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

Navani’s Notebook Part III
Art here.
Okay, first thing to note, before I translate anything, is that this is almost certainly Shallan’s gemstone dagger from Mraize. And yet, this is Navani’s notebook. So how did it get delivered to Navani for study? Were the notes made during the course of this book (presumably in part V when the cast reunites)? Or Is this based on descriptions and sketches from Shallan, or possibly a different instance of that artifact type?

Okay, transcription time:
(Note: I made my comments as I deciphered the text line by line, so as you’ll see I frequently contradict my own speculation as I go.)

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Raboniel’s soul harvesting dagger

Well, that answers that question. Apparently they are more common than I thought, and that is a very concerning discovery. Also, when did Navani see this in action and get close enough access to make this analysis?

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The white gold metal veins in the middle conducts investiture.
Raboniel calls the Raysium and says there is not enough in this dagger to collect her soul or that of a herald.
I am not sure I believe her.

Where did Navani learn the word investiture? From Raboniel presumably? She hasn’t used it yet in the text, I think? Hard to remember for sure.
Oh, well if she’s learning words like Raysium then she’s definitely getting a crash course in cosmere terminology. Also, is Raysium necessary as a component or could another godmetal work?
Ah, the Raysium seems essential, and is a determining factor on the power of the blade, or at least its capacity to channel a soul of particular size/strength.

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Navani is right not to believe. I have given her few reasons to trust me after all, but in this thing I do not lie.
Why give into my enemy’s hands the means to destroy me?[ho]

Aaaaa! Line by line authorship changes. This is: 

1. Horrifying for Navani’s ability to keep scientific integrity in her notes, with this degree of oversight. 
2. Impressive that navani will express her doubts with this much candor.
3. Confirmation that those stupid part 3 epigraphs were in fact a mix of authors penning the in-world Rhythm of War. No wonder it didn’t partition easily between Navani and Raboniel in tone or implied understanding. It was a conversation between the two, without attributions. And the temptation to split between text and undertext was a red herring, since they both wrote wherever they wanted. 
4. Impressive again that Nazh would risk acquiring this document. Presumably Raboniel is possessive of her research materials.

I’m not confident in that last word. Is “ho” a question mark, and Nazh added the other one to the end? Scanning down the the next question mark, it is preceded by the same “ho” so I’m going with that interpretation.

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I will proceed with my experiments.
Our discovery of Warlight, paired with my eventual understanding of this dagger might yield a way to stop this war.

That is optimistic, Navani, and I suspect at least partially written as an encouragement to Raboniel that you are working in her expressed interests as well as your own.

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Though I think we disagree on what an acceptable end to the war actually looks like.

You think so, do you? Bold claim, Raboniel. (eyeroll)

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The ruby is housed in a metal other than Raysium. Silver maybe?[ho]

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I can confirm the metal is not Raysium but a silver-nickel alloy, and does not affect the dagger’s function.

Um, I don’t recognize that as an allomantic metal. Silver itself is allomantically inert, but I sort of recall it being included in some of the alloys, so I could be wrong. However, nickel is not a base allomantic metal either, so it seems unlikely that this would be a realmatically active metal from what we know. Then again, I don’t trust Raboniel to be telling the full truth here. (Or to be fully knowledgeable about fabrial science, which we know Navani is better at than she is.)

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Touching the dagger to half of the ruby does not pull out the half spren.
Cracking one half, however, allows the spren to escape. 
The dagger immediately pulls the spren along the Raysium vein and into the gem at its base.

Hm. I wouldn’t have thought split rubies from spanreeds to be the first experiment. Although it’s certainly probable that there were others performed before this.

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I suspect the vein of Raysium continues through the dagger’s hilt and somehow attaches to the ruby in its base.

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The Raysium vein is removable, reversible, and conducts investiture directly to the gemstone.

Reversible, huh? So it is also a soul injector, not just a stealer? I presume that Raysium functions as a diode in these sorts of circuits, then?
Who are we going to be injecting souls into with this, and will they appreciate being stabbed? 

This is probably the most realmatically dense notebook page since Way of Kings. The introduction of spren and fabrials probably trumps it since that was a bigger, more general reveal, but this one doesn’t have to teach us the alethi script and can just deliver information about fabrial science, about Navani and Raboniel’s research relationship, and about the authorship of Rhythm of War. 

I am so glad that I take the time to appreciate the art pages, and that Brandon and company give us such rich material in the books. Navani’s pages are also done by Ben, right, in addition to Shallan’s? I don’t remember for sure. Massive kudos all around.