Chapter 10: The First Broadcast
Old Mira's fingers moved while she spoke.
Not nervous fidgeting—deliberate motion, muscle memory from decades of work. She mimed the shuttle pass of a loom that no longer existed, describing patterns nobody wove anymore.
"The wave pattern meant protection. We'd put it on the blankets for newborns, and on the shrouds for the dead." Her hands crossed and uncrossed, tracing invisible threads. "The spiral meant journey. For hunters leaving on long trips, or for the dying who were about to leave us."
I wrote as fast as the charcoal allowed. The Cultural Preservation archive filed each sentence automatically, but the physical records mattered too—proof that someone had listened, that the knowledge existed outside my head.
[Cultural Contribution: Weaver's Pattern Language — Common]
[+8 SC, +5 CR]
The notification pulsed at the edge of my vision. I acknowledged it without breaking eye contact with Mira.
"Did anyone else learn the patterns?"
"My daughter knew the basics. She died in the wolf attack that drove us from our third settlement." Mira's hands stilled. "The knowledge was supposed to pass through women. I'm the last woman who remembers."
The weight of that sentence settled into my chest.
"Last. The word keeps coming up. Last shrine keeper. Last weaver. Last everything."
Torn's interview was different.
Where Mira had been precise—dates, techniques, specific patterns—Torn rambled through memories like a man walking through fog. His family had kept the death-rites, but he'd been young when he learned them, and the details had blurred over sixty years.
"The mats faced east. Or... no, the head faced east. The mats were arranged in a star pattern around the body." He frowned at his own hands. "Or was that only for elders? Children were different. I think children were different."
"Anything you remember is worth recording."
"It's not much." His voice cracked. "My grandmother knew everything. I was supposed to ask her more questions, but there was always tomorrow, and then the wolves came and there wasn't."
[Cultural Contribution: Death-Rite Fragments — Common]
[+6 SC, +4 CR]
Smaller gains than Mira's interview. The system tracked completeness, apparently—partial knowledge earned partial rewards.
I wrote down everything Torn said, including his uncertainty. Gaps were part of the record too.
Bella's interview pushed me to my limits.
She remembered the spring planting ceremony in vivid detail—the songs, the gestures, the specific spot in the forest where goblins had gathered each year to ask the earth for growth. She sang fragments of the planting song, her voice thin and wavering but the melody clear.
The ticker went wild.
[Cultural Contribution: Spring Planting Ceremony — Uncommon]
[Complete ritual documentation with musical notation detected.]
[+25 SC, +15 CR, +1 SP]
Another Uncommon. Another Skill Point I didn't know how to spend.
But I barely noticed the rewards, because Bella was crying now, tears running down weathered green cheeks while she sang a lullaby her great-grandmother had taught her.
"This one was for the seeds," she whispered when the song ended. "We believed the earth heard us. That the plants grew better when we sang to them."
"Maybe they did. This is a world with magicules and evolution and a slime who became a demon lord. Why couldn't singing help plants grow?"
I didn't say that. Instead, I wrote down the melody using a notation system I'd half-remembered from middle school music class—probably wrong, definitely incomplete, but better than nothing.
The archive filed it anyway.
The SysXP bar crossed a threshold while I walked from Bella's quarters to the kitchen.
[System Level 10 — Milestone Reached]
[Subsystem Unlocked: Town Bulletin Protocol (Basic)]
The notification arrived with a new interface element—a panel I hadn't seen before, floating at the corner of my vision like a news feed waiting to be read.
[TBP FEED — Active]
[Pending Bulletins: 1]
[Status: Composing...]
I stopped walking.
"Pending bulletins. The system is going to broadcast something."
I pulled up the full TBP interface with a mental command, heart rate climbing.
[TOWN BULLETIN PROTOCOL — Basic Mode]
[Function: Automatically broadcasts narratively significant achievements to relevant parties within range.]
[Current Range: Local (single building) / District (surrounding area)]
[Suppression: Unavailable (requires Level 15)]
[Delay: Unavailable (requires Level 15)]
[Targeting: Unavailable (requires Level 20)]
[Pending Bulletin:]
[Content: "The newcomer cook has documented lost goblin cultural traditions, preserving elder knowledge for Tempest's historical record."]
[Priority: Local]
[Relevant Parties: Rigurd (Administrative Head — Original Goblin)]
[Status: Broadcasting in 3... 2... 1...]
"No—"
[Bulletin Delivered: 1 recipient confirmed]
I stood in the middle of the street, frozen, while a system I couldn't control told Tempest's highest-ranking original goblin exactly what I'd been doing.
"Rigurd knows. The bulletin went directly into his awareness somehow—like a rumor he heard but can't explain, or an instinct he can't ignore. And I had no way to stop it."
The TBP feed updated cheerfully.
[Broadcast Successful!]
[Reputation Impact: Processing...]
Kitchen duty was a blur.
I chopped vegetables and stirred pots and served the lunch rush, but my attention stayed locked on the TBP interface, watching for more bulletins that didn't come.
"One bulletin delivered. One recipient. Zero control over either."
The system had given me a tool I couldn't turn off.
Every significant achievement—every cultural interview, every successful recipe, every social breakthrough—would generate another bulletin. And those bulletins would reach whoever the system deemed "relevant parties" based on criteria I didn't understand and couldn't modify.
Rigurd was relevant because he was the administrative head of the original goblins. Who else might be relevant? Benimaru, if a bulletin touched on security? Shuna, if it involved cultural diplomacy? Souei, if it flagged as unusual activity requiring investigation?
"The system is going to make me visible whether I want it or not."
Haruna glanced at me during the afternoon lull.
"You're quieter than usual."
"Thinking about a problem."
"Kitchen problem or other problem?"
"Other."
She nodded and didn't push. I'd learned to appreciate that about her—she noticed things, but she didn't demand explanations.
The TBP feed stayed mercifully empty for the rest of the shift.
My quarters felt smaller than usual.
I sat on the bedroll with the TBP interface expanded, studying every parameter I could access, looking for loopholes that didn't exist.
[Bulletin Frequency Limit: 3 per 48 hours before Fatigue effect]
"Fatigue effect. So there's a cap—three bulletins every two days before some penalty kicks in. That's... something. A limit on how visible I can accidentally become."
[Quest Generation: 10% chance per bulletin that recipients will feel compelled to take related action]
"Quest generation. The bulletins can make people do things. Not control them—just... nudge. Create a sense of urgency or interest that leads to action."
I thought about Rigurd sitting in his office, suddenly aware that someone had been documenting the culture he'd failed to preserve. What would that feel like? What would he do with knowledge he couldn't explain?
"He'll investigate. Of course he'll investigate. He's an administrator—when something unexpected enters his awareness, he tracks down the source."
The TBP feed pulsed.
[Recipient Activity Detected: Rigurd — Response Processing]
"He's already doing something. The system is tracking his reaction to the bulletin."
I closed the interface and lay back on the bedroll, staring at the ceiling that had become too familiar over seventeen days.
I'd wanted to be useful. To contribute without being noticed, to help Tempest from the background while the protagonist handled the important things.
The system had other plans.
The last thing I saw before exhaustion took me was the TBP feed's gentle glow, waiting for tomorrow's achievements to broadcast.
Morning brought a runner.
I was halfway through breakfast prep when a young goblin appeared at the kitchen entrance, breathing hard, clutching a folded piece of bark-paper like it contained state secrets.
"Message for Tarruk the cook."
Haruna looked at me with raised eyebrows. I wiped my hands on my apron and took the paper.
From the Office of Administrator Rigurd:
The administrator requests the presence of the cook called Tarruk. Bring your records.
Report at second bell.
The handwriting was formal, practiced—bureaucratic. No warmth, no explanation, just a summons.
Haruna read over my shoulder.
"What records?"
"Personal project," I said, because the lie came easier than the truth. "Some documentation work I've been doing in my free time."
"Documentation of what?"
I met her eyes.
"The things we've been forgetting."
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