A relay is a fixed installation built around Vethis Crystal, and the relays together carry messages around the Logathriad Sea. Relays stand at garrison posts, so the network rings the Logathriad Sea and runs inland along the settlements each city-state chose to protect. Pallas has relays everywhere, because Pallas can hold ground nobody else can.

You reach the network from a settlement with a working relay. Away from relays there is no signal, so anyone who leaves the settled coast is out of contact until they return.

Sending messages is fast but queueing is slow. A relay passes one message at a time, so messages queue. The delay arises from the combination of queuing and distance. The more relays a message needs to transit to reach its destination, the more queues it can become stuck in.

Message traffic is ranked in two categories: type of business and message priority. Messages sent or directed to The Sentries has priority over commercial traffic which has priority over personal messages. Within each rank, emergency takes priority over routine. A monster warning marked emergency can circle the sea in an hour. A birthday greeting could wait days.

Message length supports up to about a short paragraph. Warnings, orders, prices, and instructions fit. Argument and evidence do not, so anything that has to be understood rather than acted on still travels by ship.

A settlement whose relay fails stops answering, and its neighbors notice within a day.

Monsters will wreck relays simply because a relay is a thing standing in front of them.

Replacing a relay is slow. It takes Vethis Crystal, which comes out of the Korrath in unpredictable pockets. Creating or repairing one requires an artisan, and creating one is difficult work that can require months. Once produced, the relay equipment must be carried to its destination and set up. On the frontier, the crew doing that needs soldiers or a hero team protecting them for as long as the work takes.