Spook

Spook
by Ben McSweeney
Family Parents Jedal, Margel Relatives Clubs
Born	1007
Abilities	Tineye, Mistborn, Hemalurgist
Titles	Survivor of the Flames, Lord Mistborn
Aliases	Jedal, Lestibournes
Groups	Kelsier's crew, Venture army
Birthplace	Eastern Dominance
Residence	Luthadel
Ethnicity	Skaa
Homeworld	Scadrial
Universe	Cosmere

Spook is a skaa Misting on Scadrial. Served on Kelsier’s crew and later for Elend and Vin Venture. He eventually became Emperor and ruled for many years.

Appearance and Personality

• Images of Spook
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  by Laura MacMahonPortrait
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  Spook by Ben McSweeney

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  Spook by User: Botanicaxu

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  With Vin by User: Botanicaxu

He is a Tineye, and Clubs' nephew. He is fifteen years old during the Collapse. Spook started as a shy boy. The main reason was that he talks “High Imperial”, which is an ancient and important language, this causes him not to be fully understood with the rest of the crew.

One year later, he was much more confident. He had grown out of using his street cant, just as he’d managed to grow out of most of his clothing. Well over six feet tall, the sixteen-year-old young man hardly resembled the gangly boy of a year before. He wore a beard as disguise.

It is around this time that he starts to show his like for women, almost any type. He doesn’t get much response, but he likes to flirt a lot.

His confidence is however not constant, and he has a feeling of inferiority, of being invisible, dismissible and ignored. After Club’s death he adds to this a sense of guilt for leaving he crew and trying to escape Luthadel taking Vin and Elend. The greatest consequence was for him to keep burning tin for a year and sensing it all. He had a huge desire to feel useful and being recognized for it. ^[expand]

History

Named Jedal after his father, he was born and raised in the Eastern Lands, near the wastelands of grit and sand. It was many years before the Collapse, and the Lord Ruler still lived. He was a dirty, ragged thing—like most other skaa children in the Final Empire. He snapped at five years old as Tineye and was physical and mentally mistreated by his father and other Skaa. His mother Margel called for his brother Clubs asking him to come and save him. He did and in exchange for his nephew he gave a bag of coins to his father. When leaving the house, and asked the boy for his name, and due to his hatred of his father, he used the name Lestibournes' as reference to the Eastern street slang phrase, 'lefting I'm born', which means 'I've been abandoned'. He would later be renamed Spook by Kelsier. In his family it had been his grandfather who had had noble blood. Although it is not mentioned explicitly it is likely that it was his grandfather on his mother's side, as Clubs was also an Allomancer. He also mentions that he never knew his grandfather, having grown up on the streets.

The Skaa rebellion

During the skaa rebellion Spook is mainly involved as a sentry with important watches, or lookout for the crew's hideout. He participates in the crew's planning sessions, but rarely contributes to them other than serving drinks or getting things. He is captured along with OreSeur and were being taken to the square for execution in the first cart of a caravan, but were saved by Kelsier, Ham and the rest of the crew. After that, during the last battle with the Lord Ruler, he fetched the apprentices and led them to be messengers.

Siege of Luthadel

He did not have relevant tasks during this time other than “packman”, coachman, honor guard to Elend or spying, until the crew asks him to help them lead Elend and Vin away from Luthadel so that they would not be killed in the siege. He leads them away to the Terris mountains under the pretense of showing Vin to the Well of Ascension. Vin and Elend eventually realize that they have been tricked, and Vin is able to return and save Luthadel.

Urteau

Elend and Vin sent him to Urteau to gather as much information as he could about the Citizen and his government there. He was a very good at sneaking into the Citizen’s house, where he went not only to listen to important information of the city, confirming the Quellion’s (the Citizen) ideology and concerns on Elend as tyrant; but to watch his sister Beldre. Spook liked her for her beauty and her sadness. He becomes so sensitive to light that he has to wear a blind fold; however, his other sharpened senses are able to make up for the inconvenience.

He scouted the city and understood the mood of the people. He was horrified with the killings of not only nobles but their descendants and all other inhuman practices in the City. Spook hired a thief lord Durn who helped him get some news from the City, he took him to the execution of 10 skaa with noble blood but asked him to count the skulls.

During the speech after the execution, Spook got infuriated and when he got close to Beldre he spoke to her, fist asking if she agreed with the executions, later letting her know he was the man who would kill his brother. He was so into the conversation he failed to notice he was exposed and Quellion´s men went after him. He understood they were Allomancers when they used their power and he lost the fight.

During the fight, Spook was stabbed with a sword that also pierced a pewterarm. The tip of the sword became a Hemalurgic spike and granted him the ability to burn pewter. The spike also gave Ruin access to Spook and got into his mind using Kelsier´s voice. So when he wakes up from the lost fight inside the burning building and hears Kelsier asking him to move on, find vials and burn pewter, he obeys, thus finding his new ability (which he doesn’t recognize as Hemalurgy) and thus trusting the voice in his head.

Spook receives Breeze, Allrianne and Sazed into the city and helps them hide providing them with intel. He shows them the cave where the Lord Ruler’s cache was and suggested it as their base. He tried to talk to Sazed about Kelsier’s voice but with Sazed doubting his beliefs, Spook didn’t fully confide and just trusted they were being protected by the Survivor.

Ever since his unexpected survival from the flames, Spook had heard people gossiping of him and that he was part of Kelsier’s crew and that Durn was behind of it. He eventually decided to confront him and found that Durn had been plotting against Quellion and had used the event to make him look bad. He decides to trust him and asks him to find Breeze. On his way out, a man approaches him and asked to save his 7-year-old sister from the Citizen. Spook realizes he is now in a better position to make a difference and decides to help. He asked in return for ten men to help him dig the skulls from the fire where the Citizen had burned the prisoners days before. He found only nine skulls and understood Quellion was taking the Allomancers.

He bribed people to find the place where the executions will take place. Another noble building and he understood it was built with passages like others used to take the Allomancers out. He went in to save the people and under Ruin’s influence killed the soldiers. One of them though took the child as hostage, causing Spook to ask the leaving prisoners to lock him down. Though he was able to beat the remaining soldier, even with Pewter he was unable to open the door. Thus, he had to jump out of the building, still in flames with he child in his arms. Breeze and his other friends were there and caused a riot to help him escape.

He convinces Sazed to reverse engineer the lake built by the Lord Ruler so he can bring a miracle into the city. Along with him surviving the flames, he expects to outcast Quellion and cause the people to rebel against him.

Because he liked Beldre, he went to see her again, asked her to join him, but she refused and started screaming. Later, she went to their place and spoke on her brother’s behalf. Under Ruin’s influence with Kelsier’s voice, Spook takes her captive spreading the rumor she had escaped her brother. He is looking for Quellion to attack. They both have another conversation later, where she confirms her brother used to be a good man corrupted by power and Spook is bothered by the conversation, still with the encouragement of Ruin, he accepts the tile of Survivor of the Fire and is happy with the attention.

The city is ready for a revolt, Quellion is about to do a hate speech against Spook. The latter killed the Citizen’s guards and fought him, looking for him to shoot coins and prove himself an Allomancer to complete the city’s hatred. Beldre gets there and shoots Spook to save her brother. The City riots as they understand what she is and that their ruler had killed their noble blood family but not his sister. Spook feels betrayed and Kelsier’s voice pushes him to kill her and use her spike to get her power. The hate speech from Kelsier and the spike information helps him understand it was the spike at the first fire that had caused all this. Looking at Quellion he correctly guessed he was being affected too. He takes out Quellions spike firs and then his. He loses Pewter and is almost out of breath. He sees the city in flames but is looking forward to the water to flood the city. Beldre confirms she had killed the soldiers to escape and there is no one to flood the city. They go back along with Sazed and find the building in flames, they are about to return defeated when he heard Kelsier’s real voice, who said he had chosen him as his friend. Spook goes into the burning building and he has no more strength, he just throws his weight to the machine and collapses.

After Spook saves the city from destruction, in the middle of him waking up, he is given a message to send to Vin by Kelsier stating “Don’t trust anyone pierced by metal. Spook’s letter. Even the smallest bit can taint a man.” Goradel offers to take it, it was written on a metal sheet. It was intercepted by Marsh who was being physically controlled by Ruin, but could still think on his own, upon reading it he figures out it is Vin’s earing the metal piece where Ruin is controlling her and uses his last will to take it out setting her free.

The Final Ascension

After the Final Ascension, goes into the new world created by Sazed who left for him to find the bodies of Vin and Elend along with the book where he explains how it all happened. There was a special note for him, explaining he tried to bring them back but couldn’t. Also that he had fully healed him and given him full Misborn powers. He finally hinted on more metals to start a research.

Spook was referred to as the Lord Mistborn. It is not clear what his role in that early government is, but he is clearly very prominent and powerful, judging by the fact that his Eastern street slang becomes known as High Imperial. He is also known to have engaged in philosophy and appears to be somewhat aware of the inner workings of the Shards, and is noted for begging the question, "Having the has Sazed a metal?" However, Spook is confirmed to having been a "stud" after the Final Ascension, having over a dozen children. After the Catacendre, Spook had a relationship with Beldre.

He is visited at some point by the cognitive shadow of Kelsier, who says they should work together to unravel the mysteries of the Cosmere, use the spikes from Koloss to make Spook a Hemalurgist, and find a way to bring Kelsier back to the Physical Realm.

Steris implies that Spook ruled as an emperor for a century before stepping down from power. Marasi later refers to him as a "governor" who ruled for a century.

Attributes and Abilities

Spook is the crew’s best Tineye, so he usually got the most important watches. He snapped at 5 years old. After Kelsier’s death, he worked as scout and spy.

He had flared his tin nonstop for a year straight—never letting up, keeping his body in a constant state of super-heightened senses—and it had changed him; he became an Allomantic savant.

Because of this, he had a blurring array of sensory knowledge that his body could instinctively use. He could feel disturbances in the air, sense tremors in the floor, and could know where people were simply by how close their heartbeats sounded.

He is given full Mistborn abilities by Sazed when the latter become Harmony. However, he does not have the strength of a lerasium Mistborn, but a Mistborn of the strength of a typical Allomancer around the end of The Final Empire.

Relationships

Kelsier

Spook had a particular relationship with Kelsier. The latter named him Spook and gave him a spot in his Crew. It was more than a favor to Clubs which is shown by Kelsier’s interest on talking with him on his native language and giving him moral support. After Kelsier’s death, much of Spook's efforts are to become someone that he would have been proud of to the point where Ruin uses this connection to impersonate Kelsier's voice in Spook’s mind.

Vin

Vin liked Spook, though she considered him strange and young. Sensing her kindness, he gave her a pink handkerchief as the traditional gift a young man gives a lady that he wishes to seriously court, she was not interested though. After that, Spook was uncomfortable with Vin’s presence until they had a quick chat and she confessed she would always love Elend; he understood and even gave her good advice on using Tin.

Elend

Elend and Spook have a cautious relationship in the beginning as the first one can sense the latter liked Vin But they continue to grow fond of each other as they spend more and more time together. Elend later on reinforces Spook that he is not being dismissed and he is valued for his skills of scout and Tineye.

Quotes

“Tin burning…Notting about the seeing. Wasing about the not seeing. ”

—Spook to Vin giving advice on burining Tin

Trivia

• Spook is based very loosely on a person Brandon knew from the Timewasters Guide forums. Zack, username Gemm, was very good at posting random gibberish which, if you looked at it very closely, actually read to be rather poetic. Brandon wanted to write a character who spoke with a dialect that had an interesting rhythm yet was difficult to make out.

Notes

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