"Life's hard up here, thought you would have known that, since you claimed you lived on a mountain too."
Rude. Like, first off, Ryza didn't actually
say anything about the prosperity or poverty of Whitewing territory, she just doesn't like excessive violence.
Second, there were
three people living on her entire mountain; her parents were hunting game for their family, not trying to herd goats and sheep to feed multiple villages. Those herdsmen understand how the Empire's agrarian peasantry lives than Ryza understands either of their lives, because she grew up under a fundamentally different subsistence system. Third, it's a subsistence system that Ryza barely
participated in, because she is a
child.
And finally, it's kind of a dick move to imply that Ryza was lying about her past, especially since she's had to deal with people trying to dismiss such "claims" as justification for treating her as a bloodthirsty monster. I mean, it would be rude to say "you
claimed you lived on a mountain" to
anyone who said that without evidence that they were lying about that, but it's a
lot worse with context.
If you ever try to do something like this in the future, you need to do a better job of understanding the background before you say anything that gets both sides fighting, which would cause an attempted mediation to spiral out of control.
On one hand, Ryza is right that understanding the background is important. But at the same time...if she thinks that Mary and the bandit fighting is worse than Mary beating up on the defenseless bandit, that the situation would have been "under control" without her in
any sense except "Mary could control how much pain the bandit was in (it's a lot)," she's wrong.
This might be a hot take, but I don't think Ryza made the situation worse. Which says more about the situation than her handling of it—Ryza was broadly ineffective at everything she tried to do—but I wish she wouldn't beat herself up over it.
And between the bandit getting stabbed a few times to murder him and getting bled slowly to make him suffer...it's not what Ryza was trying, but I don't think letting Mary torture the bandit would be better for him, you know?
The man blinks as he seems to notice you. "Ah, Mistress Ryza," he says, before blanching.
It's okay; Ryza won't judge you for not noticing her. She's used to it, being short and all.
With that, Angela turns Peri around and, with a whistle, leads her friends out of the gate. You frown as you realize she's going much slower than when she'd lifted off with you.
...Huh.
True, landing in your dragon-form did end up scaring a few people in the village you landed near to meet up with the first of the riders, but you're pretty sure you were able to calm them all down in the end.
Some day, Ryza's going to look back on that period of time where people freaked out about her showing up and laugh. Just like the way everyone assumed she and Apollo were dating because they read books together.
A minute later, you drop into a dive, swooping down to land with a thud a few meters in front of the column. "Hi Art-" you start.
"AAAHHHH!"
You blink as you watch the horses back up, nickering and neighing and rearing even as their riders try to calm them. There's even one person who falls off her horse, scrambling away from you.
That person will probably never forgive you, though.
Looking past Alejandro as he responds, you frown as you see the woman who fell off is still on the ground, staring at you and clutching her axe as if you're some sort of monster.
Oh crap, she's a party member. Um, don't worry Ryza, I was just joking!
By the sound of it, a lot! Apparently, after leaving Agrithe and the Southern Kingdoms, Artemis had been ambushed by another group of Talons. This time, however, she had been able to defeat them, along with some help from Elena. The former Talon had also been able to tell Artemis about the Talons' evil plan: to make a Northern noble whose child had been kidnapped just like Sypha do something stupid. Unfortunately, since you hadn't been up north to save his children, he had been forced to march his troops towards the Empire in a way that would give the Regent an excuse to be able to invade the Kingdoms as well as the Divine Realm. Thankfully, Artemis had been able to stop that army, though the nobleman himself had been able to gather the last few of his men and make another push. Artemis had rushed to stop them as well, but unfortunately the rest of the Talon chapter had moved to stop her.
To summarize: The Northerners were marching into the Empire to give them an excuse to declare war. The Southerners intervened to stop them, so Empire forces intervened to stop them from stopping them, effectively fighting
on behalf of the Northerners, letting them march into the Empire unimpeded so the Imperial Regent could declare war.
A political snafu that justifies a level where you fight a different mix of units, while still focused on the one Evil Empire as antagonists? It's almost like this quest takes inspiration from Fire Emblem or something...
[X] Plan To The Barons
[X] Plan Getting some Banes so things are narratively interesting
Of course the two plans I'm interested in are the ones with the least support.
[X]Plan Social Artillery
