Quote Originally Posted by Shirobi View Post
'Shtola can see it cause she got "mutated" by it. It blinded her and left her with the ability to see it, but at the cost of her own life-force.
Hold up, hold up... The dialouge between Y'shtola and Matoya, as well as Y'shtola and the PC, lead me to believe her trip through the lifestream (and subsequent reconstitution) left her blind and now she is sensing aether to "see," effectively. I don't recall any mention of this ability to manipulate aether being attributed to any change the lifestream may have had on her. However it is clearly stated that doing this expends her own life force and is more than likely no small feat. The way Matoya talks about it makes it seem like more old, forbidden, Sharlayan magic to me, not something unique.

There are other NPC's as well who can be found sensing ambient aether, The little Lalafell scholar at Highbridge, for example, yells at you for breaking his concentration while studying the aether there.