JustQuestin2004

I'm 99% certain that Canticle was made by Invention. A WOB described how Canticle is a Megasturcture with a 'Powerful Being' going around making multiple. He mentioned what I can only assume is a future story title, The Grand Apparatus. WOB in question If it somehow isn't Invention doing this, I'll cook and eat my book collection.

I get the feeling that the Night Brigade has simply gotten better at tracking him over a long period of time. Like after his first Skip I'd be willing to bet it took them a few years to find him each time, then they somehow devised a better way of tracking him and then the question stopped being "Which planet is he hiding on?" and became "Where on this planet is he hiding?". After all it took them, like a day to reach Canticle which Nomad was shocked by so they must be getting better at hunting him somehow. Maybe Skipping leaves behind some trace Connection that points to where he went, we know from other stories that take place around this time period that there are machines that can read Connections, so maybe the Brigade is using something like that?

Interesting, very interesting! My best guess for what that would do is that it'd grant Feruchemy, but since it's only trace amounts, I'd imagine it would only create Ferrings, so we'd have a whole bunch of Ferrings who aren't sequestered in the Terris Viillage and are free to explore the full breadth of what Feruchemy can do. That could lead to a greater public understanding of Feruchemy and once the nature of Unsealed Metalminds are more widely understood, many people will be looking for specific Ferrings to help make Unsealed Metalminds of their own. It could also lead to Allomancers becoming Twinborn and Twinborn as a whole becoming much more prevalent and common. Leading to many different combinations being around, maybe even a few more Compounders showing up here and there. Either that or it will cause a bunch of people some insane indigestion. Edit: Just found a WOB So it's not really an Oxide in the drinking water, but something that is relevant to the Cosmere and Scadrial.

I'm gonna have to once again go with A-Pewter and F-Steel. Allomantic Pewter enhances almost every part of your body in a very significant way, in strength, speed, healing, balance and more. A lesser known quirk of Feruchemical Steel is to enhance the Burn rate of Allomancy, meaning you can use it to bolster your allomancy like a more sustainable if lesser version of A-Duralumin. You can spend all of your time Flaring Pewter and storing away the additional speed, then Tap it whenever it's required, which will then enhance you burning pewter which will make you even stronger and faster all that. Bleeder showed off how deadly a 'normal' Steelrunner can be by blitzing people at ridiculous speeds, so imagine if they were also much stronger than the average man and could fill up their Steelminds at a much quicker rate. It's useful in a fight, in everyday life since you'd be stronger and faster and heal better all the time. The only real downside would be that you'd absolutely suffer from Savantism which, well it depends on if you're cool with that since one hand, you'll lose you sense of pain and on the other, you get even more speed to store.

Maybe he made it specifically for the Malwish to ensure they would have concrete proof of his existence. So they'd keep following and believing in the other religion he started up.

Normal non-Enlightened Truthwatchers are said to be more like investigative journalists, they look for the truth but that doesn't require that they need to see the future for it. 'Truthwatching' would just be someone being nosy.

I thought that Death Rattles only predicted the future, this would be predicting the past. Unless the Death Rattle is predicting someone seeing Nale's past which seems a bit convoluted.

A few things. Firstly, you can't steal both A-Tin and A-Bronze with the same spike. You'd need a Steel spike for a Tineye and a Bronze spike for a Seeker. Next thing, let's say instead the third person is a Pewterarm instead of a Seeker, then it gets a little weird but I think it's safe to say no you can't steal two powers with one spike. Spikes grant powers so long as they are in the correct Bindpont, the points on the body that allow Hemalurgy to take or give attributes, A-Pewter and A-Tin have different Bindpoints so best case, you'd need to remove the double power spike and place it into the correct Bindpoint for either Pewter or Tin but not both, worst case scenario the conflicting Investitures mess up your ability to place the Spike correctly and you've wasted both powers, since now instead of a single spiritual puzzle piece that could be attached to your soul, it's now been glued with a different piece and can't be placed properly anymore. So you're much better off using 1 Spike per power.

Another, much trickier and more dangerous way, could be to try and form a Bond with Re-Shephir, the Midnight Mother, who also creates and controls Midnight Essence.

Stabbing, lots and lots of stabbing.

That is actually a really interesting question. Dalinar couldn't control them until he spoke The Words, yet Gavilar never did but controlled them. Except he didn't, the Stormfather did, maybe the reason why the Visions couldn't be controlled by Dalinar at first was because the Stormfather was trying to keep his involvement hidden from Dalinar at first? Just forcing him into a Vision every time he passed by without warning or explanation?

I've been thinking about that myself, what happens to the Spikes leftover from the bad guys after they're dead. My best guess is that someone, either a Kandra for Harmony or a Ghostblood plant, confiscates the spikes after the Hemalurgist's corpses are placed in the morgue. Harmony doesn't want the public to know about Hemalurgy and Kelsier seems to, if not agree, then at least isn't going against that policy. I like this, as the concepts of Identity and Unkeyed Metalminds spread through the Basin, more people will wonder about opportunities. Coinshots could become temporary Steelrunners, Rioters gain more brainpower and Augur's will gain more prominence by trying to copy the unkillability of the late, great Miles Hundredlives. Mistings would in effect, become very limited Compounders, but I imagine that Unkeyed Metalminds would be rare due to being highly regulated and/or very expensive since the ones who would be most likely to make them would be the Terris Village, who don't seem to care much about things outside the Village. Or maybe some kind of Set Splinter group.

I think that a Consecutive Oath Swearing all the way from First to Fifth would be awesome, even more so if it's Dabbid who was MVP in ROW. I do doubt that it'll be Notum though. Preview Chapter Spoiler But Kaladin deciding to just stay at the Fourth and not feeling the need to swear the Fifth, giving himself the option to potentially retire and live a normal life sounds like a fitting end to Kaladin's journey. Though I have a feeling he won't be retiring right away if that does happen.

At the very least the Ghostbloods of Roshar have proven themselves to be willing to ally with the Voidbringers and work against the Radiants when it's convenient, such as when Mraize kidnapped Lift, who was one of them only Radiants able to use her powers and handed her straight to the Fused as a gift. So at the very least the Radiants should throw them out of the tower, which should be pretty easy since the Sibling can probably detect them regardless of what they're using to hide themselves. Plus they've already declared war on Jasnah, who has done far worse to them than Shallan has done so far by killing a bunch of their agents, so it'd be pretty hypocritical for her of all people to tell Shallan to back down for doing the same thing she did. The Ghostbloods pushed too far during ROW and probably gonna get burned a bit for it.

The Duststalker Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Dust was lifted from the beaten path with each kick of Viss’s feet, one cloud of loose dirt forming after another rapidly as the wind sang in her ears. The ground blurred beneath her feet as she passed by the vibrant plains of the Roughs, her brown coat billowing behind her. The midday sun beat down on Viss, but it couldn’t compare to the warmth within her own body, the stoking pit of fire and power that fueled the unceasing engine that was her body. Viss was far from normal, she was born with the greatest gifts of Harmony, one of which was her Allomancy. The mystical ability to consume and ‘Burn’ metal for power beyond normal men. The pewter inside of her body was Flared, pushed to the utmost limit and granting her body the speed and endurance that made a horse unneeded. The sensation of it felt almost divine, all her fatigue from running for miles was drowned out by the boundless energy that pushed her to move. Within minutes she finally began to approach Isaeuc’s Bend, a town built next to a river that flowed straight from the Elendel Basin. Like most towns it was a hardy place built by people who were hardy themselves from their lives in the Roughs. Viss did not slow down, instead she tried to push her legs just a bit harder, reaching the town faster could make today the day she finally caught up to her prey. As she grew closer, she began to use her other gift, she began to lightly tap her tinminds. She was more than just an Allomancer, being also blessed on birth by its favored cousin, Feruchemy. The ability to store away an aspect of oneself within metal, then bolster it at a later time. Her sight extended, the whispers of the wind grew louder, and she could more keenly feel its caress across her face. Even over a mile from the town, her heightened senses allowed her to see that her effort was for naught, she could hear no screaming or shooting coming from it, but she could see the signs of damage. She was too late. The town had already been attacked. Viss lowered her Flare to a Burn, her body losing some of its strength and she could now notice its fatigue. She slowed herself from a sprint to a speedy stroll, she didn’t want to startle any of the townsfolk by rushing on through like Ironeyes was on her heels. She slowly caught her breath as she walked into Isauec’s Bend, she reached into her coat and pulled out one of her waterskins and started gulping down its contents. Pewter dragging, the act of running for miles while burning pewter, was harsh on the body, and she had run a long way. She could also feel her body’s store of pewter running low. Both problems handled as the tangy water passed through her lips. Most Allomancers liked to keep their metal flakes in little glass vials, but Viss preferred to keep her pewter flakes in her waterskins. Not only were the leathery containers less likely to break under stress, but mixing her pewter with her water supply made it too poisonous to drink for anyone other than a Pewterarm like herself. Soon enough she put the empty waterskin back inside her coat, she had already drunk through most of them during her pewter drag to the town, so she’d need to resupply soon. With her thirst quenched and her pewter refilled she walked on. She kept tapping her Tinminds at a steady pace, the lessons pounded into her head told her to always keep her senses sharpened, to keep her guard up at all times. A dusty frontier town like any other, if a little bigger due to its river helping connect it to True Madil, to the Railway if indirectly. Though unlike most towns, it’d joined the unfortunate club of getting its nose bloodied by a pack of exceptionally vicious outlaws. The further she walked into town the more she could spot signs of a fight. Doors of houses either hung ajar or on the floor with many windows shattered. She paused as she spotted a dry patch of blood staining the porch of a house, her nose easily picking up the scent of iron in the air. Her fists clenched tightly. People had died during this attack, she’d been to other towns that were also attacked, following the trail of misery left behind, she knew there’d be casualties by the time she arrived. But maybe if she could have gotten here sooner... Viss shook those thoughts away, they wouldn’t help anyone right now, moving forward would. She couldn’t let the deaths of innocents slow her down, not when she was so close, only a day or two behind by her reckoning. Her prey came to mind, a gang that called themselves the Iron Raiders, a group of dangerous criminals that popped out of the woodwork months ago, leaving a bloody trail as they hit town after town. They were nomadic, never staying in an area long enough for reinforcements to arrive. But such a small group, less than twenty in number based on the descriptions she’d gotten, shouldn’t have had the ability to cause so much damage, at least not this quickly and not without losing enough members to be crippled. The answer? Metalborn, it had to be. People born with abilities just like her. She’d heard the descriptions of them, a Coinshot and a Brute. They would be dangerous, even for her. She’d need to exercise utmost caution, going up against a band of trigger-happy outlaws would be dangerous enough, she wasn’t bullet-proof after all, but the presence of Metalborn added a whole new level of risk. Then the leaders of this group, two brothers of Koloss blood. Thev and Kev. Their list of crimes long enough to hang a man with, though the younger brother Kev was the worse of the two, ripping people limb from limb just for kicks. Thev, the older brother, was likely the brains of the operation, though no less ruthless. Together they’d formed a gang to become the newest blight on the Roughs, attacking innocents, taking whatever they wanted and leaving blood and bodies in their wake. She was confident in her own talents, she’d hunted down outlaws, even groups of outlaws before. She’d even had to pick a fight with a few lone Metalborn in the past. But this would be worse, this group were savages with guns and powers beyond mortal men. She’d feel far more comfortable with some backup, which meant she’d need to find the authority of this town. Viss focused less on her thoughts as she had finally found some of the citizens. In a settlement this size she’d normally see people walking around everywhere. But the outskirts of town were nearly completely empty. Viss supposed that most townsfolk were simply still in hiding further inside town, having barricaded themselves together and awaiting a second attack that wasn’t coming. She normally wouldn’t complain, she was no fan of crowds. But being within a ghost town wasn’t very appealing either, so she simply took the growing number of people as a good sign. Though she made sure to tap a little more on her Tinminds, choosing to further heighten her hearing and smell even more. She wasn’t a fan of strangers either. She picked up the scent of gunpowder on the winds, though even with her scent being so bolstered it was still faint. She debated whether she should ask for directions to the Bend’s town hall, but upon picking up the normally inaudible murmurs of worry from the people she was starting to pass, she decided to not bother. She’d find her own way. Though it was a shame that a sense of direction wasn’t something she could tap, she checked, it would make navigating new places so much easier. Thankfully all she’d need to do was find the biggest building in town. Whether in the Basin or not, leaders always did like compensating one way or another. She found it after a little wandering, it looked almost pristine. Stone cobbled on its foundation, logs made up its walls, with ceramic tiles on the roof that almost gleamed in the sunlight, and a giant hole on its second floor. There were men in uniforms standing beside the doors with rifles in their hands, members of the local Constabulary no doubt. When she made her way towards the doors both men tensed up, before the one on the right spoke up, the tremor in his voice clear to her. “Uh, state your business.” Viss pulled part of her coat aside to reveal the metal badge hidden underneath. “I’m a lawman, I need to talk to your mayor.” The man who spoke, a blonde on the younger side of adulthood, glanced nervously to his brunette counterpart. Then he looked back to Viss, “You… must be here bout’ those outlaws. From last night.” One of Viss’s eyebrows raised themselves, clearly she was dealing with the Bend’s best and brightest here. The conner gave a quick nod to his head, “Alright, uh. Head on in, the mayor’s chattin’ with the sheriff.” He shuffled away from the door, giving her clear access. Without need for a pause, she walked up to the doors and let herself in. Viss had seen the insides of government buildings before, though they tended to be brief. The town hall was quite representative of its name, it was mainly just one big hall with clerks frantically trying to work in an orderly fashion. She even spotted a few struggling to shove a horse’s corpse out the back door. What was it doing here of all places? At the center of this orderly chaos were two men. The first was an older man wearing a black suit and hat, his hair mostly white with streaks of brown, his expression gruff as he barked out orders to the clerks. “Virghan, I want that letter written up and on horseback to True Madil yesterday! Hal, get more supplies from the markets and bring them to the doctor! Ganil, when I go back to my office, I expect every bit of horse cleaned out of the hallway!” The mayor, for who else would be giving orders with such gusto at a time like this, turned to the man beside him and lowered his voice, Viss heightened her hearing to listen in. “What the hell are we supposed to do Timall?” The mayor looked incensed, furiously whispering, “Those bloody bandits barged in and took whatever they wanted. They took hostages for Harmony’s sake.” Timall sighed. “Sir, all we can hope for is that these bandits don’t bleed our town completely dry with whatever their terms for their ransom will be. Maybe, maybe we can use it to buy enough time for reinforcements from Madil, catch them off guard.” “There’s not going to be a ransom.” Viss stated as she walked up to the men. Both the men turned to her, with a look of shock. “Who the hell are you missy?” the mayor barked at her. Viss reached into her coat, ignoring their sudden tense, and pulled out her badge. “My name is Viss, I’m a lawman. I’ve been following the bandits who attacked you for the past few weeks.” The mayor began to stand straighter as his face deepened in a frown, “Rusting wonderful, a lawman” he muttered under his breath, clearly not meant for her to hear, but she did. “Just what do you mean by ‘no ransom’?” “Because they’re going to kill those hostages”. The mayor’s face paled, then he turned to his clerks who were equally pale from listening in. “Get that letter out to True Madil right now! I want them to send as many men as they can as fast as they can, you hear me?!” Viss spoke again, her voice calm but stern “They won’t make it in time mayor, it’ll take that letter days to reach True Madil. Days more for them to mobilize and send more conners down the river, if they even do. Those people will be dead by then and those raiders would have moved on.” Mayor Hubrins whirled back to her, “And just how do you know that?!” “Like I said, I’ve been tracking these bandits across the Roughs. Been talking to the towns they attacked and finding their old campsites. Anyone they take, they kill within a week. There’s no time.” Hubrins stared at her with horror clear in his eyes, “Every time?” He asked. “Every time” Viss confirmed with a nod. “I’ve seen what’s left of them, they torture them mayor. It’s not pretty.” Even with all she had seen during her years as a lawman, the state those bodies had been left in wouldn’t be leaving her dreams anytime soon. “That’s why I need you to send some men with me as backup.” Sheriff Timall spoke up, looking guilty as he did, “Miss, as much as I’d want to send my men, I can’t. Too many are either stuck in bed from wounds or stuck in a coffin. We can’t afford to send anyone, not if we want to keep order here.” There’d be no backup for her then? That wasn’t good, she’d prefer if she had a dozen men with guns on her side to even things out. She clicked her tongue in irritation. She then took a breath to temper that irritation into something useful. “Then I’m gonna need to restock before I head off then.” Both men gaped at her, as if they couldn’t believe what they’d just heard. Timall regained his wits first “Wait, you’re going after them by yourself? That’s insane!” “I’m not too keen about chasing after a pack of maniacs on my own, no. But if I don’t, they’ll just get away and kill more people. So I’ll put them down here and now while I have the chance.” “That’s, that’s very brave of you, but do you have a plan? These bandits, they’re not men, they’re monsters” The mayor gave her a look of concern. “I’ll have one soon enough, I just need you to point me to the markets first. Can’t go after them without more metal.” The mayor huffed, “Missy, we got raided last night. Those bastards went right for the markets, I doubt anyone with any sense is open right now after they went and tried to clean everything out.” The sheriff gave a small cough, “Not… not quite. Miss Edres was said to still be open.” “I said anyone with sense, Timall” Hubrins rolled his eyes at the sheriff, then turned back towards Viss. “You’re really serious about this?” Viss gave a nod, she wouldn’t bother repeating herself. Hubrins gave a sigh, “How much and what kind?” Viss blinked in surprise, “What?” “What metal do you need, and how much do you need. I’ll… pay a blank cheque if you’re really going to save those people” He reached into his pocket and brought out a small ticket with a stamp. He narrowed his eyes as he continued “Just don’t go crazy with this or I’ll throw you in a cell I swear to Harmony.” Viss was surprised, she took the mayor for a nobleman, not a decent man. She took the ticket and turned towards the door, calling out to the men as she left “Thanks. Can’t promise to save them all, but I’ll make rusting sure to avenge who I can’t.” Author's Note