Streaming adventurer who lets the scrying audience at home choose their path through the dungeon, and is beginning to regret it.

Ashrana sighed as she schlopped the ooze off her cheek. She'd fought through swarms of Dungeon Bees before, but never through the hive.

When she planned this trip, she said she'd veto anything too ridiculous — she was still a member of the great elven family Solyana after all — but the cacophony of "no honey no money" coming mentally to her through her pendant were apparently all it took for her to throw away some of her few remaining scraps of dignity.

It was worth it though, right? The donations today were more than she'd made in the past month. She'd never do this again though. This was a one-time thing.

Unless... well, a rule change or two might make it alright...?

A small chime came from the pendant and Ashrana came back to the present. She took one last deep breath to compose herself, put on her best put-upon-but-"secretly"-loving-it face, and counted down to the end of the ad break: 3, 2, 1...

"Welcome back Delphers! How's it going? We all ready to continue?"

Ashrana continued down the corridor, still vaguely familiar with this part of the Endless Courtyard.

"Now, if I remember correctly, up ahead we can either continue through the Infested Gardens, or head down into the Eastern Crypts."

Thank Symmera not too many people went through the Endless Courtyard anymore; it'd be humiliating if someone saw her now, and probably just as humiliating if she explained why she looked like this.

The Courtyard was mostly mapped out, and you could get to the lower sections quicker via the Inverted Citadel, so the high level parties didn't bother with it, but it was still tough enough that people new to the city didn't try (except the overly cocky, and they usually didn't make it that far). For advanced students on a budget though, it was still a great place to harvest some of the more unique enchantment components and substances.

"Oh, BladeLord420, thank you, yes. For anyone just joining us, we're doing things a little differently today," Ashrana said to the rough spot she knew the scrying sensor was hovering, "and chat has been making me regret it."

She pouted for a second, before continuing, "Today, and so far I think for today only, your favourite expert dungeoneer, Dungeon Delphine, is letting you pick the way we go. We started by pestering the Slumbering Salamanders by the Springs of Fire, absolutely smashed those harpy bitches in the Eternal Tree, and then some of you fuckers decided the absolute best way out of the Infested Gardens was through every non-empty space imaginable. Yes, yes, thank you snakefarmer, I am bee-utiful, aren't I? Beehive yourself, we've already done more bee puns than we thought possible. Get your votes in, the way down should be just around the corner."

It was in fact three corners, a staircase with irritatingly shallow steps, and an archway juuust short enough that "tunnel" didn't quite fit, before the way down came into view, but that was just more time for her to banter with chat and pretend to be annoyed about the relentless bee puns. Or rather, pretend to pretend to be annoyed. Yes, yes, you stretched out the "e" in "be" in a word, very clever, truely the height of wit. She didn't often miss the stuffy old coots back home in Celesthra, but at least they understood wordplay (if not brevity).

As she stumbled over the last couple irregular steps and headed through the archway, she caught sight of the courtyard beyond.

"Right, here we are! That crumbling wreck over there," she said, pointing at the presumably once ornate spiral staircase circling down the large pit that took up the centre of the presumably uninfested garden ahead, "is the entrance to the crypts, and down that corridor i—"

Shit! Nestled into an alcove between the pit and the corridor was a fucking rest stop. So much for not getting seen. Whatever, she controlled the scrying eye's focus point, she just had to not pay the alcove any attention and not let chat think anything was up.

"—that corridor is the way through to the rest of the Infested Gardens. You've got ten seconds chat, then we're moving on. Looks like the Gardens are winning right now. I'll let you know though, I'm not going through any more bee hives." She paused for a moment. "Or wasp hives. Or any hives in general. I'm sticky enough, and we've still got another couple hours to go, at least."

Oh fuck, no you don't. Ashrana closed her eyes briefly and subtly flicked the forefinger of one hand, and the voice that had noticed the rest stop was silenced. Time to move on, quickly.

"Right, looks like we're going back to the Gard—"

¤25 Donation: NO HONEY NO MONEY

"Thanks evoGAYtion for the generous donation! If anything, not going through every hive, nest, or burrow is gonna be worse now. I'm already 30% honey by volume! You don't want me to scrape it off while scrambling through some monster den, do you?"

She tried fluttering her eyelids jokingly towards the viewers, but the honey turned it into more of a weird trembling wink. Ashrana could not wait for a bath. Hair peeled slowly off the back of her long ears as she moved her head to wipe her eye. Two baths. And whatever spell it was that Camilla used to clean their kitchen. Three baths.

Ashrana snapped herself back to reality for the second time in 15 minutes. It was like even her thoughts were sticky, slowing them down and ruining her focus. Usually streaming helped maintain focus while in the dungeon.

"Right," she barked, ignoring chat, "I think the first thing we have to get past here is the Whispering Linn." She strode directly towards the corridor out. "Once we're over that, you can pick how we're dealing with the Redcaps, but, well, you remember what happened last time we had a run in with the Caoineag. I think I'd rather become a bee than do that again!"

"Too late, chat! You all voted Gardens, so we're doing Gardens. You don't want more honey?"

¤50 Donation: NO STAY NO PAY

Ashrana closed her eyes and sighed deep. She wasn't getting out of this, and worse still, that wasn't even a good joke. Not that she was about to complain about a donation though.

"Fiiiiiiiiiine. Thanks fragonducker69 for the generous donation. We'll take a quick stop here, 2 minutes, then we're out. We'll check out a shop or something, see if there's anythi—"

¤30 Donation: let's go shopping honey mummy :3

"MmmMMMMMGHH, I-!... Thank you Thrangler for the generous donation. We're going to the shop. Call me that again though and we might have to have words."

Honestly, she didn't care that much what chat called her, especially if they paid her to do it, but it never hurt to play into it. Plus, the more flustered she seemed, the quicker she could get out of here while they're distracted repeating each others' jokes about it.

She headed reluctantly into the rest stop. It was a relatively small one, thank Symmera, just a couple tents, the protective runes, and some thankfully empty space for a few people to set up camp. Judging by the symbols on the tents, the nearest one was a shop. She headed towards it, stopping briefly at the entrance to warn her viewers: "Alright chat, muting sound until I get permission, but shout out anything you want me to buy!"

The inner walls of the tent were covered floor to ceiling with pockets holding potions, ointments, and by the looks of it, anything else that could fit in small glass bottles. Tucked behind a small counter that was covered in even more bottles and trinkets, was a surprised human, who was trying, and failing, to keep a polite face.

"Welcome adventch-pffft, adventurer, are you looking for anything in particular?" she asked, giggles escaping every couple words. Ashrana gave her a glare that put a stop to that for about half a second, before they returned twice as hard. "Sorry! I'm sorry, I just wasn't expecting... visitors," she got out, and gave Ashrana a placating smile.

"I have a few hundred people scrying on me, are you ok if they see you? Also, do you have anything that can get rid of, well, this."

Ashrana gestured up and down herself with both hands. She was semi-prepared to have to walk past someone in the dungeons, but she hadn't considered how much worse it'd be to be stuck in a room with them. She'd grab a potion or two and get out, then maybe avoid the Endless Courtyard for a month or two, or at least the Infested Gardens.

"A few hundred?" replied the shopkeeper/nascent enemy, "why a— Oh! You're one of those people. I didn't realise it had gotten so popular. Sure, why not, sweetie."

Was that a fucking honey joke? It was a common enough phrase amongst some humans that she couldn't be sure, but Ashrana gave her a glare all the same. The stiffled smile received in return wasn't exactly convincing. She cast another silent spell to unmute and stop the scrying magic from blocking out the trader.

"Smile, you're on air!", said Ashrana, her cheery words contrasting deeply with the scowl still on her face, "Welcome back chat! So, got anything to deal with the honey?"

"Hmm, I've probably got something that could help with that. Like, I don't have a Potion of Remove Honey, but..." She trailed off as she started running a finger along the wall, giggles gone, her mouth now scrunched up in thought.

"See anything you want, chat? It doesn't exactly look organised in here, but you're the ones in charge today."

Ashrana ran her eyes along the rows of bottles, allowing the scrying orb to briefly focus on each one, just long enough for the viewers to get a strong image of the text.

"So you just, like, talk to your audience out loud?" inquired the shopkeeper, now digging in a box at the rear of the tent. "And, what, you can hear them or something?"

"Well, they can hear through the scrying spell, obviously, and they can use standard long-range telepathy magic to talk to me. Some of them talk, but most of the regulars have Messenger Books they can write in that send the messages off. Of course, I have Phemiomantic runes set up to capture and redi—"

"That's not really my thing, honey, my knowledge is in— ah ha! In potions. Here, this one will probably work."

Ashrana was about to make a remark about the human's woeful arcane knowledge, and question how much she could trust potions made by someone who didn't even know about Phemiomancy or basic communication magic, but that was maybe an off stream comment. The affront was enough to make her gloss over "honey" though.

Ashrana looked at the proffered bottle, and immediately blocked the scrying eye from following her focus.

"I didn't even know such a thing existed, and you sell it here?"

"Why not? If anything, this is the best place for it. Not a lot of places to bathe in the dungeons."

"Yes, but—" Ashrana could feel her ears reddening. "Well I guess I need it right now, and indeed, there is a distinct lack of baths here. Right chat, I'm buying this, did you see anything else? I'll grab the orange one, but I know for a fact that you did not read the label before calling it out."

¤25 Donation: ask the cutie her name honey mummy

"Thank you evoGAYtion for another generous donation! However, I am not your honey mummy, and if you—"

Ashrana realised her mistake just in time to see the shopkeeper's face go from an eyebrow raised in amused curiosity to unbridled laughter.

"No, wait— Shit! Damnit chat!" Her ears went from rosy-tipped to near-luminescent, and her cheeks soon followed direction. "Stop laughing!"

The shopkeeper was bent over one hand, and was covering her mouth with the other.

"Honey mummy? I assumed you were one of those people, but are you perhaps one of those people? Maybe I need to get myself a scrying orb."

Ashrana's entire face was now aglow. "I am not!" she fumed. "How much for the potions?"

She wanted out of there now. The rest of the stream was going to be awful regardless — this fire already had more than enough fuel to burn for days — there was no point extending this bit further. Names when confined to chat were fine, but this was a real actual person, standing in front of her, laughing at her.

¤5 Donation: honey mummy ask her name

"Stop laughing! Chat wants to know your name. That was— someone paid money to ask that, and call me... that in the process. Twice! Thank you evoGAYtion for the donation. Ok chat, queen bee isn't that much better, especially when you're just saying queen bee mad lmao. Symmera above, you're all so mean to me."

She pouted at them, trying to rebuild her on-stream persona that had been so quickly demolished, her shield, just a little bit.

"My name's Eilidh", said Eilidh, fighting through what had now diminished to giggles. "And what's yours, Hon?"

"At this moment, it's Delphine", replied Ashrana. "Now, are you gonna sell me these potions or what?"

¤5 Donation: i'll donate 300 if you don't get the potion

"Well fuck, evoGAYtion, that sure is tempting, but I am ever so sticky. What do the rest of you think? I should get the potion, right?"

¤10 Donation: chipping in to the pot

¤25 Donation: LONG LIVE THE QUEEN BEE

¤15 Donation: sticky

"Alright, fiiiiine, the queen bee's reign continues. Let's buy these other potions and buzz out." She turned to Eilidh, and in a quieter, inside voice, asked "How much for just the other two?", and in a quieter voice still, "And give me that other one for later, too."

Eilidh raised an eyebrow at her, and said, as mockingly wooden as a puppet show, "That'll be 120 for the both of them. I'd love to give you a discount, but since you're only getting two..." She grabbed both potions and lowered them below the counter, and then, in a motion as subtle as a fireball, lowered the third as well. She lifted a bag up and handed it over to Ashrana, whose scowl seemed only to result in the shopkeeper's smirk growing even wider, and gave what was presumably her standard pleasantries, "Thanks for visiting, good luck with your adventure and please come again."

Ashrana continued her scowl for a second longer before snapping instantly to her cheery persona.

"Thank you, I'm sure it will be an absolute joy. Pay up evoGAYtion, your queen is out of here."

Chat had some smart people in it, but between them, they could only remember about 3 things at once, so playing into the queen bee thing should make them forget about "honey mummy". Maybe. Hopefully.

¤300 Donation: thank you honey mummy

Maybe not.

As Ashrana was heading through the tent flap, happy to finally be free of the situation, Eilidh piped up from behind, "So how do I get in on this stream? You know, to keep an eye on my newest customer."

A slight glow returned to Ashrana's ears. She should just keep walking, pretend she was busy talking to chat and hadn't heard. She really didn't want a real person watching her, especially this real person, after this humiliation. On the other hand though, after this humiliation, she wasn't planning on coming back here, and it's not like Eilidh knew her real name, so was she really "real"? What was she going to do, turn down a potential new dona— viewer?

She turned around and slid a hand into a side pocket on her backpack, pulling out a small card with an intricate circle of runes burnt into it.

"Scry on me directly or use this to get an easier focus. I realise magic isn't really your thing," she said with a brief smirk of her own, "but I'm sure an enterprising individual such as yourself can figure something out."

"Can't be that difficult," replied Eilidh in indifferent tones and taking the card, "you can do it but you can't even make a simple potion." She seemed to take satisfaction in the flash of contempt that crossed Ashrana's face. "Thanks for visiting!"

Ashrana pushed out of the tent, simmering internally, trying to keep it out of her voice as she told chat what they were doing next. There should be another rest stop on the other side of the Infested Gardens where she could end the stream. She was definitely never coming back here.

---

Thanks to @UnrealIncident for the name "Dungeon Delphine"