Lightspine

Somebody else might have thought of this first, but I'm not going hunting for other posts since I haven't finished the book yet. I am really confident that the box has a Seon inside of it.

This is true! However, spren would have a much harder time leaving their home planets than creatures do, due to Connection. We know that spren on Roshar can't easily worldhop. The same would likely be true for spren on other systems. Therefore, even though it isn't definitive, I think it's highly likely that Mandras are native. As for the gigantic hordelings, I don't really know. There's a chance that they do have Mandra and we just didn't see them. It's also possible that they survive by spending most of their time underwater, where buoyancy can counteract the strain of gravity. In addition, their body plan is significantly better than that of a Chasmfiend for distributing mass, since they're described as long with many legs (I was imagining a giant centipede). Each leg has to support less weight. (On the topic of buoyancy, I think that Santhids need Mandras to help them float rather than keep themselves from being crushed by gravity)

I think that there's either another Larkin there, or Chiri-chiri took advantage of the acoustics of those skulls. Rysn says that she swore the skulls were moved to point towards them when she heard the roar, and there's also the imagery of Chiri-chiri standing perched atop one of them, which reminds me of the "standing on the shoulders of giants" phrase. Here's the exact passage: I think it's possible, given the positioning, that Chiri-chiri was behind one of those skulls at the start of the passage. Is it possible that she used the skull kind of like a bullhorn? You can definitely magnify sounds with certain shapes. I don't think it's a huge stretch that there might be some sort of anatomical structure within the skulls that they use to produce really loud sounds. (Chasmfiends might have something similar with the calls seeming like four different ones overlapping). Basically, I think Chiri-chiri might have used the skull as some kind of macabre megaphone. Or you're right and it's a really big Laceryn down there. That would explain why the ceiling shook, since I'm not sure you could get that with just a bit of amplification.

I agree with @Ashbringer, those were single hordelings. And that fact made me terrified about the combat potential of the Sleepless. Luckily for the Lopen and Huio, though, hordelings like those probably don't come cheap. They have to be bred and would probably take many years to grow to full size. Producing an army would be difficult, so it would be hard for them to have a large-scale impact on the war. However, their presence still means that each individual Sleepless is easily one of the most deadly adversaries we've seen—more intimidating than multiple Radiants. In addition, Nikli is the youngest Sleepless and he's had enough time to raise at least seven hordelings of that size. Some of the older swarms have had the opportunity to accrue many times more, especially since the process should be at least somewhat exponential. The time it takes you to produce the first two hordelings should be equal to the time needed to produce the next two, then the next four, then eight... etc (assuming that each breeding event produces two more). Given enough time, the limit on the number of individuals in a swarm would be a larger factor than how long it takes to create these giant ones.

Hence why I said former. Maybe you haven't seen Brandon's annotation for Dawnshard? (It's on Reddit!) I'm just saying that the Siah Aimians are people who, like Hoid, once held a Dawnshard but no longer do. I'm not implying that these Dawnshards were destroyed or their numbers otherwise being reduced. This WoB also mentions "several" people becoming Dawnshards besides Hoid. I completely agree with them being partially Cognitive because of they have backwards shadows. I'm just not so sure about the "half spren" part of that. Like, how would that... happen? There are other ways to be closer to the Cogntive realm—Shallan, Jasnah, and (probably) Venli can use their powers to draw just as close. (Jasnah also had backwards shadows in the WoB prologue) (Also, WoB about backwards shadows here) As for the changing appearance, I honestly have no idea. Some spren in the physical realm can change their appearance freely, like Syl, but others are more limited. I don't think Pattern can really change shape besides hovering and becoming a ball. Ivory can only change in size, Wyndle seems to change by growing and moving his vines around, and Timbre has never changed their appearance at all.

So this is a tidbit that I haven't seen discussed yet. We've known they exist on other planets, but this is confirmation that they're not Roshar natives: At the same time, we learned something new about their biology; the really big centipede-like hordlings that Lopen fights have violet blood. In addition, hordlings are often distinguishable from cremlings by an external violet coloring. The first time we ever saw one was that purple "cremling" that Kaladin noticed while he was enslaved. Here's the quotes: Who else has violet carapace? Chiri-chiri: Now, I can't prove definitely that violet carapace corresponds with violet blood, but I have another reason to believe that larkin blood is violet: chasmfiend blood is also violet. Given the descriptions of Chiri-chiri "trumping" I don't think it's a stretch to say that they might be related. Why am I hung up over the violet blood? Because of what it might imply about which life is native to Roshar. The Listeners have orange blood, and they are the only known native Rosharans. Are all the creatures with violet blood invasive? Are they from the same planet as the Sleepless? However, I have reasons to believe that creatures with violet blood are native. First of all comes anatomy. Creatures from off-world would not have gemhearts with which they can bond spren. The very fact that they're large crustaceans who require Roshar's higher oxygen level, lighter gravity, and spren bonds to survive seems to indicate that they are native to the planet. In addition, violet blood is found in axehounds, who don't really have any ties to the Larkin or Sleepless as far as I can tell: The largest reason I think these creatures are native, however, is coevolution. Spren bonds on Roshar are a form of mutualistic symbiosis—when organisms of different species interact closely for mutual benefit. The most well-known example of this in our world is pollinating insects. Many of these insects are fairly indiscriminate. European honeybees happily pollinate flowers found in North America, even though those species did not evolve together. The same seems to be true for most of the Mandra on Roshar, who bond with all sorts of creatures from skyeels to chasmfiends to santhids. Some of these creatures did not necessarily need to evolve alongside the Mandra in order to interact with them now. Theoretically, you could drop a brand-new massive creature into Roshar, and if it had a gemheart, these Mandra might be able to bond it. However, symbiosis can be much, much more specific. There's a lot of bacteria that are specific to the digestive tracts of different animals species, but there's also examples of specific pollinators. Perhaps the coolest is the Darwin's moth: Look at that tongue! This moth is the result of coevolution, and it can only pollinate a specific flower in the Galapagos. Likewise, the flower can only be pollinated by this moth. Such a specific interaction is a clear indicator that these two species evolved together. In fact, Darwin first predicted the existence of this moth when he examined the flower which it pollinates. The first specimen of the moth wasn't found until years after his death. Now let's look at the Larkin. They can't just bond with any Mandras, but with a subspecies found only in Akinah. Chiri-chiri hasn't reached a size yet where the greater potency of the Akinah Mandra should be necessary for her survival. Normal Mandra can hold up chasmfiends, for goodness sake. Instead, by some biological or magical mechanism, I think Chiri-chiri is incapable of bonding other Mandra. Part of the definition of coevolution is that it must be reciprocal. Both species must be evolving in response to the other. Why would Mandras exist on Roshar which meet the exact needs of the Larkin/Laceryn? How could the Larkin/Laceryn ever exist before these Mandra did, or vice versa? The answer is that they didn't. This was, undoubtedly, coevolution taking place. It is a clear sign that these species are native to Roshar. Either they've lived on Roshar for thousands of generations, or they were created by Adonalsium in this state (in which case they would also be native). Therefore, I think that the purple-ness of the hordelings is from interbreeding with native Rosharan life. Nikli mentions that their hordelings can breed with the Larkin. And we also know that Adonalsium made species like Humans and Parshendi biologically compatible. Interbreeding like this would likely be the quickest way for the Sleepless to have blended in to Roshar when they first arrived. The weird purple hordelings probably look different from cremlings because they're part-Larkin. I don't have much of a theory here, I guess. TL;DR: I got hung up over the color of some blood and carapace, but in the end I'm concluding that the Sleepless are the only invasive species and they've blended in by breeding hordelings with native Rosharan life. EDIT: Well, somehow I wrote this whole thing without realizing there was an extremely pertinent WoB: I think this generally supports my interpretation, although it doesn't specifically address the origins of the Larkin. Also this WoB, which is mostly tangential to my theory but is still cool:

That's exactly what I meant! Sorry if I wasn't very clear, you definitely put it more succinctly. Definitely something I want to know as well. I don't think we have much information in this department as of now.

No real evidence here besides immortality, but i wanted to suggest the idea. I was wondering how Siah Aimians fit in with the puzzle when I realized they might have the same immortality as Hoid. Also, some of their abilities are reminiscent of the Returned (changing appearance) and Rysn seems to have Heightening. So there’s a tenuous link there. Thoughts?

I think we should definitely be using the herald illustrations! I'm surprised that I didn't see a thread about that after the new images were posted. All the illustrations can be found at the bottom of this page: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Herald Some of the images from Oathbringer clearly show cousin spren we already know. Jezrien has windspren around him, and Ishar has gloryspren. Vedel seems to have lifespren around her, which would indicate them being the cousin spren of Edgedancers. However, we can't see any creationspren around Shalash. As for the new drawings, Paliah clearly has logicspren around her so that would support the comments that they are associatied with truthwatchers. Nale has this blue light around him which might be a spren, but might just be stormlight. If they're spren, they could be awespren or bindspren (the ones Kaladin sees when he makes his Full Lashing). Bindspren fits the description better and also makes sense because binding & law but it's also super weird because it seems associated with Adhesion, a surge which the Skybreakers don't have. Kalak clearly has some spren in a V pattern at the bottom of his painting. They look like white petals—shamespren? That doesn't really make sense. I don't think I identified it correctly. Chanarach is also surrounded by red petals... which also could be shamespren. But that makes even less sense to me. I agree that exhaustionspren are the best candidate for Taln's picture.

You make a really good point here! I think that for my circuit analogy, your theory here would mean that Connection is analogous to the wires. I'm on board with that! As for stormlight being consumed or not though, I agree with you in part. I think that investure should almost always be conserved, just like mass is in our universe. However, conservation of matter is really just an illusion that results from the difficulty of converting mass into other forms of energy. While it is true for most processes, there are some few (namely nuclear reactions) which can decrease the amount of mass. The same could be true for stormlight—although normally conserved, some special processes might convert it from magical investure into more mundane energy, like that required to heal a body. Also, I just made an edit to my post! I realized that I might have overlooked a really simple explanation for why larger gemstones can withdraw stormlight from smaller ones. Tl;DR is that I treat it like gas in containers of different sizes, meaning it will diffuse along a pressure gradient.

Wow, I was not expecting that to be brought up while I was writing an expansion of my theory in that thread. Here's the new one, if you're interested: I'm really not sure what the metal could be. It could still be some sort of aluminum alloy, although that would make it weird that it can contain stormlight. Conductors don't contain an electric field, but they do contain current—which is what equates to stormlight in my analogy.

This post is the consequence of the most recent chapter epigraph about how the metal "conducts" stormlight, but it took a bit of a left turn and I actually barely theorize about what that metal might be. It is also sort of an extension of a comment I posted almost three months ago. If you're interested, here it is: (Although I will be reiterating most of the information there, so it is not necessary for you to read first) In this comment, I provided a theory about how and why stormlight moves in terms of changes in potential energy. To be clear here, the potential energy I refer to is not the energy of the investure that makes up the stormlight, but rather the potential energy of the stormlight's position in the environment. For example, if you put an infused sphere at the top of Urithiru, it would have a lot more potential energy than the same sphere at ground level. This potential energy is due to the sphere's ability to drop, not because of the amount of stormlight it contains. Without any barriers, any system will tend towards having the lowest potential energy. Balls will roll downhill. Stormlight will move from positions of higher potential energy to positions of lower energy. In addition to differences in potential energy, we need to talk about "activation energy" here, which is a concept from chemical kinetics. Basically, activation energy acts as a barrier to a process. Rather than determining whether a process will happen*, it determines how quickly it will happen. (*Note: if you make the barrier high enough, you can stop something from happening by making it ridiculously slow). This barrier is the reason why the processes I describe will not happen instantaneously. So, here's my energy diagram for stormlight: Here are my justifications for the features of this diagram: All stormlight eventually returns to a free, gaseous state not held in any object. However, that does not guarantee that it is the lowest energy state. If it behaves like water in the water cycle, then it could "evaporate" despite the fact that this process increases energy. I have no true evidence that stormlight is lower in energy at a free state than when it is in a gemstone, but this is the simplest placement. You could place it between "Gemstone (Small)" and "Radiant" without really changing this thoery, although small adjustments would have to be made. Large gemstones leak stormlight slowly, so there is a large barrier which slows down this process. Small gemstones leak more quickly, so the barrier for this process is smaller. Stormlight will automatically transfer from a smaller gemstone to nearby larger gemstones during the process of trapping a spren. This process is spontaneous, so the potential energy of stormlight in a large gemstone is lower than that in a high gemstone. EDIT: I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. Perhaps the best explanation for why larger gemstones are lower energy has to do with the "concentration" of stormlight. It's very possible that the energy density of stormlight in a fully charged small gemstone and large gemstone are equal. The same quantity of stormlight in a smaller gemstone, however, occupies less volume. Thus, when given the opportunity it will "diffuse" to a larger empty gemstone where it takes up more volume. Basically, the potential energy of stormlight in a gemstone increases as the concentration does. This is more in line with the description of stormlight as moving along a pressure gradient, since this is how pressure works in gasses. If you have gas in a small container and you allow it to move to a larger one, it will diffuse between the two. The only difference is that it would leave some gas in the small container. Don't know if that happens for stormlight. Features of gemstones such as their cut determine the size of the barriers, but not the energy of stormlight within the gemstone. Stormlight is at a higher energy when held by a Radiant than when held by a gemstone. I know this because when Kaladin swears the third oath, stormlight entering him from nearby gems causes the air to grow cold and form frost. This means the process consumed energy. Objects other than Radiants and gemstones are even higher in energy. We know this because when Szeth or Kaladin infuse an object with a lot of stormlight, the object grows cold and forms frost. Again, this is a consequence of energy being consumed. (That is what the arrows saying "endothermic" in my diagram mean). A really common demonstration in chemistry classes is to perform an endothermic reaction in a beaker above a block of wood, with some water in between. The water will freeze, binding the beaker to the wood. High-investure conditions refers to states such as Honor's perpendicularity, from which stormlight will burst out and fill gemstones. So far, this is identical to the theory in my much earlier comment, except with the additional evidence of the frost-formation, which I didn't think of three months ago. Now, you can probably see how the conductive metal does its thing according to this theory—it reduces the energy barrier between a Radiant and a gemstone, therefore facilitating this transfer quickly. This is the point where I decided to focus too much on the word "conducting" and went off the rails by drawing circuits. (Disclaimer: I am a chemistry student, so I'm pretty well versed with thermodynamics but am less confident with circuits. Please help me out if you actually know circuits super well) So, how do circuits relate to thermodynamics? Well, the driving force behind the current in any circuit is a difference in potential energy of electrons at the beginning of a circuit versus the end of a circuit. In this analogy, I well be relating the movement of stormlight to the current. (And yes, I'm using positive current. Despite the fact electrons flow the other way. Maybe that's dumb, go ahead and flip all the signs if you wish). Stored stormlight will be represented as stored charge—a capacitor! Here is where things get a bit tricky though. A capacitor, in the simplest case, consists of two parallel sheets of metal which each store opposing electric charge. The capacitor will fill with charge when it is connected to a battery, and without a battery it will act as a source of charge and produce a current in a closed circuit. Now, in order for this to work with stormlight I had to make some... adjustments. The object holding the stormlight cannot really be represented by the capacitor itself, but rather by one of the sheets of the capacitor. The other sheet of the capacitor represents the object that the stormlight is flowing to or from. As I switch between different processes, I will be switching these sheets out. Which is not really a thing that happens in circuits. It felt weird. (I think there might be an easier way to do this that has to do with something called "ground" but uhhh as I said I'm not too well versed at this so any electrical engineers please help). (Also, for those unfamiliar with circuit notation: a capacitor is two parallel lines of equal length. A battery is two parallel lines of unequal length. Resistors will be zig-zags). Let's apply this to the simplest case: stormlight being held in a gemstone. The infused gemstone acts like a positively charged plate in a capacitor. Freedom represents the negatively charged plate. Stormlight, represented as current, which flows from the positive plate to the negative plate, escapes the gemstone. The barrier to this process is represented by a resistor, which slows the transfer down. In this case, the resistance is very high and the transfer takes a long time (days). Next, we can look at the process of a Radiant drawing in stormlight from a gemstone. This is an endothermic process (it increases energy) so energy must be supplied to facilitate it. In this case, the Radiant has the power to act as a battery: On the left is the initial state. On the right is the final state. This is also the first example of the weirdness that was a consequence of using capacitor plates to represent objects. Why is the gemstone, which begins infused, initially uncharged? Well, if I had given it a positive charge, the battery (Radiant) wouldn't have been needed to drive the flow of current. In order to represent the fact that the gemstone is lower in energy than the Radiant, despite containing stormlight, I had to make the plate begin as uncharged. Afterwards, the Radiant will look like this: Basically, the same as with an infused gemstone. The only difference here is that the resistance is much lower, allowing current to flow faster (the stormlight leaks faster). When a Radiant gets stabbed by one of those special conductive Fused spears, the resistance essentially disappears: Thus, current (stormlight) flows very quickly from the positive plate (Radiant) to the negative plate (gemstone). When a Windrunner like Kaladin infuses an object with stormlight, the process looks very similar to when the Radiant draws stormlight from a gemstone. The Windrunner acts as a battery and transfers stormlight from lower energy to higher energy. (Okay these are the last ones I promise) What happens after the object is infused? There are two subtly different possibilities that involve circuits, and one which doesn't: The first possibility is that, as the stormlight leaves the object, some of the potential energy that it is releasing is converted into the effect of the surge. At first, this option seems to be the most appealing because it is how stuff gets powered in real-life electrical circuits. (like lightbulbs) (by the way, this process also involves some resistance so it doesn't happen all at once) However, there's a bit of an issue here. If the surge is produced by stormlight leaving the object, the an object like a gemstone, which has a much higher "resistance" and thus slower stormlight loss, should exhibit the surge less strongly. Since this is not the case, I believe the second possibility is more accurate: that there is a small amount of resistance which leads to the object losing stormlight quickly, and that the effect of the surge is maintained as long as there is stormlight left in the object. The third explanation kind of defies circuits and it is that stormlight is actually consumed to produce the surge. Since current is never consumed when an electrical circuit, I couldn't figure out a way to represent that. This is also the reason why I haven't represented stormlight healing or surges such as Soulcasting or Progression, which appear to consume stormlight. The same conundrum applies to fabrials: do they consume the stormlight, or do they consume potential energy as the stormlight escapes them? Anyway, thank you to anybody who actually read this whole thing. Wow. You're almost as crazy as I am for writing this. For those who didn't, I totally understand. Although I can't quite come up with a good TL;DR. I might include that later. (Edit: wow a lot of the formatting here is wonky. There's extra blank lines and weird indents all over the place)

Ash dropped us this tidbit in today's chapter: This immediately reminded me of Nin's exchange with Szeth at the end of Words of Radiance: Ash says that the Shin began to worship her, but Szeth explicitly says they worship "The sun and the stars. Not men." Now, some people might interpret Nin's conversation as implying that Szeth is part of some splinter religion that worships the Heralds—this is what I thought on my first read-through—but I don't think this is the case. Szeth must have been an extremely devout, or else he would never have obeyed his Oathstone with such dedication. He was also probably a religious leader, perhaps one of the Stone Shamans themselves. In his POV chapters, he constantly references his beliefs about stone, and refers to the Sun as the god of gods. Nin isn't saying that Szeth worships the Heralds. Instead, he explicitly says "You, Szeth, worship order, do you not? You follow the laws of your society to perfection." This is not a truth about Szeth's religion. It is an observation made by a megalomaniac Herald who sees Szeth's devotion to law and calls it a religion because he thinks himself to be some sort of God of Law. So, what's up with Ash's worship? And with those prophecies about a new desolation, which make it strange that Szeth's warnings were ignored? The key here is Ash's statement that "I eventually left them behind." The current religion of Stone Shamanism is not at all the religion she was involved with. For all we know, it's been four thousand years since they worshipped Ash. Or maybe just a couple hundred. It would be great if she could tell us when things happened, but no such luck. Anyway, the tenants behind Stone Shamanism has lead to a lot of theorizing about it being an ancient religion from before the Desolations. Oaths and Truth are very important to them, which smells of Honor. Ash has Shin eyes, so they might be the first Human ethnic group to come to Roshar. Their refusal to walk on stone is highly theorized to be a remnant from the first agreement of humankind to not expand beyond Shinovar. Worship of the spren of the stones is also quite likely tied to the Sibling, especially since they see Urithiru as holy. This idea is also supported by their language: In addition, there are some parallels between the Shin and Horneater worship of gods of stone and mountains. If we follow these threads, it would seem that some Shin traditions might be ancient, tying as far back as to the original culture of the Dawnsingers. And I think this is precisely why they wanted to kill Ash. The Shin follow the precepts given to them by the Dawnsingers long ago. They follow Honor and Cultivation. They follow the gods referenced in the Eila Stele: "spren, stone, and wind," but stone in particular because it was the Sibling who raised the Misted Mountains and separated Shinovar from the rest of the continent. (Roshar doesn't have plate tectonics. Where else could mountains come from? The continent moves from highstorm weathering and crem deposition, so the land to the west is newer than the land to the east. These mountains are new. The Sibling is their jail-keeper, warden, and God) They are still bound by their agreement to never leave Shinovar. In the times of the Silver Kingdoms, each Kingdom had a special role. Alethela trained soldiers and prepared for war. Shin Kak Nish may have been the opposite; a place of peace and neutrality, remembering the original contract between the Dawnsingers and Humanity. Ash is a twice a traitor. She walks on stone and helps those who conquered Roshar. Then, she betrays the Oathpact and leaves Taln to suffer alone. Oaths and honesty are important to Stone Shamanism. I don't see them taking this well. But why switch to worshipping her? Pay attention to phrasing: One interpretation of this is that the Shin worshipped Ash because of their prophecies. Her betrayal allowed for the current situation, giving a chance for the Singers to return and take back their rightful land. Presently, the Shin are neutral. They do not send forces against the Singers or the Coalition. They sit back and let the Stonewalkers receive their punishment. But they are not on the side of Odium. If this is their motive, it might explain a lot. So yeah, that's my theory. TL;DR: As others have theorized, Stone Shamanism is a leftover from Humankind's first contract with the Singers. Because of this, they remain neutral in the current Desolation and are maybe sort of pleased that it is happening. This could explain why they wanted to murder Ash initially, but then worshipped her after their prophecies surfaced. Edit: I began this intending it as a post about Szeth, forgot that I began it in Character Discussion when I changed the topic a bit. Sorry mods! Please move this to a different thread if you feel it doesn't belong.

Because of the connection to cymatics and the Dawncities, I've always thought that this power must have been one of the abilities of the "Dawnsingers." Especially since this is related to sound. But I've never actually thought about what those 10 craters (or domes) might be!

Gemstones physically cannot be created by Soulcasting. That's probably one of the reasons they're used as currency.

Yeah there's definitely a lot that we don't know. That's a good point. I looked up the phrasing of those WoBs about Nightblood, and this one seems to be the closest thing to Sanderson calling it the most invested object: He says "things" here and is also including the Shards in this scale so the Unmade are probably being considered when he said this. So it's very possible that Nightblood is more invested than them. On the other hand, he says "one of" so it's not conclusive. However, there could be another reason that Nighblood doesn't distort spacetime; the aluminum. Aluminum blocks the effects of investure; what if it contains the spacetime distortion as well? It's certainly a possibility. Maybe Nightblood creates time dilation when it is unsheathed.

I believe this WoB might explain some of it: The time dilation might just be from the fact that there are 3 Unmade (Ahsertmarn, Sja-anat, and Yelig-nar) residing in the Kholinar palace. That's a truckload of investure if I've ever seen it. It's possible that only Ashertmarn is actually dilating time though, since their massive form is what the group see in Shadesmar. Anyway, Sanderson seems to be saying that the investure could cause time dilation in either the Spiritual or Cognitive Realms rather than the Physical. Cognitive Realm time dilation would completely explain why the occupants of the palace experienced less time mentally. But I don't know about the weird clash between the physical aging and the lack of food. We've seen in other cases such as (Spoilers for TFE) that your spiritweb "knows" your true age. Personally, I think the time dilation must be exclusively in the Cognitive because the Spiritual Realm is already kind of devoid of time so time dilation there... doesn't make sense? Therefore, maybe the aging is from spiritual aging? But then what about Gavinor? Uh, I thought the WoB might help clear things up but nevermind, everything still seems messy to me.

Good point! For some reason I was only thinking of spanreeds and heating/cooling, since those are more commonly seen. I guess I was both underthinking and overthinking at the same time :P. Edit: New reply just as I posted this one lol. Adding as an edit so I don't double-post That sounds like a good analogy! Stormlight is certainly easier to acquire. What this makes me wonder the most, however, is how the amount of investure in a breath compares to stormlight.

I was considering this too. This chapter certainly puts her on the radar! I'm a little confused by Mraize right now, but maybe I'm overthinking things. Something certainly isn't completely adding together about the stormlight thing. But first! A tiny theory about how he might get the stuff off world. My immediate idea was "just wrap it in aluminum." Gavilar mentioned a box. An aluminum box? It sounds like it could work, right? The only issue I can think of for this idea is that it's too easy. Like, anybody with a knowledge of realmatics would probably be able to think of it. It would be hard for the Ghostbloods to monopolize a technique that's so simple. Anyway, I agree with some of @Karger's questioning earlier. Why stormlight? Mraize says that he would have a monopoly over the trade of investure, but we already know of a type of investure that is bought, sold, and moved between worlds. Vivenna and Wit have both brought Breath to Roshar, and Vasher has too (since he dies without his Divine Breath), though we haven't seen him use them. And Breaths are already for sale in Hallendren. Now, this could easily explain why Mraize doesn't want to deal in Breaths—there's already a somewhat open market in them, one which the Ghostbloods wouldn't be able to have a strangle-hold on. The real question here should be why the Ghostbloods think that their stormlight market can outcompete the one for Breaths. The easiest explanation would be that stormlight can be applied in a manner that Breaths can't be. This is objectively true, and I've seen plenty of people here talking about exporting fabrials offworld. I agree that any method which can export stormlight should be able to export fabrials. However, I don't think this is sufficient. First of all, we see the Ire using some fabrial-like device powered with the Dor in Secret History, so stormlight might not be unique in this department. But it's still much more portable than the Dor, so perhaps there's still a market there. The biggest flaw in this isn't another form of investure, but just plain old electricity. Scadrial has entered its industrial phase, and is just a few years away from many devices which could render fabrials obsolete. Why buy a magical contraption which runs on an exotic energy source that must be brought from another planet when you can get an electrical appliance that does the same thing? Once a power station is built on your planet, it should supply energy much more cheaply than an interplanetary trade route. If I were looking to turn a massive profit, I would be smuggling appliances out of Scadrial. That said, perhaps Mraize doesn't know the potential electricity has. It would be hilarious to see him succeed only to be crushed in a decade by Scadrian entrepreneurs. This makes me think there could be some use for stormlight or voidlight which is yet unseen. Maybe the Ghostbloods have a contract with some more nefarious group or entity who want to use the stormlight in their plans. Or I'm maybe I'm overthinking this.

I typically don't do this kind of theory but it's just too tempting. *Puts tinfoil hat on* "Unusually light hair" you say? Must be a WORLDHOPPER. And she's tall too, that must mean she's Terris. It's not like the Alethi are tall or anything.... *Removes tinfoil hat* Okay that's enough crackpot theorizing for me. This chapter made me feel like I was getting stabbed and tickled at the same time. Edit: I kept reading and dragged myself further into crackpot territory. Check out this quote Does this mean Hem's skin tone is distinct? Someone stop me before I actually start believing she's a Terriswoman.

I wish I could unread this because now I'm very scared of the possibility. Poor Kal, that would be one rough journey to the 4th ideal. I could definitely imagine Lezian becoming an important antagonist this book, kind of taking the place of Amaram or Sadeas (although we already know the Ghostbloods and SoH are also kind of taking those spots)

That's a possibility, but looking at the rest of the passage: As I've said before, I think that "He killed Lezian, the Pursuer" is being supplied as an explanation to Venli for why Leshwi fears she "might not have a chance to face him again." Lezian is going to take revenge, and either Leshwi thinks this means Kaladin is as good as dead, or there is some sort of system where Leshwi has to defer to Lezian and let him hunt Kaladin without her interference. Anyway I'm mostly replying here to shamelessly direct you towards my new theory:

I think it's best to think of what the secretspren do as something very similar to Allomantic Bronze. (Seeking) If you're good with Bronze, you can tell the difference between different types of kinetic investure. It's not merely a question of whether or not the Fused's use of surges is "quiet" or not if the secretspren can be trained to recognized their signature. They don't have to be indiscriminate in choosing which instances of surgebinding or fabrials to report. That's not to say that I don't think it's possible for the Fused to be more quiet. I just think we should also consider this avenue; that the secretspren can detect both, but that there is enough of a difference in signature (even when Venli uses voidlight) to distinguish them.

This is a bit of a weird theory, but we've seen two instances now which seem like they might be setting up an Honorspren being able to aid in battle against a Fused. First is this exchange with Syl in Chapter 5: And next is what Leshwi says in today's Chapter 11: Leshwi's comment here is very weird. It shouldn't even be necessary to state that Syl was there—why wouldn't a spren be around their Radiant, especially one of the 3rd ideal who can summon a sprenblade? Even more mysterious is the statement that Syl "did not appear to me." Leshwi does not consider Syl participating in the battle as a sprenblade to be an "appearance." She likely means that Syl did not make her spren form visible to Leshwi. In isolation, it might seem like Leshwi wants to have a conversation with Syl or something of that sort. I think that's a solid idea, but Syl's comment in Chapter 5 makes me wonder if Leshwi was expecting Syl to take part in the combat in some other way. Let's take a look at what Syl does do during the battle: (Note: I bolded sections of text here for easy comparison between quotes but also for details that I think are important and will try to explain later) Reminds me of this moment from Words of Radiance (although this instance isn't Syl): Now have a look at this awesome scene from Oathbringer Chapter 31: There are a multitude, maybe dozens, of other scenes where windspren follow Kaladin around but these two are the most notable, largely because the windspren seem to be helping Kal rather than just following him. A small point of contention here is whether or not the windspren are physically doing anything. In the last quote, they are described as "sweeping to Kaladin's sides and parting the winds around him," which sounds an awful lot like they are taking a direct involvement. But if you want to argue they're more there as symbols or indicators of Kaladin's use of Adhesion, I can totally see why. Anyway, adding all these quotes together we see: Syl leading Kaladin's way against Leshwi just like the windspren do in his fight against Szeth. Windspren parting the winds, with Kaladin at the head of their formation. In the RoW Chapter 11 quote, Kal notes that "the roaring air seemed to fade" when Syl is taking point. I think the windspren could be physically blocking some of the wind, and thus reducing air resistance, here. So, this might be a bit of a leap but could Syl potentially "take point" and lead a group of windspren? If she does this and chases Leshwi down, she could hinder her maneuverability by buffeting her with wind. I see a lot of other possible conclusions but that's the one that springs out at me. I would be really excited to see it happen!

Leshwi doesn’t think she’ll get to fight Kaladin again, why is that? She can’t already know about his removal from the field. I think that the phrasing here—with Leshwi replying to Venli’s attunement of Curiosity—is meant to imply that Lezian is the reason Leshwi thinks she won’t be able to fight Kaladin. Lezian is a creature of pride, and probably wants vengeance. I bet he’ll be seeking Kaladin out, and he doesn’t have the Heavenly One’s aversion to attacking non-combatants so Kal will be forced to fight him despite being off the battlefield. I also want to know why Leshwi is interested in Syl, and says she didn’t show herself despite the fact that she fought against a Sylblade. Leshwi wants to see he in spren form? But she doesn’t ask her to show herself? Maybe it used to be some sort of tradition for Honorspren to show themselves to the Heavenly Ones as a part of their respectful duel, one which is now lost?