The Nicrosil exception

[Lesser spren Son of Honor]

I have been wondering about how unsealed metal mind medallions work. You see an unkeyed metal minds are able to be used by anyone with the proper investiture, hence the need for a nicrosil metalmind for those who are not the proper ferring. But to be able to tap an unkeyed nicrosil metal mind one would have to be  a soulbearer in the first place. Does an unkeyed nicrosil metalmind represent an exception when it comes to Feruchemy or do the medallions use a different method to proverbially ignite the process

[Werewolff Studios Hazekiller]

1 hour ago, Lesser spren said:

I have been wondering about how unsealed metal mind medallions work. You see an unkeyed metal minds are able to be used by anyone with the proper investiture, hence the need for a nicrosil metalmind for those who are not the proper ferring. But to be able to tap an unkeyed nicrosil metal mind one would have to be  a soulbearer in the first place. Does an unkeyed nicrosil metalmind represent an exception when it comes to Feruchemy or do the medallions use a different method to proverbially ignite the process

That's a great question! I'd imagine it's more of the later - it likely has something to do with the Excisor tool that we hear about. 

My best guess is that an Excisor acts a bit like Raysium, able to transfer forms of Investiture from one location to another. Maybe they transfer someone's ability to utilize Investiture directly into a nicrosilmind; the only metal that can store the ability to access it. 

 

[Koloss17 Soulcaster]

You have two metals melded together. Nicrosil and whatever else. Nicrosil grants the ability to tap or store a certain investiture, basically becoming a ferring for a time. The other metalmind is just used to tap and store whatever ferring ability you just gained.

To be able to do any of this, it seems clear that you need both metalminds to be unkeyed, i.e. someone stored all of their identity in an aluminummind before storing nicrosil. Nicrosil hadn’t really been explained past “it stores investiture”. I think that based on what we see in the books, it seems clear that the investiture in question is the person’s innate investiture, which is their ability to burn/store/tap a metal. Basically nicrosil stores a person’s metalborn-ness. 
 

With that out of the way, the main question is reusability. It seems that with F-aluminum, F-nicrosil, and F-whatever else, you can create an unsealed metalmind. However, it doesn’t seem to be repeatable, as once you have fully stored say, your F-iron, you wouldn’t be able to make another unsealed ironmind. That’s where I think excisors come in. They both allow the user to have F-aluminum, F-nicrosil, and anything else they would need, as well as making the process repeatable. Personally, my headcannon is that that is some sort of Hemalurgy rig that spikes the user with F-nicrosil, F-aluminum, F-whatever else, and A-Nicrosil. That would allow the compounding of innate investiture, allowing you to make repeatable unsealed metalminds. But that’s just my theory.

 

To your specific bit of confusion, the nicrosilmind is unkeyed, which means that there is no check in place to see if the person that is tapping the metalmind is actually the original owner, so you can tap the ability to use a metal without consequence.

[alder24 Elantrian]

What I think you have to first store your identity in Aluminum, and that gives you the ability to make unkeyed metal minds. Then you store your ability of ferring in nicrosil metal mind, which is now unkeyed. But that would leave you without your ferring ability in the end. So that Excisor that Malwish has, have to be able to store your identity and give it back to you (unkeyed aluminum metalmind would work) and then compound your nicrosil mind to grant you double Soulbearer ability - one goes back to you, the other is stored in nicrosil. Then you combine that Nicrosil metalmind with metal of specific ferring ability, that is also unkeyed.

[Koloss17 Soulcaster]

22 minutes ago, alder24 said:

What I think you have to first store your identity in Aluminum, and that gives you the ability to make unkeyed metal minds. Then you store your ability of ferring in nicrosil metal mind, which is now unkeyed. But that would leave you without your ferring ability in the end. So that Excisor that Malwish has, have to be able to store your identity and give it back to you (unkeyed aluminum metalmind would work) and then compound your nicrosil mind to grant you double Soulbearer ability - one goes back to you, the other is stored in nicrosil. Then you combine that Nicrosil metalmind with metal of specific ferring ability, that is also unkeyed.

Exactly!