- Who it was
- D. Ostrander, the relay's operator; Gus, his dog; and nine people from the valley
- Health
- 300
- Held by
- Three tethers on the mast's platforms at 12, 22 and 32
- Added in
- 1.45.0, Chapter Five part two
- Drops
- The Relay Core. Its brood sac bursts when it dies, unless it burnt.
Description
Everyone who came to the relay, the operator, his dog, and the people from the valley who walked up the hill after dark to stand round the mast, grown together into one heap at its foot. Six limbs that don't match. Three heads on long necks: his, in his hard hat and headset; a villager's, split open in four; and the dog's, its muzzle peeled back. A brood sac on its back with three cables of sinew running up the mast to the tethers.
Relay 6 - Operator's Log
D. Ostrander, Hollow Ridge
Found: the transmitter hutFri. People from the valley came up the road after dark. Nine of them. They didn't knock. They stood round the mast with their faces up, like they were listening to it.
They didn't blink at the floodlight.
Sun. They've started climbing it. Tying something to it. It isn't rope.
If you find this and it's still on the air - it isn't us. Cut it loose. All of it.
Excerpt. The whole log is on the lore page.
How it fights
- Slam: it rears up and comes down. Stand back.
- Grab: a head lashes out and drags you in, and the other two chew. Hit it hard to make it let go.
- Scream: three voices at once and the static under them. You can't see for a while, and every hound near comes.
- Brood: it spits brood out of its sac.
- Draw: it draws on the relay through its cables. They pull taut and pulse, and it heals. Hurt it hard while it does and it breaks off.
While a tether holds, it can't go further from the mast than its cables reach. Get out of their reach and it lets you go.
At half health the dog tears itself out of its side, and the rest of it comes on faster.
Cut the tethers
Climb the ladder up the mast's south face and break the knot of sinew on each rest platform. Each one cut, it flinches. Cut the last one and it reels ("The last cable snaps. It reels - cut off from the relay."), and from then on every blow hurts it more. Cutting the last tether while it still lives earns Cut the Cord.
How to survive it
- Cut the tethers first. Its draw heals it as long as it's connected.
- Stay out of its cables' reach when you need a breather.
- Bring something for the hound packs. While the relay's on the air they come twice as often within 700 blocks, and its scream calls them.
- Bring a Surgical Kit. The operator's locker has one, and its brood can put one in you.
Off the air
Killed, its sac bursts and the relay goes off the air ("The relay goes quiet. For the first time in days, there's nothing on the air."). The tethers wither, the hounds near it lose the signal and run, and from then on packs come less often everywhere. This earns Off the Air.
It leaves the Relay Core. Keep it. It tunes the projector at the Starlite Drive-In, and it's how you hurt Afterimages.