Mason Wheeler

What does the political organization of the Elendel basin look like? I'm not able to really form a coherent picture of it in my mind. Elendel is a city, but the only "guy in charge" we keep hearing about is not called the Mayor (leader of a city) but the Governor. But a Governor is an intermediary title, the leader of a province or territory, or a state in the USA. The other cities of the Basin openly resent Elendel's "oppression," and the one guy at the party in BoM calls a hypothetical conflict a "civil war," which makes it sound as if they are politically subject to Elendel, as if it were the seat of government for a single nation spanning the entire Basin. And when things get too troublesome, the Governor's desk seems to be where the buck stops. But the ruler of a nation isn't a Governor. In a democracy, such as we are explicitly told in SoS that they have, the chief Executive officeholder of a nation is a President or Prime Minister. Apparently Elendel has a Senate with two chambers, essentially a House of Lords and a House of Commons. Steris and Wax's conversation on the train in BoM kind of implies, but doesn't explicitly state, that the Senate is only for Elendel and doesn't represent the outer cities, which isn't a feature you'd expect to see in a national legislature! All this makes me wonder, what does the political organization of the Elendel Basin look like? How are the various cities bound to one another, and how does their government work?

...but Hoid can be a beggar? Meh. They know what's coming. Spend a few brief weeks in Damnation and then suddenly they're out again.

MeLaan's ability to store equipment, such as guns and vials of metal, inside of her body is cool at first glance, but you kind of have to wonder. Kandra flesh is still flesh. The insides of bodies are messy places; there's a reason we have a watertight layer of skin to hold it all in, and there's little to suggest that Kandra are any difficult, especially as they were created from humans originally. (Kandra bleed when shot, for example, even if they can seal up the wounds quickly.) It seems to me that if MeLaan were to pull out a gun that she'd been holding inside her body, it would probably be too slick and slimy to hold properly, especially if she'd been storing it inside a breast, which are mostly made of fat. So I have to ask, how in the world does she keep stuff clean?

Bear in mind that the spikes aren't just "through the eyes"; they're pounded in so far that they're sticking out the back of the head!

How would he blend in? Worldhoppers are easy enough to spot already; you can tell one nearly every time (unless it's Hoid) by the way the locals look at them and can't quite place their ethnicity. But a guy with spikes through his eyes? That's way too conspicuous!

Does Wayne actually have a last name? I don't think it's been mentioned anywhere yet...

Thanks! When I saw Marasi using the Bands (presumably full of stored gold-health as well as everything else) to bring Wax back from death, and then they turned it over to the Kandra for the explicit purpose of furthering research, I thought, "in a few decades they're going to be using this as a medical device." And that just got me thinking about how the rich and powerful on Scadrial love to oppress everyone else, and how in our world medical debt is such a horrendous problem for so many people, and the whole idea just sort of coalesced whole from the mists and fell into my hand.

The Wheel of Plot turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that pass into legend. Legend fades to myth, and some of those myths end up looking really silly to people familiar with the source material! For example: The silly, nearly incomprehensible inner-city slang of a thieving street urchin in one age is regarded in another as the High Tongue. In the Final Empire, Kelsier was a sociopath and an anarchist, dedicated to destroying the existing social order, whereas Sazed was a great preserver of knowledge and bringer of stability. In Wax's time, we see that the Church of the Survivor is a powerful, organized institution with churches, doctrines, and commandments, and their adherents look aghast at Sazed's Path, viewing it as a dangerously Chaotic (in the D&D alignment sense) religion. Marsh, who saved the entire world from Ruin and destruction by fighting off a dark god's influence just barely enough to pull Vin's earring out, who has acted (mostly) as a benevolent servant of Harmony ever since, is viewed centuries later as the Grim Reaper, bringer of death. It makes me wonder what sort of strange ironies (not to be confused with Ironeyes, of course!) we'll end up seeing in the Mistborn Modern series. How will they look upon Wax, Wayne, Marasi, Steris, and the rest?

I sort of get more of a Minority Report vibe from the description... but the reading shows that the story will have a better grasp of computer UIs.

(As research into Feruchemical technology continues to advance post-BoM, a scene such as this becomes inevitable...) "I'm Ruined," Chloe thought as she heard the approaching sirens. It was an odd thing to have running through your head as you lay in agony on the ground, bleeding out. She really hated herself at that moment. Worst of all was that it was all her own rusting fault! She'd been too engrossed in the music playing in her headphones to look before she stepped out into the street, directly into the path of an oncoming truck. The horrified driver had immediately slammed on his brakes, but too slowly to keep his vehicle from running her down and mangling her body. Now here she was, dying. You'd think that would be bad enough, but that driver apparently had one of those fancy new car phones, and he quickly called in an emergency. They'd responded immediately, and now, as she heard the distinctive two-tone siren getting closer, she wanted to rage at him. Doesn't he know what he's done to me? But of course he didn't. He thought he was helping her. The ambulance pulled up and a pair of EMTs piled out, cementing today as the worst day of Chloe's life. "Please," she whispered weakly as the uniformed man in the lead approached. "Just let me die. Please let me die." * * * "She's delirious," Ron said to his partner, Sandy. "Muttering something I can't make out." "That's good," Sandy responded, her voice flat, all business. "Means she's still alive. As long as she's hanging on at all, we can still help her." He knelt down and pressed a finger to the side of the victim's neck. "Pulse is thready. She's fading," he said in concern. Sandy nodded. Retrieving a plastic case from the back of the ambulance, she opened it and drew out a metal disc. She pulled on a pair of insulated rubber gloves, then pressed the disc firmly against the victim's skin. "Clear!" The woman seemed to squirm away from the metal's touch, but her body knew what to do. Gold ringed by nicrosil, it offered a person in this woman's condition her only chance at survival, and the victim instinctively drew upon it, even as she slid into unconsciousness. Sandy finally let herself smile as she watched the flesh knit together, the mangled bones straightening of their own accord. It was always good when they saved one. As they loaded her onto a gurney and into the back of the ambulance, Ron took the disc and inserted it into the Meter. The ettmetal-powered contraption took stock of the Investiture level within the gold, and he let out a low whistle. "Poor girl," he said. "17%. She drained nearly all of it!" He shook his head slowly. "Survivor preserve the poor fool. She's going to be in the hospital for a long time." * * * Chloe awoke several hours later, feeling dizzy, disoriented, and hungry. She was in a bed, in an unfamiliar room. Rusts! A thrill of panic surged through her as she realized where she was. And just as if to confirm it, a nurse walked through the door, holding a clipboard. "Ah, you're awake." Chloe fought back tears of despair. Rusting EMTs! Should have just let me die! Some people thought Elendel General was a wonderful place that saved people by the hundreds, by the thousands even. But she knew better. After what they had done to her cousin Jean... She was Ruined. The nurse looked down at her insistently. "You seem to be healthy," she said. "We just have a bit of paperwork to work out, before we can get your case properly resolved. Your identification in your wallet gives your name as Chloe Anourielle, address 326 Wayne Street, Eighth Octant. Is this correct?" "Rust off," she spat. "I know what you're here for." "I'm here," the woman said, with a tone of forced patience, "because we saved your life after you made a valiant effort to throw it away. Our EMTs report that your condition was consistent with the story that the driver reported, that you stepped out directly in front of him, well away from any crosswalks, thus placing you at fault. According to the card in your wallet, you are insured by Blue Spear. They have already been contacted and, based on this information, have preemptively denied your claim upon medical insurance. "Your healing drained eighty-three percent of a standard emergency goldmind. By the Gold Standard Act of '39, you owe this hospital eight thousand, three hundred notes. You have the right to instead choose to repay in kind." Eighty-three hundred! Where was she going to get that kind of money? But the alternative... I can't! I can't end up like Jean, a rusting slave to this hospital! Those who couldn't pay in money, paid in kind. Locked away in the Debtors' Ward, they were forced to wear a gold metalmind day in and day out, until they had replaced the amount of health that they had stored. It was a horrible thing to do to a person. The more quickly she filled it, the more sick she would become, and of course tapping it for health would only nullify the progress she had made, according to the cold, tyrannical mathematics underlying the principles of Feruchemy. But if she filled it slowly, to preserve her health, she would remain in the care of the hospital for that much longer, her bill mounting astronomically. The bill, of course, was an expense that could be paid in money, or in health. People who had been injured badly, like her cousin, often remained hospitalized until the strain of filling that goldmind day in and day out wore them away to nothing, until their weakened bodies simply gave out. And now it was happening to her. May Harmony preserve me! she thought. She was going to be sent to the Debtors' Ward.

Jim Butcher (Setting this one on Scadrial instead, because it just works better thematically.) My name is Harrillium Dawnshot Coppercloud Dresdrian. Conjure by it at your own risk. I'm a Mistborn. I work out of an office in the Fifth Octant in Elendel. As far as I know, the only actively practicing professional Mistborn in the Basin. With the Catacendre and the dawning of the Age of Harmony, many people believed such things to be gone, or worse still, mythical. A common man might encounter an Allomancer once every few months, a Feruchemist even less frequently due to the Terris community's reclusive nature. But true power, that was the stuff of legends. And yet, despite all our advances in the last few centuries, the Age of Harmony never quite seemed to live up to its name. As mankind grew more advanced, we seemed to simply learn more and better ways for the powerful to prey upon the common man. Oppression, and the discontent it spawned, festered even in paradise, and where there is such suffering, there are things to feed upon it. And when those things slithered out of the shadows and the storybooks, people in the know turned to me. Fortunately for them, but not so much for myself, the slithering had been at a minimum lately, a fact that the latest bill from my landlady underscored painfully. I was a month past-due on my rent, as I perpetually had been for the last four months. As I looked around my sparsely-furnished office, I couldn't help but wish for something to happen that would require my services. Just as I thought that, there was a knock at the door. Ruin's bells! Someday I'm going to learn to stop tempting fate like that. "Come in!" I called out. The woman who entered looked sorely out of place in my shabby office. She was tall and stately, her hair long and white. Not blonde, not silver or graying, but white, pure as the mists themselves. Her dark skin stood out in sharp contrast, though I couldn't call her a Terriswoman; her features weren't right. Her face was simply too... stunning, looking like someone who belonged in a high society party uptown, not in the disreputable office of a private lawman. She wore a perfectly tailored gray suit, the skirt cut just high enough to make it hard to look away, though the tantalizing scoop-necked blouse gave me a reason to turn my eyes elsewhere. At her neck and around both her wrists, she wore fine jeweled chains encrusted with bright, shining opals. My eyes widened as I noticed the distinctive silvery-gray shade of the metal she wore. Aluminum, more valuable even than gold! I got the distinct feeling that, should I burn steel or iron in her presence, I wouldn't find a single metal line pointing to anything on her person. As she stalked towards my desk like some feline predator from the Roughs, I caught a whiff of her perfume. It was heady, floral, though I couldn't discern the smell. It tickled at my nose with the perfection of its scent, as if Harmony's own hand had distilled the very essence, the core of flower itself, into a bottle and sprayed it upon her skin. "You are Mr. Dresdrian?" she asked, her voice bearing teasing hints of an exotic accent that I couldn't place. I stopped gawking long enough to let the words register. "I am, Lady..." "Prepho," she said. "I am called Drowl Prepho, and you are called many things by the people who know of you. Most of them are highly... unflattering." "And yet you're here," I pointed out. "This is true," she said slowly. "I find myself in need of some very specialized services. One of my most highly-ranked servants is... gone." On one hand, every inch of her screamed money, and boxings were in short supply lately. But on the other hand, it would not go well for me to mislead a woman such as this. "Missing persons aren't exactly my specialty, Lady Prepho." She shook her head. "I know exactly where he is, Mr. Dresdrian. He was found murdered in his bed this morning." My eyes widened slightly as I digested this. "Then what is it you need to discover?" "It was a most unusual killing, Mr. Dresdrian." Her lips curled in one of the coldest smiles I'd ever seen. "His entire bed, comforter, sheets, mattress and frame, was sheared through, as if sliced in half by a giant blade, his clothes as well, and yet there is no wound upon the body, not even the smallest scratch... except for his eyes. They appear to have been burned out somehow. But what is truly distressing is the object that he had in his possession. It has been stolen, and it is of paramount importance that it be returned." I frowned. "What is it that was lost, then?" Another of those cold smiles. "Now that, I cannot tell you." "If I don't know what I'm looking for, how do you exp--" "Do you practice the art of Soulgazing, wizard?" I bristled; I hate that term. A wizard is a foolish story told to entertain children and drunks. I'm a Mistborn. But... wait. Had she just said... "Soulgazing? If you've even heard of that power..." I scoffed. "Look around you; does this look like the office of a man who has stores of atium and gold hidden away?" She set down a tiny bead of silvery-white metal upon my desk, and my eyes widened. Could this be? Malatium was the stuff of legend, even to a man like me! "Go ahead," she said. "Burn it." I stiffened, suddenly nervous for no reason I could discern. Then the woman stared deep into my eyes, and I shuddered. The colored parts of her eyes held no color; they were as black as the irises. Not simply dark, and not shiny and reflective like ordinary people's eyes are. No, these were dark as a void, dark as a starless, empty night. "Burn it," she repeated. As that inhuman gaze bore down upon me, I picked up the metal bead and swallowed it, feeling a new reserve illuminate within my stomach that I had never before felt. As I burned the metal, she continued to stare deep into my eyes, and suddenly everything shifted, and I knew the truth of her. Standing before me was something ancient and vast, possessor of powers such as I had never dreamed of. A being that had been old when the Final Empire of legend was in its infancy, who would continue long after the final Ruin of this world. A being with legions of spirit entities at her command, and yet there was some... thing... that was beyond her. And for that, she sought out me. The metal burned surprisingly quickly, and there was very little of it, so the Soulgaze dissipated after only a few brief moments. As the glimpse burned away, I realized I was drenched in sweat. I slumped back in my chair, a little bit overawed. "Who... what... are you?" The woman give a cruel smile. "Oh, I am known by many names, and I would not entrust the core of my Identity to one such as yourself, wizard. But you may simply call me Mabam, Queen of Shadesmar, Dark Lady of the Void spren."

Has that been confirmed to be a Perpendicularity?

Every Shard has a Shardpool, which Worldhoppers refer to as Perpendicularities. According to Hoid in Mistborn: Secret History, a properly-functioning Perpendicularity is the only way for Worldhopper traffic through a world to take place Threnody has no Shards, and therefore no Shardpools. Nazh is originally from Threnody, but left that world at some point and became a Worldhopper. Do we have any knowledge on how to reconcile the above?

Kelsier as the villain? How do you figure?

Oh, definitely. He's easily my favorite character in the cast. But all those little foreshadowings about how all the guilt he's carrying around with him make life a misery that he'd like to be put out of are kind of hard to ignore. My guess would be that he pulls some sort of heroic sacrifice, saving Wax and Steris even though his metalminds are tapped out.

You know how a Leecher burning chromium can do the same thing to another person that a person burning aluminum can do to himself? A Nicroburst burning nicrosil is the alloy version of this, the external analogue to duralumin.

My money's on Wayne. We've had several indications that all that guilt he carries around with him makes him wish he could die.

Good point.

That would be all sorts of fun. But I don't see any good reason 1) why she would want to do that or 2) how she would be able to, as it would require 2 different metals.

She did, but she still wasn't the primary villain of the book; Suit was. But the ending sets up Telsin as the primary villain for #4.

Has anyone else noticed how the villain keeps moving closer to Wax with every passing book, and keeps trying to destroy Elendel? The Alloy of Law introduced our characters, and the Set's plot. The main antagonist was a person with a weak connection to Wax--a lawman that had worked with him in the past--who believed that Elendel was corrupt and wanted to bring it down. Shadows of Self featured a villain with a much stronger connection to Wax: the villain turned out to be though kind of under false pretenses, and she believed that Harmony was corrupt and wanted to bring him down, by fomenting chaos in Elendel. The Bands of Mourning continues the trend. The villain is Suit, a blood relative of Wax, who believes that their society is corrupt and is working to foment a civil war that will bring Ruin upon Elendel. With the way that The Bands of Mourning ends, there's really only one way that W&W 4 can play out: I think Elendel is finally going to be destroyed, or at least Ruined to a great degree, in book 4. I think we're finally going to see someone with the full set of Allomantic powers. (The series is called Mistborn, afterall.) With the revelations at the end of The Bands of Mourning, I'm expecting Kelsier to put in an appearance, but I'd also definitely expect to see another Mistborn, one we don't already know. (My personal theory is that there's one in Elendel already. Some people hide their Allomantic powers by pretending to be just an ordinary citizen. This person is hiding their Mistborn powers in plain sight, by pretending to be a simple Misting.) The really interesting part is the medallion Hoid gave to Wax. According to WoB, Hoid and Kelsier hate each other, to the point that bringing the two of them together would result in "murdering". So why would Hoid give Wax a medallion that gives him specific information about Kelsier? At first glance, there's really only one answer that makes sense: he knows Kelsier's about to show up on the scene again, and wants to position Wax to sabotage/interfere with him in some way. But that just raises more questions, because Hoid generally seems to have intentions that are ultimately benevolent, and Kelsier has a strong Connection to the people of Scadrial and wants to help them Survive, so if he shows up in response to a major threat, and Hoid interferes with it, that would be a bit counterproductive. Maybe the hatred flows more strongly in one direction than the other, (which their encounter in Secret History would sort of bear out,) and Hoid isn't trying to sabotage Kelsier at all, but simply to make Wax aware that the Survivor is still around, so he'll be able to accept it more easily when Kelsier shows up, and we'll end up with Team Ladrian teaming up with Kelsier (or Kelsier recruiting them into his new crew) to bring down Telsin and save the world from Trell? Now that would be a story worth reading!

What about Allomantic savants? That's not exactly the same thing, but it's similar enough. Also, much more "level-like", including an exponential progression of the amount of "points" you need to get to the higher levels, is the Heightenings on Nalthis.

Keep the chronology in mind, though. Wax & Wayne is happening some time after Stormlight, but apparently not that long after. Maybe, just possibly, enough to diminish that age gap? Having said that, the rest of your points are quite valid. When I write something silly in comments, it's because I'm being silly; that was never intended as a real idea.

Technically we don't know who made it, or even that it was the work of only one person. I'd file this one under "There's always another secret" for now.

Where do we learn that Kelsier is a fullborn?