Killing a Gold Compounder

[HSuperLee]

Title says it. I was wondering today, like you do, if there would have been any way to kill Rashek outside of how it was done. As I thought about it I realized the problem really is that he had so many attributes that as soon as he felt actually threatened he could end the threat or retreat. So, my brain began to think, best option is probably to directly target his atiumminds. But then I realized, even better, destroy his goldminds, and he goes down like any other person, granted with the additional effort of killing a pewterarm. Of course, the problem is destroying gold, but a quick search on Wikipedia revealed that gold can be dissolved by mercury. So, the idea is, how to kill a gold compounder? Flood them with mercury. Now, this is mostly limited by how fast the gold dissolves, and as I am not a chemist, I have no idea. So, what do y'all think about the idea?

[+Invocation]

Mercury doesn't dissolve the gold fast enough to stop a Pewterarm alone from breaking out of whatever mercury container you have them in, not to mention the benefit of Compounding pewter would make it faster for them to escape. Or, he could just swallow his gold- and pewter-minds, then the mercury can't affect them as much while still giving him all of the benefits. He could even just tap his weight and break free of the container. 

Another issue is getting the amount of mercury needed to keep someone like that contained and completely covered. Mercury is very hazardous, complete with gasses that it gives off at room temperature (another issue with keeping the hypothetical Rashek down). Most people would end up in bad shape after being around that much mercury for long, and F-gold with no Compounding wouldn't be enough to repair that damage unless you've literally been storing for decades.

I mean theoretically, if you could neutralize Rashek for long enough to shove him into a massive vat of mercury and keep him there, this would be a viable strategy, but good luck with that.

[RShara]

8 minutes ago, Invocation said:

Mercury doesn't dissolve the gold fast enough to stop a Pewterarm alone from breaking out of whatever mercury container you have them in, not to mention the benefit of Compounding pewter would make it faster for them to escape. Or, he could just swallow his gold- and pewter-minds, then the mercury can't affect them as much while still giving him all of the benefits. He could even just tap his weight and break free of the container. 

Another issue is getting the amount of mercury needed to keep someone like that contained and completely covered. Mercury is very hazardous, complete with gasses that it gives off at room temperature (another issue with keeping the hypothetical Rashek down). Most people would end up in bad shape after being around that much mercury for long, and F-gold with no Compounding wouldn't be enough to repair that damage unless you've literally been storing for decades.

I mean theoretically, if you could neutralize Rashek for long enough to shove him into a massive vat of mercury and keep him there, this would be a viable strategy, but good luck with that.

This.

I mean, I guess if you kept damaging him for long enough, he'd eventually run out of gold, too, and that'd be easier than sticking him in mercury. But still, good luck with that...

[Quantus]

I think a leecher would have been able to do most of it, though they would have had to hold on for a while to force the target to burn through all their base metal stores and then the metalminds.  Rashek could still be able to go grab new Goldminds and I think only metalminds that actually pierced the skin would get Leeched.  It's ironically only as devastating as it is because Rashek was able to compound all the metals, ordinary feruchemists' metalminds would be unaffected.. 

 

 

Quote

 

Kaymyth

I asked the question about chromium vs a Compounder with both invested and un-Invested metals in both their stomach and piercings.

Brandon Sanderson

What it boils down to is this:

1) Yes, the piercings will get burned off.

2) The non-Invested metals go before the Invested ones. He said that because invested metals are harder to [affect], it takes a little extra time and effort to get them to burn off. So a Leecher trying to clean out a Compounder would have to get a good grip and hang on for a few seconds.

3) Chromium burns about as quickly as duralumin, so if you're trying to burn off a lot of metals, it is possible to run out of chromium before your target is clean. This would probably only be an issue when dealing with larger pieces (like jewelry) rather than your standard metal-flakes-in-the-stomach deal.

source

 

 

[HSuperLee]

Well, those were basically the answers I was expecting. I figured there's no way it would work as simply as I imagined it. Granted the way I imagined it was basically dropping a water tower filled with mercury on him. So there's that. But thanks for the information, y'all. I shall now continue to ponder how best to kill immortals.

Edited October 22, 2018 by HSuperLee

[Toaster Retribution]

Avengers Infinity War spoiler:

Spoiler

The Snap could probably kill a gold compounder.

 

Edited October 23, 2018 by Toaster Retribution

[Rossamund]

Aqua Regia is one of the few solvents capable of dissolving gold and pretty much anything else. So what you need is to cover the Lord ruler in aqua Regia which will have the added benefit of burning his flesh at the same time. Whether it's practical to get the lord ruler still while you burn away his flesh is questionable.

[king of nowhere]

2 hours ago, Rossamund Rhapadocera said:

Aqua Regia is one of the few solvents capable of dissolving gold and pretty much anything else. So what you need is to cover the Lord ruler in aqua Regia which will have the added benefit of burning his flesh at the same time. Whether it's practical to get the lord ruler still while you burn away his flesh is questionable.

Not to mention acqua regia still takes a while to dissolve gold. Not sure of the actual time, as I've never tried it, and it depends on the size and shape of the gold to be burned, but even something small as an earring should last a few minutes to a few hours. Human skin also would resist a few minutes, though for a gold compounder that would not be an issue anyway.

No, the most practical way to kill a gold compounder is through clever use of hemalurgy. You spike them with a gold spike, you steal away their capacity to heal, then they die because they have a hole in their heart. The spiking can be done with a gold bullet or arrowtip, if you know what you're doing. It could even work on the lord ruler, if caught off-guard.

That method can itself be countered by having a large goldmind usable by anyone, so that even if you lose your capacity to heal, you still can heal - and with enough healing power, you can even restore the damage to your spiritweb and get back your healing power.

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, king of nowhere said:

That method can itself be countered by having a large goldmind usable by anyone, so that even if you lose your capacity to heal, you still can heal - and with enough healing power, you can even restore the damage to your spiritweb and get back your healing power.

For a compounder, that wouldn't even be necessary. You'd have to take their gold Allomancy at the same time or they could just burn a storage. 

Quote

Kurkistan

If you spiked out Miles' Feruchemical gold, would he be able to burn his Allomantic reserves [read: Feruchemical reserves using Allomancy] and heal it back?

Brandon Sanderson

If you spiked out his ability to heal gold and somehow left him alive?

Kurkistan

Yeah, but still having Allomancy.

Brandon Sanderson

Still has Allomancy...

Kurkistan

And he’s like in the middle of burning a goldmind.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that would still work. It'd still have a Spiritual Connection to him.

Kurkistan

So if you're a Coinshot and you get [spiked] to have Feruchemical steel, and then you lose the spike after making a store, you can still Compound that for speed?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes... Yeah, that should still work.

Kurkistan

Was Paalm doing that?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO.

source

 

[king of nowhere]

Ok, so you'd need two spikes. And placing both requires way too much coordination.

I wonder if a bullet made of two interwined metals could work as two spikes in one. Or a sort of trident arrow, that may actually work, though it would have terrible aerodinamics.

[HSuperLee]

Just now, king of nowhere said:

Ok, so you'd need two spikes. And placing both requires way too much coordination.

I wonder if a bullet made of two interwined metals could work as two spikes in one. Or a sort of trident arrow, that may actually work, though it would have terrible aerodinamics.

Or you could potentially just have an arrow and the arrowhead be two separate metals.

[HeyLookItz]

Also, to kill a gold compounder, could you just melt him and his metalminds? Like by throwing him into an active volcano?

[Faceless Mist-Wraith]

The problem with melting him is that he has access to f-brass, which would keep the heat from killing him. It would probably melt his metal minds though, so it could be a first step. Got to get him into the volcano though...

For a gold compounder though, that would definitely work.

Edited October 25, 2018 by Faceless Mist-Wraith

[HSuperLee]

20 minutes ago, HeyLookItz said:

Also, to kill a gold compounder, could you just melt him and his metalminds? Like by throwing him into an active volcano?

I Feruchemist can still tap a liquid metalmind.

[+Invocation]

2 hours ago, HeyLookItz said:

Also, to kill a gold compounder, could you just melt him and his metalminds? Like by throwing him into an active volcano?

The Lord Ruler's inn was burned down around him in the beginning after his Ascension, but he walked away from that, despite having been dead asleep when the fire started and walking directly out of the flames. "Came out as barely more than a skeleton and healed in seconds," I believe is how that's described in the book. Of course, some of that is probably time distortion, but that's still a massive, roaring blaze he survived and healed from, metal minds intact or not. Plus, HSuperLee said, liquidizing the metal wouldn't stop the Feruchemist from tapping it, provided it hadn't merged to become another metal which shouldn't happen with lava.

[MrFish]

I can think of two other ways that might work:

1) any gun with aluminium hollow point bullets, can't heal around aluminium and hollow point maximizes the area the aluminium effects.

2) MOLTEN ALUMINIUM! The can't heal the burns and, if hot enough, melt their goldminds and instantly alloying them away.

[HSuperLee]

3 hours ago, MrFish said:

I can think of two other ways that might work:

1) any gun with aluminium hollow point bullets, can't heal around aluminium and hollow point maximizes the area the aluminium effects.

2) MOLTEN ALUMINIUM! The can't heal the burns and, if hot enough, melt their goldminds and instantly alloying them away.

I think people overestimate the effect of aluminum on a bloodmaker. Sure, their body won't automatically push it out and heal from it, but they also can keep tapping health to keep it from killing them. Maybe a normal bloodmaker would struggle against it, because they'd have to pull the aluminum out before they run out of health, but a compounder could probably ignore it. It's like when Miles would hold his breath to shoot. Yeah, his cells are constantly dying due to not getting oxygen, but his gold restores them so that he doesn't feel any ill effects. A normal person's body can't push a bullet out, but often times, once the bleeding stops and the wound is disinfected, it doesn't need to be removed. I figure it would be the same with a bloodmaker. They might even be able to close the wound around the bullet so that it simply becomes uselessly lodged in their flesh.

My biggest argument against the efficacy of aluminum though, is that Miles basically controlled the vanishers through fear and the fact they couldn't kill him. They had aluminum bullets. Either he was even more cocky than I thought, or he knew that even with aluminum bullets they wouldn't be able to kill him.

[Calderis]

@HSuperLee your absolutely correct. Aluminum only prevents healing in the places it actually is. A wound caused by aluminum has no protection unless the aluminum is still there.

So you could absolutely heal around it, and in many cases then you just have a piece of metal in your body that's not going to really do anything.

Could still be a decent problem, depending on where that piece winds up, for a standard bloodmaker, but a compounder? Nah, they'd just rip it out and heal.

[Scion of the Mists]

42 minutes ago, Calderis said:

@HSuperLee your absolutely correct. Aluminum only prevents healing in the places it actually is. A wound caused by aluminum has no protection unless the aluminum is still there.

So you could absolutely heal around it, and in many cases then you just have a piece of metal in your body that's not going to really do anything.

Could still be a decent problem, depending on where that piece winds up, for a standard bloodmaker, but a compounder? Nah, they'd just rip it out and heal.

I wonder what would happen if you put a whole bunch of hollow point bullets in a compounding Bloodmaker's head.  Sure, their body would start healing insanely fast, but it would leave a lot of foreign objects inside the skull.  We know from Oathbringer that head wounds can mess with your cognition even if you're healing:

Spoiler

Shallan's disorientation when shot in the head with a crossbow bolt.  

If you put enough metal in someone's head, and they weren't able to get it out, what happens to the brain matter that gets displaced?  Does it just not heal back?

[HSuperLee]

Just now, Scion of the Mists said:

I wonder what would happen if you put a whole bunch of hollow point bullets in a compounding Bloodmaker's head.  Sure, their body would start healing insanely fast, but it would leave a lot of foreign objects inside the skull.  We know from Oathbringer that head wounds can mess with your cognition even if you're healing:

  Reveal hidden contents

Shallan's disorientation when shot in the head with a crossbow bolt.  

If you put enough metal in someone's head, and they weren't able to get it out, what happens to the brain matter that gets displaced?  Does it just not heal back?

If we're still talking about the Lord Ruler, he'd probably just rip his own head off so he could grow a new one without all the metal.

[+robardin]

On 10/24/2018 at 11:30 PM, Invocation said:

The Lord Ruler's inn was burned down around him in the beginning after his Ascension, but he walked away from that, despite having been dead asleep when the fire started and walking directly out of the flames. "Came out as barely more than a skeleton and healed in seconds," I believe is how that's described in the book. Of course, some of that is probably time distortion, but that's still a massive, roaring blaze he survived and healed from, metal minds intact or not. Plus, HSuperLee said, liquidizing the metal wouldn't stop the Feruchemist from tapping it, provided it hadn't merged to become another metal which shouldn't happen with lava.

Did I miss some material somewhere? When have we read a description of Rashek as an innkeeper? Was it the Waystone Inn?

[+robardin]

1 hour ago, HSuperLee said:

If we're still talking about the Lord Ruler, he'd probably just rip his own head off so he could grow a new one without all the metal.

Yeah, when he tells Vin that he survived beheadings, burnings, and flayings in the early days (with no mention of running an inn...), I had an image in my mind of him doing the Gawain and the Green Knight trick of letting them cut his head off with a sword if he could then cut their heads off afterwards. And then filling a room with pairs of spiked heads to daunt visitors. "These two heads are from when I did the you-then-me head swap with King George... And these, when I did it with the Duke of Timberland..."

[Scion of the Mists]

1 hour ago, HSuperLee said:

If we're still talking about the Lord Ruler, he'd probably just rip his own head off so he could grow a new one without all the metal.

A severe enough head wound may not leave him with the presence of mind to take action.  Or we could be talking about someone like Miles, who wouldn't have the strength to do that.  

[+robardin]

24 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

A severe enough head wound may not leave him with the presence of mind to take action.  Or we could be talking about someone like Miles, who wouldn't have the strength to do that.  

Yeah, as impressive as what Miles does as a gold/gold Twinborn, he was no Lord Ruler: he still only had the strength, speed, etc., of a normal human. In the end, Miles was brought down by Marasi's use of a cadmium bubble that allowed him to be surrounded and rushed by many people, who tied him with ropes: a situation that Wax could easily have overcome any number of ways, and TLR? Fuhgeddaboutit.

In fact, Wax had earlier nearly succeeded in capturing him in a rope net trap remotely triggered by his Allomancy, but there was still enough slack in the net for Miles to fish out a stick of dynamite he carried for just that purpose, which blew the net apart (and himself, temporarily). Had Wax planned for something like that (as Miles noted, Wax should have paid more attention to what hed' done out in the Roughs, as he'd used the "dynamite my way out of a rope net" trick before), using a net that tightened enough, or quickly enough, would probably also have worked. Like by cinching him down into a tiny ball.

Once captured, you could do any number of things to a gold compounder to kill him. Even a passive net trap would do it, as F-gold doesn't provide sustenance. Eating food is not the same as "healing from starvation". Thirst would kill even more quickly.

It doesn't need to be a net, either. Just a deep pit that he couldn't climb out of, not without physical metals to Push or Pull himself with, or pewter to augment his strength to scoop out handholds.

Edited October 30, 2018 by robardin

[Calderis]

32 minutes ago, robardin said:

Did I miss some material somewhere? When have we read a description of Rashek as an innkeeper? Was it the Waystone Inn?

It's from TFE, and and it wasn't him as an innkeeper, it was just the inn he was sleeping in. 

From chapter 15

Quote

Dockson frowned. “You’re serious about this Eleventh Metal business, then?”

Kelsier nodded. “I searched for two years to find a way to kill him. Men have tried everything—he ignores normal wounds, and decapitation only annoys him. A group of soldiers burned down his inn during one of the early wars. The Lord Ruler walked out as barely more than a skeleton, then healed in a matter of seconds.