Efficient Stormlight Investment through Awakening, and other musings

[Darkarma he/him]

I was thinking while rereading Words of Radiance... what would happen if you stored stormlight in something using the Awakening commands. Would it leak like it did people and gems? Is there an upper limit in how much stormlight you could forcefully push into a gem.Like if you have 10 freshly infused chips and then breathed them in and spoke the transference command to focus that stormlight into a single chip. Would the chip be fully infused by all that storm light?

 

Would an awakened cloak using stormlight remain always functional or would it eventually run out of light unlike normal breath.

 

On a side note, could you use the transference on a person? What would happen if a Windrunner gave their stormlight to say an Awakener. Would some of the nahal bond rub off on the stormlight and give the awakener a sense of how to use surgebinding?

 

And what if you infused an object with both Breath and stormlight.

 

More than anything I wonder what would happen if when Syl first becomes a shard blade, what if instead of stormlight a thousand breaths had been used. How would Spren react to the power of Breath which doesn't really run out. It gave Nightblood permanent consciousness. Would it allow Honorspren, Cryptics and other higher intelligence spren the ability to roam freely without the Nahal bound?

Edited July 6, 2014 by Darkarma

[Edgedancer he/him]

That´s is actually a pretty good question. I would guess that Stormlight retains its properties, which would mean that it actually would act in almost the opposite way from Breath. Former living materials leak because, as we know, normal lifeforms aren´t ideal containers for Stormlight. Textiles and ropes ect. might have better capabilitys to retaine Stormlight.

 

I also don´t think that attributes such as the Nahel-bond would rub over, as Stormlight itself is still just raw Investure.

[king of nowhere]

if stormlight leaked, that would explain why (wor spoiler cause this is not the subforum)

vasher is stuck training kaladin and can't just use stormlight  to create an army of lifeless and defeat the voidbringers alone

[MistLord he/him]

Pretty sure it would leak. Stormlight's incredibly powerful, but it's main drawback is it's loss of efficiency - the leaking.

[kaellok he/him]

1.  Is there an upper limit in how much stormlight you could forcefully push into a gem.Like if you have 10 freshly infused chips and then breathed them in and spoke the transference command to focus that stormlight into a single chip. Would the chip be fully infused by all that storm light?

 

2.  Would an awakened cloak using stormlight remain always functional or would it eventually run out of light unlike normal breath.

 

3.  On a side note, could you use the transference on a person? What would happen if a Windrunner gave their stormlight to say an Awakener. Would some of the nahal bond rub off on the stormlight and give the awakener a sense of how to use surgebinding?

 

And what if you infused an object with both Breath and stormlight.

 

4.  More than anything I wonder what would happen if when Syl first becomes a shard blade, what if instead of stormlight a thousand breaths had been used. How would Spren react to the power of Breath which doesn't really run out. It gave Nightblood permanent consciousness. Would it allow Honorspren, Cryptics and other higher intelligence spren the ability to roam freely without the Nahal bound?

1.  There is a limit of Stormlight that can be absorbed by a gem when it's left out in a Highstorm, a point in time with mind-boggling amounts of strength and intensity.  I would assume that forcing more Stormlight into a gemstone than this would result in it cracking/breaking.

 

2.  One thing that seems constant is that Stormlight runs out.  Even sitting around doing almost nothing (ie, a gemstone in a covered goblet), it still runs out.

 

3.  If the people in question had some semblance of a bond similar to the Nahel bond, then they could probably pass Investiture between themselves (which is what Shallan did with Pattern that one time).  Otherwise, we've seen nothing to suggest that it would be possible, so I'm leaning towards a "no" on this one.  "Definitely no" if the person who you're trying to pass Investiture to is patently incompatible with said Investiture (like, how many people couldn't be Allomancers in the Mistborn series?  A whole lot.)  So, could Kaladin and Shallan pass Stormlight back and forth?  Very highly unlikely, but not nearly as impossible as Kaladin trying to give it to, I don't know, a cat.

 

4.  Syl and other spren don't seem to use Stormlight in order to manifest.  Even Shardblades made of dead spren don't require the gemstones to be infused.  So, if they absorbed the power of 1000 breaths, it could make them into a kind of super-spren; perhaps like one of the Unmade?  Which would then probably let them roam wherever and however they wished without need of the Nahel bond.  I don't think in the same way that you mean, though.

[Darkarma he/him]

4.  Syl and other spren don't seem to use Stormlight in order to manifest.  Even Shardblades made of dead spren don't require the gemstones to be infused.  So, if they absorbed the power of 1000 breaths, it could make them into a kind of super-spren; perhaps like one of the Unmade?  Which would then probably let them roam wherever and however they wished without need of the Nahel bond.  I don't think in the same way that you mean, though.

 

Page 751 in the digital version of WoR seems to disagree. Pattern implies he uses investiture and Shallan even passes stormlight into him. Something tells me Breaths or even a divine breath would do some pretty fun and amazing things to a spren.

[Moogle]

Page 751 in the digital version of WoR seems to disagree. Pattern implies he uses investiture and Shallan even passes stormlight into him. Something tells me Breaths or even a divine breath would do some pretty fun and amazing things to a spren.

 

Breath prefers to stick to living things, and is resistant to being shoved into things like metal/stone. I'm not sure you could give Breath to a spren. It's an interesting idea, though.

[Darkarma he/him]

Breath prefers to stick to living things, and is resistant to being shoved into things like metal/stone. I'm not sure you could give Breath to a spren. It's an interesting idea, though.

 

True but isn't the very nature of spren hinging the fact that humans see concept as living things and thus Spren have been shaped and shaped themselves to act in a living way after a fashion? If thing views itself as alive would that be enough?. Though on this point I will give that it probably works better on Sapient spren, and less so on windspren and various water spren and might be almost impossible on things like fire or gravity spren.

Edited July 10, 2014 by Darkarma

[Moogle]

True but isn't the very nature of spren hinging the fact that humans see concept as living things and thus Spren have been shaped and shaped themselves to act in a living way after a fashion? If thing views itself as alive would that be enough?. Though on this point I will give that it probably works better on Sapient spren, and less so on windspren and various water spren.

 

Well, it seems less about something viewing itself as alive, and more about something being in the form of a human. Most spren are inhuman; Wyndle is made of vines, Syl is often a ribbon of light, and if the cometspren theories are correct then one Order gets cometspren.

 

Vasher's cloak is cut and ripped to make it more human-y.

 

This is made murky by the fact that a Soulcasted statue made from a human corpse would be easier to Awaken than a regular-made statue.

 

Spren also have their own Investiture, which means they will resist other Investiture.

 

In summary: I don't know!

[Darkarma he/him]

Investiture reacting to investiture of another frequency/type seems more like when they are of opposing intents by the user and the target. If it were the case that they were always resistant to each other I somehow think Vasher wouldn't be able to subsist on stormlight due to his divine breath in getting the way, same goes with powering nightblood. It may be difficult but not impossible. More than that there is the matter simply giving something breath regardless of what it is seems to relatively easy so long as your not awakening it. If you gave it to the stone it probably wouldn't care, its just holding it, however spren do have minds which may be enough to allow them to act a bit like lifeless if they weren't intelligent before hand in regards to getting the Breath back. Now if you gave Pattern Syl or Wyndle... it. They'd have to choose to give it back though it'd be a question how efficiently they can use it.

 

Seems like it would be a good topic to broach Brandon on if anyone can get a hold of him.

Edited July 10, 2014 by Darkarma