The Eleventh Metal

Kelsier has been out of the Pits of Hathsin for about three months. He has only just discovered his powers, his wife Mare is dead, and he is far from the sure-footed crew leader he later becomes. The story catches him at that low point, before the events of The Final Empire.

His teacher is Gemmel, an older Mistborn who is eccentric and mentally unstable. Gemmel drills him in Allomancy and in the burning of metals, and Kelsier has to learn from a man he cannot easily trust.

This is a short story in the Mistborn setting, and it works as a lesson as much as a drama. Scenes of training show the magic system in use, so a reader new to the world sees how metals are burned and what they do.

Alongside the lessons runs a darker thread: the moment when Kelsier's grief begins to turn into the vengeance plan that shapes the rest of the saga.

Sanderson wrote it for the Mistborn Adventure Game, a tabletop roleplaying game from Crafty Games, to introduce game masters and players to the world. It first appeared in 2011 with the game. The full text was later collected in Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection, now the most widely read edition.