Zath

Just maybe, if you feel like it. @Kaj Interesting intro! Here's a few things that stood out to me. (If you're counting the disclaimer as part of your story): The "if you cannot handle voices in your head, please do not read on" part of your disclaimer was great! A touch of dark humor, perhaps a bit of ominous foreshadowing... In contrast, the rest of the disclaimer felt kind of off-putting, and this part, "...requires the use of an imagination. If you cannot handle any of these..." even felt a little antagonistic / manipulative. I was like, are you saying if I don't like your story, I don't have an imagination? Rude! I realize that's probably not what you were trying to say, but if you're going to keep the disclaimer then I would rephrase it in a way that won't get the reader's hackles up. (Or write the disclaimer in the voice of a character who would want to antagonize the reader) ...Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive here, so take this criticism with a grain of salt. "I watched the worlds" is a good first line. Thumbs up! Kilo's intro... When you were describing his background (orphan, parents murdered, weird stuff happening recently), I would've liked a "show, don't tell" approach. In fact, I think I'd prefer to not know some of that stuff until you can devote a flashback to it, so I can experience it as Kilo did. As it is now, I find it hard to truly care about Kilo's situation. I mean, yeah, I know things are tough for him, but I don't really feel it. You get what I'm saying? Andy's intro was better at showing rather than telling me what he's been going through. Very chilling, actually. Good job! Overall, fascinating prologue. Well done!

It was $23.99, actually. And I had a coupon. Granted. You bond two honorspren. To each other. It's a beautiful ceremony, everyone is dressed in their finest, and you officiate the exchanging of vows with superb aplomb. ("Do you take this honorspren to be your lawfully wedded wife?") As the two newly-wed honorspren fly off to start a beautiful new life together, you find yourself on the verge of happy tears from the joy of the moment. Then you realize that this wasn't the boon you had in mind when you visited the Nightwatcher. You scan the crowd and catch sight of the Nightwatcher near the back. She smirks at you and vanishes before you can approach. Your bane is that over the years the honorspren couple keeps asking you to provide gifts for all their little honorsprenlings -- and they seem determined to have an alarmingly large number of descendants. You can't find it in your heart to refuse (the little tykes are quite adorable), so you become the de facto "rich" uncle for all the honorspren couple's kids, which takes quite a chunk out of your savings account. But money isn't everything, right? I wish for computer hacking skills (or "skillz", if you prefer).

At least I can still introduce myself as "Zath: the Firesoul!" ...If any Eskimos happen to wander by my igloo and ask me who I am. Granted! You become this: Congratulations! You're a specific variety of deep-sea anglerfish, also known as a seatoad. Scientists are fascinated by you, and your friends are simultaneously intrigued and grossed out by the fact that your internal organs are visible. They're like: Your bane is that you now have this thing hunting you... And ninja'd... twice. I put effort into this, storm it! So it's staying. Granted. You get Napoleon ice cream. There are no typos in it, thank the Almighty. It's rather good. The flavor has a certain... Je ne sais quoi. Your bane is that Napoleon Bonaparte wants his ice cream back, and he's brought the entire French military to your doorstep. Hope you're good at diplomacy. Also, you might want to grab an English-to-French dictionary. I wish to be a ninja.

Oh. That is nowhere near as disturbing as I what I was thinking. (This feels like a certain scene from The Emperor's New Groove...) Bad brain! <smacks forehead> Why do you always leap to the worst possible conclusions?! Shame on you! ...If you really want to know what I was thinking: Also, I know Apollyon already granted this, but... <stage whisper> I had Kelsier call you Shock 'cause he was "shocked by your presence." </stage whisper> Eh? Get it? Get it? ...Yes I know. Not very creative. I was starting to run out of imagination juice there at the end. Granted. The Staticspren looks like a dust bunny. Its name is Phtephen (with a capital "Phthphthph"). After swearing the Second Ideal of the DoNothings ("I will do nothing today that can be put off until tomorrow"), you are granted the surges of Stupidity and LackofTui. You and Phtephen enjoy many long hours of rubbing helium balloons against the carpet and then zapping each other with the static electricity this produces. It's the simple things in life... Your bane is that you are now allergic to magazine subscriptions. You'll have to go to your local library for your monthly fix of... whatever magazine you enjoy. (Sports Illustrated? People? Forbes? Backpacker? I dunno, I'm not too familiar with popular magazines). I wish to be a Brass Ferring: a Firesoul!

Is... is Zweiss what I think it is...? No. No! My brain! My innocence! NOOO!! (NOOO!! NOOO!! NOOO!! NOOO!! NOOO!! NOOO!!) World, I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I went through to get rid of Daylight Savings. The cost... may have been... too high... <weeps pathetically> The Nightwatcher lifts her eyebrows. "Oh, wow. I mean, just, wow. You're sure...?" You nod, and the Nightwatcher lets out a low whistle. "Oooookay then. Don't say I didn't warn you." With a wave of her insubstantial hand, you are suddenly transported to strange world. The ground -- and everything else, for that matter -- seems to be made of mist, springy but firm enough to support your weight. You are crouched at the top of a small hill overlooking a rather intimidating fortress brimming with guards, though the distance is too far to make out any details. Next to you is a man that you instantly recognize as Kelsier, the Survivor of Hathsin. He appears shocked by your presence. "Who are you, kid, and what are you doing here?" he asks. "I'm AonEne," you reply, "and I think we have a Nahel bond now...? I'm not sure." Kelsier shakes his head, grinning. "A Nahel bond? I've heard of those. Doesn't the spren get to initiate contact? Does that make you or me the spren?" You're about to answer, but Kelsier waves a scarred hand and cuts you off, "Doesn't matter. Listen, Shock -- can I call you Shock? -- you came at a great time. I need to sneak into that fortress, but there are too many guards and too many eyes. Since we're friends now, I'm sure you won't mind providing a distraction for me, right? Great!" Kelsier pulls out a small, glowing ball of... something, that instantly transforms into a wheelbarrow. Before you can protest, Kelsier picks you up and deposits you inside. "Be sure to make lots of noise, Shock. Grab their attention!" he says to you, then gives the wheelbarrow a shove to send it careening down the misty hillside towards the fortress. Good luck. I wish... Potatoes! Whatever that means. "I wish potatoes."

Granted. The first person you use this power on is @Gray to because you feel bad that they only have one day left to live. Gray to relives the best moments of their life before succumbing to the Nightwatcher's bane of death, and with tears of gratitude thanks you for the wonderful flashbacks before passing away. ...You feel strangely guilty, for some reason. Your bane is that whenever you use your power, you also experience a flashback. There will be a fifty-fifty chance that your personal flashback will be of that one math class you hate. The Nightwatcher types out "707" on her TI-83 calculator, flips it around, and shows you the screen: LOL. She then sticks her tongue out at you. I wish for Daylight Savings Time to not exist anymore, anywhere.

@StrikerEZ Great hook! I was pulled right in. My reaction was similar to Kureshi Ironclaw's. I like the concept you have going here, very interesting! I'm also a little confused as to why the death of the pantheon is such a big deal. After giving it some thought, I'm thinking it's because their divine powers are missing entirely (i.e. no new gods have shown up to replace the dead ones), thus leaving the people without deities to lead them and their Church? It's not clear in the story, though, so I'm not certain. Physical description was kinda light (as in almost non-existent) so I have no idea what Sakeem and Fehl look like or what their surroundings are like. I loved the character development! I felt like I got a good sense of Sakeem and Fehl's personalities, just in this short prologue! Great job! Overall, well done! I really enjoyed reading it.

The Scrabble online dictionary has it, so as far as word games in my family are concerned -- it's a word. Granted, I'll probably never use it or hear it in a normal conversation. You know you're a Sanderfan when you try to casually slip the word "lurcher" into everyday conversation.

Well... there's The Black Piper's album Kaladin that's directly inspired by Kaladin's story arc in The Way of Kings, so I think that qualifies as music associated with The Stormlight Archive. Just awesome. Beyond that, most of the music by the group Two Steps from Hell often makes me think of the epic battles in Stormlight.

This happens in my family all the time. Skaa, Trell, atium, crem, aon, lurcher... Oh wait, "lurcher" is an actual word.

Granted. You have a delicious snack: chouta. Everyone on the 17th Shard is supremely jealous as you slowly munch on the delightfully exquisite flavor of Soulcast-meat and -grain wrapped in a convenient bundle of munchy, delectable goodness and excessive adjectives. Your bane is that your left shoe will always be uncomfortably tight, no matter what. You simultaneously develop a fondness for marathons. I'm terribly sorry. Also! Wish missed earlier. For missing this wish (whether on purpose or by accident, the Nightwatcher cares not), @NoiseSpren shall share AonEne's bane. Anyways, here we go. Granted. Math no longer exists in high school -- or any public school, for that matter. The majority of aspiring architects, statisticians, and accountants in the rising generation are stymied and fail to adjust to other educational pursuits. On the other hand, athletes, performing artists, and writers are exceedingly pleased with this outcome (though they'll have a lot of trouble filing taxes in the future). Home-schooling and private tutoring becomes much more common world-wide, and by the next generation the effects of math's removal from public schools has been largely balanced out and the economy mostly recovers after the chaos of a generation of mathematically-ignorant individuals unleashed upon the world. Your bane is that all of the teachers for other classes in high school become incredibly dull, so much so that you actually long for an honest-to-goodness math teacher who sincerely believes that what they teach will be useful in real life. (Oddly, this bane does not apply to PE teachers, who become pretty chill and fun to hang out with). I wish for magical, singing pancakes.

Fair enough. I'm not discounting the possibility of alternate Cosmere realities per se, I'm just saying that I doubt those alternate realities are as "real" as what robardin was talking about. I could be wrong, though. I mean, it's Spiritual Realm stuff, so who knows? Yes, this is how Gold Allomancy works.

Interesting idea... But I kind of doubt it, based on how the Cosmere is set up (or based on what little I understand of it, at least). If that were true, I'd imagine that Shards could break through the "walls" between realities and cause all sorts of crazy stuff, not the least of which would be continuity issues. I don't think the existence of alternate realities fits with the Cosmere's relatively tidy rules. BTW, this comic came instantly to mind when I read your post, https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/04/26

@Nathrangking Cool story idea! Here's my reaction, for what it's worth: Your first line didn't really stand out to me. "It was a dark and stormy night", basically. Okay, it's stormy, we're in Chicago... so what? It didn't raise any questions for me that I wanted to find the answers to by reading further. By contrast, your next paragraph did hook me. That paragraph made me think hmm, something is up with this storm... what's going on? IMO, with a bit of tweaking these two lines in particular might work better as your first line: "This storm had been classified by many as the type of storm that comes once in a lifetime." or "If one was religious one might call this an act of divine anger but none who are indoors take this into consideration." I especially liked the mental image of a man in a toga staggering along a highway during a hurricane-level storm, while everyone else is taking shelter indoors. Very dramatic, and piques my curiosity. I found parts of the rest of your story a bit hard to follow, though that may just be because I'm not used to a third-person, present-tense, kinda-omniscient(?) narrative style. I think a bit of editing/polishing -- adding a bit of description here, removing a bit there, etc -- could fix this easily. (If you'd like to know exactly what I found issue with, I can send you a PM. It's mostly just small, nitpicky things). Once I could picture the scene in my mind, I was intrigued -- it just took me longer to picture it than a single read-through. One pretty big question that I was confused about: is all of Chicago (and the world) at the same level of technology as the guy with the Chrysabastaga? Or is Chrysabastaga guy an anomaly? I can't tell if the setting is modern-day Earth or sometime in the future. Overall, great opening scene! It's got a lot of potential. @Kureshi Ironclaw Loved it. Your first line is an incredible hook, I wouldn't change a thing about it. Reading through the rest of it, I got the sense of a well-thought-out world and a compelling plot to go with it. I felt like your writing style was smooth and easy to follow, as well. I second Belzedar's feedback; it feels like you're building up to the scene that really kicks off the story. However, you've raised so many intriguing questions with this exposition scene that if I had the rest of the story available, you can bet I'd be reading on to find out just what it is you're building up to. I was hooked, so this scene served its purpose perfectly as far as I'm concerned. Keep writing this story! It sounds awesome.

Probably wouldn't work as well as you're hoping, based on this WoB: (Emphasis mine) Regardless of how useful it may be, the idea of storing your gold-shadow's memories in a coppermind is fascinating to me. And there is a small chance that your gold-shadow would have useful skills/memories you can take advantage of. You'd just have little-to-no control over what those skills/memories turn out to be.

To clarify my earlier post, "Getting Into You" by Relient K would be my top choice. ...And I'm ending this post here before I start listing all the other songs that could be my top choice.

Practically any song by Relient K. ...But if I have to choose just one... Hmmm... "Getting Into You" from the Relient K album, two lefts don't make a right ...but three do. It's not exactly upbeat, though, so if you want one with a bit more vigor and vim: "The Lining is Silver" from the Relient K album, The Birds and the Bee Sides. Though, honestly, if you're naming the anthology "Waffles and Pancakes", I think this song would fit best: "Cat" from the Relient K album, Air For Free. Such a fun song. ...I totally failed at the "one song per person" thing, didn't I?

You could do something similar with Allomantic Iron or Steel. As long as the angle's right, the Allomancer could even do it while relaxing on a sofa. All the free energy, none of the motion sickness. Of course, there would be an upper limit to the amount of force/weight that a Lurcher or Coinshot could safely handle, and an Iron Ferring would probably be able to exceed that limit. Storing the extra wakefulness gained from caffeine seems like it should work to a certain extent, but I don't think it would work so well as to reduce the need for sleep to just a couple hours a night. Sleep does a lot more for the body than caffeine can emulate, and IMO it's the effects of a good night's sleep that is stored and tapped in Feruchemical Bronze, not just simple "wakefulness". Sleep is when the body does its "maintenance" work and healing, including hormonal checks and balances that impact psychological health. If you don't get enough REM sleep (i.e. deep sleep), bad stuff happens. Like, really bad. Short- and long-term health consequences of sleep disruption Never underestimate the power of a good night's sleep! Bronze Feruchemy is like poor man's Gold Feruchemy, if you ask me. So yes, storing that extra caffeine buzz for later sounds like a neat application of Bronze. I just don't think it would be that effective. ...Carry on. (Don't mind me, I'm just the guy who takes sleep way too seriously. )

Granted. You have an army of baby goats that follows you around (the Nightwatcher does not approve of child labor, especially for the purposes of warfare). Each goat kid has a sword and shield strapped to its back, but because they all have hooves none of them can wield these weapons. Their adorable acrobatics is their most effective weapon anyways, as proven by this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWvefaN8USk Your bane is that the signals your brain previously sent to your arms are now sent to your legs, and vice versa. So if you tried to swing your leg forward, your arm would swing forward instead. Left and right are reversed for you, as well. I wish you luck in your endeavors to learn how to move your arms and legs normally again. Watch out for kids that try to use you as a springboard to perform backflips. I wish for the ability to perform awesome backflips.

Mistborn Adventure Game online? Here you go: Steel Ministry's Mistborn Adventure Game Forum Most of the games on the site are play-by-post and thus kind of slow-moving, but there have been a few recently that have used Skype, Discord and Roll20. In fact, there's a Narrator looking for players for a Roll20 game right now

Granted. You click on this link: https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+falafel&oq=what+is+falafel&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.4319j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 ...Or you just type "what is falafel" into your preferred search engine. Your bane is that all food now tastes like spiced chickpeas and fava beans that have been mashed and deep-fried. You constantly crave the taste of pita bread to go with it, but since pita bread's taste has been similarly altered, this craving is never satisfied. Also, after a month of this, you feel like you could kill for some fresh fruit and veggies. I wish for a Bladeshard, whatever that might be. (Not a Shardblade, mind you. A Bladeshard).

The above speed limit sign does actually exist (that's my own photo). In honor of Kelsier's famous saying: First World Basin Problems:

Vin's mother, who... uh... murdered Vin's baby sister... Um. Awkward. How about Shallan's mom? She... Okay, never mind. And Teft's mother! All those times that she... Hmmm, yeah, not exactly the best parenting techniques. Okay, okay, I got one. Shout out to Lopen's mother! (Words of Radiance, pg 1051) Minor WoR spoilers: