Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers.

Chapter 88 (Falling Star)
Icons: Three again. Kelek doubled, with Nale and Chach

Lightning being the key to catching stormspren...–I’m going to presume that it’s just a strong enough resonance with the nature of storm spren to pull them across, not that the power and mundane energy in lightning is enough to thin the barrier between realms. 

It’s pretty badass (are we still correcting that to bad chull?) that Venli was chasing down lightning strikes, though. I’m just imagining her running toward any flash of light in the storm, back and forth between points that keep drawing the lightning until she’s finally close enough to reach a strike zone before the spren disappear. That’s got to be a harrowing research project. (In my lab we would say “that’s what grad students are for” but I don’t think Venli uses assistants quite that way.)

I like that humans are being favorably (?) compared to rockbuds. Yay stubbornness!

Quote

If she could truly travel the world, would she find them growing in every crevice?

Yes, yes you would. Except I have to say that on Roshar, that would doubly apply to Sleepless. 

Oh, is that what the title is referring to? Is this where she first encounters Timbre? 

Yelling at the Rider of Storms. I’d say calling him a traitor is a little too far, but without actually seeing behind the scenes, it’s not an unreasonable conclusion. And with how Restares suggested many of the nahel spren are considering defection to Odium’s side, I wouldn’t say it’s out of the question for the Stormfather to have possibly chosen that as well.

By Vev’s golden keys, did she just encounter one of the storm striders? Are we actually going to get to see what they are?

No, just a chasmfiend. Still, that kind of face-to-face encounter is pretty cool in itself.

Hm. It is Timbre like I suspected, but I have no idea why there was a need for the chasmfiend to deliver him. (Her? I have been thinking of Timbre as female, but I think there were male pronouns used recently. I’m not sure.) Presumably spren could ride in the gemhearts of living creatures and influence them in that way, but why would Timbre need to do something like that? Is it to avoid detection/interception by the voidspren? Is it to help keep from losing their mind like Syl risked? Is it just to travel around better, since they probably share Willshaper’s joy of exploration? It’s weird.

Although, presumably Timbre is the first one to even try forming a bond with a listener. Maybe the spren didn’t know it would work and had to test out some options with other gemhearted creatures?