DD2 CH29: Orbeye Broadcast

“Just a little lefter!” Lowt yelled from the ground.

Rhen hung precariously off the edge of the broadcast tower and nudged the halfmoon projection disc to the left.

“Good! Come on down!”

Rhen released the brake on the belay harness and slid down the thick metal pole of the broadcast tower. The architect team had whipped up a quick design that everyone had come together to build in just under five days. Was it pretty? No, it was a black, knobby eye-sore positioned directly on top of the elevator pulley building. But it was connected deep into the dungeon by an anima thread that flowed through the pulley system into the control node, and it was tall enough to reach the broadcast relay station in Desedra they had paid to rent frequencies through.

Gwhan had managed to make several more bows, one of which sported the yellow whismic cores. Its special ability was a flesh disease that rotted any living material it touched for about twenty seconds. It was a nasty addition to the arsenal. Rhen had spent a good majority of his “down” time training Alex and Olliat in archery. They’d both taken to it well, and the next phase of his plan was coming together like it was meant to be.

He hopped down into the dirt and stepped into the little closet of a broadcast station. Xander, Arannet’s tech-man, sat at the swivel chair that navigated between the three simple panels. Each panel had a few buttons and leavers to control the feeds from the three different orbeyes.

The Sephine’s four hands flew over the panels, flipping switches and starting up the anima displays. Three hazy projections of light stuttered into view above each panel. There wasn’t much color to them since the orbeyes were older, but that was fine, they didn’t need amazing color to put on a great show. Xander operated the directional buttons for each orbeye, making them turn left and right, raise and lower, and then move forwards and backwards.

“It’ll be a little choppy following combat, but if we stay far enough back, we should be able to capture the whole battle without much jerking around,” Xander said, turning to Rhen.

“That’s good, we’ll try to stay in the open with good lighting. Are these things waterproof? Temperature resistant?”

Xander wrinkled his stubby maw. “Water, somewhat. They will have significantly reduced speeds underwater. Temperature should be fine, too. These creatures have their own internal regulatory systems.”

So aquatic combat may have been out of the question, unless they carried the orbeye with them in a tentacle or two, and then would have to remember to point it at the battle. Logistics… But alpine and rainforest combat was on, and those area was well lit with enough open space to show off great battles.

“Okay, when can we get started?”

Xander shrugged. “Now? We should work out a shift for manning the combat and craft orbeyes. I can take the first four hours or so, and train someone else on the controls to take over after me.”

“Oh, and one more thing.” Haru, the media manager, interrupted. He beckoned Rhen closer and pointed to a little space on the control panel that currently read [0000001]. “This will show you how many people are actively viewing this broadcast, which’ll help us tune the content and get a good idea of whether you’re meeting the financial goals.”

“So, one person is watching?” Rhen asked.

“That’s right, us, from this communication node here.” Xander pointed to the glowing gold orb stuffed under the desk with rubbery wires plastered to it.

This was a lot to take in, and it had all come together lightning quick, but he was excited. “Arannet, how’re Felicity’s badass post-its coming?”

She twisted one of her enon rings and summoned a clipboard and pen. “Good. Distribution efforts in Shin’Bara, Cadria, and Ptahl are all underway, so people should be trying to tune in in the next few days. We’re getting blocks here and there in Resplendare and Jovan from Desedra, of course, but some people and taverns are bound to tune in despite the warnings. It’s not illegalbut Desedra is making it well known they don’t support “flagrant flaunting of incorrect dungeon practices” or whatever.” She rolled her eyes.

Rhen shrugged. “Can’t win them all. Well then, I say it’s time we get some content going.”

There was a quick round of whoops. Everyone wore excited smiles. This was going to be epic.

He guided the orbeyes down to the inn and they labeled them with some cloth sashes Leslie had made to differentiate them. They didn’t want to accidentally take the crafting orbeye out on a raid and mix everything up for the viewership.

Jakira decided to prepare another feast, giving the crafting orbeye its first tasteof what was to come. She thought she was very clever. Rhen did too. Though it was tempting to have Tsu’me stay at the inn to provide some serenading, he decided to ask her to join the raid party instead.

They were going to take one fairly large group out so that some people could be mining while others were fighting and providing the fun action activities. Rhen was going to be in the latter group, of course, now that he had an excuse to be almost exclusively delving instead of mining.

Eli agreed to stay behind and learn the orbeye controls with Xander, but most everyone else, nearly fifteen people, joined up with the raid. It was going to be interesting learning how to balance the teams to keep near constant activity going on for the feed, but he was sure they’d figure it out in a few days’ time.

Rhen dragged the orbeye with him through the water. Wyland’s mecheel’s provided good light so it could catch all the interesting monsters that lived in the aquatic zone. They hiked down the well-trodden alpine path and the orbeye turned back and forth, taking in the scenery. They deposited the four-person mining group at the cave system, leaving two guards to protect them, and then took the rest of the party toward the whisper forest.

The whismics were in for a treat since Rhen, Olliat, and Alex had all upgraded their Curse of Anima Rot abilities to Ancilla II, and Caress of Night to Prima III. The mimics would be easy pickings if they couldn’t use their Hydromirage spell. Rhen discovered the monsters used a Prima III level of the spell, allowing the monsters to displace their location as long as the ambient humidity was above thirty percent.

It probably wasn’t their first Prima III monster, but it was remarkable enough to mention. The terrockens of the rainforest were only Ancilla I, and while the gigafish of the aquatic zone were terrifyingly enormous, they were still only around Prima II/Ancilla I. The monsters were getting harder the farther they ventured into the dungeon, which was a good sign that it progressed even deeper.

Rhen and the delving team were learning new ways to combine and use the spells they’d unlocked so far just by observing the other monsters in the dungeon, but they were hitting a wall on variations. Everyone was starting to become more or less like one another… and Rhen’s mind turned back to the node in the chimeti cave. If he could get access to that, it could unlock a plethora of alpine related spells they had yet to encounter.

The chimeti was no joke, though. Rhen wasn’t certain they could take it as is. They’d only made the two more bows, and though more were in progress, Ghwan was just one woman—four arms notwithstanding. They needed more weapons, more armor, and more anima for syntial upgrades, and they needed it all fast.

Rhen was also painfully aware of the fact that the mines they’d been burning through on the west side were running low on Magnite, and they were still a ways off from their infrastructure goals. He would need to get down in that chimeti cave sooner rather than later. Much like everything going on in his life, it seemed.

The raid team wandered farther into the dark forest, Rhen, Olliat, and Alex on the periphery, deep in stealth. A deep throaty growl of a yeti sounded between Rhen and Joseph, who was about twenty feet behind him. Rhen scanned between the dark trees, his upgraded Caress of Night helping him to see in the darkness.

“Woooone?” a whismic called.

Another replied in a howl, “Mee. See. Rensee.”

Well, that wasn’t creepy at all.

The whismics were beginning to learn what the delvers were, and the noises they made. Rhen wondered if their language would get better the more they encountered them.

“Heyyy. Wherrr.”

Rhen caught the yellowish glimmer of the first whismic’s eye. He stopped the stealthing party and made a tiny arrow in the snow pointing toward the monsters.

“I see it,” Olliat confirmed in a barely-there whisper.

There were five more closing in around the visible party in a half circle. Rhen, Alex, and Olliat were comfortably outside that ring, and so the attack would go swimmingly… now if only the Orbeye could see it. It was so dark, and with the orbeye at the back of the party, he knew it wouldn’t see much. Rhen would have to light it up as soon at the whismics mirage was down.

“Pull,” Rhen whispered to the young fighters beside him. “Olliat left, Alex center, I’ll fire right.”

He loaded an Anima Rot arrow and took a deep breath, then set his gaze beyond Joseph to the right flank of monsters trying to close them in.

“Anytime now!” the bruiser called, hefting his axe.

Rhen loosed and the other two did as well. The arrows burst, one, two, three and the blue-black wave of anima rot rippled out across the monsters. Joseph gave a Defender’s Cry and Tsu’me ripped a massive chord on her lyre, harmonizing and amplifying the powerful effects. With a roar, the team went to work.

Rhen quickly dropped from stealth and ran in, blowing a big breath of bright air into the branches above. It was just enough light to make out the combat, so he blew one more to be sure. He wanted their first battle to look good.

There were two delvers to a whismic, and in just a few short minutes, they’d put an end to all of them. They harvested the cores and antlers, which were just about the only useable parts of the beasts.

Feeling confident, they moved deeper into the forest. After two hours, they encountered another three groups of whismics, and a few on their own, each easily dispatched with the delver’s overwhelming numbers. With all their anima a bit drained, they decided to call it for the whisper forest and head back to the mountainside.

They collected up the miner’s materials, and most of them headed back to the inn. Rhen stayed behind with the orbeye and took it down to the razor whiskers. The crystal wasn’t anywhere near blowing yet, but Rhen was able to rouse a few of the rocky cuties. They were surprisingly docile when they weren’t feasting after corraphine, and Rhen was able to pet one. It rolled over and let Rhen scratch its belly, making adorable little purring whimpers.

Great. Now Rhen felt really bad about killing them.

The Too Cute ability had to go, somehow.

Aki waited for him on shore, so as they made their way back to the inn, he illuminated the monsters of the watery depths. Rhen pointed the orbeye this way and that whenever he spotted something noteworthy, and Aki would light it up with Aurora Wave. The fish weren’t monstrously oversized anymore since the delvers had killed much of them, but they were still pretty big. Not big enough to take on Rhen in his Cephaloshifter form, and they all seemed to know it.

More plant life had started to grow along the walls and in the depths since the removal of the larger fish, and the anima crystals in the ceiling had increased their regeneration rate. Rhen wondered if they’d done the aquatic chamber a favor, helping to bring it back into balance with their efforts… or were they throwing it off? He wasn’t sure, but time would tell.

They passed over the purple glowing nexus node and Rhen smiled to himself.

Soon…

Jakira had prepared a feast unlike any other in the three hours they’d been gone, and the tavern was crowded to the gills with delvers. The orbeye sat in the corner, quietly watching them. Rhen sent the combat orbeye out into the rainforest to mill around with the stabled terrockens, maybe that would be interesting enough for those who didn’t want to watch everyone eat.

Eli rushed into the tavern, a broad grin on his face. “We already broke a thousand!”

Everyone cheered, raising mugs full of Joseph’s frothy brew.

Maybe, just maybe, everything would work out.