Elend Inspects Kredik Shaw

A short Elend chapter here, again as kind of a slowdown between larger events.

I’ll be curious to see what people think of Vin’s god scenes. It took a lot of playing around and work to determine how exactly I wanted her to interact and think while in the embrace of Preservation’s power.

Penrod’s Dying Message

Here we get to see the aftermath of Marsh spiking Penrod. This is what could have happened with Spook, had he not made the decision he did at the end of his sequence of chapters. I figured that after watching Spook’s narrative, we didn’t need to explicitly see what Penrod did to cause so much destruction and damage, ending with his own death. Knowing that he was spiked, then seeing TenSoon’s reaction to the terrible things happening in the city, should be enough to let your imagination flow.

In truth, it was a house war—which I believe was mentioned earlier in the text—that did much of this damage. The dangers that Kelsier rioted up and nearly loosed on the city four years before finally snapped and were allowed to run free. (Previously, Elend held off the skaa and the nobility from tearing the city to pieces.)

Poor Luthadel. It has taken a real beating. First the rebellion, then the siege, and now this. This is our last scene in the city for the series; we leave it behind as a corpse.

Note, however, that are indeed people hiding underneath Kredik Shaw, as Elend feared. A lot of them, in fact. As many as fled to the pits. But I didn’t want to deal with this in the book, as it would be distracting.