Can Raysium steal Breaths?

[Trusk'our]

If you stabbed an awakener with a raysium knife, could you inject yourself with their breaths?

I know that you likely wouldn't be able to awaken with then since they're keyed to someone else's Identity, but could you gain the heightenings?

Edited December 16, 2021 by Trusk'our
Accidentally misspelled something.

[Morningtide]

I don't see why not!

[Quantus]

I think it could absolutely steal it and shove it into the gem storage or whatever the knife/fabrial was designed for.  What it would do if you tried to stab it back into yourself could get weird. Breaths are infused in your physical matter, as opposed to your spiritweb, But the Raysium Knifes might operate closer to Hemalurgy and direct the Investiture into your Spiritweb directly which could lead to all kinds strange effects in theory.  Anything from strange carry-over from the source (especially if too much of the donor sticks to them) on up to a Investiture Pressure explosion, if not a full Anti-Investiture level blast.

[+ShardlessVessel]

You might not need raysium for that. Brandon has said that you can steal Breath with nicrosil spikes, though he hasn't elaborated on how that's done.

Relevant WoB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/472/#e14896

[Honorless]

Already solving the shortcomings of Hemalurgy, I see. Yeah, I think it should work from what we've seen so far. You might need Endowment's tone to do stuff with it though.

Edited December 17, 2021 by Honorless

[Trusk'our]

4 hours ago, ShardlessVessel said:

You might not need raysium for that. Brandon has said that you can steal Breath with nicrosil spikes, though he hasn't elaborated on how that's done.

Relevant WoB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/472/#e14896

Actually, I'm not sure that standard Hemalurgy can steal Bio-Chromatic Breaths.

Quote

Questioner

With spikes, would you be able to actually transfer Breaths, when they get to the other planets?

Brandon Sanderson

So spikes rip off pieces of the soul and so Breaths are not going to be part of the soul. You could maybe get a divine Breath but I haven't really decided on regular Breaths, they're kind of stuck there in the Physical Realm which is not a thing that spikes are dealing with. Divine Breath, potentially, because that's something that's actually melding onto your soul. But, you know, when you're using the Breaths they reach through to the Spiritual Realm so, maybe if you got it while the Breaths were kinetic, right, while you're using them, then you might be able to rip them off. I'm not a hundred percent certain on that one.

Bystander

There's still things to decide upon.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah there's still things, like I have to kind of see. My instinct says no right now. But, you know, how they interact is not something that I have-- Yeah.

Now, it sounds like there might be some exploitable loopholes that would allow you to Hemalurgically take Breaths, but it would take some work. Although, Brandon isn't totally decided yet, so it could be possible.

Plus, you could just "grant" someone who has a lot of Breaths four or more Hemalurgic spikes, then use emotional Allomancy to force them to "give" you their breaths.

[+ShardlessVessel]

44 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Actually, I'm not sure that standard Hemalurgy can steal Bio-Chromatic Breaths.

Now, it sounds like there might be some exploitable loopholes that would allow you to Hemalurgically take Breaths, but it would take some work. Although, Brandon isn't totally decided yet, so it could be possible.

Plus, you could just "grant" someone who has a lot of Breaths four or more Hemalurgic spikes, then use emotional Allomancy to force them to "give" you their breaths.

The WoB I linked says that you can do it (I should have quoted it, but I was on the phone and it didn't cross my mind):

 

Quote

 

Pagerunner

The Hemalurgy table, you wrote down "atium steals any power, lerasium is all abilities, nicrosil is Investiture"; what's the difference between those three?

Hemalurgic atium, lerasium, and nicrosil. What's powers, abilities, and Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

People are Invested in ways that do not give them active powers. So for instance, everyone on Nalthis is Invested. Everyone in the cosmere is, really. You want to steal their Investiture, but they don't have a power. You're still ripping off a piece of their soul. So there is a distinction between the actual Investiture that's in a human being and a specific power that they have.

So that distinction is pretty easy. You can also, with Hemalurgy, steal specific things. You can steal just general Investiture. You can steal, if you want--this is where the kandra Blessings come from. You can instead steal specific things that are not like stealing Allomancy. Stealing, for instance, someone's mental acuity.

Pagerunner

So abilities is like the half that's all the strength, speed, all that kind of stuff? Those are abilities, versus the Metallic Arts are all powers?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Pagerunner

Then Investiture, is that offworld magics?

Brandon Sanderson

No, no, it's the raw power.

Pagerunner

Nicrosil is their soul?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. A piece of their soul, essentially.

Pagerunner

So how would you go about stealing an offworld power?

Brandon Sanderson

It's going to depend. A Breath, you would steal with nicrosil. It's general Investiture, is what you would probably going call that. You could forcibly remove someone's Breath from them. The ability to be a Sand Master you would steal with the power ability.

 

One thing I want to note is that the WoB I'm quoting is from 2021 according to Arcanum, while yours is from 2015; he had time to decide. We can only be sure if we get to see in a story, anyhow.

[Trusk'our]

1 minute ago, ShardlessVessel said:

The WoB I linked says that you can do it (I should have quoted it, but I was on the phone and it didn't cross my mind):

 

One thing I want to note is that the WoB I'm quoting is from 2021 according to Arcanum, while yours is from 2015; he had time to decide. We can only be sure if we get to see in a story, anyhow.

Ah. Okay, that makes a lot more sense. I didn't check the date of either of the quotes, but yeah, you should be able to do it.

That does leave open some other interesting implications, however. 

Could you use Hemalurgic Nicrosil to absorb the investiture held by an Allomancer burning metal, or a Feruchemist tapping a metalmind? Maybe you could grant someone heightening-like abilities with these spikes. If so, then this would definitely be a tempting prospect for anyone who wanted agelessness, as it would likely be far easier than collecting two-thousand Breaths.