Reduce Reuse Recycle, Or What happens to all those dead folks?

[Nicrosil he/him]

So, I've been thinking. What happens to all those bits of Shards put in people? On Scadrial, everyone has a bit of Preservation and Ruin, with a splash more Preservation. On Nalthis, everyone has a Breath, a hunk of Endowment. What happens when those people die? Is that investiture returned to the Shard, or is it lost forever?

 

If that innate investiture does fizzle out, that means that the Shards have been slowly losing power. Every death would be a loss, like Hemalguric decay on a Cosmere wide scale. Even active uses of investiture would be a loss for the Shards; every time a person uses Allomancy and draws from Preservation's pool of power. Every time a stormlight infused gem goes dun, Honor loses a little bit of power.

 

Perhaps this is why Odium is such a threat, by investing in as little as possible, his power hasn't been diminishing.

 

Or used investiture goes back into its Shard, making this whole topic useless.

[king of nowhere]

I really think it goes bacck to the shard. it makes the most sense; aafter atium is used, the investiture is not lost forever, but it reforms over time. i guess it's the same for all other cases. shards are a renewable resource.

[Tempus]

WoB has it that the power returns to the Shard. While it's not in the Shard, though, the Shard is weaker - this is suspected to be a reason why Odium was very hesitant to Invest himself into a planet.