Difference between revisions of "Summary:The Hero of Ages"

{{epigraph|Feruchemy, it should be noted, is the power of balance. Of the three powers, only it was known to men before the conflict between Preservation and Ruin came to a head. In Feruchemy, power is stored up, then later drawn upon. There is no loss of energy—just a changing of the time and rate of its use.}}

 

 

Marsh walks through a small town in the Central Dominance, near [[Ashmounts|Mount Tyrian]], full of starving people despite the fact that the area is in Elend's protected zone. Marsh revels in the despair, holding back his sliver of resistance. He creates a bronze hemalurgic spike by stabbing a [[Copper|Smoker]] through the heart with it, then leaves and watches as the volcano erupts in a flow of magma.

 

In concept, it is a very simple art. A parasitic one. Without other people to steal from, Hemalurgy would be useless.}}

 

 

Breeze mingles at a tavern as Spook seeks out Durn in the Harrows, breaking into his lair, and confronting him about rumors that Durn was spreading about Spook. Durn says that he is trying to undermine the Citizen, who has caused problems for the underground economy, by showing that Quellion tried to kill a member of Kelsier's crew which would not go over well with the townspeople.

 

Spikes made from other metals steal Feruchemical abilities. For example, all of the original Inquisitors were given a pewter spike, which—after first being pounded through the body of a Feruchemist—gave the Inquisitor the ability to store up healing power. (Though they couldn't do so as quickly as a real Feruchemist, as per the law of Hemalurgic decay.) This, obviously, is where the Inquisitors got their infamous ability to recover from wounds quickly, and was also why they needed to rest so much.}}

 

 

Elend and Lord Cett discuss the siege, and Elend accepts Cett's suggestion to poison the water wells, though he doesn't want people to die because of this. Elend also orders residents of the outlying villages to be intimidated but not killed. An earthquake hits, providing a reminder that they can't spend too long trying to siege Fadrex.

 

In most cases, however, Inquisitors were created from Mistings. It appears that Seekers, like Marsh, were the favored recruits. For, when a Mistborn wasn't available, an Inquisitor with enhanced bronze abilities was a powerful tool for searching out skaa Mistings.}}

 

 

Vin investigates as raiders on horses sent by King Yomen attack their camp trying to destroy their supplies. Vin uses allomantic pushes and pulls on the tent spikes to turn them into deadly missiles against the attackers. She detects another mistborn and chases that person into the city, but loses him again somehow, then returns to the camp. Elend reveals the attack on the camp was a distraction, allowing Yomen to use heavy siege equipment to wipe out half of their twenty thousand koloss army. Elend transfers control of one thousand of the remaining koloss to Vin.

 

And so, a kandra granted the Blessing of Potency is actually acquiring a bit of innate strength similar to that of burning pewter. The Blessing of Presence grants mental capacity in a similar way, while the Blessing of Awareness is the ability to sense with greater acuity and the rarely used Blessing of Stability grants emotional fortitude.}}

 

 

Spook watches as Franson and some other skaa excavate one of the burned out buildings, finding nine skulls among the debris, which he thinks is significant since he watched ten people get locked in the building. Spook realizes there are secret exits from the buildings. He tells Franson that this means they can help save his sister.

 

I have delved and searched, and have only been able to come up with a single name: [[Adonalsium]]. Who, or what, it was, I do not yet know.}}

 

 

TenSoon retrieves two iron hemalurgic spikes that he hid before returning to his homeland for trial, and absorbs them into his mass. The two spikes which TenSoon had stolen from OreSeur now grant him the [[Blessing of Potency]], giving him greater strength, to go along with his [[Blessing of Presence]], and giving him great power for a kandra. He then seeks out Vin as a replacement for the Lord Ruler to serve her under the terms of the [[First Contract]].

 

Each pair of spikes grants what the kandra would call the Blessing of Potency. However, each spike also distorts the koloss body a little more, making it increasingly inhuman. Such is the cost of Hemalurgy.}}

 

 

Elend, Hammond, Lord Cett, Noorden and Demoux discuss how inquisitors are made, as Vin watches. Cett questions the significance of this topic, and Elend states they are facing a greater force than Yomen's soldiers. Noorden explains that the patterns in the sickness indicate an intelligent force was causing it, and tells of rumors that inquisitors are made by combining the powers of several allomancers. Hammond concludes that is why skaa mistings were hunted, to replenish the inquisitor population. Elend connects the spikes Human was using and the description that Marsh gave about the process of his being turned into an inquisitor being messy to the creation of inquisitors, and explains that koloss are made from humans. Vin says this Art is called Hemalurgy, according to Marsh. They theorize that since the same process creates koloss, kandra and inquisitors, that they must have the same weaknesses to emotional allomancy, and that their enemy is controlling the inquisitors and koloss using the weakness. Elend declares that they must look for patterns in the enemy's actions to try to determine how to defeat it.

 

One might think that kandra are changed most of all. However, one must remember that new kandra are made from mistwraiths, and not humans. The spikes worn by the kandra cause only a small transformation in their hosts—leaving their bodies mostly like that of a mistwraith, but allowing their minds to begin working. Ironically, while the spikes dehumanize the koloss, they give a measure of humanity to the kandra.}}

 

 

Sazed hypothesizes and evolution of the Church of the Survivor, and about whether the new Survivor will play a role in toppling the Citizen. He accompanies Breeze and Allrianne to an execution.

 

They then no longer required a fresh supply of spikes. I often wonder what effect the constant reuse of spikes had on their population. A spike can only hold so much of a Hemalurgic charge, so they could not create spikes that granted infinite strength, no matter how many people those spikes killed and drew power from. However, did the repeated reuse of spikes perhaps bring more humanity to the koloss they made?}}

 

 

 

Marsh observes in secret as surgeons confer about Penrod, deciding to leave the spike in place since they aren't able to safely remove it and since he seems to be in good health even with the spike, all according to Ruin's plan.

The art that is unique to Hemalurgy, however, is the knowledge of where to place the spikes.}}

 

 

Elend and Vin are followed by the mysterious mistborn, but ignore it as they travel to a ball at the Canton of Resource. At the ball, they split up, and Vin mingles at the party before setting off for her mission to locate the storage cache. She detects a couple of mistings, a Smoker and a Tineye, tailing her at the party. She sees Slowswift at the party, and asks him for two men to help her, and he agrees to have someone meet her on the patio. She stands on the patio waiting for Elend to create a pre-arranged distraction, and when it happens, she attacks the women, using a duralumin brass push on them, then knocking them out and having the two friends of Slowswift conceal their unconscious forms, so that she can move about undetected. She changes into more appropriate garb for subterfuge, and sneaks into a building to find the cache.

 

It is a little-known fact that the Inquisitors' torture chambers were actually Hemalurgic laboratories. The Lord Ruler was constantly trying to develop new breeds of servant. It is a testament to Hemalurgy's complexity that, despite a thousand years of trying, he never managed to create anything with it beyond the three kinds of creatures he developed during those few brief moments holding the power.}}

 

 

Vin descends below ground, finding several corridors, one of which is guarded. She uses emotional allomancy to distract these and other guards, and finds her way after a while into the storage cache. However, after she gains access, she gets locked in.