Fire Emblem: Last of the Manakete

[X] Travel as fast as you can, resting only when needed. This will make your journey far shorter; it will also be nearly impossible for Countess Mantrae's people to catch up. However, you're almost certain to be spotted, and may even have a notable encounter (Choose oneencounter).
-[X] A mysterious stranger runs into you while you rest.

[X] Travel as fast as you can, resting only when needed. This will make your journey far shorter; it will also be nearly impossible for Countess Mantrae's people to catch up. However, you're almost certain to be spotted, and may even have a notable encounter (Choose one encounter).
-[X] A wing of curious Pegasus Knights intercept you.

We have places to be, comrades to rescue and all that

Shebe Zuu said:

We have places to be, comrades to rescue and all that

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It is worth blowing the existence of dragons and possibly getting attacked? Maybe even Ryza's identity?

A day or two probably won't make a great difference considering the time it'll take the Duke to gather and march a force, in any event.

[X] Travel as fast as you can, resting only when needed. This will make your journey far shorter; it will also be nearly impossible for Countess Mantrae's people to catch up. However, you're almost certain to be spotted, and may even have a notable encounter (Choose oneencounter).
-[X] A wing of curious Pegasus Knights intercept you.

[X] Travel as fast as you can, resting only when needed. This will make your journey far shorter; it will also be nearly impossible for Countess Mantrae's people to catch up. However, you're almost certain to be spotted, and may even have a notable encounter (Choose oneencounter).
-[X] A mysterious stranger runs into you while you rest.

TaliesinSkye said:

It is worth blowing the existence of dragons and possibly getting attacked? Maybe even Ryza's identity?

A day or two probably won't make a great difference considering the time it'll take the Duke to gather and march a force, in any event.

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I really doubt we're going to be able to keep the 'dragon' thing under wraps for all that much longer given what happened at the castle (yes I know we killed the two witnesses that we noticed, but we were still hardly subtle and we don't know what the countess learned from looking through our stuff or interrogating our companions). Also from what Artemis has said it seems pretty plausible that we'd be mistaken for a wyvern anyway, especially by people who hadn't seen one before.

As far as travel time, moving as fast as possible is described as making the journey "far shorter", while the nighttime only option says it will take "noticeably longer". If the time difference between the two was mostly irrelevant I don't think that word choice would be appropriate.

Shebe Zuu said:

Also from what Artemis has said it seems pretty plausible that we'd be mistaken for a wyvern anyway, especially by people who hadn't seen one before.

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We'd be mistaken for a wyvern from a distance. The pegasus knights are explicitly coming close to investigate.

Shebe Zuu said:

I really doubt we're going to be able to keep the 'dragon' thing under wraps for all that much longer given what happened at the castle (yes I know we killed the two witnesses that we noticed, but we were still hardly subtle and we don't know what the countess learned from looking through our stuff or interrogating our companions). Also from what Artemis has said it seems pretty plausible that we'd be mistaken for a wyvern anyway, especially by people who hadn't seen one before.

As far as travel time, moving as fast as possible is described as making the journey "far shorter", while the nighttime only option says it will take "noticeably longer". If the time difference between the two was mostly irrelevant I don't think that word choice would be appropriate.

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You've chosen the one option that will give people a close up look, the pegasus riders. And while it's possible word will get out, it is far from a certainty yet. I don't think we should just assume it's blown for a marginal benefit. Let's try to keep it under wraps while there's any chance.

As for travel time, traveling day and night will take us from 10-12 hours of travel time (depending on the time of year) to 16 hours of travel time, ish.

If Ryza averages 40mph and has to rest half of her travel time hours, that means she can travel 20 miles per hour of travel time on average, and she has to travel roughly 425 miles. That's a total of 21.25 hours of travel time to arrive at her destination.

It's presently dusk. Let's say there are 10 or so sufficiently dark hours for night travel. Traveling at night, they will get there in two nights and a little change, or roughly 34 hours. (They'll have to make the end of the journey on foot anyway, it's not like Ryza can land as a dragon in the courtyard of the Duke's castle without anyone noticing. They'll have to land out of sight a few miles out of town somewhere.)

Traveling during the day they'll get (16 * 20) 320 miles the first night and day, then they'll need a rest during daylight, then they'll finish the journey after another 5.25 hours of travel time, arriving after a total of 29.25 hours.

If they push through and Ryza is capable of sleeping during the 50% downtimes, they could do it in 21.25 hours, arriving in the evening.

So it's really not an enormous difference. Thirteen hours at most, using rough estimates. Probably less. Compared to weeks it'll probably take to gather and march troops.

[X] Travel as fast as you can, resting only when needed. This will make your journey far shorter; it will also be nearly impossible for Countess Mantrae's people to catch up. However, you're almost certain to be spotted, and may even have a notable encounter (Choose one encounter).
-[X] A wing of curious Pegasus Knights intercept you.

I think dragon-self would be happier if we made all haste so we don't delay any rescue.
Remember, the ritual is meant for times where there is both urgency and need for planning.

JAGwin said:

We'd be mistaken for a wyvern from a distance. The pegasus knights are explicitly coming close to investigate.

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Even so, I think you're underestimating the degree to which people see what they expect to see. If you were to see an odd flying creature your first thought probably wouldn't be 'clearly this is the last surviving manakete, awakened from her long slumber'. You'd think 'man, that's a weird looking wyvern'. If they manage to put two and two together a few weeks later I'm honestly not bothered given I don't expect our secret to have a shelf life much longer than that anyway.

TaliesinSkye said:

You've chosen the one option that will give people a close up look, the pegasus riders. And while it's possible word will get out, it is far from a certainty yet.

As for travel time, traveling day and night will take us from 10-12 hours of travel time (depending on the time of year) to 16 hours of travel time, ish.

If Ryza averages 40mph and has to rest half of her travel time hours, that means she can travel 20 miles per hour of travel time on average, and she has to travel roughly 425 miles. That's a total of 21.25 hours of travel time to arrive at her destination.

It's presently dusk. Let's say there are 10 or so sufficiently dark hours for night travel. Traveling at night, they will get there in two nights and a little change, or roughly 34 hours. (They'll have to make the end of the journey on foot anyway, it's not like Ryza can land as a dragon in the courtyard of the Duke's castle without anyone noticing. They'll have to land out of sight a few miles out of town somewhere.)

Traveling during the day they'll get (16 * 20) 320 miles the first night and day, then they'll need a rest during daylight, then they'll finish the journey after another 5.25 hours of travel time, arriving after a total of 29.25 hours.

If they push through and Ryza is capable of sleeping during the 50% downtimes, they could do it in 21.25 hours, arriving in the evening.

So it's really not an enormous difference. Thirteen hours at most, using rough estimates. Probably less. Compared to weeks it'll probably take to gather and march troops.

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I'm not really interested in arguing about the airspeed velocities of laden and unladen dragons (or swallows, if it comes up). I'm pointing out that the wording of the choices pretty clearly indicates that the speed at which we accomplish our journey will have an impact on the story.

Jiven said:

Alright, i just thought she was cute with pointy-ears.

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But that's a cuteness that precious few will get to see...

SoaringHawk218 said:

"Spirits, I even feel like I'm failing Sypha, no matter how furious I am at her mother right now."

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Well, yeah. Sypha isn't responsible for her mother's reaction to her kidnapping, no matter how many people used that reaction as an argument not to rescue her.

This is why young manakete's dragons are in torpor until their heart grows mature enough to awaken them; or they would too easily overwhelm their young heart and put everyone around them at risk.

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You think the Terrible Twos are bad? Imagine if toddlers could turn into dragons. And if it took them a decade or two to grow out of it...

In hindsight, maybe doing so by nudging her face with your muzzle so that you were the first thing she saw when she woke might have been a bit much.

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Well when you put it like that it sounds obvious!

"Ryza, I'm not sure where dr… manakete culture stands on the issue," she says—

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Artemis said "manakete" without prompting! She can learn.

However, you're almost certain to be spotted, and may even have a notable encounter.

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Okay, what's the downside?

[X] Travel as fast as you can, resting only when needed. This will make your journey far shorter; it will also be nearly impossible for Countess Mantrae's people to catch up. However, you're almost certain to be spotted, and may even have a notable encounter (Choose one encounter).
-[X] A mysterious stranger runs into you while you rest.
-[X] A wing of curious Pegasus Knights intercept you.

The pegasus knights sound more interesting, but also more...likely to blow up the Masquerade. Still, both would be interesting, and I'm pretty sure approval voting will parse this properly.
EDIT: I checked, it does. Also, @Jiven, you put the subvote on the same line as the main vote—it's processing as a unique option unrelated to anything else.

JAGwin said:

SoaringHawk218 said:

be it torpor for a young manakete or passive for a manakete that has awakening.

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Was this supposed to be "awakened"?

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No, manaketes just love Fire Emblem: Awakening. How many FE games have three playable manaketes?

Barondoctor said:

So. The wandering albatross, with a wingspan of 11 feet, can travel 40 mph for 500 miles in a day. Quetzalcoatlus is suspected to have been capable of 80 mph.

A top-notch horse bred for endurance in the present day can get about 100 miles in a full day's ride. Going out to worst-plausible-case where Mantrae's people know the terrain and can straight-line their horses and know the exact direction...

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I do not like how this "calculation" is cobbled together from multiple scattered approximations. I especially dislike the implication that wingspan and speed are somehow related...

Shebe Zuu said:

I'm not really interested in arguing about the airspeed velocities of laden and unladen dragons (or swallows, if it comes up). I'm pointing out that the wording of the choices pretty clearly indicates that the speed at which we accomplish our journey will have an impact on the story.

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But how could a day or two change anything? It's not like there are two separate groups of plot-relevant prisoners we were hoping to rescue...

GreatWyrmGold said:

Okay, what's the downside?

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The downside is that if the existence of dragons gets out, Ryza will almost certainly be hunted. Her stone alone is an utterly priceless instrument of magic, probably the reason humans hunted down all the other dragons originally. Recall the way Artemis goggled at Ryza having an entire stone. Even the shards are apparently stupendously valuable.

[X] Travel only at night. You will be less likely to be spotted, and in general you'll be better rested. However, it will take noticeably longer to get back to Agrithe. You will have time to do some fun things while you're resting (Choose one activity).
-[X] Talk to Artemis about what the world is like.

[X] Travel as fast as you can, resting only when needed. This will make your journey far shorter; it will also be nearly impossible for Countess Mantrae's people to catch up. However, you're almost certain to be spotted, and may even have a notable encounter (Choose one encounter).
-[X] A wing of curious Pegasus Knights intercept you.

While there are several valid concerns about blowing our cover, there is also a good argument towards the troop merely assuming that we're really just a particularly weird wyvern. Recall Artemis's general reactions of complete disbelief towards us - a bunch of regular soldiers, even if the thought does cross their mind, are more likely to actively ignore any questions they may have instead of trying to think through it themselves. I also feel this option provides a bit of narrative continuity with what we discussed with the kids earlier, about the whitewings.

Ed: Not to mention that if Artemis plays things right, we could invoke a mash between a Cassandra Truth and Refuge in Audacity.

"Strange mount you have there."
"Oh, yes, she's a dragon."
"A… dragon."
"Yes. Wyverns are a type of dragon, right?"
"…I suppose you have a point."

3-13 Sniper said:

[X] Travel as fast as you can, resting only when needed. This will make your journey far shorter; it will also be nearly impossible for Countess Mantrae's people to catch up. However, you're almost certain to be spotted, and may even have a notable encounter (Choose one encounter).
-[X] A wing of curious Pegasus Knights intercept you.

While there are several valid concerns about blowing our cover, there is also a good argument towards the troop merely assuming that we're really just a particularly weird wyvern. Recall Artemis's general reactions of complete disbelief towards us - a bunch of regular soldiers, even if the thought does cross their mind, are more likely to actively ignore any questions they may have instead of trying to think through it themselves. I also feel this option provides a bit of narrative continuity with what we discussed with the kids earlier, about the whitewings.

Ed: Not to mention that if Artemis plays things right, we could invoke a mash between a Cassandra Truth and Refuge in Audacity.

"Strange mount you have there."
"Oh, yes, she's a dragon."
"A… dragon."
"Yes. Wyverns are a type of dragon, right?"
"…I suppose you have a point."

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Dragons have four legs, wyverns have 2. I don't think pegasus knights who are likely to have seen actual wyverns will mess it up while they're up close.

I'm also very worried about them attacking what appears to be a beast kidnapping a girl. And if Ryza has to speak to get them to stop that really blows her cover.

[X] Travel as fast as you can, resting only when needed. This will make your journey far shorter; it will also be nearly impossible for Countess Mantrae's people to catch up. However, you're almost certain to be spotted, and may even have a notable encounter (Choose one encounter).
-[X] A wing of curious Pegasus Knights intercept you.

[X] Travel as fast as you can, resting only when needed. This will make your journey far shorter; it will also be nearly impossible for Countess Mantrae's people to catch up. However, you're almost certain to be spotted, and may even have a notable encounter (Choose one encounter).
-[X] A mysterious stranger runs into you while you rest.

Shebe Zuu said:

Even so, I think you're underestimating the degree to which people see what they expect to see. If you were to see an odd flying creature your first thought probably wouldn't be 'clearly this is the last surviving manakete, awakened from her long slumber'. You'd think 'man, that's a weird looking wyvern'. If they manage to put two and two together a few weeks later I'm honestly not bothered given I don't expect our secret to have a shelf life much longer than that anyway.

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I'm now imagining that if the Pegasus knights do come around one of them will think Ryza is just some kind of wyvern and ask Artemis if she can rub Ryza's belly. Then the whole encounter becomes about being able to keep up the charade that Ryza is just a weird wyvern which isn't helped when giggling Artemis starts telling the knights that Ryza can do tricks as well.

x0Nothing0x said:

I'm now imagining that if the Pegasus knights do come around one of them will think Ryza is just some kind of wyvern and ask Artemis if she can rub Ryza's belly. Then the whole encounter becomes about being able to keep up the charade that Ryza is just a weird wyvern which isn't helped when giggling Artemis starts telling the knights that Ryza can do tricks as well.

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Ryza's back is spikey, so Artemis is being carried by Ryza's forelimbs. The forelimbs that wyverns don't have.

It's going to be abundantly obvious that Ryza is not a wyvern from close up in broad daylight.

TaliesinSkye said:

The first is that Ryza needs frequent rests for safety, so it's not a 24/7 flight. The migrating birds that make crazy distances do it in part by flying even while they're asleep. (Somehow. Maybe they do that right brain/left brain thing dolphins do?)

The second is that while real world physics dictates that larger things generally have a higher stall speed (and thus must travel faster, although they have proportionally much larger muscles and only incrementally higher drag which means they can) manaketes can float by magic, so their stall speed is zero. So they don't need to be able to travel particularly fast in order to not fall out of the sky.

Dragons also aren't the most aerodynamic things ever.

And we know that half-transformed dragons are maybe a third of the strength of their fully transformed selves.

Still, given how strong they are I suspect they could tear through the sky in a sprint. Especially since they can devote most or all of their strength to pushing air back since they don't need to push down to stay aloft. Long distance travel tends to be considerably slower than sprint speeds though.

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I wasn't saying we'd make 500 miles in a day. What I'm saying, reaching for the longest flying creature currently on planet Earth that we've been able to take reproducible measurements of because it's not like anyone I know can go grab a radar gun and clock a dragon flying past, is that we can probably pretty easily clear 125 miles in a night in an entirely sustainable manner, which far outstrips how far a horse can go in a day.

For a separate angle, a D&D dragon of the Young or Juvenile (non-adult, roughly dragon!Ryza's size) age categories (again, similar to Ryza) has a "casually jogging" flight speed of approximately 50 ft/s (with a sprint speed approximately double that). One hour of that is worth about 34 miles. To beat 100 miles, we'd need literally only three of those in an entire night.

Assuming high summer and temperate-zone daylight lengths, there's approximately 15-16 hours of "true daylight" to be had with about 4.5 of twilight and 4 of full night.

Even going to a one-on one-off sort of flight schedule, Ryza would be able to give the slip to any pursuit after the first night of casual-jog flying.

Yes, this is a cobbled-together calculation, but what it gets me to is that even assuming one of the most unfavorable scenarios available (high summer, 50% travel time efficiency, using only the night, at slightly-faster-than-average-horse-gallop-speeds, over terrain that doesn't impair the horses at all), we should be able to outrun any pursuit even in full 'stealth mode', arriving in Agrithe in approximately 3 days assuming
A) Agrithe is less than 500 miles away
B) we can manage four hours a night of flight in a night lasting 8 hours
C) we're able to fly a little bit faster than a horse gallops.

Any improvement in any of these factors will result in us taking even less than three days.

EDIT IN LIGHT OF QM ANNOUNCEMENT:
We're getting three-on two-off instead of one-to-one. Agrithe is 450 miles away. We're getting speed a little faster than a horse gallop.
Two days it is.

[X] Travel only at night. You will be less likely to be spotted, and in general you'll be better rested. However, it will take noticeably longer to get back to Agrithe. You will have time to do some fun things while you're resting (Choose one activity).
-[X] Read a scroll (What scroll will you read?)
--[X] The Dragon Within

Barondoctor said:

I wasn't saying we'd make 500 miles in a day. What I'm saying, reaching for the longest flying creature currently on planet Earth that we've been able to take reproducible measurements of because it's not like anyone I know can go grab a radar gun and clock a dragon flying past, is that we can probably pretty easily clear 100 miles in a night in an entirely sustainable manner.

For a separate angle, a D&D dragon of the Young or Juvenile (non-adult, roughly dragon!Ryza's size) age categories (again, similar to Ryza) has a "casually jogging" flight speed of approximately 50 ft/s (with a sprint speed approximately double that). One hour of that is worth about 34 miles. To beat 100 miles, we'd need literally only three of those in an entire night.

Assuming high summer and temperate-zone daylight lengths, there's approximately 15-16 hours of "true daylight" to be had with about 4.5 of twilight and 4 of full night.

Even going to a one-on one-off sort of flight schedule, Ryza would be able to give the slip to any pursuit after the first night of casual-jog flying.

Yes, this is a cobbled-together calculation, but what it gets me to is that even assuming one of the most unfavorable scenarios available (high summer, 50% travel time efficiency, using only the night, at slightly-faster-than-average-horse-gallop-speeds, over terrain that doesn't impair the horses at all), we should be able to outrun them even in full 'stealth mode'.

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Absolutely. I was just making an argument for why Ryza could reasonably not be going as fast as something her size by all rights should, which would be 80+mph to avoid stalling.

Pegasus Knights sighting a dragon up close is leading, somehow. If that wins I think the only hope we might have is going with the 'I'm a mage that can shapeshift into the form of a dragon' excuse sooner than I would have liked.