Communications lizard

The Communications lizard is a bioengineered communications device created and distributed by Cato. Small enough to perch on Raine’s head, it provides a direct link between Cato and the Talis sisters when ordinary communications are unavailable or would attract the System’s attention. What begins as an unobtrusive radio relay becomes a recurring emblem of their alliance: fragile enough to need protection in combat, familiar enough to inspire affection, and adaptable enough to evolve from a single companion organism into a planetary communications network.

Design and First Use

The first lizard revealed in the evidence is already a feat of concealment and miniaturization. During the descent through the Dark Thicket Border Zone, Raine discovers another one perched on her head only when Cato’s voice buzzes through her skull and directs her toward the town east of the forest. The device allows Cato to guide Raine, Leese, and Dyen through unfamiliar terrain while Hirau remains behind confronting Cato. Its placement is practical rather than ceremonial: Raine has not noticed it during the dangerous descent, and the lizard can remain attached without interrupting movement or combat.

The lizard’s function is not limited to relaying instructions. After Cato announces that the Bismuth is dead and orders Raine and Leese to get through the portal, their response returns through the engineered radio-frequency lizards he created for them. Once they leave Sydea, however, the link attenuates into silence because Cato has no repeaters or ground infrastructure capable of maintaining contact across the transition. The limitation is crucial. The lizard is a powerful local link, but it is not yet a universal communications system, and Cato cannot know how the sisters fare on the other side or whether the inert versions of himself they carry will find purchase.

Companion, Relay, and Vulnerability

Over time, the Communications lizard becomes the sisters’ only reliable connection to Cato. Raine finds it easy to feed and water, and she is repeatedly surprised that it survives their battles intact. Its survival matters because it occupies two positions at once: it is equipment that enables their mission and a living creature that has accompanied them through danger. Raine is glad that it appears to be doing well, and the small relay becomes something she can touch rather than merely activate.

That attachment is tested during the battle with the Trembling Greatwyrm. The wyrm’s poison breath leaves blighted plants scattered across the dungeon floor, and Raine immediately worries about the lizard and her capelet because neither possesses the sisters’ resistance to such peripheral damage. She pets the creature where it crouches against her scales, then moves it into an inside pocket of her shirt for protection. Leese has already stowed hers by the time the sisters launch upward. The gesture makes the device’s material vulnerability visible: even though Cato’s creature is useful to Gold- and Platinum-rank fighters, it is effectively only Copper-rank protection compared with the forces around it.

The lizards also mark the rhythm of renewed contact. After months without speaking to Cato, Raine and Leese hear him again through the creatures still perched on their heads. Cato explains that obtaining proper communications without tipping off the System is difficult, and admits that he does not yet have worldwide coverage. The sisters’ response is restrained but significant: Leese says that it is good to talk to him again, while Raine recognizes that the lapse has been a real problem. The lizard therefore carries more than information. Its signal makes absence measurable and turns restored contact into an emotional event without requiring overt sentiment.

From Individual Lizards to Living Networks

Cato supplements the lizards with plants designed to solve the gaps in their range. He sends boxes containing young plants and instructs the sisters to place them outside the capital portal, in pots inside, and near as many towns as possible. These organisms are intended to exploit portal connections so that Cato can communicate with them on other planets. The proposal does not provide global coverage, but it extends the lizard’s function from a personal relay toward a distributed communications ecology. Raine’s irritation eases because the plants acknowledge that communication has failed and offer a concrete remedy; she and Leese agree to place some before the defense quest.

The larger development is FungusNet, a far larger plant-form that Cato develops with Leese over more than a year. It retains the basic communications capability of the earlier radio plants but takes the form of a fungal mat beneath the ground, with tree-like towers rising for line-of-sight transmission. Cato and Leese spend much of the development period testing, debugging, and adapting solutions from Cato’s databases. The result is designed to appear innocuous, with strict growth limits and no ordinary biochemical competition, so that the System will not identify it as a threat. Its unfamiliar chemical basis protects it from local predators and parasites, while its restrained design is meant to prevent ecological damage if the System disappears.

The Communications lizard remains part of this expanding network rather than becoming obsolete. The Bismuth version assigned to Yaniss can transmit not only audio but also low-bandwidth visual information through chromatophores. It keeps Yaniss informed about her iterations spread across a double handful of worlds, compensating for the lack of direct contact. Because Yaniss lost most of her agents while helping Cato, he replaces them, but the resulting constant traffic overloads his radio network and forces serious upgrades. The lizard thus exposes the infrastructure cost of resistance: every new ally, iteration, and world increases the demand placed on the system that connects them.

Later Fate and Narrative Significance

When Raine and Leese undergo their next transformation, the lizards are no longer technically necessary. Their new bodily integration gives them direct access to communication, and Cato tells them they may leave the creatures with him or bring them along. Raine chooses that leaving them behind is probably safest. They are unlikely to survive the high-rank combat ahead, and the sisters will not yet have a proper place to house them until they cash out their estates. Cato also explains that later Bismuth development may allow them to tie themselves to their estates and teleport across worlds, assuming their movement Skills are powerful enough.

The decision is not emotionally neutral. Leese holds and pets her lizard before making the choice, while Raine admits that she has become fond of having the little creature around even though she is less attached than Leese. Its cuteness and persistence have made it part of their daily existence. The lizard is consequently neither reduced to a tool nor elevated into a fully independent character; it occupies the unstable middle ground characteristic of Cato’s postbiological technology, where animal life, machine function, and personal relationship overlap.

Cato sends the two lizards into orbit in small pods carried by one of his Cato-beasts. Raine and Leese deposit them inside, give each one a final pet, and leave to face the next stage of their ascent. Their departure closes the device’s intimate phase, but not its larger development. The same communications principle continues through upgraded lizards, radio plants, and FungusNet, linking isolated agents across portals and worlds. In that progression, the Communications lizard represents Cato’s broader method: instead of relying only on destructive weapons or centralized machinery, he grows a resilient, distributed alternative whose smallest units can carry both tactical instructions and the memory of companionship.