The Stormfather

"I am telling you, we need to leave, now!" He insisted. He seemed... desperate.

The guard paused for a moment. An odd moment, as if he wasn't quite sure what to say. "Thieves." He answered. "Stealing medication from us. They may want to take hostages, which is why is it imperative that we get the patients out of the vulnerability of these rooms now."

The security guard entered the room without knocking. "I apologize to both of you, but it appears there is a security breach in the hospital. We must take you to a safe location immediately."

The man in the hallway stood idly outside the door, as if waiting for something. He rolled some coins across his fingertips, and, when nobody was near, quickly drank a vial of metal. A few seconds later, he nodded to the security guard who had escorted Mark from the hospital. "He's gone?" Carelessly, the man had spoken loud enough for those inside Marewill's room to hear. "He's gone." The security guard confirmed. "What are the orders?" The first man asked. The security guard rolled up one sleeve and tapped the pewter bracer on his upper arm. He tapped twice with one finger, then twice with two. The two went silent, both still outside Marewill's room. Others thought them simply waiting to visit a patient when they saw the pair. ----- Mark continued on his way home. The Killer continued to press him about... something, though he didn't bother to listen. "Remember..." He murmured as he walked, this time actually paying attention and not giving all of his attention to the papers in his hand.

Mark continued walking, ignoring the incessant murmur of the Killer in his head. The man, dressed in nondescript clothing, walked through the hallway. He slipped a few coins into his hand, glancing back towards Mark nervously. Mark! "SHUT UP!" He shouted. In the middle of a hospital. With working doctors. A security guard appeared from a doorway a moment later, grabbing his arm. "Sir, we're going to have to escort you from the premises. Our patients cannot deal with your shouting." Mark pulled against his arm, but the grip of the security guard was strong. Unnaturally strong. Mark burned brass, soothing slightly at the guard's emotions. "I'm sorry, but there was a..." He searched for a way to explain. "A strange Spren, bothering me. I've sent it away now." The guard was not convinced. "A Spren, you say?" He chuckled. "Whoever you are, this place is lined in aluminum, to stop such things from happening, and stop the Rotspren from infecting wounded patients." The guard, too, noticed the tattoo on the back of Mark's neck. He pulled Mark towards the door. "I know the way out. Leave me be." Mark said. "We don't want any of your gangs in here, sir." Mark flared brass, soothing the guard's suspicion and nervousness. He didn't budge. Copper burner, maybe. But his hand is too strong... Feruchemy, maybe? Twinborn? Working as a security guard at a hospital? Seems Unlikely. Mark left the door, though he lingered outside for a few moments, watching the guard walk back through the main entrance of the hospital. He took a turn at one of the hallways. Towards the room he had come out of, probably. Towards Marewill. Mark, you need to listen! They're going to ki- Mark flared brass angrily, pointing it towards the Killer. It did nothing, unsurprisingly.

Mark nodded. "Yeah... I guess I'd better be going. I'll come back if I think of anything else." Mark turned and left through the door. He lifted the papers that Marewill had given them, staring hard at the map that marked their bases of operation. He accidentally bumped into a man walking the other way down the hallway towards Marewill's room. "Oh, sorry!" Mark exclaimed, getting out of his way. the man stayed silent, though his eyes landed on the tattoo on the back of Mark's neck. Mark hurried along, not wanting to deal with anybody who recognized the mark of the Rusted. Mark, he's there to- "I don't want to hear it, whatever it is. I can solve this without the help of a Killer."

"I hope so. I just feel like I've run out of tricks, out of ways to somehow survive when I shouldn't. This time, we might have to win by actually winning, not dumb luck."

"I... Yeah. I'm okay." He paused. "As okay as you can be when waiting for an attack that you don't know where it will fall,"

Mark nodded. "Yeah, you probably should. I doubt that the Marksmen are going to stop, though. I'd bet that a few of them might have gotten convinced from my...speech, I guess, but others will just be more angry with us after that escape." "I don't know where they'll strike next. I don't see any of us striking back against them anytime soon, though. They... Well, they might try to attack your family, try to use them as leverage. Although if they did, it would be odd that they didn't do that in the first place." Who's the most vulnerable person for them to strike? "If Astra and I are both away, they might charge straight in at them. Or, if I'm alone at home, they might show up..." Mark shook his head, mostly just muttering to himself at this point. "No, they've seen what happens when they try to fight me. Their main target so far has been Adris and the Steeles, harassing them when they go out on jobs, but they've never gotten violent, not until the Marksmen showed up." Where will the hammer fall? "It wouldn't be Astra, I don't think. The gambling dens she goes to usually have fairly high security, unless they have a Shardbearer, but surely... Surely no Spren would bond one of them." He paused, thinking. "Lee and Sharp[I can't remember which iteration this is] are usually near enough to us, and quite good at fighting themselves." Depleted of resources, funds and Invested, yet eager to strike again. Where do they go? The Killer itched at the back of his mind, though Mark ignored him. "I wouldn't be surprised if they attack somebody while they're at work or something..." Mark, listen to me- Mark. Remember the oaths you swore. His Spren manifested as some vines creeping along his arm. I will remember those who have been forgotten. I will listen to those who have been ignored... "I... I can't let him through, Meryyn!" [Honestly not 100% on whether that was the Spren's name or not] "I can't become a Killer again." Do you have to be a Killer to listen to one? "If they're living inside of your head, I think the conditions are a bit different!" Words, Mark. Words. "What Words?" His voice was barely a whisper. The Words. "That's not exactly helpful." Mark frowned. "I... I haven't said new Words in six years, Meryyn. Why now?" Because now is when it is needed for you to speak them. "Have you been taking lessons on being confusing from a drunk rabbit?" He heard his Spren huff in his mind. Since when was it able to do that? Mark, your sword Oaths. You need to uphold them. "I...don't know if I can." You've held those oaths for the last six years. You can hold them for however long this conflict lasts. You should know where they're going to strike, but the thoughts of the streets are out of your mind. Has six years living moderately peacefully destroyed all the instincts you built alongside the Rusted? Alongside Sereine? "Don't you mention that name. Tell me what you mean to tell me, then leave." Mark... His Spren sounded dissapointed. Have you heard of how empires fall? You know that the Capitol held control of huge swaths of land across the populated world for decades upon decades. Nobody outside stood a chance against them. A few gangs banding together from within topples the entire government. Do not let yourself be like them, Mark. Listen to those around you. Remember the ideals and the oaths of those before you. Say the words, Mark. "No. I don't need you to solve my problems." He raised his voice back to normal, and turned back to Marewill. "I'm going to go back to my house, alright? Send word if you have any troubles, or if you need anything from us."

Mark opened the papers, looking for the map he had seen earlier, where the people's bases of operations were marked. The three places marked were the construction site, a farm on the city outskirts, and a house in a more populated area. "That farm must be where they took us, when we were in that cell. It did kind of have a smell to it..." Mark wrinkled his nose. "And we've seen the construction site. That house... If we want to get anything done, it'll be there, or in the area."

Mark hesitates slightly, but takes off the [whatever boot is was] boot. "Thank you," He said. "And Mare... Don't trust anybody you don't know."

"Astra and I were looking for those papers that we took from the... The Marksmen. Do you have those?"

"Thanks." Mark went in. "Marewill? Are you okay?"

"We asked the person at the desk," Mark answered with a chuckle. "How's Mare?"

Mark and Astra arrived at the hospital, asked somebody (There's probably a front desk, I'd think), where Marewill was. The pair made their way over to her room. He knocked on the door before entering.

I think some people do just kinda 'get' reading a lot better than others- for example, my cousin, no insult to him, started reading Warrior Cats at like 12, which, fair enough, there's murder within the first two pages. I..uh... picked up Into the Wild (First Warrior Cats book, if you didn't know) at the age of six. Brandon Sanderson's vocabulary is a lot more advanced than a lot of other books, and some of the concepts are more complex than the more physical and less abstract of minds can fully grasp. Also, assuming most people on this site have read a bunch of Brandon's books, most of us are the types of people who really 'get' reading, maybe not from a super young age, but at some point, and our expectations, while many of us have probably realized that we're more advanced readers than expected of us (More accurately the ones whose age is generally a way to say there skill level, or those still in elementary or high school) but it is naturally human to compare other's skills to ourselves, not in a bad way, but in teaching something explaining it in the way we learned it, or something along those lines. All that to say is that we're probably better at reading fiction than the average person, especially if the education wasn't great. After kindergarten (Maybe later, thinking back that far is tough) it was pretty much up to my parents to fully teach me to read. (A lot of education systems teach reading much later, like I think Finland teaches reading much later so the brain is more developed when trying to grasp the more complicated concept of letters and writing conventions, so me reading that early is just because our philosophy was to teach it as fast and as young as possible. READ BOOKS KIDS -Says the kid in the room

Edit: I’m realizing that this isn’t an RP and I didn’t need to put that in a quote box xD

Name : Graenagh Age : 17 Gender : Male Background : Former lesser noble/higher ranked/ I don’t know how this society works Why they were enslaved : Parents sold him to bring themselves away from financial collapse. personality : Short-tempered, easily-frustrated.

I think a big thing you should try to think about is that Brandon has to write the things that people will actually read, and will be more enjoyable to read. An in-depth book centered around a caste system would be a good book, but if it is not directly entwined with the main plotline, we don't need a giant sidequest to explain the politics of the world, though they will be there. Of course, with cosmere books, the politics will be very important, but it is important to the writers to not get distracted in too many subplots, and if it is a book about greater cosmere interactions, the caste system will be spoken of and shown in the large gaps between the equivalent of noble/greater/higher ranks/castes to the lower/peasant/lesser ranks/castes (I don't know which words to choose here) I think, however, its very possible that a line something like this will be somewhere in the book : "Of course, there were thousands/hundreds/dozens/big number of castes, but many were similar to each other. The ones that many of the people used to lump many of them together were (Insert ranks of society here)" Seeing as many of the newer cosmere novels, such as WaT, IoTE, SM and TLM have (Kinda spoilers for all of those) All of this to say : The caste system portrayed in the book will most likely (By my prediction) Be very simplified for readability, but will be implied to be much more complex than the reader really needs to understand to see the pros/cons (In my opinion, mostly cons, again, no offense) of the system. As I write this, I realize I have been trying to say this as a writer, but also, the only book I've written I started when I was 11, and was approximately a quarter the length of a stormlight book, so take everything with a grain of salt- I do have more a writers standpoint than an average person, but probably not an average person you find on a fantasy series fanbase internet forum. Hopefully this explains what I am trying to convey, explication of these concepts that form in my mind has long been a fault of mine. Also...uh.. (Insert weird fantastic way of saying goobye here) EDIT : I thought of one : May StarClan light your path.

“Yeah. Guess we have to walk. Again.”

Mark and Astra arrived at the station, and he went in to ask somebody where Marewill was. They explained to him that she was on the way to the hospital, because her injuries were too much for their limited equipment to handle. “Um…Where is the hospital? I’ve never been there.”

Mark started walking.

Mark turned and began to Slick his feet, though he quickly realized that he didn’t have any light. He sighed. ”Guess we’re walking.”

“Nothing, but with how much hate they have for us, I don’t think they’re above taking hostages.” Leaving out the fact that hostages was their original plan anyway?