To Kill Evil

[Trusk'our he/him]

I'm hoping the title is just ambiguous enough for the spoiler period, but what with how it's always a good question to ask "how to I murder this powerful magical entity?" I want to extend this to arguably one of the scariest Invested beings we've seen in the Cosmere thus far. The Evil.

For this challenge, I'd prefer to assume that advanced space-age tech is not available as with most of these I make (closer to Era 2 or 3 Mistborn), but given how they pop up even more (or are simply more relevant given how interplanetary travel has picked up) in that time period I'd say we can use that stuff if necessary.

 

To begin, it doesn't appear that hitting the creature with Investiture actually harms it- the freaking thing seems to like the experience of regular Investiture, even being shot with it via laser, almost like it's a Larkin eating Stormlight when it sends out Skullsnakes (to presumably capture and bring back Investiture) and as it eventually skulks around Patji's Perpendicularity.

Spoiler

They ignored her, starting a short countdown. Starling stilled herself. The entity was easily as powerful as her manacles, likely far more so. Firing at it might be enough to drain the power. Moments later, the device emitted a tight beam of concentrated light, which struck the entity square in its serpentine head.

It blinked. Then closed its eyes. And seemed . . . happy. At a nod from Dajer, the lead engineer, Tague, turned up the power-making the light grow brighter. This didn't have any discernable effect on the creature. 

"It's feeding on the Investiture," Tague said. "As I warned you might happen, sir."

"What key is the Investiture?" he asked. "Unkeyed?"

"Yes, sir. Positive aligned."

"Try negative."

They did. She couldn't see a change in the light, but it . . . felt wrong. Or, well, sounded wrong. But not to her ears . She thought she could see a slight warping to the air.

The entity didn't respond. Unnerving, considering the tantrum it threw earlier.

IotED, pgs. 356-357

Spoiler

Quick. Yes, he could be quick. He towed her to the other side of the small island, a five-minute walk, to where the Dakwara waited. It cold go mostly invisible, they'd found, and seemed perfectly content spending its days a few hundred feet beneath the island, swimming in circles. Most of the skullsnakes had left it. Only one or two dozen remained.

Dusk felt that the Dakwara enjoyed the light of the Perpendicularity, which fed and refreshed it, so it found this duty preferable to its old one of guarding a grave.

IotED, pg. 391

This makes me strongly believe that the Dakwara is capable of not just withstanding contact with Investiture, but is capable of converting it to Negative Investiture upon consumption- it would simply make no sense to me as to how the thing is "fed and refreshed" by regular positive Investiture and negative Investiture otherwise (also, it's fully capable of forming a type of bond with a human that is Invested with standard Investiture, which further supports the idea that it doesn't have to destroy or be destroyed by regular Investiture upon contact).

This actually reminds me of how Ruin's and Preservation's power acted like Investiture and anti-Investiture in Era 1, but can be mixed together as long as some directing force is at play.

Unfortunately for us, that means we probably can't just blow up the dang thing with heaps of Investiture, at least not within reason. Maybe we can overfeed it and slow it down or make it go catatonic as arcanists apparently have (IotED pg. 252. Honestly makes me think of Nightblood's overfeeding), but it's obviously not a permanent solution.

 

Nightblood may be a solution, ripping the creature apart, at least enough to permanently wound or maybe unravel and kill it outright even if it isn't fully consumed (or if it attacks Nightblood in return).

Without resulting to McGuffins, Hemalurgy is looking pretty appealing. Get some giant spikes and some powerful steel Allomancy or mechanical launching devices, slam the hunks of metal into it and tear off sizable chunks of Spiritweb. Repeat until dead.

This could even yield a unique type of Investiture that could be harnessed afterwards.

 

speaking of which, non-lethal methods of containing or even utilizing an Evil might be easier. Capturing it in a Perfect gemstone like the King's Drop- which could be harnessed for some kind of uber-Fabrial- or maybe using a highly Invested person or people to warp it into a creature that must obey new rules, as was happened to the Dakwara.

 

Any ideas on more unique solutions to destroy, or at least reliably contain the Evil?

Edited February 21 by Trusk'our

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

4 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Any ideas on more unique solutions to destroy, or at least reliably contain the Evil?

Divine Intervention? Get a Shard involved and Smite the bugger. Of course with how little most care about things outside their worlds and how most Eidoliths don't go near populations, that's much easier said than done.

Could also be just get a massive aluminum net, probably do some tweaking with an Alloy or something to strengthen it enough then drop it on the Evil.

Silver railguns to cause damage? Shades get hurt by the stuff and the Evils are kind of like bigger, meaner versions of Shades.

[Frustration]

Well assuming things like Dawnshards and Nightblood are off the table, I recommend using a Tai-Na gemheart. The gemstone would be the size of a small house, and if a Connection could be formed like Starlight did with the one Evil at the very start of the book you might be able to trap one like Melishi did with BAM.