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

Chapter 60 (Essai)
Epigraph: Oh look at that. Confirmation that the undertext is written by someone else. Presumably a human. Hello, Navani. Man, I have danced all around this thing.

She's happy to see Rlain! But, because we can't have nice things, he's very much not happy to see Venli, if he even recognizes her.

Also, a quick aside to remind everyone that "Mazish" sounds a whole lot like "Moash" so renaming him Vyre when he defected was stupid. This message brought to you by the local chapter of You Suck, Moash. We now return you to your regularly scheduled content that is actually relevant to the chapter.

Direform. Are we in an RPG world now? *facepalm* What am I asking? Roshar was designed specifically to make anime swords a thing. I still think it's dumb to just use dire this way.

Hahaha! "Szeth" vanished because the light weaving of him failed in the suppression field. This adds a grand new layer to his mystique.

"Soft" and "warm" are not words I expect to be associated with cremstone, but you do you. Whatever you find comforting is fine.

I like the etymology of essai. 

Neat that instead of staring someone down Regals will have a hum-off. Whoever attunes Destruction more convincingly wins and the other backs off.

Is that really a voidspren in a cremling? Or did you just identify a Sleepless? Hm, further description doesn’t suggest connections to anywhere else, so I guess it could just be a run-of-the-mill voidspren. Seems unlikely, though.

Yeah, Rlain isn’t making for a very good spy when people can actually talk to him. You’d think he’d be better at lying, but he didn’t really need that skill before since he was functionally invisible to start with.

What are they doing with Dalinar's stuff?

Mraize? I thought you were hiding out on the upper floors. What are you trying to pull here, and how much does Raboniel know about you and yours? Was it really the Ghostbloods who first delivered El to kick this whole thing off? If so, the Fused may be under the impression there is an alliance. I'm kind of looking forward to that inevitable betrayal if that's the case, though I doubt Raboniel will be at all taken in. Not that the Ghostbloods would have any qualms working with the Fused and their current order, but they are already trying to recruit Sja-Anat, and obviously have interests that don’t align with the Fused. 

Okay, so she doesn't know much about him yet, but he's making a move. I wonder what kind of light he’s giving her.

Oh no! He's giving Raboniel a chicken, one that can presumably detect investiture. An Aviar-assisted Lady off Wishes will immediately figure out Timbre's secret. This is not good timing, Venli.
WAIT
Oh, no! Oh no! This is worse. I was totally wrong in that assumption. He gestured at his aviar not because it was the gift but so it would signal the others. The gift is Lift. This is very much worse!

Hmm, and she was warned about Mraize. I do so love when two masterminds try to play each other. I hope at some point we learn who won this round. 

Also, it's been a while since we saw Iyatil. She's apparently still calling the shots. What's she been up to while Mraize has been doing things here at the tower? If we find out she’s been at Emul I’m going to be impressed.

Words not accepted? Burn. Also, fascinating that Cultivation (or maybe the Nightwatcher?) is taking a hand in that gatekeeping. Usually the Stormfather is the one to rubber stamp these request forms or send them back.

And yeah, Venli had a good idea of how much is left for her to internalize those words before they can be accepted. It's a lot. But she has the resolve now. Very nice turning point for the character.