Fused Spears and Breaths

[The Ward's Guard]

Right off the bat, could one of the Fused Spears from RoW that has the power to drain investiture work on Breaths?

I know that Breaths can only be given to someone willingly as far as we know, but seeing as it is investiture, could it be affected by this weapon? I can see arguments for both why and why not, as Stormlight seems to be constantly escaping the user anyways, while breaths remain with the holder until given up. However, breaths are described to "stick" to objects, and the more lifelike these objects are, the easier it is to stick breaths to them. I'm not entirely sure if the metal lining the spear is able to take investiture from inanimate objects, so correct me as you see fit, but it stands to reason that it would be theoretically possible to drain the breaths from an item that someone previously invested. So if this is theoretically possible, then what would it take for someone to use this weapon effectively against someone who's invested with breaths.

[i’m in the details]

I have not given it any thought before reading your post, but my instinct says no the spear wouldn’t drain a persons Breath. For the reason you mentioned I think that Breaths are too stuck to the person for raysium so pull out, but it is a god metal so who knows. I could see it being able to grab breath out of an object. But I oppose rasyium being able to do that as it would be over powered 

 

[mathiau]

If you pierce an Awakener or an object they stored their breaths in It would probably just put the breaths in the gemstone without removing the fact it's keyed to the person so they could just go "Your Breath to mine" and take it back

Now against Lifelesses and Awakened objects that would be useful since the first's breath cannot be recovered and recovering the breath of the latter will make them lose their command

[+mdross81]

16 minutes ago, The Ward's Guard said:

Right off the bat, could one of the Fused Spears from RoW that has the power to drain investiture work on Breaths?

I know that Breaths can only be given to someone willingly as far as we know, but seeing as it is investiture, could it be affected by this weapon? I can see arguments for both why and why not, as Stormlight seems to be constantly escaping the user anyways, while breaths remain with the holder until given up. However, breaths are described to "stick" to objects, and the more lifelike these objects are, the easier it is to stick breaths to them. I'm not entirely sure if the metal lining the spear is able to take investiture from inanimate objects, so correct me as you see fit, but it stands to reason that it would be theoretically possible to drain the breaths from an item that someone previously invested. So if this is theoretically possible, then what would it take for someone to use this weapon effectively against someone who's invested with breaths.

I think one of the spears could be used to drain Breaths. My reasoning depends on a theory I subscribe to that raysium can perform Spiritual Division to sever Investiture from someone who is stabbed. I lay out some thoughts on the theory in this thread:

Basically, I was trying to tease out the mechanics of how being stabbed with the raysium dagger severed Jezrien's Connection. I eventually settled on a theory that the process of having his spirit pulled through the raysium dagger is what severed the Connection.

If that theory (which, I admit is speculative) holds then I think a raysium spear could sever Breaths and conduct them as Investiture. It would likely also help if the user of the spear knew Endowment's tone/rhythm because to facilitate the flow as we see in RoW Chapter 6:

Quote

Leshi shot forward and speared Sigzil in the chest. her weapon impaled him straight through, bursting from the back of his blue uniform, slick with blood. He struggled, gasping, Stormlight leaking from his mouth. Leshwi hummed a loud tone, and the gemstone on her spear began to glow, sucking Stormlight from her prey.

Knowing the tone might, in fact, be necessary because I don't know that a gem would work as a vacuum to pull in the Breaths otherwise, or even whether Breaths can be stored in a gem at all.

Breaths always seem heavily reliant on Intent too, so there'd probably need to be an Intent/Command involved as well.

[AirsickAviar]

Does Raysium take the stormlight away via the method, or similar enough, as the Larken does? I know the Larken could suck in and absorb both Stormlight and Voidlight, and they seem to be able to be multifunctional in what types of investiture they can feed upon. I am going to say, it is very well possible. But then the question becomes, does it need to be form of investiture of light itself from whatever deity it is from. Perhaps, but I think breath has a similar aura as a stormlight/voidlight surger anyway. And isn't it stated somewhere that the physical element of investiture of a god medal was simply because it was the solid form of it. And there were liquid forms, and then gas forms? I think light in this case, is probably another form of the same thing. Something I have viewed it as anyway. Different shards tend to give each world a different focus of the same thing there.

[Daggon Forescout]

6 hours ago, mdross81 said:

Knowing the tone might, in fact, be necessary because I don't know that a gem would work as a vacuum to pull in the Breaths otherwise, or even whether Breaths can be stored in a gem at all.

Except that Moash was able to use the knife, so we know that being able to produce the tones can't be a requirement.

1 hour ago, AirsickAviar said:

Does Raysium take the stormlight away via the method, or similar enough, as the Larken does? I know the Larken could suck in and absorb both Stormlight and Voidlight, and they seem to be able to be multifunctional in what types of investiture they can feed upon.

If Larkins can steal breath, then Vasher needs to avoid that thing like the plague. That seems incredibly op that someone could just release a single larkin in the hallandren royal court and ruin everyone's day

[+mdross81]

8 minutes ago, Daggon Forescout said:

Except that Moash was able to use the knife, so we know that being able to produce the tones can't be a requirement.

I only meant that it might be a requirement to drain Breath. It’s clearly not a requirement for Honor’s Investiture, which we know can be drawn into an empty gem and stored in a gem.

[mathiau]

26 minutes ago, Daggon Forescout said:

If Larkins can steal breath, then Vasher needs to avoid that thing like the plague. That seems incredibly op that someone could just release a single larkin in the hallandren royal court and ruin everyone's day

A divine breath is an insane amount of investiture, similar to the investiture contained in a Truespren. There's no way a Larkin will be able to eat one before being fully sapient and even then they won't be able to eat many (by the way, Returned probably don't need their Divine Breath to live, it's just a gift to help them because that's what Endoment does )

Edited March 22, 2021 by mathiau

[Frustration]

2 minutes ago, mathiau said:

A divine breath is an insane amount of investiture, similar to the investiture contained in a Truespren. There's no way a Larkin will be able to eat one before being fully sapient and even then they won't be able to eat many (by the way, Returned don't need their Divine Breath to live, it's just a gift to help them because that's what Endoment does )

I think you linked the wrong WoB

[mathiau]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I think you linked the wrong WoB

I did not, how do you put your Divine Breath in a nicrosilmind if you couldn't leave without it?

I edited a "probably" in

[Frustration]

Just now, mathiau said:

I did not, how do you put your Divine Breath in a nicrosilmind if you couldn't leave without it?

I edited a "probably" in

oh, I was looking at the WoB above it.

on answering, how do you use a Divine breath if you can't live without it?

[mathiau]

10 minutes ago, Frustration said:

on answering, how do you use a Divine breath if you can't live without it?

I don't get your question, I just said you didn't need one to live

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, mathiau said:

I don't get your question, I just said you didn't need one to live

I'll rephrase that.

If you can live without the divine breath, why do you die when you heal someone?

[Daggon Forescout]

1 hour ago, mathiau said:

I did not, how do you put your Divine Breath in a nicrosilmind if you couldn't leave without it?

In that WoB Brandon doesn't say it would be a good idea to store a returned breath, just that it's possible. As long as generic breaths can be stored in nicrosil, he probably has to respond "yes" to that question.

1 hour ago, mathiau said:

A divine breath is an insane amount of investiture, similar to the investiture contained in a Truespren. There's no way a Larkin will be able to eat one before being fully sapient and even then they won't be able to eat many (by the way, Returned probably don't need their Divine Breath to live, it's just a gift to help them because that's what Endowment (sic) does )

I was thinking more about the many officials with a number of regular breaths. A single larkin could destroy a vast amount of wealth in a very short period of time. Or in the case of Vasher, presumably he's hanging on to a few breaths for awakening purposes, and using stormlight to survive each week. I don't think I want a larkin to be able to take away his awakening ability until he returns to Naalthis.

For that matter, what about a Naalthian who only has the single breath they were born with? Could a larkin steal that breath? I think breath needs to be too "sticky" for a Larkin to steal, otherwise there needs to be a very good reason why no one ever takes one to Naalthis.

[Frustration]

8 hours ago, Daggon Forescout said:

For that matter, what about a Naalthian who only has the single breath they were born with? Could a larkin steal that breath? I think breath needs to be too "sticky" for a Larkin to steal, otherwise there needs to be a very good reason why no one ever takes one to Naalthis.

Vasher is very afriad of Larkin so he at least thinks that they can steal breath.

As for a reason they haven't left they require spren bonds, just like all greatshells

[The Ward's Guard]

On 3/21/2021 at 0:39 PM, mdross81 said:

Knowing the tone might, in fact, be necessary because I don't know that a gem would work as a vacuum to pull in the Breaths otherwise, or even whether Breaths can be stored in a gem at all.

Breaths always seem heavily reliant on Intent too, so there'd probably need to be an Intent/Command involved as well.

Perhaps in any other situation I'd agree with you, but we've seen the spears work on Stormlight at the very least, and they don't give off any appearance of using the tone of honor. At the very least, I didn't pick up on any of that while reading. While it wouldn't be necessary, I believe that it would be incredibly helpful in aiding the spear in its purpose. In fact, because Breaths have been previously described as "sticky," I believe that if you simply use a Ryasium weapon to try to drain someone's breath, then it will take longer than it would to drain someone of Stormlight, as Stormlight is constantly escaping from the body while Breaths keep hold.

A few questions that occurred to me as I was considering this, can Breaths be stored in a sphere, and could you also take a Return's breath?

[+mdross81]

4 minutes ago, The Ward's Guard said:

Perhaps in any other situation I'd agree with you, but we've seen the spears work on Stormlight at the very least, and they don't give off any appearance of using the tone of honor. At the very least, I didn't pick up on any of that while reading. While it wouldn't be necessary, I believe that it would be incredibly helpful in aiding the spear in its purpose. In fact, because Breaths have been previously described as "sticky," I believe that if you simply use a Ryasium weapon to try to drain someone's breath, then it will take longer than it would to drain someone of Stormlight, as Stormlight is constantly escaping from the body while Breaths keep hold.

A few questions that occurred to me as I was considering this, can Breaths be stored in a sphere, and could you also take a Return's breath?

I certainly agree that knowing the tone would be helpful in draining Breaths.

And I wasn't trying to say that I think using the tone is necessary to drain Stormlight using a raysium spear. But there is at least one instance where I'm pretty sure a tone/rhythm facilitates the draining.

In the excerpt I quoted above (RoW Chapter 6), after stabbing Sigzil, Leshwi started humming and then the gem started to glow and the Stormlight started draining. With what we learn later in RoW about using a tuning fork to draw out Stormlight, I assumed that the rhythm she was humming was Honor's rhythm to draw the Stormlight out more quickly.

I imagine that the difference between using the spear alone and humming while using the spear is the same as the difference between the slow, empty-gem-vacuum method (the Arnist method) of drawing Stromlight out of a gem and using the tuning fork, which is much faster.

I only suggested that the tone/rhythm might be necessary in the case of Breaths because they're sticky and I wasn't sure whether the same vacuum mechanics that I imagine are involved when using the spear alone would work on Breaths like it does with Stormlight. Which goes to your question - which I share - about whether Breaths can be stored in a gem.

I mean, it's gaseous Investiture right? Setting aside for a minute the issue of stealing someone else's Breath, it seems like it ought to be possible, with a Command to put a regular Breath that you currently hold into a gem. (For a Divine Breath, I'm not sure. Someone above indicated that they are a large amount of Investiture, so if it worked you might need a huge, flawless gem).