know about the game so far? It's a d20 system (for the unfamiliar, this means you roll 20-sided dice and have to roll higher than a specific threshold to succeed), a touch similar to the perennial classic Dungeons & Dragons, albeit instead of classes, characters follow paths, with each path having its own skill tree and each character being able to freely spec into as many paths as their heart desires. The system so far encompasses only Roshar; it's not compatible with the Mistborn Adventure Game, the earlier cosmere RPG (which was developed by a different company, Crafty Games). We've also learned a bit more about the team behind Stormlight Archive RPG, which includes people who worked on the Star Wars RPG (the Fantasy Flight one), Legend of the Five Rings, Dungeons and Dragons modules, and MCDM rulebooks. You can see the full announcement below; you might notice a few... familiar faces there. The game is still some ways off from release; its publishing will be funded by a Kickstarter campaign, which will launch sometime in the latter half of the year 2024. If you're looking for more details about the game (and more cool artwork from it), plenty of outlets far more knowledgeable than myself about the world of tabletop RPGs have covered this topic, so for in-depth reading, I would encourage you to check out articles by Comicbook and Polygon. Other Games If you thought that the Stormlight Roleplaying Game will be the last cosmere tabletop game, think again. There are no less than two other projects coming out in the future. First up, we have the as-of-yet unnamed Mistborn deckbuilding game, set to release in late 2024. Little is known as of yet as to the exact mechanics; you will be taking control of Mistborn Era 1 characters, and "purchase" cards (in-game, not with actual money) to conduct high-speed Allomantic battles between them. We also have another card game coming out, titled Shards of Creation. It's based on - you guessed it - the Shards of Adonalsium, with each suit of cards representing one Shard (though it's possible that not all the Shards will be represented). It will be a trick-taking game; if you're unfamiliar, trick-taking games are ones where each round (or "trick") each player plays one card, and one player wins, "taking" the trick. That's about all we know about Shards of Creation for now; no release date has been given at the moment, and the only artwork out there is what was shown during the announcement: Other News Dragonsteel 2024 date has already been decided: December 5th through 7th, 2024. That's Thursday to Saturday, which should hopefully be easier to attend for people. Like this year, it will be taking place in Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, and will coincide with a new book release - that being, of course, Stormlight Archive 5. Finally, Dragonsteel is using all that money we're throwing at them to build itself an HQ. Known so far as "the DS project", "the Dragonsteel construction project," "Dragonsteel village," "the castle," and probably a few other names, it will be a mix of corporate headquarters, Sanderson bookstore, and a "destination for fans". Who knows, maybe the future Dragonsteels will be held there instead of the Salt Palace - but that's still in the far future. For the moment, the castle exists only as a bunch of sketches and 3D mock-ups. And that's all! Lots of news, lots of announcements; sufficed to say, between the upcoming books, games, cons, and Kickstarters, being a Sanderson fan is going to be a busy job over the next few years. I'm certainly excited for what's to come (particularly, not gonna lie, the Stormlight Roleplaying Game), but what about you all? Anything you're looking forward to?
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  6. If you’ve been with us for more than two years, you might recall that once upon a time, we ran a poll asking you, the users, to judge us, the staff. The original plan was to make the Staff Review an annual event, but, well, 2022 ran away from us. Still, the Staff Review has returned for the year 2023 - so how about we look at some charts? We have so many charts to look at (and some of those charts are rather small by necessity, so if you have trouble reading, you can click on the image to zoom in). First off, let’s talk demographics! During the first Staff Review, we received 146 responses; this time, it was 157 - a small increase, especially compared to the rise in the Sharder population. We also asked you to declare which of our two main platforms - forums and Discord - you most commonly use, so let’s start with that. While we expected the majority of you to be Discord mains, I do admit that this majority was not as large as we expected. A third of you still prefer forums to Discord - something we will definitely have to keep in mind, as most of the current staff is primarily active on the latter, and from your other answers… well, it shows. With this said, let’s move on to our regular questions. Quality of Moderation The first is quite simple - on a scale of 1 (awful) to 5 (amazing), how do you rate the quality of moderation on the 17th Shard? And it seems like the majority of you rate us quite well indeed! More than 70% of you gave us the highest marks at 5, with less than 4% rating us below a 4. This is a notable improvement from the last poll, where that number was almost 8%. Interestingly, there is almost no variation between ratings given to us by forum and Discord users, with the average rating being 4.67 for Discord, and 4.66 for the forums. With that, let’s move on to the next topic: do you think the staff members are in tune with the general 17th Shard community? Here, "1" means we are completely out of touch, while "5" means we are just like the rest of you. The response was a bit more tepid this time around, though still overwhelmingly positive. It is important to us that we’re active members of the community, so that we can accurately tell what you want to see from us. And much like with the demographics question, it’s obvious we should focus more on the forums side of things; while both Discord and forum users rate us highly, the forum ratings are visibly lower than the Discord ones, with an almost 0.2 difference in averages. Moving on, we have a returning question from last year: how strict do you think the mods are as a whole? For this chart, "1" means that we are too strict, and a "9" means we are too lax. As was to be expected, you consider us to be more on the stricter side of things, with around 40% of you voting on the "strict" side, while another 43% believe we’ve attained a happy middle. This being said, compared to two years ago, the needle has moved marginally towards the "lax" side. This might be thanks to greater participation of forum goers, who have, on average, rated us as less strict than Discord users. Next up, let’s talk conflict resolution. This is something we have been thinking about recently, so we’ve decided to ask: what do you think about the way Staff members resolve conflicts and problems on the Shard. In this case, "1" means we suck at it, while "5" means we always resolve all conflicts perfectly. The results are, overall, quite good, with over 90% of you rating us as either very good or excellent at it. This being said, this is obviously an area in which we could further improve, as you have made clear in the next two, open-ended questions, in which we asked you to talk about any particular incidents or staff members that have caught your attention. While we will not cite the exact answers here, there has been plenty of valuable critique that will, hopefully, help us improve in the future. There were also several compliments! It seems you rate us highly when it comes to transparency and communication - an improvement compared to your opinions the last time we ran the poll. Plenty of you have appreciated our efforts towards inclusivity, and making the Shard a safe, welcoming place for everyone - a commitment we very much intend to uphold. Spoiler Policy Our spoiler policy is something we spend a lot of time on, hoping to ensure both veteran and new Sanderfans have a good time, so we obviously want to hear what you think about it. Here, the differences between Discord and forums are definitely beginning to show clearly. While the vast majority of you believe that the policy is fine, it seems there is a difference in how we enforce it on each of our platforms - on Discord, people lean more towards calling us overzealous, while on the forums, we’re more likely to be considered overly lax. The percentage of people who don't understand the spoiler policy on the forums is also concerning, and something we should definitely look into. Communicating with the Staff We also had two questions for you regarding the way you communicate with the Staff. As a reminder - if you have something to report to us, we always welcome a ping, a report or a private message! It’s not bothering us; we can’t be everywhere, so we have to rely on user reports to assist us in moderation. With that being said, let’s get to the first of our two communication questions: what is your preferred method of contacting the Staff? Once more, the discrepancy between forums and Discord is readily apparent. The number of people unaware they could contact us in the first place is worrisome - especially on the forums, where over a quarter of responders stated that they did not know it was allowed. Likewise, a fifth of forum users would rather not interact with us at all, as opposed to only 8% of Discord users. At a guess, this is another effect of the staff having increased presence on the Discord, making us more visible (and, perhaps, more approachable) there. Onwards to the next question, this one exclusive for Discord users: have you ever used @Staff to ping us? Here, we gave you a list of pre-made responses, as well as an option to write your own. It is quite encouraging to see that almost 80% of you have either pinged us before, or felt no need to do so. It is a little less encouraging to see that almost a tenth of you are scared to contact us. Again - nothing to be afraid of! If you have something to report, ping away! What about those “other responses”, though? Without quoting the exact statements, there are three trends we’ve noticed: You are unaware that pinging us is an option (which comes back to the problem we’ve noticed in the last question) You prefer DMs over a public ping (which is perfectly valid!) You use the function to report spam bots (which is appreciated!) The next two questions let us tell us what you think directly and anonymously, and it was quite nice to see all the positive messages for us - we really appreciate you. Likewise, we appreciate the people who took the time to point out what we could improve on; we hope to put those lessons into practice. There were also a few… interesting responses, such as: “Ramen noodles are delicious” “Brownies make your day better.” “Actually, this form is written by six people, and we’d rather not explain it (it involves a Kickstarter and a Splintered group).” The People’s Mod Awards Finally, we’ve reached the question you’ve probably been the most curious about, and the one that inspired the whole concept of staff review in the first place: who is the people’s favourite moderator? Once more, Argent snags the top spot, followed closely behind by Ene! In third place we have Chaos, as well as Feather, who rose an entire sixteen spots since the last poll, pushing Rasarr down to fourth place (or is it fifth, if two people hold the bronze medal?). But wait, there’s more! Now we can sort the results by platform! In the forums category of People’s Mod Awards, Ene wins by a landslide, racking up 30% more votes than Argent; on the Discord front, Argent keeps his overall first place, followed closely behind by Feather. So, what next? Well, that about does it for Staff Review 2023. We certainly learned a lot, both in terms of what must be done (it seems we all agree the #cosmemes channel over on Discord needs another look), what you think of the staff (I do need to get my TTRPG schedule in order, for sure), and in other matters (why were there six people filling in the poll together, anyway?). Hopefully, by the time we come back with Staff Review 2024 (and hopefully, we will remember to make Staff Review 2024…), you will see tangible improvement on our part. Until then, thank you for being part of the Shard! We might be the ones tasked with herding this pack of giraffes, but it’s you, the users, who make this place great.
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  7. Aah, summer is finally rising over the horizon, the US enjoys a long weekend, students are getting ready to relax during their summer break... but we, we do not rest. Having wrapped up the March batch of commissions, it is time for the April piece (May is in progress), and boy is it a good one! Spoilers for The Lost Metal below! Y'all wanted to see Shai - sorry, Moonlight - become and Elantrian, and we were more than happy to oblige! Your artist for the evening is Caio Santos whose gorgeous work you might recognize from... well, take a look at their Coppermind page, and then go scroll through all their socials, it looks like Zelda might be on their mind these days. As far as this piece goes, their depiction of the Shaod (is it even Shaod if it's on Scadrial?) gradually transforming Shai turned out absolutely gorgeous, down to the metallic sheen and soft glow. Everything else is great too, but that transformation has been, mm, *chef's kiss*. Go give them the likes and the follows!
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  8. Back in December, when The Lost Metal was but a wee baby and we were commissioning art from it, Wayne won pretty soundly but TwinSoul was a solid second. You've already seen the (very spoilery) Wayne piece but - surprise! - we've been working on TwinSoul in secret. Sneaky old man. So that's what we have here! The scene, of course, is the iconic roseite juggernaut transformation, in which Sanvith Prasanva Maahik va Sila, Grand Aetherbound of the twelve kingdoms, Raj of the Coriander Court lays down the law. The eagle-eye among you might have spotted the artist's signature already, but we once again hired heatherly.draws (as she goes by on Instagram) whose work you might recognize from awesome projects such as Syl's Guide to Spren or our Pantheon commission from a couple of years ago. And, as always, she absolutely crushed it with his piece. Now, let's see if anyone who is not already a member here is actually going to see this, with our Twitter gone...
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  9. Yep, he's done it again! Today Brandon Sanderson announced he's written another book in secret and is releasing it with the Words of Radiance leatherbound BackerKit. For those keeping count, this makes eight secret books recently - Tress, Frugal Wizard, Yumi, and Sunlit Man released as part of the Year of Sanderson, Super Awesome Danger announced with those but still in production, Long Chills and Case Dough in the December Sanderson Fan box, and The Most Boring Book Ever illustrated by Kazu Kibuishi. We don't know much about it so far: just that it's in the far future of the cosmere and has "high connectivity". Also, that unlike in the pictures and video we have of the mockup, it won't be purple anymore. Sorry, purple lovers. We'll be getting more information about the book - a title and reading - on the 21st of this month. The book will be shipping sometime in 2025. The Words of Radiance Kickstarter...er, BackerKit...campaign, in addition to the leatherbound and new secret project, includes Dragonsteel Prime (soon we won't have to almost completely restrict discussion of that, so that's cool!) and a lot of cool swag. Those spren plushies? Adorable. We'll see you all in a few weeks with a podcast on this book! Until then, journey before destination.
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  10. Hear ye, hear ye, here comes another Patreon fanart commission from last November - once again, full of spoilers for The Sunlit Man! Just like before, your artist for the evening is Max, aka MadxMellonArt on places like Instagram and Tumblr. The scene, should it not be instantly recognizable, is the epic moment when Nomad realizes that the last ship of Beacon will not make to the safety of the shadow of the mountain before the sun incinerates it, so he dumps all of his Investiture into Aux's shield form, making the spren large enough to protect the people for a few seconds until they get to safety. Beautiful color work on the illustration too!
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  11. Happy New Year, everybody! In the spirit of the whole "new year, new me" mantra, we are turning a new leaf and... well, not really changing anything! We know you like these monthly fanart commissions, we like these monthly fanart commissions, so why break what isn't broken? Spoilers for The Sunlit Man So why don't we take a look at this amazing character piece by Max, aka madxmellonart on Instagram or Tumblr? We tried to trick our patrons into voting for a Nomad piece by stacking the November poll in his favor, featuring him in 4 out of the 5 options, but people were adamant - they wanted the Night Brigade admiral, and that was that! Well, joke's on you, patrons, we are very happy with this outcome too! Max did a great job capturing the no-nonsense stern character of the Admiral, and the shade behind her is the absolute stuff of nightmares, the Night Brigade certainly lives up to its reputation. And - yes, we know we say this every time - Max was great to work with, so we'll definitely bring them back for a future commission!
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  12. Hello all! Long time no see. Doozy of an article to return for, though! Let's cut right to the chase: Roaring Brook Press will be releasing a kid's picture book titled The Most Boring Book Ever, written by Brandon and illustrated by Kazu Kibuishi (who you may know from his Amulet series of graphic novels). It will be 48 pages long, targeted at children aged 4-8, and is expected to release September 24th, 2024. And now without further ado, here's the official blurb: The book is up for preorder in the usual places: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, and probably wherever else you usually get your fix from. It appears to be separate from Super Awesome Danger, the so-called "Secret Project Zero"—see State of the Sanderson 2023 for more information on that. And yes, if you're keeping track, that makes this the tenth book since he started the Secret Projects three years ago, or more if you count co-written stories. At least this one shouldn't cause nearly as much havoc for spoiler policy... So um, how do you all feel about this news? Let us know in the comments below, I suppose... For my part, all I have to say is *confusion noises*. But hey, all for anything getting us closer to a The Dog and the Dragon storybook!
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  13. It's been a little bit of a radio silence here as we work on a couple of commissions (your July and August pieces are still coming, just... slowly), but we come with a peace offering - a Yumi piece! If you've been keeping up with the Cosmere fanart scene from the last several months, you will likely have run into our September artist, Gar Leyva (available in places like "Twitter" and Instagram). He's been an absolute powerhouse when it comes to fanart, sporting dozens of pieces, all gorgeous, versatile. From this Tress landscape, to this Virtuosity portrait, to Wax and Marasi as Barbenhaimer, browsing his portfolio is an absolute delight. And today we add to this portfolio - with this stunning illustration of Design reading Yumi's Spiritual Connection (with a little creative license, because it's way more fun to have Design hold the Connection than to feed it into a fabrial). Enjoy! (Also, it's October in a couple of days, which means 1) we'll be doing a horror-themed commission once again, but also 2) Inktober is about to start, but also also 3) Secret Project 4 comes out. Gonna be a busy month...)
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  14. Between episodes of Diceborn: Secrets in Stained Glass, we are posting some additional story content. Below is our first bit of prose material, two pieces of writing from Jenna Tekiel. We also have posted additional behind-the-scenes content on our Patreon if you are interested. Some Writings of Jenna Tekiel By Eric Lake A letter to Julian Lunarche, 1008 FE, shortly before the fire at the Elariel manor Dearest Julian, You are going to do amazing with the Elariels. You are brilliant, and your ideas are sound. It... was never my intent to persuade you to not go through with this. I... perhaps worry too much about you. I know you were angry with me for that. I could tell that look in your eyes. You would have gotten much more furious with me, but I know that look on your face, of holding back, because of me. I am trying; trying to be better. Genuinely. I hope when you come back, you will see how hard I have been working. Great House nobility is full of viciousness and venom, which is why I was forged to be this way. I think that is why I have been too protective of you. You can handle yourself, of course. That is how you have gotten this far. For this, I am sorry. I will make it up to you. No one in the world, save perhaps the Lord Ruler himself, knows me as well as you do. You believe in me when no one else does. You have taught me to feel. Maybe... I feel too much for you? If I am acting this way? I swear to you I will work on this, to find the proper balance. You are going to do well. I believe in you. I eagerly look forward for you to show them just how brilliant you are. I love you. I am thrilled to be yours and have our engagement celebration. I have many things planned for it! See you soon, my love. Jenna A page from Jenna Tekiel's journal, 1008 FE, the day after the fire at the Elariel manor. I knew I had to let you do what your heart desired. What kind of partner would I have been to restrict that? I have never hated being correct as much as I do now. Damn you, Julian. Damn you to the Deepness. You just won't LISTEN! It has been several hours since I wrote those words. I have been crying. I hate it. If your essence is somewhere, Julian. I am sorry for being so angry. I don't know what I think anymore. I am filled with so much... everything. You're really gone. I could have stopped this. I can never forgive myself. I will never again get to see your face. That delightful hair. Your lovely touch. Lord Ruler, I can't believe it. I don't know how I can go on. I feel lost, both empty but full of every thought of you. I don't know if writing any of this down is helping. Maevis always said journaling helped her. I don't get it. Maybe somewhere you're reading this? I suppose? I love you so much. I... I know I am not good enough. But I love you all the same, with everything I have. It's not enough. It's never enough. Maybe I'd have broken you as much as I am broken inside. I have not left the keep for two weeks. I have done nothing. I have written nothing. I have slept, eaten perhaps half a meal, and then... Sat here. Alone with my thoughts. How cruel it is that the one person who can help me with them is the one who is gone. Lucius did write. I need to write him back. I need to write to Maevis, too. At least some people survived this disaster. I don't know much. I don't know much of anything anymore. But what I do know is, I will eventually find out who made this fire. I don't believe for a second this is an accident. I'm doing this for you, Julian. I imagine you'd rather I didn't. I'm so sorry to let you down again, but I must. You deserve it. At least, eventually. I can't move right now. I am sure I will feel a fire in me again. Won't I? I pray I am not wrong. Secrets in Stained Glass Episode 3 comes out July 25th, and after that, we have a bunch more short stories coming your way! The complete list of Secrets in Stained Glass content can be found in this tag.
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  15. It's been a couple of weeks since we showed off some art for you all, so why don't we get back to it? We still have a couple of queer characters left, and today we are sharing MeLaan. Who might not be traditionally queer, but the kandra's relationship with sex and gender is certainly fluid enough to warrant including her in here. For this piece we worked with fan-favorite fanartist pekgna whose Cosmere fanart is as numerous as it is excellent (for example). We think they did a stellar job conveying the idea that all three versions of MeLaan in this illustration are still versions of her - not different people, but different visages MeLaan can assume. So you know the drill - give them the follows, and the likes, and the shares!
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  16. Oookaaay, once more into the breach that is our Lost Metal March art (Marcht?) commissions! This is the last one - though we've got April ready too, so that will be going up before too long. So what's in the box this time? Why, it's Telsin, of course! Maybe not the best villain Brandon has ever written, but one we can be thankful to for bringing us a whooole lot of Autonomy lore in this book. This illustration comes to you from the (digital) pen(cil?) of Howuld, whom you can find on Twitter or Instagram (just beware of this incredibly bittersweet Hero of Ages piece that will immediately assault your heart). No sneaky sneaks with this illustration, just pure character design. Enjoy!
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  17. June is trickling away but we can squeeze in a quick art reveal Those of you who follow us on Twitter may have seen that we put out a tweet looking for queer fanartists to take a stab at this round of Pride commissions, so first of all, if you are looking for some more artists to follow and support, there's several in that tweet's replies, go take a look! (There's also a considerable number of fake accounts who steal other people's art, so if blocking or reporting accounts is something that sounds like fun to you, there's some of that too!) So, to get the ball rolling, we give you Ral-na, illustrated by @Bielhor! The Reshi king doesn't show much outside of the interlude where Rysn meets him, but he is well beloved for bringing some much needed trans representation to the cosmere, and the results of the June art poll agreed - putting him on first place, tied with Renarin & Rlain. We love the subtle symbolism in this illustration, between the lightning-like pattern on his outfit, reminding us that he is now a Dustbringer, and the body paint which, on his chest, is reminiscent of scars from a top surgery (which wouldn't be necessary, since his spren bond made the transition much easier, presumably). All in all, we are very happy with how this piece turned out, and you can definitely expect to see Bielhor show up in future commissions!
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  18. Are we making these weekly? Who knows. But it's time for another Lost Metal (March) art commission, this one dedicated to everyone's favorite gunslinging Coinshot & rude Bloodmaker dynamic duo - Dumad and Getruda! This one comes to you from the talented hand of Matthew Johnson, occasionally known as captrosko, whose work you can find on places like Twitter and Instagram - work you might recognize from the many Inktober drawings he's done over the years, such as this Allomancer Jak or this McHammer baggy pants-wearing Honor. With these two, Cap knocked it out of the park instantly. Dumad looks as punchable as a man can possibly look, with his smug face and perfect hair, and Getruda looks equally annoying, with her casual demeanor and gleeful smirk. All in all, this commission has been an absolutely win, you guys, so go give the artist your follows and your likes (and also maybe consider giving him your money?) - and we'll see you soon* with another Lost Metal artwork!
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  19. Hey Sharders, I’m sure you’ve been enjoying the wealth of official art we have gotten in the Year of the Sanderson as we’ve been reading through the four Secret Projects. All the books may be out now, but that doesn’t mean all the fun is over yet! We were fortunate enough to be able to ask Aliya Chen, the artist behind the cover and interior art for Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, some questions about her wonderful illustrations and the process that went into their creation. Keep reading to check out what Aliya has to say and also check out her website to learn more about her and her work: (Beware of spoilers!) How much of Brandon’s work have you read? I’ve read Mistborn, Steelheart, and Stormlight Archive, with Stormlight being my all-time favorite ever since I read Way of Kings in middle school - I actually didn’t know for quite a while how vast the Cosmere universe is, and I’m hoping to find the time to delve into Brandon’s other books. Can you tell us a bit about how you came to be the artist for Yumi and the Nightmare Painter? Rachael [Lynn Buchanan] was the one who recommended me to Isaac [Stewart]! When they reached out, they knew I was a fan - perhaps it’s because I’d listed SA as my favorite when answering questions on Instagram. Any scenes from the book you wanted to include but couldn’t, for one reason or another? I think I could have included more scenes of Kilahito, such as Painter and Yumi at the carnival. I’d say that most of the time, we decided to include one scene instead of another because we wanted to make sure the illustrations were spread out as evenly as possible throughout the book. We also considered depicting the scholars and the machine, or more scenes containing side characters, but I ultimately chose to prioritize illustrations of Yumi and Painter’s relationship as the heart of this story. Can the fans hope to see some fanart from you in the future, or are you all art’ed out when it comes to this book? I might want to do some more sketches of the characters - I loved coming up with different styles to best suit this book, and the more calligraphic/watercolor style of the simpler Yumi drawings is one I’d like to revisit. Mostly, I’d love to draw Stormlight fanart someday, when I feel that I can do it justice! What was your favorite part of the book? Favorite piece that you did for the book? My favorite part was when Nikaro paints Yumi back to life :) I usually love tragedies that punch holes in my heart, but in this case, I think Yumi and Painter’s relationship was too pure and adorable not to have a happy ending. As for my favorite piece, I can’t choose between Battle of Wills and Priceless - I’ve rarely focused on characters or romance in my personal work, so being able to explore their relationship in a more expressive, less rendered style was really fun. What was the most challenging part of the project? I think coming up with appropriate styles for the story was the most challenging! For the full-color spreads, I used a more rendered style similar to my usual paintings. For the CMK illustrations, I initially tried to use pure cyan, magenta, and black in a graphic style, but was really struggling to make it aesthetically pleasing. I asked Isaac multiple questions about the limited palette and how printers work with color, and we eventually found that I was allowed to mix the three colors in any ratio and get an almost complete spectrum. Although I tend to use more realistic colors in my work, it was exciting to figure out unique palettes without yellow. For the spot illustrations, I initially tried a black brush style similar to traditional Chinese/Japanese ink wash painting, or to Painter’s own pieces. I’m so grateful to Isaac for suggesting that I incorporate some cyan and magenta and make full use of our ability to print those colors - it infused those drawings with the hion theme, while the characters themselves really came alive with those pops of color. I’d say that all the style exploration goes along with the fact that I don’t think I’ve ever devoted as much passion and effort to a client project before - part of it was because I was allowed so much creative freedom, and part of it was because I really wanted my work to live up to the beauty of Brandon’s storytelling. Have you ever designed a book before? What was that like? This was my first time! The actual layout design was done by the amazing Dragonsteel team, but, again, I was given an incredible amount of freedom regarding the visuals. In the initial email, Isaac told me I could choose to do as little as just the endpapers, or as much as everything from the cover to the chapter headers. In terms of process, there are quite a few limitations to illustrating for print (such as formatting and color modes), and Isaac was really helpful in explaining those details to me. We also worked together to figure out a schedule with deadlines for each illustration - I would submit pieces at certain stages of completion every week and receive feedback from the team. Because they were always detailed, prompt, and supportive with their feedback, I was able to keep on track and finish everything on time. All in all, it was an extremely valuable and rewarding experience, and I’m so thankful that I was able to work with a dream team for my first book Thanks again to Aliya for sharing her art with us, as well as taking the time to answer our questions and share what it was like to create all the phenomenal art that helps make Yumi and the Nightmare Painter so special. Definitely check out her website, and you can also follow her on Twitter, ArtStation, and Instagram to see her other work, or visit her Inprnt store if you want to grab some prints of her art! We're big fans, so we'll be following your future work and hope to see you creating more art in the cosmere again someday, Aliya!
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  20. The latest episode of Secrets in Stained Glass, "Race to the Bottom" is now out, and with it, we're posting a few of the visual assets that have been used in the show so far for those who want to take a closer look, or for our audio listeners who haven't gotten to see them! Below the cut, you can find the on-screen character sheets for our main cast as of Episode 3, now that all their traits have been revealed, featuring the gorgeous character portraits drawn by Elisgardor! We have the full version of that stunning feature illustration of a very key moment in the latest episode, done by the amazing Diego Lopez. If you've finished the episode, click through to see more! POST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR DICEBORN: SECRETS IN STAINED GLASS EPISODE 3, DO NOT OPEN UNTIL FINISHED! Feature Illustration First up, (I really wasn't kidding about those spoilers, turn back now if you still can!) what you're all REALLY here to see, the "Race to the Bottom" itself, in all its glory! As mentioned in the episode itself, we reached out to Diego to illustrate this moment as a private commission initially, but he very kindly allowed us to feature it in the show itself! I'm still amazed at how beautifully it turned out! Diego does amazing work, especially in depicting the visual aspects of Allomancy, and we knew he was absolutely the right artist to bring this moment to life. Please go show him some love at his Instagram: @diegolopez_artist and check out his other Cosmere fanart while you're there! Character Sheets Next up, for those of you who have been watching the video version of the show, you've seen the mini character sheets that pop up on screen whenever we're talking about a character's traits or trying to decide if we can wheedle just one more dice out of Matt for that next roll, and as of Episode 3, our main cast's sheets have been fully revealed! These don't represent all of the things on their full character sheets (MAG sheets can be quite complex!) but hopefully they're a helpful snapshot of at least some of the most key attributes and stats that we're calling upon the most as we play. And we've sung her praises many a time before, but the character portraits featured on these sheets are by the lovely and wonderful Eli, who you can find over at @elisgardor on Instagram and @ElisaGDorta on Twitter. If you haven't seen yet, she's posted the full versions of these portraits on her socials, along with some fun bonus sketches of the characters. Drop her a follow and send her some kind words about the amazing work she's done while you're over there! Character sheets are listed in order of initial appearance! Character Playlist: "The Bottom's All I've Found" (Dier) Finally, given that this was a shorter episode than usual, if you're still looking for something SiSG to listen to with all that extra time we gave you, feel free to check out "The Bottom's All I've Found," a character playlist for Dier Venture. An hour and a half of songs all about everyone's favorite nasty trashboi! You can listen on either Spotify or Youtube! Feel free to check out the lyrics guide here for some of the most Dier-y lines from each track! [Please note some lyrics contain explicit language!] Still not enough SiSG content for you? Well, that's all you're getting for today, but keep an eye out over the next two weeks, we've got a few more goodies coming later, including some backstory scenes about Dier and Eliane that will drop in a few days! All Secrets in Stained Glass stuff (episodes, bonus content, and stories) can be seen on this tag! For our Patrons, we'll be sharing some of Matt's narrator notes on NPCs in the game so far, so if that (or any of the other Patron exclusive content we've got out there) sounds interesting to you, you can get access to all our 17S bonus content for Diceborn, Shardcast, and the other things we do around here for as low as a dollar. Hope you guys are liking the show, and enjoy all the goodies this week! We'll see you back here soon for more! Until then, well, you know the drill now: race you to the bottom! ~ Feather
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  21. We interrupt your regularly scheduled gay programming to deliver you a-- hmm, there sure are a lot of rainbows in this piece too... but that can't be right, this is coming from May, not June... Well, Endowment works in mysterious ways, so we'll work with what we've got. Did you know that Vasher turns blond when he transforms into Warbreaker the Peaceful?? Absolutely wild. Unnatural. Vasher is meant to be gruff, unshaven, and dark-haired, not... a hot blonde. But that's apparently a good disguise if you are trying to make sure no one finds who you are. So, as you've already likely realized, this is the moment from near the end of Warbreaker, where Vasher reveals himself to Susebron (another detail you may have missed, he has to strip, and they give him a towel to cover himself; we are not making these things up, blame - or thank - Brandon!), and shares with him the secret of Kalad's phantoms. Also present, though not as central as the two Returned, are Siri and Vivenna, looking respectively at these gods. Your artist for this month was Geryss whose excellent work spans more than just the Cosmere, so feel free to check them and out and give them a follow (unless social media has fully collapsed by the time this post goes live, which is a non-zero possibility these days...). Shardcast watchers might remember the thumbnail of our Trell episode - that's our first Geryss commission, and we were so pleased with it, we know we had to come back for more!
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  22. In between episodes of Secrets in Stained Glass, we will have a variety of stories coming your way! This first one covers a key moment in the backstory of Dier Venture, and another comes next Wednesday, August 2nd, about his sister Eliane. You can see all Secrets in Stained Glass content in our tag! Spoilers for Secrets in Stained Glass Episode 3 are below. For a PDF version of the story, click here! Content Warnings: Brief depiction of violence, character death, abusive treatment 1010 FE: Three weeks before the Elariel Lakeside Solstice Party The old man was in one of his moods again. Dier wasn’t exactly surprised. Certainly didn’t take much these days to set his father off. Renholm Venture had become steadily more ill-humored and foul-tempered since cousin Straff took over the house and started subjecting him to the indignity of having a man twenty years his junior pulling rank to make him behave. And he’d never been anything resembling a pleasant person to begin with. But while the cold demands of his unyielding nephew were a source of frustration and stung pride, nothing got Renholm’s blood set to boiling more quickly than trying to rein in his willful, disrespectful, useless firstborn. At this point, Dier didn't even bother listening to what was being said as his father shouted himself red in the face. He knew what he'd hear: the same old, well-worn talking points from the dozens of other times they'd had this fight, over and over, ad nauseam. You're a disappointment to this family, and an embarrassment to me! I'll be damned if I let you disrespect this house and our legacy! Be better! Do more! Just care! Or else. Dier lounged back on the long chaise in his father's study, all but basking in the glorious sounds of his father’s shouting as he fiddled with his dueling cane. It didn't matter what his father was saying at this point. It wasn’t about the words anyway, it was about the tone. Renholm’s fury was nothing short of music to his ears. Dier couldn't remember which of his many potential failures or offenses had prompted tonight's particular "lecture" about filial responsibility. Lord Ruler knew he’d left enough of those lying about for the house to enjoy. Twist-click. Twist-click. Twist-click. The smooth metal join that kept his dueling cane together had a satisfying feel as he loosened and refastened the two cane halves across his lap. Most nobles kept solid wood canes, fearing Allomancers, but Dier's canes always had a core of steel beneath the wood exterior. No reason to avoid metal if you were one of those Allomancers everyone was supposed to be afraid of, after all. Renholm was a large man, though neither terribly muscular nor particularly rotund. Just naturally broad in a way he knew how to use to be intimidating, a presence he’d learned to wield to make others feel small. His face, over the course of this scathing rant, had started to shift from sun-red to something verging on purple, and Dier absently wondered if perhaps his father had somehow found a way to shout so hard he wasn’t getting enough air anymore. Now wasn’t that a pleasant thought? “...will not hear any further snide comments or objections out of you! Am I understood?” Renholm towered over him as he barked the words, leaning in close enough that Dier worried he might get caught by spittle. Dier listened in just long enough to catch his cue, nodding along without looking up. “Oh, don’t worry Father, you’ve made your point perfectly clear. I swear, never again will I…” He trailed off, snapping his fingers distractedly as he pretended to search for his next words. “Sorry, remind me what it is we’re talking about again? I’m sure you must have mentioned it somewhere in there, but I just can’t seem to—” “How dare you mouth off to me, boy,” Renholm growled. “You will pay attention when I am speaking to you!” Dier scoffed to himself as he clicked the cane-halves apart again. “Why? Were you planning on saying something worth listening to at any point?” Renholm backhanded him, and immediately a sharp jolt of thick, suffocating fear surged through Dier, a raw animal panic. The blow was hard enough to make the room spin for a second, though Dier managed to lean with the motion to soften the impact. He had enough training to know how to dodge such a simple blow—something his father always seemed to forget—but he knew letting Renholm think he was hitting harder than he actually was would get this over with faster. That fear that accompanied the hit felt like it was clawing its way up Dier's throat, a seizing terror that made him want to cringe down or plead for mercy. But he steeled his expression to annoyed boredom instead, refusing to let the emotion show. And as expected, it was gone in a moment anyway—as he’d known it would be—replaced by a burning shame and crippling insecurity. Then a gnawing guilt over how inadequate he was. Then a hollow sense of impotence. Then a jittery anxiety. Then a hollow dread to bring things back around to fear, for good measure. An endless slew of negative feelings, dragged against his will onto the surface of his psyche until they stacked up in a sloppy mess, each one vaguely burying the last. There were only so many ways a person could feel bad about themselves, but there were endless iterations within the themes, subtly different flavors, tones, and reactions. And Renholm had enjoyed plenty of opportunities to practice getting creative. Whenever his temper flared, so did his zinc. Most people thought emotional Allomancers were all subtle masters of manipulation, pulling the strings of others so carefully that their subjects never realized they were dancing to another’s tune. And admittedly, Renholm could be subtle when he wanted to be; one didn’t live in this house for long without learning to question any twinge of a feeling that seemed unexpected or potentially out of place. But whenever things turned ugly, he preferred a stronger tactic. Once the gloves were off, it wasn’t about manipulation, it was about a show of power, about making sure whoever was unlucky enough to be on the other side of him knew what he was doing, knew they couldn’t stop him from getting in their head. An onslaught of powerful, unnatural emotions like punches to the gut, enough to keep anyone's head spinning, to make sure they had no chance of keeping their own thoughts straight. Dier straightened from the slap, cheek still smarting, and forced himself to keep his expression trained to neutral apathy. Then he finally looked up at his father and pushed out a smile, knowing it'd drive Renholm crazy. Without Allomancy like his father’s to make manipulating emotions easy, Dier had always had to resort to more mundane methods to ensure Renholm felt as frustrated as he did. He liked to think his spite was equal to the task of matching his father’s zinc, and that was a reserve within him so boundless he’d been flaring it for years. It took effort to keep the maelstrom of all he was being made to feel from breaking across his face, but he knew nothing would annoy his father more than not getting the right reaction from his endlessly defiant son. His smirk twitched as he held it in place, and he felt a bead of sweat roll down his back between his shoulder blades. He was determined not to let himself crack from this, internally keeping a white-knuckled grip on his control as the Rioting tore and tugged and yanked at him from all angles. After all, he'd had as much practice enduring zinc as his father had burning it. None of it's real. He forced the thought through his head over and over. It's all fake. We've done this all before. None of it matters. Renholm scowled darkly, stepping closer to try to loom over his disrespectful son. "Your behavior is unbefitting of any child of mine and it is unbefitting of a Venture! It’s as though you wish to intentionally provoke me and bring shame upon this house! As though you enjoy forcing me to deal with you this way. Enjoy leaving me no choice!" And why shouldn’t I? I was never going to be good enough, and you were always going to ‘deal with me’ like this. Why wouldn’t I devote my life’s efforts to ensuring you feel as powerless as I do in this relationship? I can’t do anything to stop your tirades and your zinc, but I can make certain you know you can’t do anything to stop me from embarrassing the house and our good name. Why would I not enjoy seeing just how miserable I can make you too? It was the thing Renholm had never managed to figure out about him. He thought Dier lazy, unmotivated. But he was wrong. So very wrong. Of course Dier was motivated by his father’s wrath. Motivated to ensure it never worked. Motivated to make sure that every time Renholm screamed at him to get better, Dier met his eyes with a smirk and intentionally made himself worse. Renholm, so obsessed with his own station in a house he’d married into, a Lordship he couldn’t even inherit, could not fathom how readily his son would throw it all away. Despite how clearly Dier had proclaimed it in his every word and deed, Renholm never seemed to realize how gladly his son would set his own life ablaze if only for the chance to see his father burned down with him. But saying any of that aloud would give the game away, and besides, Dier just couldn't resist the opening Renholm had left him. "Oh, and what would you know of what's befitting of the Ventures, Father? I'm the only true-born Venture in this room. But if I have any questions about how to marry into a stronger house and take my wife's name instead, I'll be sure to ask you about it." Renholm's red face purpled further, and Dier knew he'd struck home. “Don’t you dare mention your mother to me, you insolent brat! As though selfish, reckless conduct like yours isn’t exactly how she nearly brought this house to ruin! She was lucky her unbridled decisions that night led to no one’s death but her own!” Dier’s smirk faltered momentarily, crumpling into a grimace as Renholm punctuated that sentence with a hard yank on not only his shame, but his sense of grief as well. He struggled to force it back in place, not wanting to concede even that small victory to his father, but his own expression resisted him. How deeply unfair that he could still ache like this, even knowing how blatantly he was being Rioted, even after how many times he’d endured this. How could the cautionary tale of the late Fedrienne Venture still be so sharp despite how many times his father had scraped it against his ribs? Not to mention, it was hard to take such warnings seriously when no one was ever willing to say what the hell it was she’d actually done. No details, nothing about what had truly happened all those years ago. Everyone tiptoeing around like talking about the real answer would dredge it all back up. No, the only times Dier ever heard anyone speak of his mother’s fate was to throw her misbehavior in his face: their proud, talented, overconfident Mistborn who’d struck out on her own against orders and gotten herself killed in the process. How he was like her in all the worst ways whenever the house was displeased with him. Such a tragic, senseless loss of a key Venture asset for no other reason than hubris and disobedience. At least she’d been kind enough to Snap her son into a Coinshot before dying in such an inconvenient way for the rest of them. An eight-year-old untrained Misting to replace their fully fledged, adult Mistborn. A trade no one in the house would have chosen, particularly that worthless new little Allomancer they all simply had to put up with until he’d learned enough to be of value to them. All his life he’d felt the weight of her absence, the impossible expectation that he needed to be worthy of her legacy, fill the hole she’d left behind. You have to be your mother’s son, Dier, but… No. No, not like that. He knew what he was to his family: Never enough. Their only chance to make back the Allomantic debt his mother had left in her irresponsible wake. A constant reminder to his father of the worst parts of his beloved wife: the part of her he hadn’t been able to control, the flaws she’d indulged that took her from him too soon. Dier tried to maintain his strong front, but the Rioting never gave him a moment to think, and Renholm still knew how to hit his son where it hurt. So all Dier could do was make sure he did the same. “Do you think she’d be proud of you,” he asked, looking upward slowly and feeling his lip tremble as it curled into a snarl, “to see how well you raised her only son after she was gone?” Renholm lunged forward, snatching towards his son’s throat, but this time Dier did dodge, shoving the arm out of the way with one of his cane halves. "You will learn not to speak to me with such disrespect or I'll–" "You'll what?" Dier said, finally managing to find his grin again. “Shout at me? Riot me? Slap me across the face, perhaps? I think you’re running out of credible threats, Father. Might need some new material.” He tried to find his satisfaction in his defiance, knowing it was there somewhere beneath the over-zinced emotional mess his father had made of him. He’d feel it later, remembering this look on his father’s face, knowing how deeply he’d struck back. But he wanted to be able to feel it now, desperately. Here he was, sitting across from the hard-earned reward for all the effort and planning and care he’d put into his delinquency and misbehavior and that damn zinc wouldn’t even let him taste the joy of it. Though that vindictive pleasure he rightfully deserved eluded him, there was one constant he could still grasp through the roiling seethe; one feeling that he knew was his own: a churning, delirious rage. That burned brightly enough to shine through whatever shame, guilt, or fear his father unfairly manifested, and Dier clung to it, his lifeline in the maelstrom. Renholm would never be so stupid as to stoke such an emotion within him, after all. He'd never encourage something that could lead someone to defy him. So Dier held onto that beautiful, pure loathing, knowing it was his, and knowing that his father could pile whatever meaningless, false feelings he wanted on top and it didn’t matter. Rioting couldn’t do a thing about this other than try to choke it out with something louder. Renholm had no Soothing to take that hatred, that fury, away from Dier, and Dier relished it. Renholm opened his mouth, taking a deep breath—no doubt to find some inept new insult or take the whole affair from the top again—and some long-strained cord in Dier just… snapped. Before he could think about what he was doing, his steel warmed to a comfortable glow in his gut and lines of blue sprang into existence across his sight. In the same moment, he raised the hand holding the top bar of his cane, carefully judging the angle, then opened his hand and Pushed. That steel-cored bar, about the length of his forearm when separated from its bottom half, flew up and caught his father right under the chin, sending him stumbling backward. Dier secured himself on a handful of anchors behind him and then let the other half of his cane fly, hitting his father in his stomach with it and knocking the wind out of the blustering man. Dier leaned forward in his seat, bracing himself as he shoved hard against the bars, Pushing until his father was pinned against the wood-paneled wall of the study. Renholm sputtered, grabbing the bar against his throat with both hands to try to push it back and regain his air. Dier stood slowly from the chaise, carefully managing anchors behind to ensure the pressure on his father didn’t let up. Renholm outweighed him, but Dier had caught him by surprise, and now, with Renholm in such a disadvantageous position and Dier braced as he was, he had no trouble keeping his father pinned. It took a complex net of steelwork to hold him down, but that was another thing his father never seemed to remember about him. That despite how much of an inept failure the house might see him as, he wasn’t entirely useless. Vasha, at least, had taught him well. “Before you finish whatever unoriginal threat you were planning to deliver, I’ve had a realization.” Dier shrugged as he walked forward, finally starting to find that satisfaction he’d been craving at the shocked look on Renholm’s face. His father gave a little jerk as every step forward Pushed on the bars a little more. “I’m done with this conversation. In fact, I think I’m just… done. With all of it.” He stepped right up next to his father and flared his steel to give a little extra shove against the cane-half against his father’s neck, ensuring Renholm wouldn’t be able to talk back. Dier's emotions flickered frantically through him, a zinc-stoked cacophony and unnatural in every way, but he focused on what it told him, not what it made him feel. It was his father’s panic, shining through every Rioted sensation, Renholm’s Allomancy trying to grab onto anything in Dier he could, anything that might make him stop. He knew which of his feelings were real, his wrath and joy blending into a cocktail so intoxicating, no false Rioting could distract him from them now. Dier simply let his grin spread, not even having to force it this time, and loosened his signet ring on his finger. He set it gently against Renholm’s forehead, that symbol of the inheritance that no one actually wanted him to have, and held it there with a very soft Push of its own when he pulled his finger away. “Shhh,” he said, savoring the fear in his father’s eyes at the threat the little ring represented. “Haven’t we said enough to each other? Haven’t you surely found every possible way to express your profound disappointment with me by now?” Renholm’s mouth worked as he struggled against the cane halves, trying to get out from beneath them—or at the very least, get the higher one off his neck—but Dier’s steel was relentless. The Rioted emotions in Dier were manic chaos, overwhelming but practically indistinguishable in how quickly they flickered over him. Then stopped. Dier started, caught off-guard by the sudden disappearance of his father's Allomancy in his head. Renholm never let up on him during a fight like this, it was unthinkable. Which was why, a moment later, Dier was hit full-force when a singular, all-consuming sense of love for his father slammed into him, drowning everything else out. It was a terrible, aching affection affection, strong enough to bring tears to his eyes as his chest seized up. He gasped softly, staggering, but as Renholm tried to surge forward to escape, Dier instinctively shoved on the bars again to hold the pin. He looked at his struggling father, feeling nothing but warm, soft sentiment inside for the man he’d loathed his entire life, and just slowly shook his head. “No,” Dier said, making his face contort into a grimace against the sickeningly unnatural emotion, even as he blinked those ill-begotten tears away. “No, I think we both know it’s far too late for that, Father.” Renholm snarled, still gasping for breath against the pressure on his neck. “You’ll… regret this… you damned… ungrateful…” Dier leaned in, feeling a strange moment of certainty within, an unexpected eye in the storm. “You know what, Father? I really don’t think I will…” With a cruel grimace, he flared his steel and Pushed on that ring with all the Allomantic strength he could muster. With a sharp crack and a wet crunch, the zinc stopped, false emotions evaporating in an instant. The room, and Dier’s mind, went blessedly quiet. Dier stepped back, taking hold of the pieces of his cane as he released the anchors behind him and let the body drop in a heap to the ground. With the Rioting halted so abruptly, he felt unnaturally numb in the aftermath, like it hadn’t fully sunk in yet what he’d just done. With rote motions and a blank expression, he locked the cane back together again, then leaned on it as he stood there, staring down at what had once been his father. It wasn’t the first time he’d killed someone, not even close. As a Coinshot, he was often pressed into house courier duty, and it just so happened that occasionally the messages he was tasked to deliver were sprays of coins sent at speed toward something soft and vital. He’d never minded getting his hands dirty if a job needed to be done. Honestly, what surprised him in this moment was how simple it had been. He’d thought it would be harder somehow, acting against his own flesh and blood, but really… it scarcely felt any different from cleaning out a rival house’s skaa. Hmm. The real question is… what am I supposed to do next? Even he couldn't ignore that this presented a logistical problem. Unlike a bunch of skaa, the death of such a high house lord would have repercussions. Their family wasn’t the leading branch of the Ventures; that dreadful duty had thankfully fallen upon his cousin Straff instead; but his mother and Straff’s father had been siblings. Straff’s sister had married out to House Erikell years back, leaving Fedrienne’s line next in the ranking. They were far from unimportant in this lineage. Assuming Straff’s little brat of an heir ever came down with a nasty cough—Lord Ruler forbid—Dier had the most obvious claim to inherit the house title. Something neither he nor the rest of the house had ever been pleased about. And if it came out to the house that Dier had been the one responsible for his own father's death? Well, that would cause all manner of unpleasantness for him, he was sure. He ran his fingers through his dark hair, pushing back the messy strands at the front which always escaped the loose braid he usually wore. What to do? What to do? Could he blame this on another house, somehow? Frame it as an assassination by one of their rivals? He needed some way to get out of this. As satisfying as the crime of passion had been, he was forced to admit that perhaps something premeditated might have been wiser. A chance to give himself time to come up with a plan before it happened. He’d have to pay the Ministry somehow for the killing, which wouldn’t be cheap, particularly since he hadn’t gotten an authorization in advance for an assassination. Technically Renholm had struck him first… Could he find an obligator that would take payment for it as an act of self-defense? Not to mention the bribe he’d need to keep his culpability quiet. He was smart enough not to risk Ministry sanction for not paying his dues, but he would need to make sure whomever he paid also knew to keep the details to themselves. Of course, there was one person who’d probably know exactly how to handle this with the Ministry, but how in the world was he going to explain this to h— A floorboard creaked outside the office, and Dier, still tense with adrenaline, reacted immediately. He grabbed a thick anchor behind him—his father’s hidden safe cabinet—and shoved on the office door’s hardware, sending it swinging open with a bang. Revealing, much to his frustration, his wide-eyed younger sister crouching on the other side. Eliane jumped back with a yelp as the door nearly hit her, locking eyes with him in a panic and starting to try to back away. Of course it would be Eliane, Dier thought with thick annoyance. The servants knew better than to be in the same wing when Renholm was in a bad mood. The old man had always been prone to breaking things when he lost his temper, and skaa were infinitely more replaceable than furniture or the Keep’s valuables. His sister, on the other hand, had always been too fond of sticking her nose in other people’s business for her own good. That little habit would get her in trouble someday. “Eliane,” he snarled through a paper-thin polite smile, “why don’t you step in here and join us? Shut the door behind you.” How much had she seen? He had to assume it was everything. Eliane blanched slightly, but wisely realized from his tone that he hadn’t been asking, and ducked her head as she stepped in. Though she was only a few years younger than him, he’d always thought Eliane felt far younger than her twenty years. Eliane, whom Venture had sheltered, while they sent him to risk his neck for their politics and schemes. Where Dier had only ever been a reminder to their father of Fedrienne at her worst, Renholm had always treated Eliane like she was the sole remnant of all the lovely parts of their mother at her best. When he looked at her now, he found resentment simmering within. He never went after you like he did me… There’d been times in their childhood where things had been better between them, nights she’d waited up to make sure there was someone awake to see he was safe when he got home from a mission. Pity in her eyes as she’d helped stitch him back together after a job gone wrong. But now, as he saw that fearful tremble in her expression, he found nothing but disdain for his little sister and everything she represented. She hid from conflict, he confronted it. She kept her head down and avoided attention where he always flaunted his presence at court affairs. Nervous, weak little thing that she was, Dier had always known she’d never have the temperament to survive amongst the cutthroat nobility. Right now, she was a problem. And a problem was the last thing he needed. Eliane closed the office door as requested, then carefully walked forward to join him when he pointed to a spot on the floor in front of him. When she was far enough in to catch sight of their father on the floor—and the new hole in his head—she clapped a hand to her mouth in horror. "Sit down," Dier snapped, before she could say anything about it, "and don't even think about screaming." Eliane stared at her brother aghast, but did drop to sit on the chaise when he pointed again. "Dier, what have you done?" "Oh, don't start," he said witheringly. "The old bastard more than had it coming. Now, shut up so I can think." Eliane opened her mouth to protest, but a hard glare from him snapped it shut again. She folded her hands in her lap, fiddling with her skirt as she laced and unlaced her fingers. Every so often her eyes would drift towards their father’s body, but she quickly yanked them away when she realized what she was doing, choosing instead to stare instead at a specific patch of the rug. Admittedly, as he paced and tried to think of what to do next, a not insignificant part of Dier wondered if, as a witness to this impulsive little crime of his, Eliane might now be more trouble than she was worth. It was tempting to consider just getting rid of her too, make things simple. But he already had one murdered family member to deal with tonight. He reluctantly admitted to himself it would probably be wiser to deal with the first before he considered adding any more. Renholm had more than earned a hole in his head, but there were probably better ways of dealing with the inconvenience of Eliane than creating another corpse to have to cover up. After a few minutes of Dier muttering to himself as he racked his brain to find a way out of this, Eliane looked at him again, fear and worry still writ plain across her face, and asked in a soft voice: “Dier… What’s going to happen to us?” He started to tell her to be quiet again, when an idea finally popped. An idea that just might work. He stopped pacing and turned to face her fully, mouth splitting in a grin. The expression seemed to, if anything, frighten Eliane further. “What’s going to happen? Nothing,” he said lightly, even giving a little laugh at how obvious it was, ready to kick himself for not seeing it sooner. “Nothing at all, little Ellie.” Her expression hardened as she stared back. “Have you lost your mind?” He was almost impressed; perhaps his sister did have a backbone in there somewhere. Unfortunately, it was, for him, a deeply inconvenient time for her to have grown one. “Watch your tone,” he said, lip curling. “You ought to be thanking me. Don’t try to act like you’ve got any kind of moral high ground here. You’d have done the same thing if you’d been capable of it. You just weren’t strong enough.” Her hands balled and she pressed them against her thighs, crumpling the fabric of her skirts as she did so. “I’m not…!" she started to protest, then stopped herself. Wisely."Tell yourself whatever you need to if it helps you feel better about what you’ve done, I don’t care. But we need a plan, because now you’ve dragged me into this. What are we going to do?” He rolled his eyes. “If you’d listened rather than immediately mouthing off, you could have let me finish telling you the plan.” He leaned down, getting right up in her face and enjoying the way she flinched back from him. “I am going to stay right here and ensure no one else in this household… interrupts this very important conversation Father and I are having. And you, little Ellie, are going to go find SaeNinn and let him know his presence is required in the study.” Eliane frowned for a moment, bewildered as she tried to understand his reasoning for such a demand. Her eyes slid back to their father on the floor and she flinched, realizing what he intended. She looked nauseous at the thought. “Y-you can’t be serious. He’s… he’s our father.” Dier straightened again, giving a dismissive wave. “No. He was our father. Now, he’s an inconvenient corpse. One that needs to be dealt with expeditiously. Unless you’d prefer we sit here until someone else stumbles upon him in such a state?” He stepped back, pointing at the door. “SaeNinn. Study. Now. Tell him his Contract holder wishes to discuss an amendment.” Eliane held his gaze for an extended moment without moving to obey, long enough that he raised an eyebrow at her in challenge. How exactly do you think this is going to go down, little sister? Is this really a fight you want to pick right now? She broke first, dropping her eyes to the floor and standing. She even dipped him the tiniest curtsy when she was back on her feet. "Very well," she said, clearly not pleased but cooperating. "As you wish, my lord." He smirked, trying to decide if she was being cheeky with the formal address. Hard to tell, though the look she shot him when she raised her head again was anything but respectful. "Oh, and Eliane," he said, "I expect you to be back by the top of the hour. Otherwise, I'm coming to find you myself, and I can assure you we'll have a much less pleasant conversation if that becomes necessary." Her mouth thinned to a flat line. "It won't be. I don't need to be threatened, Dier." He shrugged, smirk undeterred. "Merely making sure we're both on the same page here. On you go, then." He sat down behind his father's desk, tossing his legs up on top of it and kicking back a fresh vial of steel dust. Just in case. Eliane gave him one last dark look, then turned and walked out, off to find the kandra. Or off to make a very foolish mistake. By the top of the hour he'd know which. Dier didn’t have to wait long. It was well before the bell when he saw the steel-lines of his sister's jewelry approach on the other side of the study door. He stayed tense, running his thumb over the handful of clips in his left hand, until he heard the knock and Eliane’s voice called through: “My lord, may I enter?” He Pushed the door open again in lieu of answering, quickly checking that this wasn’t an ambush. Eliane was in front, startled again by his Allomancy, and behind her was a single figure he didn’t recognize. The young man had short silver hair, and he leaned around Eliane to peek curiously at Dier beyond, seeming interested in the display with the door. Dier paused. He’d thought SaeNinn had been a Terrisman last he’d seen the thing, but perhaps he’d simply not been paying attention to the latest assignment. He supposed he ought to be thankful Eliane had known where to find this version of him. The role couldn’t have been that important, whatever it was. And besides, it was over now. Eliane stepped aside and indicated for SaeNinn to enter first, then closed the door behind them both. The kandra, clearly still in character, turned in a circle as he walked in, admiring the tall bookshelves before stopping before the desk and offering a bow. “What a well-appointed room, Lord Venture. It is an impressive collection,” he said with a polite smile. “Your sister mentioned your Lord Father would be joining us to discuss business?” Eliane grimaced, wrapping an arm around her waist. “That wasn’t… quite it.” “Drop the act, creature. Your assignment’s over.” Dier stood, moving to pull back the window curtains he’d done his best to hide his father’s corpse behind. “As lord of this family branch and inheritor of your Contract, I hereby compel you to a new assignment. Thankfully, it's a target you’re fully familiar with, so I do not expect you’ll have any trouble with the role.” Immediately, like the snuffing of a candle, any hint of emotion vanished from the kandra’s face, an inhuman emptiness left in its place. Dier had always found kandra disturbing, especially when the creatures stopped pretending, but he couldn’t argue with how damn useful they were. SaeNinn’s blank gaze slid to Renholm on the floor, and he might as well have been staring at an off-color bit of paint on a wall rather than the corpse of a man he’d served since before Dier was born. “I see. You wish me to take these bones?” “Yes,” Dier said, waving towards the body. “In case you need it said outright, from here on out, you will be Lord Renholm Venture, and you will ensure his true passing will be known to none beyond this room. Understood?” SaeNinn bowed once. “Yes, Master. And what assignment would you have me undertake, in this new role?” “Assignment?” Dier scoffed. “That’s it. Just be him. Do whatever you think he’d do. Oversee the house. Run interference for whatever Venture directives come down from Cousin Straff. Frankly, I don’t care what you do, or how you do it, so long as no one suspects you.” For the briefest of seconds, there was a flicker in the kandra’s expression, and Dier wondered if the creature actually had emotions of its own under there somehow. “To clarify,” SaeNinn said slowly. “You… wish me to run your branch of the house?” “I wish you to be the old man and ensure none suspect anything has happened to him. And yes, that means I expect you to handle whatever responsibilities he had,” Dier said. “Lord Ruler knows I’m not going to do it. If there’s some truly important decision that needs to be made, I can inform you how to proceed, but I do not wish to be bothered with mundanities and minutiae. Handle whatever comes up however you see fit.” Eliane fixed him with such a look of shocked contempt as she heard the hands-off instructions, and he crossed his arms and cocked an eyebrow back. You really think you want to lecture me right now about not taking enough responsibility, Ellie? Because it didn’t go so well for the last person who tried tonight. Her frown deepened, but eventually she glanced away, wisely choosing to hold her tongue. The kandra watched the silent exchange of looks between the siblings before addressing Dier again. “It shall be done, Master. I will need several hours undisturbed, but the transition will be complete by first light.” Dier smiled, spreading his arms in a showy little flourish towards his sister. “See? Solved. As far as anyone else is concerned, nothing's happened. Nothing changes. And for us, dear sister? No more of his raving, no more lectures, and best of all: not another hint of zinc in this house. Never again.” He crossed the room and clapped her on the shoulder, a motion that made her flinch sharply. “You’ll see. This’ll be a good thing. You keep your mouth shut about whatever you think you saw tonight, and I assure you, it’ll all work out for the best.” She pursed her lips, looking up and searching for something in his eyes. “If you say so, Dier. You know best. Clearly.” His smile thinned, not appreciating that little spark of disrespect she still had. “Keep that thought in mind, won’t you? I think it’s a mindset that would serve you well in the days to come. It’s a trying time, after all. We’re family. We should support one another, shouldn’t we?” I’m not an enemy you want to make, Eliane. She sighed, giving one last look towards SaeNinn and the body, shuddering. Always too soft for the hard realities, she was, Dier told himself. But he had to trust that she was smart enough to not let her foolish sentiment get in the way. She’d see he’d been right in time, once the surprise and messy emotions faded. She'd be grateful their father was gone. And she was smart enough to figure out that defying him wouldn’t go well for her. She’d stay in line. Dier turned back to the kandra, sweeping a sarcastically elaborate bow. “I suppose I’ll see you in the morning, Father. So glad we were finally able to have a productive conversation between us.” He started to make for the door, putting a hand at the small of Eliane’s back to shove her out of the room along with him, then paused to turn back. “Also, one last thing,” he said, remembering something, “when you’re done with it all, kandra, spit my signet ring out. Think I left it in there somewhere, and I’d really like it back.” Eliane looked like she was going to be sick, stumbling a bit as he pushed her forward. He just laughed. There was that satisfied delight he’d been searching for. Honestly, the only regret in his mind as they walked from the room was that he hadn't done this years ago. (Portrait Sketch by Elisgardor)
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  23. We are fast approaching the finale of Diceborn: Secrets in Stained Glass, which airs Sunday, August 20th, 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern, but before that we have one more piece of prose content for you, an excerpt from Maevis Elariel's journal. Secrets in Stained Glass Episode 4 spoilers follow! For our backers on Patreon, we also have posted episode 4 Narrator notes, the original murderboard, and full challenge rules. From the Journal of Maevis Elariel, undated, early 1009 FE Still, the question lingers, did he ever really love me? I’ve always prided myself on my ability to discern lies from truth. I’ve been surrounded by liars my entire life, and count myself among their number. I was born into the lie of a broken empire pretending to be a paradise. I was raised by the lie of warring kin pretending to be a family. I became the lie of a woman who could find meaning in beautiful things. A lie is like a stained glass window—obscuring reality with a pretty amusement. People will tolerate even the most obvious of falsehoods if they don’t want to see the ugly truth. Everyone knows the most detailed tableau as a poor imitation of the real thing, but if you don’t open the window to look outside, you’ve still been fooled. Are we so desperate for delusion that we accept a few panes of colored glass as proof that our world isn’t broken? Love can be the prettiest lie of all, I think. But if it's not true, what was he hiding? I spend my life surrounded by people, but somehow I always feel terribly alone. Everyone tries so hard to impress me, to be liked by me, but no one shares who they really are or forges real connections. People are so quick to nod in agreement that it doesn’t feel like they’ve even heard what I am trying to say. When I first met Ches, I saw a jaded man angry at the world (not really an enticing romantic prospect). From the start he struggled to control his emotions. He was so transparent with who he hated, I felt confident I knew how he felt about me. Though abrasive, his direct honesty seemed to cut through all the fluff and posturing, meeting me on common ground as just another person. It felt like he saw far more of the real me than anyone at court. Even at the most turbulent points of our relationship, I never doubted that Ches loved me. At least, not until his betrayal. The night of the fire remains vivid to me. I’ve replayed it in my mind so many times, both waking and dreaming, that reciting what happened feels like learning lines for a play. If I could paint I think I could capture it in frightening detail, but words will need to suffice. The family gathers in the formal meeting room. I come in late, just as Julian finishes his presentation. When Julian speaks to his passions, I think I see what Jenna sees in him. Julian and Ches are alike in that way, and Jenna too. All three will do whatever it takes to forge vision and dream into reality. Charisse follows me in and I give her hand a small supportive squeeze. She moves to join her sister, who is conversing quietly with my mother against the far wall, gazing out over the black stillness of the lake. My grandmother sits at the head of the table, eyes flitting towards me, barely revealing a reaction at Charisse’s appearance, though she is not among our expected guests this evening. My brother, Vasha, is preparing to tear into Julian’s proposal. I can tell from the way he’s set his jaw. My father and I share a glance—he sees it too, and pinches the bridge of his nose, preparing for the coming storm. And Ches looks at me, sees me. The same way he saw straight through the haze of smoke and my veneer of frivolity the night we met. His lips quirk into the barest hint of a half-smile. It’s a secret expression, meant just for me. At the time I thought that smile said ‘I love you’. Now I can’t tell if it was a sorrowful apology, or if he found my deluded trust in him amusing. The storm comes, but the flurry isn’t of Vasha’s make. Ches steps out of Julian’s shadow and slams a pouch into Vasha’s chest. My brother is thrown across the room and pinned against an interior wall. Everyone begins to respond in slow motion. My father looks to me first, then to grandmother, to mother, and last to Vasha. He, at least, chooses me. Before anything can happen, the room shakes. The windows come crashing in with a rush of flame. I see my mother, Blythe, and Charisse struck down by sparkling shards of stained glass. Fire and smoke erupts from the hall and part of the floor collapses. Flames fill the gap. The library below is already an inferno. We’re trapped. Before I can tell if I’m falling or standing firm, my father has me in his arms. I can tell from frantic movements of his eyes that he’s burning atium. In moments I’m down in the inner courtyard. There’s another crash, and Vasha and Ches explode out of the side of the building, both trailing smoke as their momentum douses the flames on their burning clothing. I can’t reach them without a proper anchor, but I burn iron anyways to trace their trajectory, trying to track each Push. Ches lures Vasha low, and then Pushes against a lamp on the exterior wall, driving both of them through a window into the east wing, which is also now being consumed by flames. My father doesn’t hesitate. He ignores the duelling Coinshots and is already shooting back to the wreckage of the meeting room. The entire structure seems to be collapsing. Dimly, I hear shouts and the clash of weapons coming from the front courtyard. I instinctually find several anchors I could use to vault myself over the manor to see what is happening, but my body is frozen. My eyes just dart back and forth, west wing, east wing, west wing, east wing. Will father return? Will Ches? At some point Addison finds me. She was walking the gardens at the time of the blast. She wraps her shawl around my trembling shoulders, but her words fall on deaf ears. I’m begging the Lord Ruler and the Deepness both to please not take them both from me tonight. Eventually, my father stumbles out of the burning wreckage. His clothes are rags and he’s covered in burns. It’s obvious only pewter is keeping him standing. His hands are bloody—he’s been fighting. “I’m sorry Maevis…” he says, pausing to cough. “I… I couldn’t save them. I tried, but there… there was too much...” He coughs again and stumbles slightly. He reaches for a single metal vial, but recoils as he grasps it. The glass is still hot from the fire and burns his hand. In slow motion, my father’s salvation slips through his fingers and shatters against the unforgiving cobblestones. He meets my eyes as his pewter runs out, and he collapses. There’s another crash. I’m still burning iron, so I see a blue line streak off through the air and into the distance. I can’t tell if it's Vasha or Ches. The destruction is so complete that the obligators who survey the scene the following morning can’t determine an accurate body count. Charisse’s remains are identified by the large Venture diamond Straff gave her as a wedding gift. Straff doesn’t come in person to collect his wife’s remains, but I see one of his men carefully lay the diamond in a sturdy lock box. The obligators who examine my father’s body tell me he died of smoke inhalation—that without pewter, his lungs couldn’t cope with the damage sustained during his frantic attempts to save his family. “I love you.” That was the last thing Ches said to me. We were in my room the night before the fire. At the time I thought he meant it—I thought that the only person I shared my real self with loved me. But now when I ask the darkened roof above my bed whether the person I knew was real, or a finely crafted stained glass fabrication, I get no answer. (Portrait Sketch by Elisgardor)
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  24. Well, we hope you enjoyed last week's trip down Memory Lane with the little year-in-review post we had, because it's time we turned our collective gaze forward once again, and get back to this year's commissions! To start things off (because we have a whooping five commissions in the pipeline), let us present to you everyone's favorite Lost Metal character - Lily! Codenames Are Stupid and the seon Dao are in the picture too, but honestly, who cares? Just look at this happy pupper, who's a good dog? Who's a good dog?? You are, oh yes, you are! Come on, let's get you a treat! Ahem. Pets are dangerous to include in commissions, because then this happens. To get us all back on topic, this illustration was done by barlydoodles on Tumblr (and now on Instagram!) whose work you might recognize from last year's drawing of the Girl Who Stood Up. Barly is always a delight to work with, and her work is equally delightful. Plus, we got an adorable dog out of the whole thing, and that's just a win in everyone's book.
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  25. Episode 4 released on Sunday, and we have just one more episode, which airs August 20th at 10am Pacific. Until then, though, we will have three more pieces of story content before the finale. This one is a Jenna story, covering a key moment in her past which you may have wondered about from the show. This is the longest story, and we hope you enjoy! Major Spoilers for Episode 3 of Secrets in Stained Glass are below; definitely go watch that first. You don't need to have watched Episode 4, however! If you missed some of our other stories, check out our Secrets in Stained Glass tag. For a PDF version of the story, click here! Illicit Affairs By Eric Lake & FeatherWriter Content Warnings: Graphic depictions and glorification of violence, swearing, suggestive content, description of a hanging, physical threats by a romantic partner, brief description of someone being on fire. 1009 FE: Six months after the Elariel manor fire Jenna Tekiel, heir of House Tekiel, prowled through the slums of Luthadel. Lord Ruler, it was absolute perfection to be on the hunt again. No longer bedridden from grief, she at last felt strong again. She sprinted across the roofs of the dilapidated buildings here in the slums of the Cracks, her pewter easily allowing her to jump between the structures. Pewter was part of her strength, yes, but not the most important part. She finally had purpose again. Destiny. Perhaps that had been the true Ascension of the Lord Ruler: not power, but the purpose, knowledge, and determination to do what was necessary. Jenna had a sliver of that ultimate knowledge now. According to the Steel Ministry, Julian's bodyguard, Ches, had turned out to be a half-skaa rebel, and thus, solidly implicated in the devastating fire at the Elariel manor six months ago that had murdered Julian and so many others. That intelligence had snapped Jenna into action, bringing her back to life itself. And it made sense Ches would do it; Jenna always sensed a contempt for the nobility that he tried to hide. Ches probably attached himself to Julian and his house, Lunarche, as his main inroad to noble society, and Jenna’s engagement to Julian gave Ches even more opportunities. And now Julian was dead because of it... Focus, Jenna thought to herself, leaping across to another tenement. She couldn’t get sucked back into her despair from the fire. The fact was, she had trusted Julian, and Julian trusted that bodyguard, for some reason. How was it her fault when Julian’s trust was betrayed? All that could be done now was see to it that traitors met God’s justice, and Obligator Verity—blessed woman that she was—had given Jenna the chance to get it done. Such illicit affairs were not unusual for Jenna, but this would be her most important one yet. You don’t have to do this. Julian’s words. You don’t need to be Tekiel’s dagger. Jenna shoved the thoughts away. She wanted to do this, not anyone else. Lord Ruler forbid that she wanted to reclaim some sense of control after everything had been taken from her. A few more jumps later, Jenna had arrived, thirty-seven structures west of the Erikell dock along the river. Since the Lord Ruler had sadly not created Jenna as a Mistborn, the mists without tin were a constant challenge, so she had memorized her route precisely. Verity had said Ches would go to the alley to the west of this, and fortunately, the Ministry had killed the person he was to meet, presumably torturing them to get at this bodyguard. Good. She peered over the edge of the roof and looked to the alley below. Jenna was shocked it was almost a reasonable width, nearly six feet wide, which was unusual for the chaotic, crowded tenements here in the Cracks. No one was there yet—good, since Jenna was early to the meeting—and the alley had, among the piles of ash that had not been swept away for ages, some barrels, broken crates, and trash. She knew the Ministry would have stashed one of their execution hooks down there for her. She was tempted to go and check, as well as wait down there, but the Ministry had learned Ches was a Coinshot—confirming his half-skaa status—and the only way a Pewterarm could defeat a Coinshot was with surprise. If she chose the wrong place to wait, as soon as he learned it wasn’t the man he meant to meet, he would launch off, and Jenna would have lost her one chance. So, she curled up on the rooftop, her dark, ash-colored trousers and clothing hiding her presence. She drank her pewter vials, and kept one eye overlooking the alley. Then she waited. The mists swirled, and in them, she could have sworn to a Steel Inquisitor under the penalty of death that, for a moment, she saw Julian’s face. The rational part of her knew that people simply saw patterns in them that were not truly there, but it still made Jenna imagine Julian being burned alive. She saw the images so vividly: his blonde hair set aflame, his spectacles melting, and a desperate plea in his eyes for Jenna to forgive and save him. If it had been a mere week ago, Jenna would have wept, but tonight, she felt what she could only interpret as divine wrath burning in her. She would use every bit of authority she could to make sure those responsible for the fire would be burnt to ash, no matter how many rebels and traitors it took. If she had to do it personally, so be it. She made a mental note that she would speak such an oath to Verity, so it was official. You don’t have to kill. You can be better. Could she? Julian’s ideals had left him as a burnt husk, and Jenna lived. The Lord Ruler had made a world where it was either kill or be killed. And Jenna damn well wasn’t going to be killed today. She spotted a figure in the mists walking down the alley: the bodyguard, likely. The reason her fiancé, and so many others, were dead. The time was right for him to arrive. Jenna half-expected he would have used his Allomancy to do so, but it was probably best for skaa criminals to not have such a loud profile. The figure went to the end of the alley and slouched against the wall of the structure that Jenna was at. She would say it was luck, but it was simply that the Lord Ruler’s designs were flawless, as always. No doubt, she was meant to impose this retribution. Jenna waited a minute, until there was some noise several tenements away to mask her drop, then she burned pewter and leapt. She crashed into him, grappling her arms around him from behind, and then the man burned steel, identifying him as Ches. They launched backward into the wooden wall, Jenna colliding with it first. But, flaring pewter, she barely felt the pain. The Push intensified—surely he was flaring now—no doubt trying to crush Jenna against the wall. Frantically, Ches Pushed against different anchors to change directions, anything to get Jenna to release him. Soon they rose up the wall, Jenna's back scraping against the building. But he was a fool. Not even the Deepness would get Jenna to stop now. Jenna snarled, doing her best to pull and twist the bodyguard to the wall. Though he wasn't the biggest man, she had to work against his strength as well as the force of his Push. Jenna, however, was stronger, and had the Lord Ruler on her side. She swung him with all her strength against the building, and with his Push assisting her, he brutally slammed into the wall. Wood broke; bones snapped. He cried out. Jenna grinned. Ches stayed aloft, wedged up to the wall from his Push, and now Jenna simply held on. He would not be allowed to get away. They met eyes. His face was scarred and burned, but underneath the damage, Jenna recognized Ches’s hateful gaze. “It’s you,” he wheezed, recognition dawning in him. “You,” Jenna said, “have made some grave errors. They shall be corrected now.” Then, keeping one arm around Ches, she released the other, raising her fist, and bashing his face as hard as she could manage. She did it twice more for good measure. Julian would have been so disappointed. Jenna could live with that. The Steelpushes ended. They both fell. Jenna kept her hold on his torso as they crashed to the ground, but it barely hurt her. If Ches was still alive, it would have hurt him far more. It seemed he still breathed, somehow, but it was strained. Coinshots, so maneuverable, but so fragile and brittle. She rolled them both over, and Ches was crumpled, weak below her. The bodyguard wheezed, and she saw the horror and desperation in him. Good. Now he would know what Julian must have felt like in his last moments in the fire. “You thought you were only dealing with Elariels,” Jenna hissed. “Unfortunately, you hurt Tekiel as well. And that is unacceptable to me.” Ches spat blood. “Stupid bitch, you don’t even—” Jenna snapped his spine, and his struggling ceased. She kept her brutal clench around Ches’s corpse, her heart racing and her arms bloodied. This was so unlike the others she killed, out of duty or self-defense. Here, she felt so different. She was good. Powerful. Righteous. She was perfectly in control, in pure transcendence. Or... divinity, even, and that was not her Allomancy’s doing. Only one thing left to do to finish the job. But as she threw Ches onto the ground, his skull cracking on the stone, Jenna heard the soft crunch of another pair of feet landing in the ash. She spun, and recognized that arrogant face instantly. However, for once in his life, the wide eyes of Dier Venture did not look nearly so arrogant now. His gaze flicked between her and the corpse she had broken, frozen in place. He was no threat to her now. How could he be? He was prey; just another fragile Coinshot. Jenna grinned and glared at him. “Hello, Dier. This is quite... unfortunate for you.” As far as House chores went, Dier had always felt assassinations were a tossup. On the one hand, there were benefits. The chance to get out of the keep and away from the rest of the family was always a welcome one. Sailing high through the night on graceful lines of steel was one of the few experiences these days that still gave him any measure of joy. Aside from the way Vasha kept creeping into his thoughts unbidden—Sloppy on your corners again, Clip. Did you completely miss the fourth anchor on that roof, or did you over-swing the angle on purpose? Stop show-boating like a silly debutante and keep it clean, just like I taught you...—his Steelpushing was an escape, a few moments of freedom, a reprieve. And tonight wasn't even a real assassination mission. He was just a bit of insurance, it seemed. Straff had been clear there was someone else making a hit tonight, a “loose thread being snipped” and all Dier needed to do was ensure it actually happened. Maybe a bit of coin-spray cleanup if the killer had gotten sloppy, or the target was putting up a fight, but more than likely a cold site, and a hook through the neck as confirmation. A job already complete. And jobs somebody else had already completed were Dier’s favorite kind, after all. On the other hand, it seemed like more often than not, even the most straightforward, hands off, so-simple-even-you-couldn’t-mess-this-up-Dier mission assignments of Straff’s had a truly bad habit of putting his life in some kind of mortal peril. A fact that was not lost on him as he froze, stock-still and half crouched in a dismal alley across from one of his dear old friends, who looked for all the world like she was enjoying imagining which of his bones would feel the most pleasant to snap. Just what I get for trying to be a gentleman about it all. When he’d heard the sound of a scuffle, he’d made his way over to investigate, as anyone would. When he’d recognized from above a struggling Jenna Tekiel, pinned halfway up an alley wall as she wrestled with someone burning steel in what was obviously a lethal exchange, he’d thought it only polite to perhaps drop in and lend her a hand with that. Sure, she’d never been particularly fond of him in their little friend group with Maevis and Lucius all these years, but the fact that she’d always been an uptight, fun-hating, wet blanket of a person was no reason for him to just let her die. Besides, he’d thought, the idea of perfect little Tekiel owing him a favor after he valiantly saved her life was too tempting to pass up. When they’d dropped to the ground again, he'd seen his chance. But before his feet had even hit the ground to enact what would have surely been an incredibly gallant and mostly selfless rescue, his prim and proper “friend” had effortlessly snapped the neck of the other Coinshot with one hand, and he had immediately realized that he perhaps might have mixed up who exactly was the assailant and the victim in this little dust-up. She turned to regard him with a grin that could have cut glass, and Dier was forced to acknowledge several difficult truths as he met that terrifying gaze: One, Jenna Tekiel was some kind of Allomancer, and an accomplished killer at that. Two, she had kept this fact completely secret in all the years he’d known her. Three, she was almost certainly intending to murder him within the next minute for having learned this about her. Four, if she really did have pewter—and he was almost entirely certain she had pewter—he was standing far too close to be able to get aloft again before she closed the distance between them. And five, that it was completely and utterly unfair that he was probably about to die right after he’d finally discovered that there was actually something interesting about her. “Hello, Dier,” Jenna said, in a tone wholly unlike anything he’d ever heard from her before. “This is quite… unfortunate for you.” “Jenna,” he said with a strained chuckle, forcing a smile onto his face. He began to straighten from his landing excruciatingly slowly, watching her all the while for the barest twitch of a move in his direction. “I’ll… admit it’s unexpected, running into you like this. But you seem to be doing, ah, well for yourself, if I may say.” Though she could surely hear how thin his lighthearted tone was, inside his thoughts raced, every part of him feeling like it had gone sharp. His first suspicion was Mistborn, and it was the more dangerous possibility, of course. There’d always been whispers that she might be a Soother—another reason they’d never gotten along—but it wouldn’t be the first time someone had hid Mistborn status by feigning to be a Misting instead. Oldest court trick in the book. But each passing second brought new information: he braced for her to Pull his coin pouch from him, but the tug never came. None of his lines pointed to her, meaning she carried no metal of her own. That could have been to allow her to get a drop on her Coinshot quarry, but as moments passed with his own metals untouched, he reassessed. Pewterarm, then. Still plenty deadly, as the unfortunate lump on the ground had learned the hard way, but perhaps he still had some kind of chance of wiggling out of this. He found himself suddenly regretting just how many times he’d intentionally gotten under her skin for a laugh in their little group, though. Surely she wouldn’t still have any hard feelings about any of that, would she? “Things are at last starting to become right in the world,” Jenna said, her gaze burrowing into Dier. “But now... you’re here. Unideal. Witnesses are problematic. It would be a shame if you did something foolish and got yourself murdered. I would prefer against doing that, but,” she waved back to the corpse, “I do what I must.” “When have you ever known me to make a fool of myself, Jenna? Positively unlike me, really.” He tried to give her his most winsome grin, all the while forcing himself not to take a step backward. He had a feeling any movement on his part that even suggested he meant to flee would be… counterproductive to his ability to keep breathing. “Now,” he continued, “I’m sure you’re weighing all kinds of strategic considerations on the benefits of killing me or letting me go, but given that we’re old friends, I do feel like it should count as some point in my favor that I came down here intent upon saving you from a terrible attempt on your life. I see now you had the matter well… ah, well in hand, but how was I to know that from above?” “Yes, indeed. That is why I opened with ‘Hello, Dier’ rather than killing you. Very fortunate your face is so distinctive in the mists.” This seemed like the point where Jenna would have clasped her hands behind her back—her favorite domineering stance—but she was clearly readied to jump at him at a moment’s notice. “Why are you here, Dier? We’re halfway across the city from Keep Venture. Curious. I am not in the mood for games, so start talking. Choose your words carefully.” “Can you promise you’re not going to just kill me off as soon as I do?” He raised an eyebrow at her, his grin coming to him a little more easily this time. “See, this is normally the part where you'd call for some kind of obligator to serve as witness, I suspect, but we appear to be quite scandalously unchaperoned out here, do we not?” He felt electric, dancing on the edge of death like this, adrenaline still coursing even as he tried to lean back into an easy tone and affability to try to get her to lower her guard. And this Jenna... It felt like he was meeting a stranger, a fascinating stranger, like everything about her had shifted. That half-wild delight in her eyes, the naked cruelty in her words. After years of being endlessly bored trying and failing to crack through the cold iron slab Jenna always carried around instead of a personality, his head was spinning to try to conceive that she was the same person standing across from him now. This vicious, self-assured creature eyeing him up like she thought to make a meal of him, her once-unassailable restraint now replaced by something dangerously paper-thin. She seemed alive in a way he’d never before known her to be. And for the first time in a very long time, he felt alive as well. Now, if I could just figure out how to do something to ensure I can stay that way… Jenna raised her eyebrow back—just slightly, but enough for him to catch. “I swear it by the name of the Lord Ruler, I will not kill you here, should you tell me the truth. I don’t want to kill you, you fool. But a woman has to be careful.” She smirked, and though a touch of her coldness seemed to fade, that knife’s edge energy in her posture never wavered. “Well, as someone with a vested interest in ensuring you continue not wanting to kill me, perhaps we might work something out?” He dipped his head to her slightly, though he kept his eyes trained upon her, not trusting her enough yet to look away for even a moment. “No one needs to know what I may or may not have seen tonight, and in return for your magnanimous sparing of my life, well... You’re an ambitious sort, yes? I’m sure the Lady Heiress of House Tekiel could find some use for the skills of a humble Coinshot, could she not?” She grinned. Was that... joy? “Perhaps I could... But that is not an answer, Dier. Why are you here? It is important. I will not ask again.” His smile wavered, just a touch, as he squirmed in place with the decision. It’d be a gamble, to tell her, as her interest in the information was probably one of the few things holding her back. Not to mention disclosing Venture interests was a risky call under any circumstances, particularly to a member of a powerful house like Tekiel. But he also wasn’t blessed with an abundance of choice here, and when Push came to Pull, if it came down between his cousin’s orders and saving his own skin, he was always going to pick himself first. “On the name of the Lord Ruler, you said?” he asked, weighing the strength of that oath. All that religious stuff did seem to carry weight with her, or at least it always had in the past. “Fine. Venture had a… passing interest in an incident expected to occur tonight. I was sent to confirm that it actually got done. Which I will admit, I had not managed to do before getting distracted over here with my very chivalrous attempt to come to your rescue, and thus I should probably be getting back to my actual task sometime in the near future.” He eyed her, considering whether or not he should leave it there, but had a thought that in this case, perhaps a little more information might get him off the hook faster. “It was supposed to be a Ministry thing, it sounded like. Whatever grievance you had with this unfortunate fellow, I can’t imagine it’s any of my business, all right?” “Indeed not,” Jenna said. She stared at him for a few long, excruciating moments. “Very good, Dier. In fact, speaking of completing tasks, I am not quite finished.” He blinked, then risked waving a hand for her to continue. Though what more she could have to do to the poor bastard, he couldn’t fathom. “Well, don’t let me keep you, then." “I am going to turn my back on you now. Let me be clear: our conversation is not finished. If you shoot off into the night while I am not looking... well. We certainly would not be able to work anything out then, would we? You’d be on the end of an extremely different deal.” “At the very least, you’ve piqued my curiosity,” he said, placing a hand on his chest. “Best behavior, I swear.” Jenna shot him a look that said she’d believe that when she saw it, but did in fact turn away from him to pick up the body from the ground. Shooting off would have been the smart thing to do right now, he knew, but he was curious what was going on here, and if she wanted to give him a little test to see if he’d cooperate, he could play along. He did take her moment of distraction to surreptitiously drop another coin beneath him, aiming for a spot of ash to try to hide the clink. He might not intend to make immediate use of it, but it never hurt to be prepared. The pieces began to click into place as Jenna walked a few steps to an inconspicuous pile of ash, kicking free the very distinctive implement stashed beneath. Dier sighed softly as he recognized the wicked hook of a Ministry ritual execution, cursing himself for having ignored the little blue line that had pointed to it as a bit of metal when he’d arrived. As he watched, Jenna rather efficiently lifted her victim and curled the hook into just the right angle to insert it, then jammed through his throat. Paying no mind to the bloody mess she’d made of her hands with the gruesome act, she tugged upon it a few times to ensure the body was secure, then with a quick glance at the roof above, looped the rope it was tied to, and swung it up towards a jutting piece of the stonework eaves. With pewter-assisted accuracy, her aim was perfect, the rope catching her target exactly as she’d meant it to, and with a hard yank, she hoisted the unfortunate man into the air. Suspended now as he was, Dier caught sight of his face—or rather what was left of it—and frowned at the extensive scarring that marred every inch of his features. When she finally turned back to him, looking altogether too pleased with her work, he offered her a few quiet claps of sardonic applause. “All right, so maybe you did have something to do with my little errand, it turns out. Very clever of you. Suppose I really shouldn’t be that surprised to find you’re doing Ministry dirty work, after everything else that’s come out tonight. You always were so very devout, after all.” “Oh, please,” Jenna said. “As if anyone who was devout would do this on a whim for the Ministry. Your understanding is a tiny sliver of the truth.” “If it’s all the same to you, I think I prefer to keep my sliver and call that enough. I feel as though I’ve had quite a bit more truth about you dropped on my plate tonight than I was expecting, Lady Tekiel.” “Quite. We shall discuss that now. Come. We should not still be here. It would be unfortunate for you if any more blood needs to be spilt. You’ve been a good boy at following instructions, so I again swear that I won’t kill you, if you follow me.” For a moment, he considered making some sort of quip about what part of the Lord Ruler she was going to swear on this time for him, but decided perhaps that pressing his luck when she seemed to be entertaining the idea of letting him live was not the wisest plan. So instead, he gave her a long, deep stare, still turning over this strange, captivating puzzle of the real Jenna Tekiel in his head, like if he could only find some hidden insight in her eyes, everything about her would simply click into place. But the simple answers about who she actually was eluded him, and that only made him more determined to ferret out what they were. As he stared at her there—bloodied, confident, demanding to be obeyed—he couldn’t quite keep the question on his mind from slipping free: “Have you always been like this, underneath it all?” It was barely more than a murmur, speaking more to himself than actually looking for an answer from her. “I can’t for the life of me figure out if you’ve changed… or if I just haven’t been paying you enough attention.” “I ensure people will never notice.” Jenna glanced to the hanging corpse, making a thin smile. Then, with pewter-enhanced strength, leapt onto a crate and started climbing up the building. She looked back to meet Dier’s eyes. “You coming?” A challenge. Or threat. He overtly dropped another coin, hoping to hide the fact that he’d slipped one to the ground earlier, then Pushed off them both, landing lightly on the rooftop above. When she crested the top a moment later, he offered her a gentlemanly bow. “After you, my lady.” Jenna didn’t hesitate and bounded between the structures, and Dier quickly took to the air to follow her route. He kept waiting for her to stop somewhere up above, away from where they’d be overheard on the streets, but she moved with purpose, clearly with some kind of destination in mind. He let himself get a bit showier with his steel work this time, appreciating that he had a bit of an audience as she continued to check that he was still following. If the ghost of Vasha haunting his thoughts had suspected him of behaving like a “silly debutante” before, well… His lighter spirits were dampened somewhat when they moved out of the slums and into the start of more properly cared for buildings, however, watching as Jenna jumped down to a secluded street there. At the base of a building, she moved some objects out of her way, dusting off ash, and pulled a hidden lever, revealing a cellar to the shops above. She motioned Dier inside. Immediately, he hesitated, realizing the strategic implications of following, and he knew with full clarity why she hadn’t wanted to stop on the roofs at any point on the way here. Open air favored him: having room to maneuver and keep himself out of her reach was the strongest asset he would have if this came to blows. Getting him to step inside, to trap him in an enclosed space, was a sure way to tip the advantage squarely in her favor. The kind of injuries he could inflict with a handful of coins at close range wouldn’t slow her down if she flared her way through it, and he certainly wasn’t going to be able to shove her around with steel either, given her strength. Even if he was lucky enough to somehow hit her in a way that was lethal, pewter would keep her on her feet and functional long enough for her to ensure that he died first. She turned back to look at him when he stopped, raising an eyebrow with an expression that made it clear that following her in was not a request, and he felt his heart rate kick up again to a thready flutter. Dangerous games, and dangerous little acts of trust she kept demanding from him. Was she actually trying to gauge his willingness to negotiate, or was it all just a ruse to trick him into a trap he wouldn’t be able to escape? He could leave now. He was further back this time, and he had a coin already poised beneath him from his landing. If he wanted to make a break for it here, he was reasonably certain he could. It was probably the wise thing to do, to cut his losses and go back to tell Straff this juicy bit of intelligence about Tekiel’s Allomantic capabilities, consider Jenna an enemy from here on out. But then she gave him that obsidian-sharp smile again—with a hint of a dare in her eyes that was shockingly reminiscent of someone he’d already wasted enough time remembering—and he found himself stepping forward to do as she asked instead. She waited for him to go in first, and he paused in the threshold, giving her a knowing look as if to say he knew full well what he was giving up by complying, and then continued on in. As she closed the door behind them both, he tried not to imagine it as the sound of his fate being sealed. Inside, Jenna lit two candles. It was a small suite, surprisingly well-furnished with a sofa in the first room, with cabinets lining the wall, and a washroom in a second room in the back. She went into the washroom, retrieving a wet towel and wiped off some of the blood on her, then she opened the cabinet and grabbed... wine glasses? Yes, then a bottle of wine, and began pouring two glasses. She took a sip of hers first, and offered Dier the second. He took it, kicking it back with a quick tip, appreciating the surprisingly fine quality. “I will say I’m going to be very disappointed if you’ve brought me all the way here just to kill me with something so uninspired as poison, all things considered.” “Poison is dull,” Jenna said. “That’s a last resort method. And if I wished for your death, Dier, you would be dead right now. Consider it a great honor that I’ve brought you to a safehouse of mine.” “I hope you can forgive if I wait to feel honored until I am graced with the opportunity to leave it, actually.” He looked around, eyeing the tight surroundings, full of all kinds of obstacles that would almost certainly get in his way if he tried to escape. “But for now, you’ve got me tucked away in your secret little box. Shall we discuss, then, what comes next?” “Precisely my thinking. You have to understand how thoroughly inconvenient this is, Dier. Tonight was to solve problems, not add new ones. You understand that revealing my pewter would be...” Jenna’s eyes glinted with the fire from the candles. “Grave. I was thinking on the way over if it would be wiser just to kill you and deal with the Ministry paperwork instead. Perhaps I am a bit of a fool myself, or simply too kind, that I did not. What assurance could you possibly give me that you would not reveal my secret, Dier? I can deal with you, if you do, and I will make sure it is excruciating. But it is so inconvenient if you do. Do you understand?” He spread his hands in surrender, smiling at her again. “I’ve got no interest in becoming a new problem for you, and a rather strong interest in avoiding being disposed of in any way, excruciating or otherwise. It truly wasn’t my intent to stumble upon any of your secrets tonight, I assure you. Hell, by the way Straff talked about it, he made it sound like I was looking for a cold stiff, not an active fight between two Allomancers! This isn’t exactly in line with my plans for the evening either.” He took a breath, running a hand back through the hair that had escaped his braid, and fixed her with another disarming smile. “Look, as far as I’m concerned, the job my cousin sent me out here to do is done. He wanted confirmation a kill had happened tonight, and it has. Saw the body on the hook with my own eyes. If he saw fit to decline to mention that there was a risk that other Allomancers were involved in this little mission, then I don’t see why it’s any of his business what Allomancy I may or may not have seen on site. He doesn’t have to know, and no one else does either, all right?” Jenna made a gleeful, wicked smile. “Against your house’s best interests?” For the first time, Dier’s smile slipped, giving way to something darker, something bitter instead. “Does that surprise you? I don’t see why my house’s interests should be the deciding factor in anything. It isn’t as though they’ve ever given half a thought to my best interests, after all.” “I like that, Dier. This pleases me greatly to hear you say that. And it certainly is in your best interest to stay silent about me.” He eyed her, trying to size up what she really wanted out of this exchange. She was political, ambitious, traits he’d always lacked himself, but could use to his advantage. He dipped another courteous bow, and this time did let his gaze leave her, another little gesture of dangerous trust, another little bit of power conceded to her advantage. “So let’s talk about your best interests, then. Jenna. And what I might be able to do for you to serve them.” His eyes flicked upward again, wanting to watch her reaction. “I meant what I said about how useful I might be to you, if you had need of someone like me. Give me a chance to prove I can be trusted with a secret like yours. A chance to reassure you that letting me live can be an act in your interest as well. “I wouldn’t ask for something so banal as kindness or mercy from you. I’m not going to beg that you spare me out of the goodness of your heart. We both know the Great Houses don’t deal in any currency as worthless as altruism. If you’re offering me the indulgence of having spared my life, well, I intend to do the courtly thing and ensure that debt would be repaid. Ensure that you understand what an asset someone like me could be for you, indebted as I am. Ensure you can see the opportunity this little accidental disclosure between us has created. For you.” Jenna laughed, almost a giggle. So strange to hear from her, yet... intoxicating. Dier desperately needed to hear it again. “A useful Dier? My, we are learning so many new things about each other today. Mmmmmm... I do so like my advantages. My little knives. All right, Dier. This will be fun.” “Seems we’re both full of surprises tonight,” he said, “aren’t we?” “We will make sure an oath of yours is witnessed by a trusted obligator. You will tell no one of this arrangement, yes?” He swirled the wine in his glass again, taking another sip as he nodded to himself. “Can I admit something to you, Jenna? Stumbling into you in that alleyway is the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in… honestly, I can’t fathom how long. Sure, I think I’ll enjoy the experience a bit more once I’m certain I’m going to survive it, but rest assured I have no intention of jeopardizing your goodwill after I fought so hard to attain it. If you want to do the little routine with an obligator, I’ll do whatever you need to keep things amicable between us.” “Very good. I am so glad to hear it.” Jenna met his eyes. She seemed thrilled—truly happy—but beneath that, something... ravenous. “I’ll feel better once you do a task for me, then we can all rest easy, thoroughly assured there’s no subterfuge here. Hmmmm. How useful would you like to be for me, tonight?” He perked up, not bothering to keep the interest out of his expression at that. A chance to prove himself already? A chance to see the look on her face when he returned, triumphant, from whatever task she might set? He knew, deep down, that there was a good chance she was just toying with him, perhaps looking for some brief amusement before she rid herself of the liability he now represented. A way to get a bit of use out of the fool who had placed himself so fully at her mercy before she tired of him. And yet, all he could think of was how delightful it would be to prove her wrong, to actually win her trust. Imagining the game going on, another chance to get to know the real Jenna she’d kept so carefully tucked behind her mask all these years. Let’s see if you tire of me once you see how useful I can really be, old friend… She could have demanded he bring her the Lord Ruler’s signet ring on a necklace, and he’d have immediately made his way directly to Kredik Shaw. His grin threatened to split his face as he bowed to her one more time. “How might I be of service, my lady?” Two months later, Jenna stomped through Luthadel again, still wearing her ball finery—though with a long cloak over it—after the Lekal ball, toward that same safehouse where she and Dier had come to their arrangement before. An arrangement that had been going so well, until tonight. Focus, she thought. Blessedly, despite all the thousands of thoughts swirling in her, she could hone in on the fire burning in her. Usually the flames were passion, but tonight, it was pure fury. That gave her at least some element of control, something which Dier seemed insistent on annihilating. Unacceptable. She shoved the lever to the safehouse, bounding inside and quickly shutting the door. Candles already lit the chamber, and Dier stood against the wall eyeing the entrance. His suit’s shirt was wine-stained—Jenna’s doing. Despite her death glare, somehow he had the audacity to give a smug grin back at her. Jenna would not allow herself to be distracted by that face, nor did she let him speak. With pewter, she crossed the room in a flash, and with a single hand, picked him up and slammed him back against the wall, pinning him there hard. It probably hurt, but they both knew he was not as fragile as he looked. He’d be fine, for now. “I know you are not a pious man,” Jenna whispered into his ear, summoning every bit of malice in her, “but now would be the time to begin making one final prayer.” He made a satisfying wheeze as his back hit the wall, but despite it, he still managed to huff a strangled little laugh. “Should have… sprung for a nice bottle of wine with the proposal… I see. I just worried… you would think it was too much, dearest.” Jenna released her grip slightly, only to immediately pummel him back into the wall. His head bounced off the surface and he grimaced, obviously in pain. Too much, she realized. Precision and care. Fury was a focus, but now the fires within her were flaring far too high. It had been almost two decades since she accidentally killed someone, and she could not, under any circumstances, break that pattern. She took her right hand and clenched his throat with it, but despite her pewter, she was careful to not instantly snap his neck. Unfortunately. “You have NO IDEA how catastrophically you have doomed things,” Jenna roared. “A marriage proposal? In public! Without DISCUSSING WITH ME before you did it?” She squeezed his throat. “It would be so trivial for me to press a little harder here and end you. It is only with the infinite love and grace of the Sliver of Infinity that I have not already done so.” “Jenna, Jenna,” he begged softly, eyes a bit dazed from the hit to his head as he placed his hand on top of hers. He affectionately patted it as it tightened around his neck. “Can I just… Can I explain? Please… I’ll behave.” She held him there for a few long seconds, staring into his eyes—gorgeous steel-blue, nearly grey eyes. There was fear in him, yes, but perhaps more terrifying beneath it... trust. As if he didn’t think she would actually clamp down the vice on him. It was utterly insane, and it cut through the fires ablaze inside her, dousing them completely. Jenna released her pressure, carefully easing him down to his feet. What am I even doing? she thought. The one person who finally understands and I almost kill him. Like her uncle, when she had been eight, sparring with her using pewter for the first time. One slight punch misplaced, and he was gone. That was why precision mattered, why her whole life she had to be perfect. And she could have easily thrown it away there. She extinguished her pewter. She noticed she had started shaking, but with force of will, she stood firm. She prayed to the Lord Ruler with all she had that he wouldn’t notice the weakness. “Fine,” Jenna said quietly, avoiding his gaze. Hopefully he would think she was too upset to look into his eyes, and not anything else. Dier slumped against the wall, tugging his cravat loose to try to get his breath back, but despite the rough treatment, he still managed a smile at her when he looked up again. “Look, would you believe me if I said I thought you’d appreciate the gesture?” Like a puppy trying to impress its master, incapable of grasping any higher level of understanding. Jenna sighed. It was unfortunate she couldn’t affix a more permanent leash. “You were actually serious last week, when you asked me in private?” Dier’s little smile faltered, and he seemed puzzled and hurt at that. Lord Ruler. “Was I…? Jenna, of course I was serious last week! Hell, I would have been serious tonight if you’d said yes, but I admit my intent in bringing it up in front of the crowd was somewhat… ulterior.” He began to smirk again. “I mean, did you see the looks on all of their faces?” She rubbed her temples. This was going to be a problem. “Their reaction is precisely the issue.” He raised an eyebrow. “Are you certain of that, dearest?” He clicked his tongue. “Oh, don’t tell me I got one over on you. I thought you were the strategic one between the two of us. I was certain you’d see right to the heart of my little scene.” “Precisely,” Jenna repeated. “I am thinking of strategy because you’re completely inept at it. I expected discretion! Do you understand what would happen if they figure out the killings you’ve done for me, and if they make the connection between us? That is far easier now that you have made such a loud pronouncement! If the Haughts get wind of the death of Claudine... Lord Ruler, and those Hasting blacksmiths...” Dier straightened, stepping across the room to her and laying a hand on her cheek, trying to turn her face toward his. “You didn’t see the look on your face when I made the proposal, Jenna. But everyone else did. That mortified fury, that shocked rage? I couldn’t risk your reaction being anything other than genuine if it was going to work. ‘Lord Ruler, hasn’t that poor Tekiel girl been through enough? What a hideous thing for that boy to drag her through, just to make a scene. A proposal, can you imagine, and so soon after losing that fiancé of hers…’” He met her eyes with a satisfied smirk. “The loss of one of my suit shirts to your wine was a small price to pay, in my books. Who would imagine you would ever want anything to do with such an odious fool as me after a scandalous impropriety like that? How inconceivable that the perfectly polite and tactful Tekiel heir would so much as speak with that Venture miscreant, especially after he pulled such a stunt upon her. Yes?” Lord Ruler, how was it that this man was so infuriating that Jenna so often both wanted to snap him in half and ravish him? Jenna reach out a hand, slowly—with great care, so he did not see it as a threat—moving it to lightly touch the back of his neck, slightly dragging her nails along it. She could feel the goosebumps on his skin as she did. Then she pressed her nails into it so that the pressure was very noticeable, but not damaging. He made a fun squirm at that. “I do not like surprises, Dier,” Jenna said, her mouth dangerously close to his. “I would congratulate you on the ingenuity, except that it’s a terrible idea which—most importantly—you did not clear with me. I keep thousands of secrets, and can act convincingly so no one would ever know the difference. It’s not like it’s hard to pretend to hate you, anyway.” He chuckled softly, eyes watching her mouth. “Mmm, but you’re so very beautiful with that vicious, murderous rage in your eyes. I just couldn’t help myself… But very well. No more surprises.” She moved to drag her fingers across his cheek and smiled. “Good.” “You should actually marry me, though. While we’re on the topic.” Jenna went cold and slowly backed away from him. “That... would be extremely challenging to navigate. Inconceivably so. But all right. I cut you off last week when you suggested that, and that was clearly an imprudent move on my part. Make your bid. I will listen.” Dier leaned after her when she stepped away, as though Pulled by a line of iron, but her words surprised him enough to let her put space between them. “R-really? I didn’t think you would…” He blinked, then seemed to regain control, returning to his usual self. “Well, I honestly think it’s an option worth considering, is it not? I’ve quite enjoyed our arrangement thus far and I have to believe you have as well. We make a strong team, you must admit. Your strategies and strength, putting my steel to good use. Have I not been the very picture of a loyal and dutiful partner? “Why wouldn’t we want to formalize that? Our houses are both powerful, we’re of rank with one another, and neither one of us have any other real marriageable prospects since your, well, loss. Yes, the secret is fun, we won’t be able to keep up a secret like this indefinitely, even after my rather artful obfuscation tonight. I know we’re both very careful and clever about it all, but at some point we’ll need to think about what comes next. I mean, won’t we?” Jenna frowned. More problems. This was a delicate situation. If she said the wrong thing, and cut him loose, that would be... quite inconvenient, for so many reasons, not that least bit because she truly would miss him. That was the shocking fact that she had learned over the past two months. “Dier... I will be honest with you. I enjoy this. I do not enjoy the surprises, but... You see a part of me almost no one sees. Well. Except before their deaths. House Tekiel forged me this way but they think I’m cold... They don’t see the fires of passion in me. You do.” And death and destruction. The part Julian could never love. The part Dier seemed to adore. “So I say this to mean... This is important to me.” She frowned. That was true, but all was not well. Jenna had to be perfect with him, lest the illusion on him break. Dier was a viper, as was Jenna, and there was no place for saccharine things like vulnerability or weakness here. She needed to be guarded, like she had been with Julian, but about the opposite things. She had to be in control of herself. But she would never be able to admit to any of that. Fortunately, there were so many other issues with Dier that she could focus on instead. “But... there are problems with this, Dier. I will be Lady Tekiel. I will never renounce my title. Ever. And... despite all of this, you don’t actively work against Venture. It would be terrible for Venture—and you—to renounce your title and join me. Straff would never allow it either. “Then there are the myriad political issues given what we have done here. Again, terrible if they track our involvement, maybe a house war. Maybe you’re discreet enough that you weren’t recognized, but no one would expect you to act alone. They would suspect me if this happened. “And most important,” Jenna said, burrowing a glare into Dier, “you literally debase me in front of the court. You are a laughing stock by your own design, and because of that, if this all were to occur, you would make me a laughing stock. Things are already hard enough with constant pressure for me to marry out, rather than rule. I spent much social capital to ingratiate Julian into high society, and I am lacking that now. It is unacceptable to have that be tossed even further down into the center of the world itself by marrying you. “If the Lord Ruler graces us with an opportunity to navigate the political situation to do this, and you want to help rule with me in the open... Well, you’re very useful, and good at what you do. Simply extend that in other respects. It’s not that hard.” Dier tipped his chin back. “I might point out my worthless reputation is the reason my little scheme worked in the first place. There are advantages to being the rude idiot who’s made it clear he’s determined to never amount to anything. And I’ve been nothing if not thorough in that particular regard.” If anything, there was a vicious sort of pride in his voice, to speak of how thoroughly he’d ruined his public image. “No,” Jenna said. “You need to be useful in more than these tasks I have you do, for this to be public and it be advantageous. Your worthless reputation is exactly the problem if you want to proceed. When you set your mind to a task, you’re effective. You clearly have set your mind on literally becoming refuse bathing in the ash, and that is not what the future Lady Tekiel needs. You have to be better. For the Lord Ruler’s sake, you could at least be... Neutral about things, rather than performing such colossal self-sabotage!” Dier’s expression darkened, the pride there rotting into derision. “I think I’ve proved I can be of more than enough use for your many purposes, Lady Tekiel. I see no reason why I should have to prove my value to every idiot at court as well. If you wanted some sniveling suck-up trying to integrate himself for the approval of the Great Houses, maybe you should have married your little low-born Lunarche when you had the chance.” Jenna rushed to him and snatched him by the throat again. She snickered. “Oh, you really don’t get it, do you, Dier, dearie... Perhaps you need to be taught a lesson. So we are going to go slowly and carefully, so you might get it through your impenetrably thick skull.” He grinned back at her, showing teeth, utterly unthreatened despite how powerless his position was. “Oh, by all means, darling. Enlighten me.” It was so tempting to burn pewter again and smash him to the floor for his stupid, smarmy insolence. “I well know people’s impressions of Julian at court, and the risk I was taking. Lucius wouldn’t say it to my face, but I knew. ‘Some lowborn, what a fool Tekiel is for bringing him.’ ‘Yes, that makes sense, this is the best she could get. No man in proper society would serve a female head of house.’ I feel like I heard your cousin Straff say that, several times. So I know. You aren’t aware how the perception of these matters can rapidly become reality. That’s what politics is: turning people’s thoughts into action, instilling their will upon the world. I have to say that to you because I legitimately think this is an alien concept to you. “But, what also happened with Julian, after that first impression, is they saw something different. His ambition, his charm. He was a force, even if no one in high society cared to admit it. That brought me strength. A House Lady, with a brilliant confidant. “You, on the other hand... What impression will you leave on me, should we marry? My father is old, and I am young. This is not a short-term arrangement. It doesn’t matter what idiot lower nobility think, but it absolutely matters what the sharks at the top think. And they will never take me seriously with a fool like you. You wouldn’t be a confidant. You’d be a jester, and I would be the butt of the joke. And that means, when I am head of my house, that people won’t work with me. They will laugh. They won’t see some hidden merit behind your face, like they did with Julian. They will see a fool, because that’s all you want them to see. At first, the problems will be small, but I know these will grow and grow, and doom me. And if I am doomed, without me and your Venture title, how long do you think you’ll last? “You want to marry? Fine. But your behavior is completely self-defeating, to us together, me personally and to your very life, you fool. And if you can’t see that... Well, that could lead to some problems for us.” Jenna shoved him to the ground and released him. He went down hard, which felt oh so good. He barely got his hands behind him to break the fall. After winces and groans, he looked at Jenna with a bitter snarl. “They were always going to see me as nothing of consequence, Jenna. At least this way it’s on my terms. Let the court burn for all I care. Enjoy finding yourself some nice little well-behaved country nobleman to make you look good for all of them. Lean into being the boring, flawless Jenna that nobody could find fault with, then. I'm not here for her. But if that’s all you want to be, then fine. I’ll keep the worthless mess that I am far from whatever it is you’re after.” He looked down at the wine-soaked shirt he still wore, now starting to set in as it dried. “Wouldn’t want someone like me to get a stain on you, would you?” Blackness in the Ashmounts, what a complete catastrophe. Damn you, Dier Venture. She clenched her fists so hard that her nails made the inside of her hands bleed. Lord Ruler forbid that Dier try at all to listen, improve, or do anything at all. Of course he wouldn’t get it. Jenna planned. Dier obeyed. It was going so well, so effectively. But she had to screw everything up with intimacy, just as she did with Julian. Now he was going to abandon her, leaving her alone in the mists. He’d leave, with a wealth of incriminating knowledge on Jenna Tekiel. It would be so much easier to kill this idiot, but Lord Ruler, she looked at Dier and felt a deep and profound anguish in him that bubbled up within Jenna too. In that, she knew she deserved all of this. You could have been better, Jenna imagined Julian whisper, but you chose the wrong path. I can't believe I ever loved you. Jenna found herself growling a guttural noise as her mind churned with every dark thought—every consequence—of him leaving. It felt like the Deepness subsuming her entire world. The court would know her mistake, laughing at her bedding this manwhore. Straff would know her secrets. Her mother would be disappointed; a fate worse than death. Dier would hate her again. No one would ever truly understand her. No one would ever respect her as Lady Tekiel. How could they? Just kill him. No! Jenna thought. Focus, focus! She needed to act, to do something—any purpose to grip onto—before she lost her control completely. Jenna roared, burning and flaring pewter as fast she could, and went for the cabinetry affixed to the wall, ripping an entire section of it off, and slamming it to the ground. The wood broke and glass shattered inside. Dier flinched back towards the wall as the shrapnel went flying, covering his eyes to protect them. She stared at the wreckage in glee. Better... good. No longer was she falling forever within the darkness of the Deepness. Now she felt like she stood over it, on an Ashmount’s peak, dominating the beast, in command of it. “Do not dare imply that I don’t care about you, Dier,” she said. “I agree with many points in your marriage proposal. Don’t you see that I’d like it to be possible? Lord Ruler, and here I am falling in love again, foolishly, with someone who hates me... How typical.” He lowered his arm slowly, looking up at her from the floor. “Did you just say… love?” “Yes, you idiot. Not paying attention there, either, hmmm?” Jenna looked at him, smirking. Maybe if you were better at the game, you wouldn’t miss such things. “Jenna, I could never hate you. Not for this.” Dier reached to place a coin behind him on the floor, using a light Push to get back to his feet. He sighed, giving her an apologetic smile. “I know I frustrate you. It’s a vice I’m not likely to quit any time soon. But you have to know I’d pull my heart from my own chest if you asked for it served on a platter, if only for a chance to see you pleased. To think of love, of you loving me? You… mean that, really?” It took supreme effort for Jenna to not appear stunned. So that is why he places his life so eagerly into my hands. He would do anything for me, except, apparently, make himself better. That legitimately frightened Jenna. It was reckless, self-destructive devotion. She wouldn’t be able to threaten him to fix or improve things, either, so she would need different tactics. She wasn’t sure what that would entail. Julian never needed motivation to be ambitious and conniving, after all, so she lacked the right knives for the job. “I’m as surprised as you are,” she said. It could be a terrible, complicated thing for her to still feel it. “But... don’t make it a whole thing.” “No, no, never,” he said innocently, but a slight smirk began to form. “I’d do nothing of the sort… my love.” “I legitimately considered killing you there, before, and I don’t say that in jest. Do I need to reconsider that?” Of course, he’d just like that more. “I’m sure you’re not the first,” he said, stupid grin on his face. “But no one’s gone through with it yet, at least. Seeing as we’re both still here, would you perhaps permit me t—” “Just shut up and kiss me.” With a wicked little laugh he flicked another coin behind him, Pushing it into the wall to propel him forward, Jenna bracing herself with pewter for the collision. He grabbed her face with both hands, and she wrapped her arms around his back. Her heart raced, and then they kissed. There was a primal intensity to it, flaring high, as things should always be. Unrelenting passions, not saccharine nonsense. There would be many problems with this relationship, but this wasn’t one of them. And Jenna felt hungry, the fire in her demanding to burn him up, but her brain broke through the flames for a moment. “One more thing.” He panted, but obeyed, pausing as well. But he was ready to pounce in an instant. “Yes, love?” She glared at him. “Don’t, with that. This is precisely why I didn’t want to say anything. Anyway. Now that I am thinking...” Lord Ruler, Dier was so arrogantly handsome. It was so cute that he was shorter than her, too. So easy to control—in some respects, at least. “...thinking...more clearly, I have thought of a resolution to our impasse.” “That is what you do, is it not?” Jenna smiled. “I hear your proposal. It’s politically complicated—which you don't need to understand, or agree with, but it is a fact—so I cannot agree yet. However, this can perhaps be worked on together. It will be challenging, but I do so know you love a good challenge.” His eyes narrowed. “All right. I’m intrigued. What did you have in mind?” “I admit I have difficulty imagining a proper route to success, but I shall spend some effort trying to think on it and let you in on such plans. It is a delicate matter and will take a long time.” And Jenna would need Dier to be better, and that would take... longer than she would like. “For now, however, I think it best if you actually do more public proposals.” His surprised reaction was truly delicious to watch. “Yes, I’m certain you’ll enjoy it, and my reaction will throw the scent off of anyone at court thinking we are in league together. I’ll have to be rather aggressive towards you in public for continuing such boorish behavior towards me, but,” she dragged her nails across his back, “I believe you’ll find me far more appreciative later, when we’re alone once again...” His eyes practically sparkled in the candlelight with glee. “Embarrassing you repeatedly in public and making an ass of myself? Well, you know I live to be of service.” Jenna grinned. “Veeeerrrry good. Now, you can be of service by making me a... thorough. Apology.” She tapped her finger against his mouth after each word. “For your... surprises tonight.” He licked his lips. “Well, I certainly think I have a lot to make up for, after all.” She tossed him to the sofa and quickly joined him. For a time, Jenna got to forget the many problems with Dier and political schemes, and could just focus on feeling. How nice it was that no one needed to die for her to feel such passion. (Portrait Sketch by Elisgardor) Author's Note & Acknowledgements Hi, Eric here! Thank you all for reading this story of some... not great people (don't let Jenna tell you otherwise). This was quite a different experience for me to write, both because of the very different character of Jenna Tekiel, but also because this was my first big collaboration! So, I wanted to give a huge thanks to my brilliant co-author, FeatherWriter. She is a fantastic writer with far better instincts than I, and really brought this story to the next level. Very early on in character creation for Secrets in Stained Glass, Feather told me that Dier would be extremely into who Jenna was, and we quickly developed a lot of this. We even ran through this scene of them meeting in October or November of 2022, before the cast had done our Session 0, and long before we recorded episodes in February. We wrote almost all of this in the span of a few days shortly before Episode 1 came out, and then we did revisions and tweaking, but it really came out so well even initially, and I have to thank Feather for that. The scene that had the most revision was the first one, which needed a lot of work. The way we did this is I wrote Jenna's prose, dialogue, and actions, and Feather did the same for Dier's. Then, in revision, we fused it to be a proper story. That's a simplification, as we have read this over and over so many times making adjustments, so both our fingerprints are all over the place, but that's how this happened! I also want to thank Matt, our fearless Narrator and creator of all this Secrets in Stained Glass madness. His feedback and continuity were invaluable. He also punched up the Ches dialogue to fit with the character, so you can thank him for that. What a nice chap that Ches guy is. He also did the bit of Vasha thoughts in Dier's head, too! Big thank you to the beta readers on the cast, like Verónica, and all the 17th Shard staff members who gave feedback on this and line edits. This story is better because of it! In particular, thank you to my darling wife, Jessie—one such 17th Shard staffer—who very graciously let Feather and I do this flirty, villainous... thing. Finally, thank you for reading and watching this show. I hope you're having a blast. It's almost all over soon. Episode 5, the finale, premieres August 20th, at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern.
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  26. We have yet more Secrets in Stained Glass content before Episode 4 premieres on August 6th! First up, for our Patreon backers, we have a new round of GM notes for session 2 and 3 as well as some NPC bios! But for our main event, we have another story. This second one covers a moment where everything changes in the backstory of Eliane Venture. It follows the story that came out last Wednesday about Dier. You can see all Secrets in Stained Glass content in our tag! Spoilers for Secrets in Stained Glass Episode 3 are below. For a PDF version of the story, click here! Creative Solutions By Verónica P.H. Content Warnings: abusive treatment, character death 1010 FE: Three weeks before the Elariel Lakeside Solstice Party Eliane could hear the shouting coming from her father’s study. Dier’s and Renholm’s words were clear, even though she was several rooms away. It was their age-old argument: Renholm berating Dier for not trying hard enough, and Dier deliberately provoking their father by not caring. Dier wasn’t actually shouting loud enough for her to make out his words, but by now Eliane knew his part by memory. At first, she just kept on reading. Even though it wasn’t directed at her, Eliane felt the expected pull of zinc on her emotions. Though her father’s Allomancy could be subtle, that subtlety faded when he lost his temper, so it wasn’t hard to recognize. Fear that made her not want to go anywhere near the study. Shame of not living up to the standards of strength Father always brought up when he talked about Mom. Guilt. Impotence. And, unexpectedly, powerful grief. Father’s latest Rioting was stronger than the previous ones, strong enough that she couldn’t push through it and continue reading. Many of these were emotions he mostly Rioted against Dier, and Eliane hadn’t been particularly good at dealing with them when they’d been used against her in the past. Then again, it was hard enough to deal with the safety and affection Father’s Allomancy often created in her, while she was well aware the emotions were completely fabricated. And then, a loud thud. That wasn’t normal. She put down her book and went to the door of the study. The door was cracked open, but not enough to allow her father and brother to see her standing behind, or enough to allow her to properly see what was actually happening inside the room. What she could hear almost caused her to scream out, but she controlled herself, breathing deep, and made no noise. Dier was Pushing something against Father, barely letting him breathe. His voice was confident and threatening, as he kept walking forward, presumably Pushing harder with each step, as with every footfall she heard, Renholm gasped for breath more and more. Even still, the Rioting continued, making it hard to focus on the words. It let up for a second, and then came the strongest of all the roiling waves of emotion. Love. It enveloped her like a mist on a dark night, and she fought not to stand up from her crouch and go stand at her father’s side, embrace him, no matter what was going on in there, no matter what Dier would think of her, how much more strained their relationship would become if she sided with Father against him. It wasn’t easy, and Renholm hadn’t often used this much power at once, but if there was one emotion she’d learned how to fight, it was this one. Dier was probably much less prepared for it, but Eliane had felt it more times than she could count. Any time Renholm worried he’d done something to make his little girl upset or afraid of him, that unnatural sense of affection and trust had come for her. She couldn’t worry about Dier right now. She turned her mind to Elend, to Charisse, the people she really loved. A tear landed on her skirt, darkening the periwinkle fabric of the dress. She had people to love, and there wasn’t much to do about the fact her father had lost the ones he did so many years ago. That knowledge pulled her through, allowing her to resist standing up to interrupt. Then Dier said something she hadn’t considered, but realized she’d been dreading their whole lives. It was the only thing she’d been able to discern clearly from everything Dier had said. “I’m done with this conversation. In fact, I think I’m just… done. With all of it.” A couple more indistinct statements followed, but Eliane was still trying to process that first one, and suddenly the Rioting disappeared. Everything had gone quiet, and she didn’t think it would be a good idea to stay much longer. She rose slowly from her crouch, holding her skirts close, trying to squish the crinoline against her so its weight wouldn’t push the door open when she moved. But she was paying too much attention to that, and a floorboard creaked, making her wince. Not a second later, the door swung open and hit the wall behind it with a bang, making her jump back so it wouldn’t hit her. Dier glared at her from the back of the room, the door opened with his Allomancy from afar, and she tried to back away. This was none of her business, she hadn’t really seen anything, and she didn’t really want to know what had happened anyways. “Eliane, why don’t you step in here and join us? Shut the door behind you.” She knew without a doubt that he wasn’t asking. Eliane followed the “invitation” and approached him slowly. With a cold sort of fury, nearly reminiscent of their cousin, he pointed insistently at a spot in the floor, eyes tracking her all the while. As she neared the designated spot, rounding the long chaise, she finally caught sight of her father, lying lifeless on the floor, a hole in his head. Her hand came up to her mouth in shock as she stood there, glancing up at Dier, then back down. Both her parents were gone now. She had no words to express the feeling attached to the realization. At Dier’s snapped order, she dropped onto the chaise, still with the propriety that she’d been trained to have, but hardly thinking about it. Dier told her to not even think of screaming, but she didn’t think she could have, even if she’d wanted to. “Dier, what have you done?” “Oh, don't start,” he said witheringly. “You know that old bastard more than had it coming. Now, shut up so I can think.” Though it wasn’t the smartest move at the moment, Eliane tried to protest, but Dier shut her up with a glare. She couldn’t resist looking over at the body occasionally, but every time she did, she couldn’t keep staring at it, trying to process what had just happened. Eliane did not miss how his eyes kept sliding to her as he began to pace back and forth, an almost predatory demeanor in the way he moved. Dier didn’t look like he was seeing his only sister when his eyes fell upon her, he looked like he was seeing a complication. She’d known Dier could be dangerous, that the missions he ran for the house often involved bloodshed. It had been clear that many times the blood on his clothes when she’d helped him wasn’t his. She’d simply never expected she’d face that danger herself. She’d never have believed he was capable of turning on her like this. But she wouldn’t have thought him capable of murdering their father either, and clearly she’d been wrong about that. She didn’t think she was wrong about how Dier looked at her now, the horrifying realization that not only was he capable of harming her, even killing her, but that he seemed to be actively considering it. At least he wasn’t talking right now, just pacing, which gave her time to think. Her brother being quiet and introspective didn’t mean he was stable, as much as she wished that were the case. Firsthand experience told her how strange your emotions would be for a while after the end of one of Renholm’s powerful Riotings, and though she was feeling some of those side effects from the sudden disappearance of the emotional Allomancy, they hadn’t been directed at her and were less than she normally felt. But beyond that, what Dier had just done was a crime of passion, and he was probably still on that adrenaline high and coupled with the anger that had pushed him to kill their father in the first place. She’d have to sort through all this information later, but right now she needed to figure out a way to get out of this situation without Dier deciding to kill her too, and figure out what to do from there. She played with the charms on her bracelet, the one that had been her mother’s, and had all the good memories tied with each charm she’d collected, mostly thanks to Charisse. The physical motion helped her think, concentrate. Not that it was working particularly well. She’d tried taking deep breaths, squeezing one of the charms—a little book that had been the last one Charisse had given her before she died—but her traitorous hands kept shaking. Thank the Lord Ruler Dier wasn’t actually paying attention to her at the moment, because if she was going to survive, she couldn’t come off as too weak, or have Dier see her as a threat. That meant being in absolute control of every one of her interactions with him. The problem was that that thread of thinking only reminded her of the time she’d probably been in the least control of her reactions before this. With the constant Rioting and manipulating of emotion she’d endured her whole life, she’d at least had an idea of what was happening, with the exception of when her father had tried to Snap her. Until now. On one hand she had all the information she was gathering from Dier’s actions, and all of that would be incredibly useful. But how could she survive, if every strategy that came into her mind was shot down by the questions of how was she really going to follow through? Not logistically, but how could she sever her tie to her brother—essentially her last connection to her family, aside from the ten year old boy she’d sworn to protect from his family’s toxicity. Dier had all but severed that himself, between the murder and the likelihood of her own, but Eliane couldn’t fathom turning on him like that. The contradiction was more confusing than the clash between the terror of death but security that she’d be fine she’d only experienced that time when she was eight. She felt like she was the coin in a tug of war between two Coinshots or Lurchers battling it out for control, desperately hoping logic would win out long enough, and she could think of a way out. She tried breathing deeply again, lower her heart rate. But of course, the fingers clutching the charm were as tense as they’d been before. Two fingers found the perfect place to count her heartbeat as she went through the motions to count the beats per minute. She counted. She counted again. Of course it wouldn’t change. Of course she had to be trapped here, in a room with the person she thought wouldn’t truly turn on her, no matter how rude and abrasive he got. No, don’t think about that. What are you going to do about it? Thinking about the times before wasn’t something she could afford. Dier had never been very good at reading other people, particularly not in an emotional situation like this. How could she use that to her advantage? Eventually, she couldn’t stand the silence anymore. She needed to know what Dier’s plan was. If he even had one. He’d dragged her into all this, and though she knew his legendary temper, she knew there was no way of really predicting how furious Straff would be when he found out. And that wasn’t even taking the Ministry into account. “Dier… What’s going to happen to us?” He started to turn on her again, but paused, a truly terrifying grin overtaking his expression instead. “What’s going to happen? Nothing.” He laughed unexpectedly, a manic sort of delight. “Nothing at all, little Ellie.” “Have you lost your mind?” It wasn’t what she’d intended to say, but the accusation slipped free. Dier’s lip twitched, his momentary good humor evaporating in an instant as the sense of threat radiating from him returned. “Watch your tone. You ought to be thanking me. Don’t try to act like you’ve got any kind of moral high ground here. You’d have done the same thing if you’d been capable of it. You just weren’t strong enough.” “I’m not…!” She cut off the protest before it could fully escape, knowing it would do her no good. She’d already slipped up once, and she couldn’t afford to again. Dier clearly wasn’t rational right now and arguing would get her nowhere but in further trouble. But she couldn’t afford to let her guard down, and she wasn’t going to let him get out of this without at least a plan to deal with it. “Tell yourself whatever you need to if it helps you feel better about what you’ve done, I don’t care. But we need a plan, because now you’ve dragged me into this. What are we going to do?” “If you’d just listened rather than immediately mouthing off, you could have let me finish telling you the plan.” He got uncomfortably close, and all she could do was flinch back, even if on some level she wanted to stand her ground. “I am going to stay right here and ensure no one else in this household… interrupts this very important conversation Father and I are having. And you, little Ellie, are going to go find SaeNinn and let him know his presence is required in the study.” By the Lord Ruler, she thought. Is this really what he’s thinking? She’d understood the plan when he said it, but was having trouble believing his reasoning. “Y-you can’t be serious. He’s . . . he’s our father.” “No. He was our father. Now, he’s an inconvenient corpse. One that needs to be dealt with expeditiously. Unless you’d prefer we just sit here until someone else stumbles upon him in such a state?” He stepped back, pointing at the door. “SaeNinn. Study. Now. Tell him his Contract holder wishes to discuss an amendment.” She stood up, holding his gaze for a moment, mostly to hide the real turmoil she felt inside. With every word, it was starting to become clearer that she was even more alone than she’d been before, and that, whatever she did, she would have to choose her words and actions very carefully if she wanted to survive. “As you wish, my lord.” She said, giving him the smallest curtsy she could. He’d given her a timeframe, but that had been expected, and she maintained her composure as she left the room, knowing, certain, that she’d been given a very likely death sentence the moment she stepped out of line. Over the next week, Eliane went about her day, avoiding Dier and Straff and the parts of the keep they frequented with particular care. She kept her promise to Charisse, and made a particular point to spend time with Elend a couple of days a week, though she did her best to take him out of the house, accompanied by his governess of course, to escape the dangerous intrigues of their family. She’d read books to him at the library, or a gazebo in a garden. Even with all the brown plants covered in ash, Eliane found the outside world far more joyful than the bright colors of the keeps and manors. But while she enjoyed those moments outside of the house, she was constantly looking around, wondering if, in spite of all of her precautions, someone could figure out what had happened to her father, and somehow Dier would blame her. None of those doubts helped the oppressive feeling she constantly had now, even when she was in familiar territory. Only the privacy of her own room felt remotely safe, but Dier had burst in several times during their lives, so it’s not like he wouldn’t just come knocking at any moment if he wanted to. She kept her appointments as they’d been scheduled, but otherwise didn’t spend much time elsewhere in the Venture household. One day, Eliane was going about her business, writing letters and doing research in the solar, after coming home from a regular tea with Addison, when Dier felt the need to remind her not to say anything in all the communications and meetings she’d been having lately. He hadn’t considered telling her so. No. He had to push into the room, not just barge in, but literally Push on the metal bits of her pen, making it fly out of her hand. It nearly hit her in the chest, and crashed against the backrest of her seat. He walked up to her, completely ignoring the desk and stood right next to where she was sitting, staring intently. “Where were you this afternoon?” he demanded. Dier often used a bitingly sardonic tone, but there was no humor in his words now. Only venom. “Who were you speaking to? Were you not aware there would be consequences for any kind of indiscretion? Or perhaps I just didn't make myself clear enough on that front.” Eliane calmly picked up the pen from the floor, deciding that it really wasn’t the time to try and explain anything beyond the simple truth. “I wasn’t talking to anybody about that night.” “Are you lying to me?" he snarled, leaning in close. If anything, her calm response seemed to have only made him more suspicious. “I’m supposed to believe that you just go off to random places to talk to who knows what person that you have no reason to talk to about our house, and our business?” “Why would I talk to someone about it?” She was admittedly not only getting frustrated at all the insinuating, but the more he said, the more fear grew in her about what actions Dier could take, particularly when she’d done nothing to earn the distrust and ire. The predatory look from several nights ago returned, as he searched her face for any sign of deception. “Who was it, Eliane? And don’t you dare lie.” For all she’d always hated him calling her “Ellie,” there was something so much worse about the way he said her name like that. With those words, she felt her bracelet digging into her wrist. It was the only metal she’d continued wearing after that night, mostly because it had reminded her of her mother and Charisse. Eliane did her best to ignore the sting, and answered. “I went to have tea with Addison. We met at Kenton Street, in the pastry shop at the corner. She’s been busy helping Maevis prepare for the solstice party at the Elariel Lakeside manor, and this was the only time we could find for a chat. It would have been suspicious if I canceled for no reason. All I’ve been doing, brother, is acting exactly as I would have before. As if nothing had happened. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” At the mention of Addison’s name, Dier’s expression went cold, but as soon as she said Maevis, his fury returned in full force. He seemed to struggle with how best to respond, but eventually, with a disgusted scoff, he loosened his Push. She rubbed at her wrist where the bracelet had made a red welt that stung and would likely be quite swollen the next day if she didn’t put something on to help. “I hope, for your sake, Ellie, that you’ve decided to tell me the truth. Because if you haven’t…” He didn’t bother to finish the threat. “I think it best you reconsider who you’re spending your time with in the future, dear sister. Just because someone like Maevis—” the name was nearly a snarl, “—decides to embarrass herself by associating with a house as low as Tenebriene doesn’t mean I'll let you sully Venture’s reputation the same way.” He stepped back finally, looking like he was sick enough of this conversation to leave her alone, even if he still wasn’t convinced. “Keep your mouth shut, Eliane. I’m not asking. Understand?” Eliane simply nodded, not wanting to talk at all. On one hand, Dier’s threat had definitely worked for one purpose, though probably not what he was thinking. If this was how he treated her when she hadn’t done anything wrong… It had solidified beyond any doubt that there was no way she could trust him, and that he was an active threat against her life. But the more she sat with it, even after Dier had left the room, the more one emotion took over. Betrayal. She wasn’t going to try and kill her brother, that would be suicide, but if he was going to threaten her when she hadn’t done anything, and had followed instructions to the letter, then it wasn’t worth trying. If the past days had taught her anything, it was that it was hard enough to try and make plans for how in the world they were going to keep their branch of the family from falling apart, let alone think about her own survival, without allies. And if she was being honest with herself, she didn’t want to have to do this without support. It was dangerous, very dangerous, to even consider defying Dier, but she didn’t have to reveal anything if whoever she went to didn’t understand the danger before she told them. The question was, who could she run the risk of telling? Early the next morning, she got ready, lacing her corset on her own, which she preferred over someone else determining how tight it should be, and put on a simple, but still formal, day dress over it with a lighter petticoat, and a darker overskirt that left the petticoat visible at the front. She took her hat, and called for a carriage when she was sure Dier wasn’t around, and wouldn’t be for most of the day. She could have taken the family carriage, but she couldn’t afford to alert Dier to the fact she was leaving the house. Was she doing the right thing? Had she made the right choice about who to trust? Most of her afternoon after Dier had questioned her yesterday had been spent debating these exact questions, deciding who she could tell. Addison seemed like too much of a risk, since Dier was already suspicious of her, she was close to Maevis, and her house was low enough that the help she could offer wasn’t worth the risk. Addison generally laid low, but seemed smarter than she let on, but if Eliane chose to tell Addison, that could be both an advantage because of how Addison approached things and a disadvantage because of the position she occupied. There were a couple of other people she knew, but none of them that she’d trust enough to tell them about Dier. So that left Sylvain. While he wouldn’t be as big of a help strategically, he was someone she trusted to listen, which was just as important. So, she’d written a letter, letting him know she was coming, but not saying much more, and sent it off with a trusted courier. In the carriage, these questions still continued, and she rehearsed different versions of how she would explain everything if Sylvain understood the inherent risk with knowing, but she wasn’t happy with any of them. The implications of what she was doing hit her once Lakeside appeared through her window. It was one thing to stay out of Straff and her father’s way as best as she could, another entirely to actively protect herself from her brother, of all people, who she thought could have at least understood. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised. Since the fire, it seemed like he’d only become worse and worse. That was really the sticking point. Whatever the reason, Dier was becoming exactly what he’d resented so much over the years, and thought she was an obstacle to get rid of. She’d heard many times from Charisse that a problem told to someone became half a problem, and desperately hoped that even if Sylvain couldn’t do much in the way of actually protecting her—as she couldn’t disappear from Venture manor all of a sudden—telling him would let her sort through exactly what the problem was. He’d been a great friend, and a far better brother figure in a year to her than Dier had ever been in the entire twenty years of her life. Knocking on Sylvain’s door, all Eliane could think about was that she’d made her choice, and she couldn’t really handle this on her own. It was Cecily, not Sylvain, who opened the door, and Eliane greeted her politely, though she really hoped she would be able to talk to Sylvain in private. “I wrote a letter to your nephew, setting up a meeting for this morning. Is he around?” “Yes, come in. He’s in the drawing room,” the stately woman said. She was dressed impeccably, holding her usual cigar between her fingers, puffing out smoke occasionally. She was familiar with the townhouse, and easily located the drawing room, where she found Sylvain standing in his suit, fashionable as always. Eliane gave him a quick hug, and stepped back, biting her lip and looking down. She wasn’t sure how to start. “Eliane, are you alright?” he said, concern crossing his face. She plopped down on one of the sofas in silence, and took a deep breath. She had come here to talk about it with someone, so saying nothing would defeat the purpose of the visit. “Something happened a couple of days ago. But, it’s dangerous, and I don’t want you to be affected by this because of me if you don’t want to. I don’t have to say anything and we can just have a normal conversation.” Sylvain cocked his head, his brow scrunched in an expression of concerned confusion on his face, before joining her on the sofa. Seph, Sylvain’s constant companion, a handsome Terris collie, came and sat by his feet, head and snout on Sylvain’s lap. Sylvain began to scratch Seph behind the ears absent-mindedly, as his focus settled on Eliane. “If something has happened, what sort of friend would I be if I left you to go through it alone? Of course I will listen,” he paused, turning to the door, “though perhaps I should make sure we will not be interrupted? I can order some tea, that should keep the servants busy for a time.” Eliane nodded, and Sylvain stood heading towards the hall door before she said, “Could you check that Lady Cecily will not join us? I’m not sure I am prepared for her to know…” Sylvain slowed, turning back with a confused look, before bowing his head in acquiescence and heading out into the hall, Seph close behind. He had not been gone long before he returned, closing the hall door behind and rejoining her on the sofa, but it was long enough to give Eliane some time to think about how she wanted to phrase everything. She’d rehearsed it a couple of times mentally already, but still found it hard to get started. “Dier…. he killed our father a few days ago,” as she said it out loud, even if it was all she’d been thinking about the past days, Eliane fought to control brimming tears. She didn’t really know why. She’d never gotten along with her father or Dier—though there were times she’d been closer to her brother. “He’s hiding it, Sylvain. Dier never wanted to be head of the branch, but he did want to get rid of Father. So he’s ordered our father’s kandra to take up the body and pretend to be him, so Dier doesn’t have to take care of any of the day to day decisions. Our house has had its fair share of changes with my cousin-in-law dying, and Straff possibly being more ruthless than ever in an effort to overtake Tekiel and regain Venture’s position at the top of the Great House ranking. The last thing we need is Dier jeopardizing everything by refusing to take any responsibility for anything,” she took a deep breath, having let out that whole spiel quickly, as saying it out loud had really solidified the implications of what all this had meant. “Ellie, I am here for you, but I am afraid you will have to lay things out with a bit more detail for me to understand.” He gave her his characteristic smile, sheepish, with the undercurrent of sadness he worked so hard to conceal, and reached out a hand to her shoulder. “First, are you in danger? If he has already killed your father, has Dier threatened you?” Seph, noticing the changing tenor of emotions shifted his attention to Eliane, moving to her side and placing his head on her lap. She reached over and patted Seph on the head, which gave her the comfort to explain. Dier had called her Ellie yesterday—and the day he’d killed Renholm—and from him she hated the nickname, but from Sylvain it actually felt genuine, and he was the few people she’d let call her that in recent years. She explained how she’d heard the argument when she was in the solar, and had stood up after the thud, and everything that had happened when Dier had discovered her there. Eliane had to stop after a moment, but she did feel lighter again. She felt pressure at her temples, probably from the contained tears, but she ignored it for now. She wasn’t really surprised that her cousin-in-law’s advice about how telling someone helped work through a problem had proven true. Eliane wished Charisse was still around. She would probably understand all this far better than Sylvain could, being part of the family herself, and could understand what it was like for a Venture in power to coerce them to do what they wanted by pulling on the things they cared about most—for Charisse it was Elend, for Eliane it was the opportunity to leave home and spend time with the people she chose as friends. They were some of the only people who they’d let her see, so those moments were precious to her. She resumed her story, filling it in with the details she’d only learned later, like how the signet ring had been Dier’s choice for a murder weapon. She elaborated on the statement she’d opened with about him using SaeNinn to “replace” Renholm, and closed with how she’d realized how much danger she was truly in. “I’ll admit, I’m glad not to have to be subject to emotional Allomancy anymore, but Dier is just as dangerous as Father was. He’s not above threatening me, even when I’ve done nothing wrong. But I couldn’t do it alone anymore. Sylvain, I’ve never been so scared for my life, not even when they needed to try to Snap me.” Sylvain took a moment to process everything Eliane said, and she stayed silent, waiting to hear his response. Although he’d checked that his aunt wasn’t around, Eliane still worried that this information, which was an enormous bargaining clip for any person that knew about it, would get out of hand. She wanted to undermine her brother, but she wanted to do it her own way, keeping control about how that would come about. As the silence stretched on, feeling like hours though it was probably only a few moments, she felt an nauseating heat in the pit of her stomach and a thrumming in the back of her head. An awful manifestation of the anxiety she hadn’t been able to shake since that night. Eventually Sylvain answered, having gathered his thoughts for a hesitant response. “I knew the situation between you and your family was bad, but this… I am so sorry, Eliane, that you have to go through this. Your family should be a source of strength, your closest support, not the greatest threat to your safety and happiness. I have been here a year and I still feel so overwhelmed by everything here in Luthadel. I do not know what help I can bring to bear against your brother. House Hadrial might have some small amount of sway out west, but that is nothing here, not against a member of a Great House.” For the first time since she had begun her story, Sylvain’s expression shifted from confusion and concern to one of frustration and anger. A common reaction for when he heard stories of Dier. “I may not know how, but I do want to help. Just tell me what to do.” She nodded in agreement. “To be honest, I’m not sure how to start, but I do know that I need more friends. The problem is who can I even trust?” she grimaced, as suddenly the mild annoyance at her temples that had been bothering her before increased. “Ellie, did something happen, are you well?” he shook his head in self-directed frustration, “beyond everything you have already shared, I mean…” “I don’t know. I was fine earlier, but now my head is throbbing, and it’s like I can feel a couple of specific points, almost give them a location. It’s strange, something like this has never happened before.” “You’re not an Allomancer, are you? That almost sounds like descriptions I have heard from my– that I have heard from some Allomancers I’ve met...” Eliane was taken aback. “No, never, they tested me, I’m not!” “Are you sure? It’s rare, but there are still plenty of stories about people Snapping later in life. And what you have gone through the last few days… well, it is certainly traumatic enough.” Eliane hesitated. She knew it could happen. Her father had been a case of that exact phenomenon. And they’d never tried to Snap her as hard as they’d tried to Snap Dier. Everyone always said with her mother’s experience as a Mistborn, it would have been efficient, but in her absence the task had fallen to Renholm instead. There was so little she remembered from back then, but she had glimmers. “I thought so. But I do know it’s a possibility to Snap later in life, even if you’ve been tested.” Sylvain nodded. “Do you want to test it?” She was nervous, but she’d rather know for sure. Maybe there was still a chance that this was a medical thing, however strange, and she didn’t have to be an Allomancer. Sylvain stood up, presumably to find some metals—though she wasn’t sure how he would—leaving Eliane alone to her own thoughts and insecurities. Eventually he made it back, carrying several vials, though it was less than the eight metals. He must have discarded some with her description, which made sense. It definitely wasn’t steel or iron, and she doubted it was pewter or tin. That left emotional Allomancy, copper, and bronze. If it were either zinc or brass, she didn’t know what she’d do with herself. And if she was being perfectly honest with herself, she probably wouldn’t use it anyway regardless, except maybe if it was copper, since that would protect her from ever having to doubt her own emotions again. But why couldn’t she have discovered it while her father was still around so she could protect herself? “Sylvain, could we leave zinc and brass for the end?” She knew she could have just gotten it out of the way, but she didn’t want to know. “Your father?” She nodded. He handed her a small vial that read bronze on it. It was only a tiny sip, one much smaller than a vial an Allomancer would take if they wanted to replenish their metals, or at least the ones she’d seen her brother and father take. She bit her lip, but popped the cork with her fingernail and downed the vial, surprised that it was suspended in wine, instead of the strange liquid some Allomancers used, and what she would have expected for a test vial. “Do you sense anything? From what I understand you need to have intent, you need focused desire, no matter what type of Allomancy you have, particularly when just starting out.” Eliane followed those instructions, focusing on her breathing and trying to see if she could sense something. And there it was. An awareness of a reserve, and knowing it existed, where it was, she felt different pulses from a distance, probably from the street. She opened her eyes, and nodded to Sylvain, trying to keep in the tears. She realized, as somewhat of an afterthought, that she’d probably gotten that tiny bit of bronze in her system in the first place from the pen Charisse had given her as a present years ago. She’d used it last night, and as was habit in stressful moments, she’d tapped it against her mouth when she was thinking. “It is unlikely, but… Well, you are part of a Great House. There is a chance of more…” He trailed off the implication of “Mistborn” hanging between them. “I guess we’d better make sure,” she answered absentmindedly. Straff would already be mad enough if he found out she’d had untapped Allomancy all this time that he could have used, and she knew it would be a million times worse if she ended up being a Mistborn. He’d take it out not only on ‘Renholm’, but certainly on her for simply failing to Snap. He’d send her out, and the danger in her life could jump the equivalent of the distance from the ground to the top of the tallest keeps in Luthadel. He handed over the vial of copper, and Eliane downed it, hoping to get this over with. Thankfully, when she checked to see if she could feel any reserve, there was still only the one from the bronze. She shook her head, thankful that at least it wasn’t that bad. But everything was still wrong. After holding out for most of the conversation, she broke, crying, still trying to process everything that had happened. The night Dier had killed Renholm she’d been so in shock that she went the logical route, hoping she had enough time before Dier turned on her, and even yesterday she’d managed to keep her cool as he threatened her, but now, coupled with the discovery of Allomancy, it was too much for her to take. A realization dawned on her. Talking about the events, remembering that last push of love Renholm had used as a last resort… she knew that feeling from the time her father had tried Snapping her. It wasn’t a memory she thought about very often, but now things had fallen into place. He’d been scared. Scared of making her hate him, wanting her to understand he didn't want to hurt her, that stifling protective instinct she'd lived under her whole life that made him hold back. His fear of accidentally killing the living memory of her Mother. He’d tried to reassure her with Allomancy, suffusing her with feelings of love, trust, and safety even as he'd tried to do the deed. And it had been powerful enough that, while the trauma remained, the constant waiting to see when she’d be hit with another blast of zinc, it must have kept her from Snapping. Eliane still tried to wipe away the tears, tell herself that she had to be strong. This was not the way a Venture should be acting, even if she wasn’t the heir. She couldn’t help but be reminded of Charisse, who’d been in a similar situation in her marriage, and how, if her father hadn’t died, Eliane was certainly heading to that same situation herself. She would have been trapped in a loveless marriage where, despite the likelihood of a high position in society through marriage, on top of being a Venture, she’d feel as powerless as Charisse had felt to use her position for good. “Thank you for letting me get all of this out.” “It is the least I could do, truly. But…” Sylvain met her eyes once more, the excitement of discovering her Allomancy fading back to concern. “Have you decided on a path forward?” “Not in the slightest. I can’t risk my family finding out, Sylvain. I’m already enough of a target internally for Dier because I know what he did. If Straff or the rest of the family found out, then they could very well send me out on missions. What I know of how they send Dier out, and the vague memories I have of when our mother was alive, are ample evidence of that. “I’ve seen the way my brother has come home sometimes after he was given a job he could barely handle, and I’d have to stitch him up before he had to show up in front of Father or Straff and be berated for failing an impossible task. If they knew I was a Seeker, they’d find ways to send me out too, and unlike Dier, I would have no way of getting home quickly and defending myself if I’m injured.” “This is your gift, it is up to you to decide how to use it. I confess, I would gladly serve my family but… from everything I’ve heard, yours is very different from mine. Whatever direction you decide, I believe it will be the right one. And I will do whatever I can to help, in my own way.” “But…” she sighed, trying to put her thoughts into words. “I don’t know what to do. My only real ally in the house is gone, Father isn’t even telling me what to do anymore. I don’t think I’ve ever had such freedom in choice, but what if I just make the wrong one and end up dead like—Lord Ruler knows, Dier would have done it several times already if I hadn’t talked quickly enough to calm him down.” “Don’t rush into anything. Your Allomancy is a surprise on top of a difficult situation. It is alright to be confused and uncertain, even angry. But I believe in you. You will find your way in time.” She smiled, thankful that unlike everyone else in her life he didn’t expect her to do anything or make a decision. The rest of her time at the Hadrials’ home was somewhat better, but she had to struggle to stop her hands from shaking most of the time, at the very least so she wouldn’t spill tea all over the carpet. When the pulses finally disappeared, and she couldn’t sense the bronze reserve anymore, she relaxed. With the onset of twilight she knew she needed to get home soon, because he was already suspicious enough, and that’s the last thing she wanted him to be, other than outright murderous. She said goodbye to Sylvain and Cecily, and was left to reflect on the events of the day on her carriage ride back home. There was a sense of the unknown, both socially and in terms of Allomancy, the possibility there were others around her. Now she’d be able to know who they were, but that didn’t mean she was ever truly ready to have to deal with Allomancy being used. Sometimes, she couldn’t even know, and that scared her even more. What if a random emotional Allomancer wanted to get something out of her, and because she was so used to her father’s very obvious uses she didn’t realize she was being manipulated? What if that became a reason for Dier to decide to get rid of her? You could find out, a piece of her whispered. You could know for certain who’s safe and who’s not, in an instant. Eventually, she couldn’t take not knowing. Feeling apprehensive, like she’d just lost some important moral battle against needing to maintain as much secrecy as possible, she reluctantly sought out a metallurgist and purchased a handful of bronze dust and vials. She couldn't shake the feeling that this Allomancy was a curse , but choosing not to burn metals didn’t make her not a Seeker. It just made her a blind Seeker. Or so she told herself. It felt like an empty justification. If she was going to use Allomancy, then she was going to take full advantage of what she had. (Portrait Sketch by Elisgardor)
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  27. Well, we've run out of Pride (the month) but not out of pride (for the wonderful artists in this fandom), so let's see what Santa has in store for us this time, shall we? (but first, a quick informative copy-paste from an earlier post) Those of you who follow us on Twitter may have seen that we put out a tweet looking for queer fanartists to take a stab at this round of Pride commissions, so first of all, if you are looking for some more artists to follow and support, there's several in that tweet's replies, go take a look! (There's also a considerable number of fake accounts who steal other people's art, so if blocking or reporting accounts is something that sounds like fun to you, there's some of that too!) And with all the fluff out of the way, we give you Renarin Kholin and his not-yet-boyfriend Rlain! Plus an entire gaggle of Windrunners rooting for them while engaging in some light tomfoolery. Your artist for the evening is once again lazifyre whose work you might remember or recognize from the Spook piece they did for us a few months ago, and we were excited to have them back for a larger, more complex piece. So sit back, relax, and enjoy a fun cutesy art piece while we cook some more for you...
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  28. Hopefully you aren't sick of Lost Metal art because we still have a couple of pieces in the chamber! So what's today's offering? Why, it's Ranette and Jaxy! Of course, we here on the Shard have long been Misra stans (you all remember Ranette's girlfriend from Shadows of Self, right?), but Jaxy quickly proved herself to be a sweetheart, so we'll let it all slide just this once. But Ranette is not allowed to remarry! For this piece we decided to work with an artist known as Runmien (available on Instagram and Twitter), whose Mistborn drawings you may have seen around the Internet (e.g. this Kelsier, or this Marsh, or these Era 2 portraits). Jaxy in particular turned out absolutely resplendent, the whole 1920s vibe is so spot-on and fits her so well, she is a smashing success. Also, Ranette, that's a lot of whiskey, girl, it better be some weak Elendel bottle!
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  29. Two years ago, inspired by the question of who is the community's favorite mod, we ran a poll to see how we were doing as the staff team. This year, we're doing it again, to see what are the areas where we can improve. We'd love it if you can fill out this anonymous form and tell us what you think. If you feel strongly about any part of the moderation, or even if you don't, we encourage you to answer honestly, we appreciate any feedback you may have. We will run the poll for two weeks, and take a week to analyze the results, and let you know about the overall stats like we did last time. Thank you for your time, we are looking forward to see what you think.
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  30. Hello, hello! As many of you likely know, a key perk of the 17th Shard Patreon are the monthly art commissions - we take a good chunk of the money our supporters graciously donate to us, and invest (heh, Invest) them right back into the community in the form of fanart we commission from artists from the fandom. And, since we got our our final 2022 commission just a few days ago, it's once again time to take a brief look back, a quick stroll down Memory Lane, and enjoy all the gorgeous art this awesome and wholesome community has made possible. As always, thank you for being a part of this crazy ride, and double thank you to those of you who are specifically making us keep this going with your hard-earned clips, boxings, and spheres. We commissioned 22 full illustrations (plus a Discord emoji and a Shardcast thumbnail) costing a total of nearly $5,000, and almost none of them would've happened without your support! The previews below the break include scenes from the Skyward Flight novellas, Warbreaker, all of Stormlight, all of Mistborn, including The Lost Metal, and Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell. If you haven't read some of these books, maybe don't look closely into the previews Links to the full images will be behind spoiler tags, however, so you can pick and choose which ones to take a(nother) closer look at. Graphic by @FelCandy The see all the illustrations in their full HD glory (and avoid the ones coming from books you maybe haven't read yet) and find more work by all of these wonderful artists, expand the spoiler blocks below. January: Sunreach February: Warbreaker March: The Way of Kings April: Rhythm of War May: Oathbringer June: Warbreaker July: The Hero of Ages and Mistborn: Secret History August: Rhythm of War September: The Alloy of Law October: Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell November: The Hero of Ages December: The Lost Metal 2023 commissions are in full force, and you can look forward to another recap like this one in about a year or so. Until then, thank you, and happy Year of Sanderson!
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  31. It has been a little bit of time since we had a piece of fanart to show you, but it's time to wrap up this series of June commissions and make way for some new ones. This final artwork is, obviously, Jasnah who is now queer not just in our hearts, but in canon as well, after Rhythm of War told us, in no uncertain terms, that she is asexual - a reveal that didn't catch too many people off-guard, but resonated quite soundly with some fans. Namely, the artist of this piece, Palomaloid. If you spend some time with this illustration (or read the image description), you might notice a few intentional symbolic touches that address elements in Jasnah and Wit's relationship and just general state of mind. The one you get for free is the color theme of the illustration matching the colors of the ace flag
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  32. Want to support some indie authors that hang out on this very forum (down in the Reading Excuses subforum, most often)? Check out the Space Wizard Science Fantasy Year 2 Kickstarter! There are 12 new books coming from this indie small press, run by one of the contributors, and with stories by many others! And if you want to support something for Pride Month, all these titles have queer and inclusive elements. We also have a very special announcement: Seanan McGuire is contributing a story for the Lofty Mountains anthology we’re publishing this year! So if you’re a fan, be sure to check that one out. Here is the link for the Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spacewizard/space-wizard-science-fantasy-year-2 You can also get awesome things like hardcovers, signed books, trilogies, queer stories, diverse stories (short and long), and even a subscription to Space Wizard! We'll send you all the new books or eBooks as they come out. You just have to sit back, read, and enjoy! There's also some cool buttons, pins, keychains, decals, and other swag... Who’s involved? Here’s a list of authors, with your local 17th Shard contributors highlighted! List of Authors (Shard members in parentheses): William C. Tracy (Mandamon): Lofty Mountains (lesbian SFF short fiction with a mountain/steampunk theme), How to Operate Your Body (non-fiction on body mechanics and stress relief), Fruits of the Gods (epic fantasy with seasonal fruit-based magic), To a Spore Unknown (science fiction and fungal aliens) J.S. Fields (kais): Lofty Mountains, The Rosewood Penny (epic fantasy with lesbians and pegasi) Robin C.M. Duncan (Robinski): Lofty Mountains, The Rigel Redemption (continuation of the Quirk and Moth series) Sara Codair (shatteredsmooth): Lofty Mountains, Junk Junction (nonbinary protagonist battles a ghost in a mannequin–middle grade) C.J. Hosack (Cathy Lim): The Slayer's Magic (an adopted girl searches for magic granted by her ancestors–young adult) Jordan Werner (JWerner): The Witch and the Ostrich (hijinks ensue with a newspaper-critic witch and a cursed necromancer warlord - novella) N.L. Bates (Silk): Lofty Mountains (short fiction) Katie Cordy (Snakenaps): Cover artist for Junk Junction and The Rosewood Penny, illustrator for Lofty Mountains As well as some other excellent indie authors: Reese Hogan: My Heart is Human (a trans man fights an AI in his head to save his daughter) Caye Marsh: Peace In The Sky (a neurodivergent amnesiac guides her daughter through a wasteland) Chaitanya Murali: Ajakava (an indigenous man dreams of a giant scorpion to banish colonizers) The Lofty Mountains anthology will contain stories by 17th Shard authors: William C. Tracy, J.S. Fields, Robin C.M. Duncan, Sara Codair, N.L. Bates, as well as the excellent authors L.R. Gould, Melissa McArthur, Carmen Loup, Rosiee Thor, Rebecca Kim Wells, Maya Gittelman... and... Seanan McGuire! And, if you want more books by Shard authors, you can get any of Space Wizard’s back catalogue as part of the Kickstarter too, including Mandamon’s Dissolutionverse and first two Biomass Conflux books, Robinksi’s first two Quirk and Moth books, and kais’s Ardulum books. Plus all three of the previous Spac Wizard anthologies (Distant Gardens, Farther Reefs and the World of Juno) feature stories by Shard authors!
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  33. Welcome to Diceborn: Secrets in Stained Glass, a brand new 5-episode miniseries set in the days of the Final Empire! Five young nobles are invited for a weekend of festivities at House Elariel’s newly reconstructed lakeside manor, a chance for dancing, dalliances, and diversions. But secrets abound in the complicated courts of the Great Houses, some more dangerous than others… Cast includes Matt (Comatose) as GM and Narrator, and player performances by Ben (Overlord Jebus), Ian (WeiryWriter), Alyx (FeatherWriter), Verónica (Cheyenne Sedai), and Eric (Chaos). Character portraits: Eli (https://instagram.com/elisgardor/) Backgrounds/Overlays: Connor (https://instagram.com/conjchamberlain/) Animated graphics: Marvin (Paleo) and Verónica (Cheyenne Sedai) Series post-production: Alyx (Feather) Trailer edited by: Verónica (Cheyenne Sedai) and Alyx (Feather) Mistborn is a creation of Brandon Sanderson, and a trademark of Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC. The Mistborn Adventure Game system is designed and licensed by Crafty Games. Diceborn is also available on audio: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/diceborn --- If you like our content, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/17thshard For discussion, theories, games, and news, come to https://www.17thshard.com Come talk with us and the community on the 17th Shard Discord: https://discord.gg/17thshard Want to learn more about the cosmere and more? The Coppermind Wiki is where it's at: https://coppermind.net Read all Words of Brandon on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net Subscribe to Shardcast: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:102123174/sounds.rss
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  34. It's been Spoiler City up on this Patreon, and that's not changing anytime soon (can you believe Secret Project #2 is less than a month away??). We are all mostly hunkered down here in 17S HQ, cooking up things both secret and not, and honestly, recovering from all the content Brandon is blasting our way with some face masks and spas. But you are not here for our morning routines, you are here to see pretty art, and this month you are in for a treat! Our patrons have known this for about a month now, but we got the exceptional Marie Seeberger, aka Lamaery, aka lamaery_in_the_cosmere to work on this piece, and we probably should've expected that we'd get way more than we asked for. Not only was her primary illustration of the Crow's Song surviving the Crimson Sea beyond amazing... ... she also threw in a bunch of variations of of it: A version without the storm clouds: A version without the Crow's Song, just the Crimson Sea after rain: A version with no Crow's Song or rain - just the Crimson Moon over a calm sea of red spores: And a version resized for desktop wallpaper use, because obviously we are all going to want that: So after all this we are absolutely going to try to get her to do something for us again in the future. But until then let's all enjoy this gorgeous painting that could've absolutely been one of the full color spreads in the book itself!
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  35. Brandon read an absolutely insane interlude for Stormlight 5 (now officially Wind and Truth) at Dragonsteel 2023, and so it's only fitting that we have our actually most unhinged Shardcast ever on it. This episode goes places, everyone. Are they insane tangents? Most of them... I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I had in editing it! Obviously, this episode contains Stormlight 5 reading stuff, but there are some Sunlit Man comments in it too. On this episode, we have Eric (Chaos), Evgeni (Argent), Grace (thegatorgirl), and Ala (Rasarr)! Read the interlude here: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/522-dragonsteel-2023/#e16257 Watch Brandon narrate the interlude here: https://youtu.be/jhODyoRZUns?feature=shared&t=5100 Read Rasarr's Dragonsteel recap: https://www.17thshard.com/news/events/news-from-dragonsteel-2023-stormlight-5-release-date-reading-words-of-radiance-leatherbound-info-and-new-tabletop-games-r1023/ Thumbnail art is Cusicesh the Protector by Jordi Rapture, our March 2022 Patreon art commission: https://coppermind.net/wiki/File:Cusicesh_the_Protector_by_Jordi_Rapture.jpeg Chapters: 0:00:00 Intros 0:02:54 News, Show & Tell 0:07:20 Eric Experiencing the Interlude, General Thoughts 0:11:45 Other Interlude Speculation, Hating on Adin 0:26:04 Actually Talking About This Interlude 1:46:06 Aon Pendants, Random Crap 1:51:51 Who's That Cosmere Character 2:06:41 Conclusion If you like our content, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/17thshard For discussion, theories, games, and news, come to https://www.17thshard.com Come talk with us and the community on the 17th Shard Discord: https://discord.gg/17thshard Want to learn more about the cosmere and more? The Coppermind Wiki is where it's at: https://coppermind.net Read all Words of Brandon on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net Subscribe to Shardcast: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:102123174/sounds.rss Send your Who's That Cosmere Characters to [email protected]
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  36. It's time for a Mistborn Shardcast! We have learned a lot of new stuff of Hemalurgy in The Lost Metal, so let's talk in extensive detail about those two chapters, and then talk about Hemalurgy implications for the future! This episode has Eric (Chaos), Evgeni (Argent), and David (Windrunner). Chapters: 00:00 Introductions and Show & Tell 4:18 Hemalurgy Fundamentals 16:08 Partial Hemalurgy Spikes 1:03:25 Ars Arcanum 1:55:08 Trellium 2:11:41 Other Thoughts 2:17:50 Who's That Cosmere Character Here are some of the other episodes and videos we referred to in this podcast: Hemalurgy 2018: https://youtu.be/hLM7hql2zFo?si=TgTkBe-wRblY_3_A White Sand Omnibus: https://youtu.be/BEm5TmHAKw4?si=lpScba-QPBRjikjM Our Brandon Interview: https://youtu.be/rkCP04Wo1Ho?si=ZAmOuSu7mlvZLJ60 Black Smoke / Midnight Essence: https://youtu.be/7o5DVWANF64?si=ypq2m9TR1gQ8qvOy Harmony: https://youtu.be/C-Qa5zNS57Q?si=X280mEKTNBpOpwRS Secrets in Stained Glass (our Mistborn actual-play): https://youtu.be/VneUfsu3RrU?si=KppT1qPDLXh8x4Vh Thumbnail by pekgna: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cnw84OtOktC/ If you like our content, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/17thshard For discussion, theories, games, and news, come to https://www.17thshard.com Come talk with us and the community on the 17th Shard Discord: https://discord.gg/17thshard Want to learn more about the cosmere and more? The Coppermind Wiki is where it's at: https://coppermind.net Read all Words of Brandon on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net Subscribe to Shardcast: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:102123174/sounds.rss Send your Who's That Cosmere Characters to [email protected]
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  37. State of the Sanderson for 2023 is out, and so let's do a Shardcast stream discussing it! Featuring a lot of complaining about White Sand. We'll be doing this at a later timeslot than our usual streams, at 3pm Pacific / 6pm Eastern! Read the State of the Sanderson 2023 here: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-2023/ (Audio version will be out later, which I'll put in this post!) If you like our content, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/17thshard For discussion, theories, games, and news, come to https://www.17thshard.com Come talk with us and the community on the 17th Shard Discord: https://discord.gg/17thshard Want to learn more about the cosmere and more? The Coppermind Wiki is where it's at: https://coppermind.net Read all Words of Brandon on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net Subscribe to Shardcast: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:102123174/sounds.rss Send your Who's That Cosmere Characters to [email protected]
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  38. It's our fourth year doing WoTaHoliday, and it's going to be bigger than ever. This year we're supporting both the Lightweaver Foundation like always, and the Entertainment Community Fund, in the wake of all the fallout for creatives because of the strikes. We want them to be able to have a good life while the industry boots back up and recovers. We'll be splitting the funds exactly down the middle. The Lightweaver Foundation contributes to food pantries & homeless shelters, but also makes sure books are readily available to those in need. If you want to donate, you can do so here. Because of the logistics involved, our goal will be £10k. Speaking of donations, Dragonsteel has been incredibly generous and given us some items to give away, in addition to our regular mug giveaway. We'll have details on the stream on how you can enter the drawings for those, so don't miss it. We'll start at 7:30 EST on Saturday 2nd, and run through Sunday at the same time. Personally, I'll be back for a Westlands Fashion 2.0 at 11 EST talking about the costuming in Season 2. You can watch the stream at the following links, depending on the time you join: https://www.youtube.com/live/NdHmzhyLgZA?si=Lfxv_yqvdI-g8PhN (Stream 1) https://www.youtube.com/live/nCwy719dPEY?si=4REBWg0heLhKzRxD (Stream 2) https://www.youtube.com/live/Tl5NbmLPa5I?si=02L8nhXpd-F3XlHd (Stream 3)
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  39. So much happened in The Sunlit Man, that... well, we needed a second lore episodes discussing all of it. And here it is! In this one, we talk about the what's going on with Aux, how you get from Threnody to Canticle, and how some of Canticle's crazy invested geography really works. Also, we start out with a round of shots, so you know it's all going to go downhill from there. This episode, we have Eric (Chaos), David (Windrunner), Evgeni (Argent), Grace (thegatorgirl), and Ala (Rasarr). Thumbnail image is the art of Canticle in the The Sunlit Man, by Ernanda Souza. If you like our content, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/17thshard For discussion, theories, games, and news, come to https://www.17thshard.com Come talk with us and the community on the 17th Shard Discord: https://discord.gg/17thshard Want to learn more about the cosmere and more? The Coppermind Wiki is where it's at: https://coppermind.net Read all Words of Brandon on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net Subscribe to Shardcast: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:102123174/sounds.rss Send your Who's That Cosmere Characters to [email protected]
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  40. Rejoice, Cytoverse readers! The full release of Defiant, the finale to the Skyward series, is coming up soon - just two weeks away, can you believe it? But if you absolutely can't wait those two weeks, don't worry; the publisher's got you covered. Penguin Random House has released a new Look Inside feature for Defiant, which includes the prologue and the first eight chapters of the book. You can read it right here! Keep in mind, though, if you're on the phone - for some reason, the Look Inside is not available in the mobile view of the site. You will have to switch to desktop view in order to open it. Since the previews are out and the book releases so soon, we are getting our spoiler channels and forums up and running. Here, you can discuss the preview chapters (and the full book, once it's out) in the Defiant sub-forum. On Discord, you can do so in the #defiant-spoilers channel. Happy reading!
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  41. It's time for possibly our last Secrets in Stained Glass story! This one occurs during Secrets in Stained Glass itself, showing an important scene the main characters didn't witness. Major spoilers for Episode 5 of Secrets in Stained Glass. You can download a PDF of this story here! If you missed any Secrets in Stained Glass content (there's been quite a lot of it), you can find it all in in our tag. And, for our final bit of content on this miniseries, on September 9th, we will have a Q&A stream, and you can submit your questions here! The Silence Between By Matt (Comatose) This story takes place during Episode 3: Race to the Bottom, after Lucius and Maevis talk, during Dier and Jenna's meeting. Maevis maintained a wistful smile as Lucius left her room, though her insides felt more frozen than the lake at the sight of Addison. She moved to her desk while Addison closed the door, trying to order her racing thoughts as she began sorting through the pages of her journal and removing them from Lucius’s book. She carefully tucked the small note she received into her pile of papers, not wanting Addison to see. She had a meeting to get to soon, but for now she needed focus. It would seem she had one more treachery to uncover. Addison let the silence between them stretch on a little longer than most before breaking it. That was her way, after all, always watching and listening, only acting when she had to. Looking back, Maevis was surprised she hadn’t realized sooner. “I’ve learned something Maevis… something I think you should know.” Despite herself, Maevis felt her spine straightening, brow raising, and her lips sliding into a bemused but casual smile, adopting a posture of nonchalant command with barely a thought. Sometimes it scared her how easily she did this—playing a role without intention—but in this moment, she welcomed the opportunity to retreat and hide behind the walls of her intimidating beauty and high station. “Well…” Maevis flourished the next set of pages as she tore them from the binding and set them aside. “What have you learned? I don’t have time for idle distractions.” Addison flinched slightly at Maevis’s tone, a barely perceptible tell, only noticeable to someone who knew her as well as Maevis did. Or rather, as well as Maevis thought she did. “It’s Dier, Maevis. Apparently he’s killed his father and replaced him with a kandra. Recently.” He finally did it. Maevis felt her icy exterior falter for a moment as her heart went out to her friend, if the title still applied to Dier. So many years and so much pain, he had been doomed to break eventually. Hopefully it wasn’t too late for Maevis to save Dier from himself. She didn’t doubt Addison’s report—the woman was too smooth to be caught in such a ridiculous lie. “I’m sorry, Maevis,” Loras confessed earlier that evening. “They were so smooth, so convincing. I was scared, but they promised they weren’t intending to hurt anyone. And I figured, it’s only money, right? And your family has so much of it.” Addison continued, “I know he was your friend, Maevis, but if he’s in a violent spiral right now, is it really wise to meet with him alone?” Maevis took a breath, trying her best to mimic Addison’s unshakable calm and master her own turbulent emotions. “I don’t know… I’d say I’m an expert on spending time alone with dangerous individuals, wouldn’t you say, Addison?” The words left her lips sharper than intended, like knives. “Maevis, what’s happening? I don’t understand. Have I overstepped?” “When I met her, she seemed nice enough. Time passed and I figured she’d just been dealt a rough lot in life, got mixed up with the wrong people. I could relate. I thought maybe she'll take this opportunity to turn over a new leaf. And you two seemed to get along so well…” Maevis fought back the urge to start screaming as Loras’s words echoed in her mind, to lean into the same fires that fueled her chaotic relationship with Ches. Easy now. You can’t lose her. You need to know. “Have you overstepped? Well, why don’t you tell me? Where did you get this information? Eliane, I assume?” “I won’t lie to you, Maevis, but I’d rather not say. If Dier realizes you know… it could put the person who told me this in jeopardy.” Cautious, as ever. “I don’t think they even stole from you or Solis, truly. I think they were just using your connections to find other marks.” “So it’s someone you care about then. How noble of you to guard them. If only I could be so lucky.” Maevis grimaced slightly as her haughty tone wavered, threatening to break under the weight of Addison’s betrayal. Harden yourself. You’ve been through worse. “Maevis, what’s going on? You’re acting…” “Crazy?” “Cruel.” Addison’s eyes met Maevis’s, answering her challenge and showing the iron will hidden behind unfailing poise and perfect manners. “You are obviously upset, so stop playing these games and tell me what’s wrong.” Maevis bristled. Who was Addison to call Maevis cruel? After what she’d done? “Tell you what’s wrong?” Maevis shook her head slowly, turning back to the stack of papers, picking out the short report she’d received from her informant after the incident at the front door. The letter and accompanying dossier that prompted her to corner Loras. “Why so curious? Do you have a buyer waiting to know what dreadful madness is plaguing me? Or are you just hoping to laugh at the petty woes of a spoiled socialite with your secret beau!” Addison frowned slightly. “Did Lucius say something to you? I know he’s your friend Maevis, but he’s been spreading false rumours about Sylvain and Eliane all night.” Maevis rolled her eyes at the attempted deflection. “Lucius doesn’t lie to me, Addison.” Maevis glanced down at the treacherous missive in her hand. “If I’ve got it wrong though, please, correct me. If he’s not your lover, who is this Kelsier you've been meeting with?” Addison froze at the name. Deepness it’s true. A surge of familiar loneliness swelled, nearly overwhelming Maevis. She glanced downward, blinking back tears before they could gather on her eyelashes. Jenna might be her enemy, and if her suspicions about Dier were correct, he was already following Jenna’s lead. Lucius refused to step out from behind his mask, and Maevis would not allow herself the indulgence of dragging Sylvain any further into this web. Julian had already been a casualty of Luthadel’s intrigue, and Maevis would rather throw herself in the lake than let Sylvain suffer the same fate. And now, Addison, the person who had saved her life, both from the fire and from the ensuing grief, the calm steadying presence that Maevis had used as her compass these last few years, was nothing more than a mask worn by a petty thief. “Who told you that?” Maevis caught the glint in Addison’s dark eyes while they subtly surveyed the room, no doubt looking for easy exit points. Maevis sat back in her chair and took up a glass of water from her desk. “I’d rather protect my sources. But let’s just say I started looking into a certain gentleman—the one who used to visit through your window in Tremredare when you thought no one was looking—you know, the one with the smile. Imagine my surprise to learn he’s not a gentleman at all, but instead a rather infamous skaa conman. My informant though, she knew we were close, so she didn’t stop there. She sent someone out to Farmost. I know about Loras’s debts, Addison. The ones you and this Kelsier used to blackmail him into giving you access to our entourage as his ‘distant cousin.’ So I think I have this pretty figured out, wouldn’t you say?” Addison shifted slightly. Maevis felt herself ready for some sort of attack, but nothing came. “Well,” she said, resigned, “it seems you are convinced. Where does that leave us then? As always, you have control, Maevis. I’m at your mercy.” “I want you to tell me the truth.” Addison spread her arms. “Then ask.” Maevis struggled for words. She didn’t know where to begin. “What were you after? What treasure was so priceless that you’d endure two years of pretending to be my friend? Have you just been skimming my family’s wealth here and there, seeing how much you can get away with? Or was it just our connections you were after?” “Maevis, I… if it was just about the job… I’ve already stayed longer than is wise. The others wanted me to call it quits over a year ago.” Don’t let her lie to you again. “Why stay?” “I think you know why, Maevis. Like everyone else around you, I got caught up in your orbit. I became invested in you. And… after we became so close following the fire, I felt… responsible.” Don’t ask her. Maevis deflated slightly, and glanced down at the informant’s notes again. There was still one thing she hadn’t confirmed. You already know she was using you. Do you really want to know more? “Responsible for what happened?” “Responsible for you.” Addison’s voice betrayed no hint of deception, and Maevis found herself unable to maintain eye contact. Maevis turned away, trying to focus on the journal again. “You’re lying.” Her voice came out soft and vulnerable. Pathetic. “I’m nothing but a mark to you.” “Maevis, you know that isn’t true.” “You know,” Maevis turned back, channelling the hurt to fuel her anger, “you thieves think we nobles are so callous. But tell me, what kind of person does it take to do what you do? To find a girl who's lost everything, and become her sole confidante, her only ally, her… her best friend. To share her secrets, to share everything with her. To listen as she tells you secret things she hasn’t told anyone else. What kind of person is capable of doing that, all while being prepared to vanish with everything they can carry? How can you invest so much time and feeling for a petty scam?” “The Final Empire created us both, Maevis. I won’t defend myself to you. But I also won’t apologize. I was forged by the same empire that fills your family’s vaults with unimaginable wealth. I will say this, though: I never had to stay. I might not have been honest about why I came, but I stayed because of you.” Addison held out a hand, and despite herself, Maevis took it. The touch of Addison's fingers felt electric with tension, and for a moment, the two women who were so often in motion held still, frozen in place by their mutual magnetism. “Maevis…” As Addison spoke, Maevis pulled away. Something in Addison’s voice was too real, too raw. It hurt too much to confront directly. “We don’t have time for this. I need to meet with Jenna. If you claim to still be aligned with my goals, then I will believe you. But if you betray me in this, I’ll personally see you and your Kelsier dragged before the Inquisitors.” Maevis took out the small note she’d tucked away earlier. “They took the bait, see? They’re scared.” Addison accepted the page, giving it a quick read before returning it. “Maevis, after everything that’s happened, are you sure you want to go through with this? These people that you risk antagonizing… if they are responsible for the fire or for Ches… it could be dangerous.” “I have to see this through. I need to know.” “I think you do know, Maevis.” Addison’s tone was so soft, so soothing, Maevis longed to just close her eyes and believe the conwoman’s pretty lies. “If not about Ches… then about Jenna and Dier. They… they are… they were my friends.” Maevis inwardly cursed her hesitancy. “They aren’t good people, Maevis.” Maevis shook her head, she needed to focus. “And you are? The thief who took advantage of me after I lost my… after the worst day of my life?” “Maevis…” “No.” Maevis embodied her grandmother in the command, pulling herself together. “Enough. You’ve made your point. Jenna and Dier aren’t good people. But neither am I.” The venom in Maevis’s voice surprised even her. She took a steadying breath and began taking off her jewels, one ring or earring at a time, leaving only a single metal vial on her person, just in case. It was highly possible Jenna was a hidden Allomancer. Even if she wasn’t, there was also Dier to consider. Maevis had to be prepared. “Feel free to take these,” she said as she removed her last ring. “They’ll be last season soon enough anyways.” Addison started to speak, but Maevis held up a hand to silence her. “It’s almost time. Wait here for ten minutes, and then collect Jenna, like we planned. If she’s in league with them, she’ll try to resist. She’s virtually impossible to crack—the only way I’ll be able to get any information out of her is to confront her directly, in a situation she can’t deny.” A hint of a smile graced Addison’s lips. She was no doubt noting the irony having only recently undergone a similar confrontation. “What about Dier?” “What about him?” “My source thinks he’s volatile. Dangerous.” Maevis smirked, starting to feel more in control again as the topic changed. “I know Dier better than he knows himself. If he wants to make trouble, I’ll handle him personally. It’s what he deserves.” The thought of the potential confrontation was chilling, but Maevis pushed on. “If we need leverage, there’s always Eliane, right?” Maevis gave Addison a pointed glare. Even if she could never forgive Addison’s deception, she didn’t really care about the stealing. Things could always be repurchased. But Addison knew too much. If she had been secretly working against Maevis all this time, the delicate game she was playing could quickly become deadly. “Eliane doesn’t know anything. But…” “But nothing. She’s a Venture, Addison. She might be young, but she’s one of us. Don’t go soft.” “Fine.” Addison seemed to retreat, slightly, resuming her mask of calm reserve. “I know the plan. I’ll play my part.” “Good. I’ll deal with Dier at midnight. We can sort out the rest of this tomorrow, when all this is finished. Keep your word and my confidence, and you will be dismissed discreetly, so as not to attract any Ministry attention. If you need to keep yourself busy, you can finish up removing the pages with my writings from Lucius’s book. He’ll want it back in the morning.” Maevis rose, moving towards the door. She hesitated, thinking again about the other intelligence she’d obtained—the report about the man Addison met with the night of the fire. The one she snuck in through the servants’ entrance. “I started to think she was harmless,” Loras had said. “And then when I realized she might have something to do with the fire, I was so ashamed I just… I just couldn’t, Maevis. It would have destroyed Solis to think he was somehow responsible, even if through me.” Maevis could feel Addison’s eyes on her back, querying why she was frozen in the doorway. Maybe she can explain… maybe she really didn’t have anything to do with it all. She just happened to be there. The words rang hollow, but with the stream of revelations confronting Maevis today, she decided living with the lie a little longer was preferable. “Is there anything else, Maevis?” As she recoiled from the idea of questioning Addison further, something ugly stirred within Maevis, a desire to wound so that she wouldn’t be suffering alone. “It is appropriate,” she said, heightening her tone as she turned back to face her former friend, “for a skaa to make obeisance to a noble when bidding farewell.” Addison’s face remained expressionless, but Maevis could tell her parting barb had landed. Addison gracefully rose to her feet, and made a proper curtsey. “Of course, Lady Maevis. I’ll see that everything is completed as you wish.” (Portrait Sketches of Addison and Maevis by Elisgardor)
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  42. The main episodes of Secrets in Stained Glass have concluded, but we do still have some content to show you! Below is one more entry in Jenna Tekiel's journal, set after the end of Secrets in Stained Glass. Very big Secrets in Stained Glass Episode 5 spoilers follow! But that's not all we have for you. This Sunday, we will be releasing a long behind the scenes video with Matt and some of the cast talking about the creation of SiSG and more. On Saturday, September 9th, we will be doing a Q&A stream as well. There is also some more prose/story content, and a few items before the stream that we will put out. Lastly, we have put out Matt's final Narrator Notes on Patreon, covering episode 5, and shows previously redacted material now that the show is done! You can support us for as little as a dollar! And if you missed it, we posted Jenna's previous writings a while back, before episode 3! A Final Jenna Tekiel Journal Entry By Eric Lake Written 1010 FE, two months after the Elariel Solstice Party A lot has happened. I look back to my previous journal entry and I am... ashamed. Julian did love me. I did not believe in him as I should have. More mistakes of mine. And my mother had him killed. Damn you, Mother. I have never been more angry to get everything I thought I wanted. I should have killed you in that carriage. I should have just let everything you built burn. But... Of course, she was right in one thing, as she can frustratingly be: killing her would ruin me. Tevidian would not protect me. It would ruin Dier, when I need to protect him from Straff. What Mother never taught me was how to feel. Julian...started that process. I went off that river when he died, but when I burned pewter on that lake, I didn't realize, but I had made my choice. My house was not everything. What she made me into... is perhaps not how it should be. I could not be a person who just casually threw her friends and love to die for... a pittance of political advantage. Lord Ruler. She killed Julian. So much more, too, which no doubt she is pleased by, given her hatred of Elariel. Such coldness brought by extreme bitterness, and a bitter woman who would do anything to see it done. But that my mother was so willing to kill the man I loved. She would do it again, to Dier. She would do it to anyone. She is just like Straff. I hate Straff. I cannot be like them. I will not be like them. I hate you, Mother. Regardless of Julian's parentage... I am glad he is not a rebel, and that he loved me, for some reason. I am genuinely so confused, a storm whirling within me that will never stop raging. What I am certain of is that I need to make sure Petrine does not cause more ruin. I will need to be careful in how I act—oh, how it always comes to that—but I can never act like her, anymore. Perhaps I should channel some Dier, though he correctly advised me against sudden murder of parents. He's very good at this, when he tries, as I suspected. Petrine was quite happy with my engagement to Dier, once he renounced his title. Of course she hated him personally, but I sold her on the arrangement, convincing her this would give Tekiel access to Venture secrets. Of course, I have no intention of telling Petrine any of those. It's good leverage, to try and keep Petrine from acting against me again. It's a shame, Mother. Perhaps you should not casually betray those closest to you, or else they will burn you instead. It would certainly be a shame if you died in a fire at some point, wouldn't it? So sad. Lucius would love the poetic nature of that. Lucius told me Maevis is gone. She has to, because Tevidian and Petrine would hunt her down for what she knows. Whatever she uncovered, she's right. Petrine will stop at nothing. But I hope, some day, Maevis realizes I was, in fact, always on her side. Fortunately, I happen to be very close to the Canton of Inquisition through Verity. I could tug on some strings there. It sure would be an awful look, Mother, for a lady of a Great House to be working with skaa rebels, wouldn't it? I will clearly need new allies if I am to destroy Petrine, and I am in short supply of them, except for Lucius and Dier. This is my primary concern. When I am Lady Tekiel, will there be anything left for me to command? Would I even want the alternative, being in service to those disloyal snakes currently here? I think not. Dier has helped immensely. I am more in control of my faculties with him, even as everything has collapsed around me. The river in front of me will be impossible to navigate, but it must be done. Together, anything is possible. How unfortunate, Mother, that you never trusted me enough to truly work with me. The complete catalog of Secrets in Stained Glass content, featuring prose content, art, and other behind-the-scenes content can be found in this tag.
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  43. [ Content Warning: This episode references a character using a recreational hallucinogenic in a scene from approximately 42 to 58 minutes in. ] Welcome back to Diceborn: Secrets in Stained Glass, our Mistborn Era 1 miniseries! In this episode, Eliane makes connections, Jenna has her fortune read, Sylvain shares a strategic dance, Lucius catches up with a friend, Dier skulks about, and someone receives a late night visitor... Cast includes Matt (Comatose) as GM and Narrator, and player performances by Ben (Overlord Jebus), Ian (WeiryWriter), Alyx (FeatherWriter), Verónica (Cheyenne Sedai), and Eric (Chaos). Episode 3 Bonus Content [CONTAINS SPOILERS!]: https://www.17thshard.com/news/features/secrets-in-stained-glass-3-bonus-art-and-character-sheets-spoilers-r978/ Episode 3 bonus stories: Problem Solving: https://www.17thshard.com/news/features/problem-solving-a-secrets-in-stained-glass-story-r980/ Creative Solutions: https://www.17thshard.com/news/features/creative-solutions-a-secrets-in-stained-glass-story-r983/ See all bonus content and stories at: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/tags/secrets%20in%20stained%20glass/ Character & Reference Sheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ouz4MLgL2va5e8dGalUOM5HzWLrjyoR65uWcV1vw8rc/edit?usp=sharing ~Crafty Games giveaway~ One set of either Allomantic or Feruchemical dice. Just leave a comment and be a subscriber! Giveaway is US Only ~Shire Post Mint giveaway~ One set of the Era 1 coins Sign up for the Shire Post Mint newsletter using the special 17th Shard link: https://omniform1.com/forms/v1/landingPage/6196cddcf7860b001f9ecc62/644a92886a3925a0dc01bef6 Giveaway is Worldwide Winners will be picked in one week after release of episode and announced in the next episode. Character portraits: Eli (https://instagram.com/elisgardor/) Backgrounds/Overlays: Connor (https://instagram.com/conjchamberlain/) Animated graphics: Marvin (Paleo) and Verónica (Cheyenne Sedai) Feature Illustration: Diego (https://www.instagram.com/diegolopez_artist/) Series post-production: Alyx (Feather) Trailer edited by: Verónica (Cheyenne Sedai) and Alyx (Feather) Mistborn is a creation of Brandon Sanderson, and a trademark of Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC. The Mistborn Adventure Game system is designed and licensed by Crafty Games. Diceborn is also available on audio: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/diceborn Chapters: 0:00:00 Intros 0:04:58 Recap 0:08:40 Eliane makes connections 0:11:17 Jenna has her fortune told 0:32:22 Sylvain has a dance 0:42:08 Lucius catches up 0:58:11 Dier sneaks out 1:18:19 A knock at the door 2:00:17 Final scene If you like our content, support us on Patreon, for exclusive items and more: https://www.patreon.com/17thshard For discussion, theories, games, and news, come to https://www.17thshard.com Come talk with us and the community on the 17th Shard Discord: https://discord.gg/17thshard Want to learn more about the cosmere and more? The Coppermind Wiki is where it's at: https://coppermind.net Read all Words of Brandon on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net Subscribe to Shardcast: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:102123174/sounds.rss
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  44. Episode Premieres on YouTube Sunday, July 30th 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern! Brandon's back on Shardcast! In this episode we discuss all sorts of spoiler questions from The Lost Metal, Tress of the Emerald Sea, and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and other cosmere questions. Brandon is awesome as always and we really thank him for his time here! Enjoy, there are some very interesting new things here, like a title for Era 3 and... more dragons than you would expect. It's a shorter episode, but Brandon is super busy, so we hope you don't mind! On this episode we have Evgeni (Argent), Matt (Comatose), Verónica (Cheyenne Sedai), and of course the man himself, Brandon Sanderson. Also featuring Producer Cognitive Shadow Eric and Brandon roasting him. But Brandon roasts Evgeni as well, so that's good too. 00:00 Intro & Spoiler Policy 1:55 How Are You? Mini Stormlight Update 3:43 Spoilery Questions, Marasi and Ghostbloods 9:50 Yumi Questions 23:09 Tress Things & Aethers 27:13 Dragons 32:36 Assorted Other Questions 42:37 Lightning Round 48:40 Misc. Things, Spoiler Streams and AI Art If you like our content, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/17thshard For discussion, theories, games, and news, come to https://www.17thshard.com Come talk with us and the community on the 17th Shard Discord: https://discord.gg/17thshard Want to learn more about the cosmere and more? The Coppermind Wiki is where it's at: https://coppermind.net Read all Words of Brandon on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net Subscribe to Shardcast: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:102123174/sounds.rss Send your Who's That Cosmere Characters to [email protected]
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  45. Alas. We suspected that this would be the case for some time now, but it has finally be confirmed: Stormlight 5 won't be coming until 2024. Though the reason why certainly isn't quite what we expected... Brandon Sanderson did a Reddit AMA (ask me anything) with subreddit r/books last week, and u/VeryNiceName16 asked about the plan for the "Stormlight 4.5 novella" (tentatively titled Horneater) amid everything else going on in 2023. Which, if you've give a moment of thought for Brandon's release schedule for 2023, is a darn good question! We've got four Secret Project books, Defiant (Skyward 4), AND supposedly Stormlight Archive 5? Not to mention the Words of Radiance leatherbounds and several other smaller projects that might be coming along. I don't know about you, but I'm already sweating thinking about how much work it will be just to keep up! Progress on Stormlight 5 has been slow of course, and Brandon finally confirmed what we all expected: the Stormlight 5 release just isn't going to happen in 2023 after all. While some people might be bummed by this, I have to say that I'm honestly a bit relieved. With so much content coming out, I'm more than grateful that we're getting a bit of extra time so that we can properly digest it all. This delay should come as no surprise. Brandon's fastest turnaround time on a Stormlight book was Rhythm of War, which he started writing in early 2019 and was able to finish by the end of that year. Sanderson's plan was to start Stormlight 5 at the beginning of this year to hit the November 2023 release... Well, we're currently a little over halfway through the year and the first draft status bar is sitting at a mere 7%, with a few more weeks of Secret Project 3 revisions still on his plate first. Keep in mind Brandon will still have to work on revisions for Secret Project 4 and Defiant at some point as well. All of that to say, it would seem that he's roughly 6 months behind schedule as it stands, and that could slip a bit further. Brandon stressed at JordanCon 2021 that he will allow Stormlight 5's schedule to slide back if necessary. It's the "end of a sequence," as he called it, and he needs to make sure that sequence sticks the landing. Brandon went a step further though to clarify why Stormlight 5 has been a bit slow-going, and it's not primarily due to the Secret Projects or any other writing projects: it's movie and television stuff. It was ALSO at JordcanCon 2021 that Sanderson gave one of the biggest teases about about potential adaptations in quite some time: saying that if we "read in between the lines" we might be able to put some things together even though he couldn't announce anything official. In the recent AMA, he opened up a bit more on this saying: "This is the year that Hollywood came calling." With the success lately of various fantasy properties proving that Game of Thrones wasn't a fluke, streaming services, execs, and producers are on the hunt for more. Guess whose name shows up as the top bestselling author with no adaptations made? Brandon Sanderson has been getting a lot of their attention, and the recent Secret Project Kickstarter success only added more fuel to the fire. The result? Lots of phone calls and lots of meetings with several major streaming services and studios. (Netflix was one he named in particular.) Brandon explained earlier in the AMA that he's doing everything he can to earn a relatively high level of involvement and creative control over any adaptations that come about, and the bargaining power that he seems to hold is sure to be a big help. Apparently Hollywood doesn't know what to do with someone who doesn't need their money? It's important to stress that we do NOT know the status of any movie or television deals. While it's possible that something in particular is in progress, it's also possible that Sanderson is still working through negotiations to make sure they get the best deal they can. And let's not forget that even from the time of an announcement, it's a long road to seeing an adaptation on our screens. One thing seems clear however: it's a question of when, not if. The same is thankfully true of Stormlight Archive novels. While Stormlight 5 is expected to be delayed, we at least know that we can trust Sanderson to get it done as soon as he is able. As for u/VeryNiceName16's question that sparked all this? Brandon did confirm that Horneater is very much on his to-do list after Stormlight 5 is written. So perhaps we'll get a little something extra to tide us over in the months before the next novel? Which I say as if half a dozen other books in 2023 aren't already enough to do that!
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  46. Defiant, the fourth Skyward came out on the 21st, and so it's time to talk about it! Did Brandon stick the landing? As it so happens, he absolutely did! This episode we have Eric (Chaos), Ian (Weiry), Jessie (Lady Lameness), and Ene (AonEne). Our next episode will be a livestream on State of the Sanderson! Thumbnail art is the US Defiant cover by Charlie Bowater. Chapters: 00:00 Introductions 1:03 Spoiler-Free Reactions 5:44 Spensa Character Relationships 16:49 Some Complaining 34:48 Gran-Gran 49:25 Brade 1:02:43 Delvers, Slugs, and the Ending 1:19:22 Luna 1:26:20 Skyward Flight 1:32:31 The Future, Skyward Legacy 1:52:46 Who's That Cytoverse Character 1:46:40 Final Thoughts If you like our content, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/17thshard For discussion, theories, games, and news, come to https://www.17thshard.com Come talk with us and the community on the 17th Shard Discord: https://discord.gg/17thshard Want to learn more about the cosmere and more? The Coppermind Wiki is where it's at: https://coppermind.net Read all Words of Brandon on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net Subscribe to Shardcast: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:102123174/sounds.rss Send your Who's That Cosmere Characters to [email protected]
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  47. Episode premieres August 20th, 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern. Welcome to the the finale for Diceborn: Secrets in Stained Glass, our Mistborn Era 1 miniseries! It all leads to this... Secrets are revealed, confessions are given, and the mysteries of this dangerous night are unraveled. Who's behind it all, and what do they really want? Only one way to find out. Cast includes Matt (Comatose) as GM and Narrator, and player performances by Ben (Overlord Jebus), Ian (WeiryWriter), Alyx (FeatherWriter), Verónica (Cheyenne Sedai), and Eric (Chaos). See all bonus content and stories at: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/tags/secrets in stained glass/ Character & Reference Sheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ouz4MLgL2va5e8dGalUOM5HzWLrjyoR65uWcV1vw8rc/edit ~Crafty Games giveaway~ One set of either Allomantic or Feruchemical dice. Just leave a comment and be a subscriber! Giveaway is US only. ~Shire Post Mint giveaway~ One set of the Era 1 coins. Sign up for the Shire Post Mint newsletter using the special 17th Shard link: https://omniform1.com/forms/v1/landingPage/6196cddcf7860b001f9ecc62/644a92886a3925a0dc01bef6 Giveaway is worldwide. Winners will be picked in one week after release of episode and announced in the next episode. Character portraits: Eli (https://instagram.com/elisgardor/) Backgrounds/Overlays: Connor (https://instagram.com/conjchamberlain/) Animated graphics: Marvin (Paleo) and Verónica (Cheyenne Sedai) Series post-production: Alyx (Feather) Trailer edited by: Verónica (Cheyenne Sedai) and Alyx (Feather) Mistborn is a creation of Brandon Sanderson, and a trademark of Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC. The Mistborn Adventure Game system is designed and licensed by Crafty Games. Diceborn is also available on audio: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/diceborn Chapters: 0:00:00 Intro 0:06:43 Recap 0:13:55 Meeting with Maevis 1:24:52 The Trash Trio Talks 1:37:54 Sylvain Makes His Choice 1:47:48 Intermission 1:53:30 Getting to the Bottom of It 2:46:05 Summoned Downstairs 2:55:39 Making Reports, Making Plans 3:09:55 Epilogues 3:43:46 Conclusion If you like our content, support us on Patreon, for exclusive items and more: https://www.patreon.com/17thshard For discussion, theories, games, and news, come to https://www.17thshard.com Come talk with us and the community on the 17th Shard Discord: https://discord.gg/17thshard Want to learn more about the cosmere and more? The Coppermind Wiki is where it's at: https://coppermind.net Read all Words of Brandon on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net Subscribe to Shardcast: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:102123174/sounds.rss
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  48. Diceborn: Secrets in Stained Glass is finally complete, and today we're bringing some final assets from the show to you: the show soundtrack and the full post-advancement character sheets for our cast and key NPCs! Be warned, there are MAJOR spoilers for Diceborn: Secrets in Stained Glass under the cut, click with caution! First up, if you liked the background music in the episodes, or had a specific moment with a track you wanted to find, you're in luck! An official list of all the tracks used in the show and the moments they go with can be found here: DB: Secrets in Stained Glass - OST Guide. Careful that the related scene descriptions contain spoilers! A full playlist of the OST tracks can also be found on Spotify! Finally, we've got the fully revealed, final character sheets. After episode 3, our cast went through a round of advancements, which means some traits were added, some traits were swapped out, and some stats were improved! Additionally, for the first time, we are sharing the character sheets for our key NPCs, Maevis and Addison. In case the previous spoiler warnings had not deterred you, our characters do have major secrets included in the sheets below. Highly recommend having finished the show before opening these! Player Characters (Post-Advancements) NPC Sheets
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  49. Can you believe it's April already? Yep, it's been three months since the start of the year (of the Sanderson), and that means two things for us Sanderson readers. First of all, Tress of the Emerald Sea has received its wide English-language releases from Tor and Gollancz, so if you've missed the Kickstarter, now you can properly purchase the book in all places where books are sold. Unfortunately, that might put you ahead of some Kickstarter backers, as the physical copies of Tress are still being sent out - a consequence of a start-of-the-year bottleneck in printing that continues to haunt the Dragonsteel team as we roll into the fourth month of 2023. Per their own website, they have now sent out 72% of Tress boxes; hopefully, those last books will arrive soon. The Kickstarter backers do have something to tide them over, though, as the unwieldily-named The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England has now been released for backers, with a new cover and a whole new slew of interior art. That's all courtesy of Steve Argyle, whom you might know for his illustrations in The Way of Kings leatherbound and the Kickstarter Knight Radiant posters. The physical copies of Frugal Wizard are only now beginning to depart the Dragonsteel warehouses, but if you have backed the project, you can find the digital version waiting for you on the Backerkit website. As always, remember that the spoiler period for the Secret Projects is six months; we have created the Frugal Wizard forum here on the Shard, as well as a spoiler channel in our Discord, so if you've read the book and wanna share your thoughts, come and join us!
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  50. And finally, to round off Kelsier's crew, we give you one spooky boi - it is spooky month, after all, we would be remiss not to include Spook himself! We say this a lot 'round these parts, and especially so with these crewmember commissions, but this piece's artist - Theodore Oliver, a.k.a. lazifyre - is yet another artist we've been wanting to work with for a long time. They have a lot of good art we could show off here (like this Siri & Susebron), but none are more iconic than this Inktober piece of Harmony looking after the cast of both Mistborn Eras, except they are all children, and he is a single father of some truly chaotic kids.
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