Into the storm

Contents

1. Rebirth 1

Intro

A man wakes up in front of Harmony and is told that he is about to get a second life on Roshar. Now he must choose where he will start his journey, how we will change the events of the books for the better, and what form of investiture he would like to be gifted with! In this story Victor will meet many of our favourite characters, and do his best to help them and show off a little bit while trying not to get killed.

Rebirth

Obviously I do not own any of this story, which is based on the work of Brandon Sanderson.

There's not enough stormlight archives fanfictions out there to my liking, hope you enjoy this!

I have planned out the adventures of the protagonist but I'm leaving the choices a surprise for now. Let me know what you guys think, I'm very keen on starting this story!

#################

He was floating in space. In emptiness. Like the perfect picture of death with no afterlife, but with somehow the added though and hazy consciousness that he was experiencing. Maybe it was closer to a sensory deprivation chamber then? Vaguely he could remember dying from a viral epidemic that had been sweeping the city he was in. He had died far from his family, during his last year at university abroad. What a waste. He could remember almost everything from his life, all the sights he had seen, the food he had eaten, the endless engineering knowledge he had crammed into his brain – but no people. Not even a single face or a single personality trait was left for him, only figures of mist populated his memory. That was slightly upsetting. But it could have been worse, a dream-like and emotion free existence seemed better than Hell after all.

Then things started to change. Slowly tiny lights started floating into view, too small to make out but too steady to be just in his head. Before long he could make out planets, and stars. With a fascinated look he observed these planets. Some looked like earth, others seemed completely desolate. There was an entire galaxy surrounding him, but he could only focus on a few areas, less than 10 in total. Suddenly he knew that these were where life was.

"Wonderful, isn't it?"

He wheeled around with a start. A man stood in front of him – or floated rather. Tall, tan, with multi-coloured robes and a genial smile. Moments ago he had been bigger than planets, now he suddenly felt smaller than an ant. "Who are you?" He asked.

"My name is Unity – or Sazed if you like. I'm afraid we'll only be able to talk for a short while before I have to send you on your way. You've been chosen for something I have yet to experience myself, but I am much younger than my fellow shards so most things are new to me. You'll become a champion of sorts I believe. Or you'll become no-one."

"I-I don't understand. Sazed? Wait a minute. You mean Sazed the feruchemist!?" Surely that's not possible.

"I wish I could tell you more about this world but I'm afraid I am rather restrained in this regard." Sazed – Unity – stared sadly at one of the planets below them. It looked like the most desolate of them all, with a dark mass of clouds covering half of the only continent currently visible. Was that Roshar!?

"Is this Roshar?" He asked the robed man. From this angle he could see Sazed's large earlobes, and the bracers that were barely visible underneath his sleeves.

"I can at least tell you the name of the place you're to be sent – it is called Roshar"

Great, he can't hear me. What a cruel joke. He had so many questions! He wanted to stay there with Sazed and talk to him about the war, about Elendel, about everything! Already though he could feel himself being pulled away, sucked into the tiny planet below him.

Sazed called out to him. "You might not have the life of a hero ahead of you, but at least you'll be better off than most." What does that mean? "Time to make some choices little one, I wish you luck". And with that Sazed was gone. Everything went black again.

When he woke up again everything was white around him, and the contrast nearly blinded him. After a few moments his eyes finally adjusted to the brightness of the room. He looked around once again. He was indeed in a room, shaped out of pure white walls like a bubble out of time. Suddenly this all felt much more real, even if he could barely see the walls around him. The vast emptiness of his previous vision still gave him the chills. It also felt like he was starting to become whole again. Was this the spiritual realm? Was the previous place he was in the spiritual realm even? It wasn't anywhere in the cognitive realm, it was too surreal. He slowly sunk down to the floor, where he lied for what seemed to be hours. He felt his breath flowing through his lungs, and the weight of his own body slowly grounding him to reality.

"Choose a name". A woman's voice suddenly echoed. Was it in his mind or a real sound? He thought about it for a while. All names were lost to him, as were memories of all the people he had known. When nothing else happened, he slowly sat up. Would it be better to pick a name that was closer to those he might encounter on Roshar? Something that wouldn't actually mark him as a foreigner? But then again, what if he picked a horrible name – he knew that this was an art, and a difficult one at that. Alethi names needed to have meaning and to be elegantly crafted. Better not to risk it.

"My name is Victor", he called out.

"What language to you wish to speak, Victor?" the voiced echoed again.

Ah, crap. I'm going to have to make a lot of difficult decisions aren't I. Victor thought about the implications of this choice for a moment. This definitely meant that he was also going to have to pick a place to be dropped off in, didn't it? The fact that he was about to be dumped into Roshar – an incredibly violent place – finally started to set in. Before panic could take over he quickly called out:

"Does this mean you will teach me a language?"

"…" No response

He thought about his question for second. "Will this work like tapping connection? Kind of like automatic translation between me and everyone else?"

"For one language, yes" the woman finally spoke after a pause that seemed to stretch on forever. Alright. That was more information at least. Surely he should go to Alethkar right? They were by far the strongest nation, and he was pretty sure that Odium would be involved. But then again, what about all the extremely peaceful places of Roshar? Those that had the mild benefit of not being slowly torn down by freak storms? Damn it he needed more information!

"What is happening right now on Roshar?" he asked aloud.

"…"

Damn it. Okay think. "Where is the king of Alethkar? When did the previous king die? Is a greatshell hunting incident about to occur?"

Somehow it seemed like the voice paused for an even larger amount of time. "King Elhokar is in the shattered plains. King Gavilar died six years ago. I know not what is about to occur. No more questions.". Yes! Victor grinned for a second. The voice - which had to Cultivation right? – seemed strained but it didn't matter. He now knew that somehow he was about to enter the world right before the beginning of the books which he had miraculously read. That gave him hope, at least. He also knew that no one else would be aware of what was about to happen, only him. That meant that he could change things, or at least ensure that he had higher odds of survival. He was pretty sure that this wasn't supposed to happen, and that some pact or ritual between the shards had produced something that was rather extraordinary.

Alright. Time to think about this properly. He would not go to the shattered plains, that was for sure. Why go to a warzone, with no connections or belongings, knowing that slavery was practiced there? He wanted to go rescue Kaladin, that was true, but he couldn't very well do that from the exact same death-trap the poor windrunner was in. And of course there was no way that he would convince Dalinar to hear him out, the man already thought he was going crazy. No, no, he needed to go to somewhere where his knowledge could quickly earn him safety and a position in which he could influence the events of Roshar. He should go to Jasnah Kholin. Alright, for now, let's pick the damn language already.

"Alethi" he said.

"Excellent" the woman's voice echoed once again. "Now pick the treasure you are entitled to".

What? Suddenly he grew very excited. A series of chests appeared in the room, all of them open, with a small light floating above them. This is what Sazed must have meant when he said that I would be better off than most? 10 of the chests present – and there were less than 20 in total – immediately drew his attention: they shone much brighter than the rest. He walked over to them slowly for an inspection. Most of the light seemed to come from the contents of the chests themselves; he recognised diamond chips, broams and other pieces of Rosharan currency piled up within them. A true fortune indeed! But that was nothing compared to what he saw floating above these piles of money.

Above each chest, floating motionlessly, was a spren. A spren! This was Victor's first time seeing them obviously. His excitement only grew when he started to recognise them. There was an honorspren, and a cryptic (or liespren) right in front of him. To the far left he could see a small dark figure, that would be a highspren. There were others as well, most of which he could recognise from their descriptions, but the meaning was clear. Cultivation was offering him the position of knight radiant! He could hardly contain his excitement anymore. Of course, it made sense that for actual gods the only real treasure would be investiture. He should have seen it coming.

Alright, now I have a lot more options, I need to think about this carefully. He stalked over to the other chests that had been placed in less prominent positions. There was a small bead of metal floating above a chest full of small vials. A chance to become mistborn, then. Another one also featured a bead of metal, but this time it was full of metal bracers, jewellery, and what seemed to be random metallic items. So feruchemy did come from ingesting a god metal as well! This was incredible. Although looking closer at this metal, he spotted tiny ripples across its surface. Was it a liquid then? Aww man. Realising something, he quickly ran back to the alomancy chest. The metal vials were neatly stacked and luckily clearly separated. Off to one side, there were two little bags. Careful not to touch anything he peeked inside. Atium and malatium, it had to be! God metals! Well, at least as far as the atium was concerned in any case. He almost fell to the floor in his excitement. The last chest he recognised was filled with colourful robes and strings. It almost seemed like a particularly fashionable lady's travel bag. Above it floated a tiny ball of blended colours. Biochromatic breath. But how many were there in this tiny bubble anyways? The rest of the chests, he did not recognise at all. Although it did seem a bit weird that one of them was filled with sand.

He started pacing back and forth. He had a choice to make and an important one! He was no warrior, but with these powers he could probably stand up to most people he encountered. Who could withstand a mistborn burning atium on Roshar (apart from actual shards of course)? The prospect of becoming a windrunner like Kaladin and flying through the skies was not bad at all either. Damn it, it would be so much better if he could combine these powers. Using the powers of an elsecaller to supply himself with allomantic metals? That would be pretty overpowered. Of course depending on his choice, his whole plan would change as well. Maybe he could go straight to the shattered plains and reveal the return of the knights radiant? Would he need to find the words for every oath?

On and on Victor paced, slowly considering all the options he had. Where to go? What powers to pick? Who to choose as allies or enemies? Well, Sadeas was definitely not going to be his ally. He thought about it for so long that eventually he fell asleep, exhausted. When he woke up he spent at least another full day coming up with his plan. Thankfully he felt neither hungry nor thirsty. He also didn't have any less sanitary needs. Perfect. All the time in the world. He doubted that a shard would get upset with him if he took a few days anyways, that was probably nothing to Cultivation.

Finally, after hours and hours of thought, he stood up. With a confident smile, he walked up to one of the chests, and seized the floating power. As he predicted, all other chests disappeared, and a giant map replaced them.

"Now pick where you want to go" Cultivation echoed one last time. Even as he felt her presence vanish, still clutching the little piece of raw power that had been offered to him, he pointed at a small area of the map without hesitation. "There".

Time to show this world what I can do.