What would readers prefer?

  • Pure narrative quest: no dice will be used, the author will have free reign to decide what happens.

    Votes: 25 59.5%
  • New dice system: the author will design a new, better dice system to add some randomness and risk.

    Votes: 17 40.5%

  • Total voters
    42
  • Poll closed .
Voting is open for the next 3 days, 4 hours
"You know, if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them," you say. "For example, in our heart-forms, manakete still have very good hearing."

Mary gives you an innocent look. "What do you mean, Mistress?" she asks as if she and the others hadn't just been talking about you behind your back.
And as if you hadn't just told them you heard them doing so.

As your new… friend? Acquaintance? Person who doesn't hate you just for being you?
Friends take time, and acquaintances can be frustrating, but you can always use more people who don't hate you just for being you are.

Smiling, you lay back. "I actually like the sun," you say. "I know, that's more of a White manakete thing—"
Ah, yes, of course. Everyone here knows how much white manakete love the sun.

"I see," the Archmage says slowly. "And if I should leave this Hall and travel to Wyrmrise, what guarantees do I have for my own safety? After all, I rejected a direct command from the Regent."

"You did so under the honest belief that you were acting legally and morally," the Voice says soothingly. "The Regent is not an unreasonable man: he understands that your loyalty is to the Hall and its traditions. He simply wishes to meet with you, so that you both, as rational men who wish to do the best for the Empire and humanity, might come to an understanding. The lines of Wyrmblood and Thundercrier have always been most successful when acting in concert"
This sounds like little more than a pinky promise. A pinky promise backed by the weight of tradition, but not one which will hold water if the Regent is the type to ignore inconvenient traditions (like the neutrality of the Marble Hall).

There is, in fact, one. You have met them.
Stormspeaker is the obvious choice, but it would be neat if it was that random Dark Mage from Miau.

Speaking of meow:
[X] This will seem a strange route, but I assure you it will work. With the armies of the Empire on the march, travel in the Empire itself is too dangerous. However, before I became Archmage, I saved the life of a Feliceian, and I have maintained quiet but good relations with their tribe ever since. I'll teleport you to the border between our lands, cross the river and they'll find you fairly quickly. Ask for Moonwatcher Leaping-Grass, he'll get you to Cat's Cradle, and from there you can take ship anywhere you need to go. A roundabout route, to be sure, but certainly unexpected and unwatched.
Sounds interesting, the Imperials definitely won't expect it, and maybe we'll get to see how beast-stones tick.
 
[X] I will be teleporting you to Peace Point. From there, it will be easy for you to get into Whitewing territory, and they will ferry you back to Agrithe. There is a line of credit for the Hall to pay for your travel; simply deliver this note to the Mercenary Center in Syrene; they'll send you on your way. I do not foresee any dangers along this path.
 
[X] I will be teleporting you to Peace Point. From there, it will be easy for you to get into Whitewing territory, and they will ferry you back to Agrithe. There is a line of credit for the Hall to pay for your travel; simply deliver this note to the Mercenary Center in Syrene; they'll send you on your way. I do not foresee any dangers along this path.

I doubt the Whitewings are in kahoots with the Conspiracy since they may be mostly Imperials i believe.
And even tho I want to met cat-people, I must admit that, even with complications, this is the fastest route and it will be for the best for everyone involved if we reach Agrithe yesterday.
(I must mention how the Voice mentioned the fact that humans must be together, rejecting other creatures, hostile or not, as a way to convince Stormspeaker. Maybe this could be an indication that 1)They are starting their pro-human maybe genocide campaign or 2)Further prove that that third option would avoid imperial search.)

Idk, food for though I guess
 
I definitely don't trust Callista not to do something stupid. That goes for her husband twice over.

I just can't picture things going that smoothly if we head for the Whitewings. I'd trust the Whitewings themselves to do their jobs, but there's still a hundred ways for things to go wrong.

[X] This will seem a strange route, but I assure you it will work. With the armies of the Empire on the march, travel in the Empire itself is too dangerous. However, before I became Archmage, I saved the life of a Feliceian, and I have maintained quiet but good relations with their tribe ever since. I'll teleport you to the border between our lands, cross the river and they'll find you fairly quickly. Ask for Moonwatcher Leaping-Grass, he'll get you to Cat's Cradle, and from there you can take ship anywhere you need to go. A roundabout route, to be sure, but certainly unexpected and unwatched.
 
[X] This will seem a strange route, but I assure you it will work. With the armies of the Empire on the march, travel in the Empire itself is too dangerous. However, before I became Archmage, I saved the life of a Feliceian, and I have maintained quiet but good relations with their tribe ever since. I'll teleport you to the border between our lands, cross the river and they'll find you fairly quickly. Ask for Moonwatcher Leaping-Grass, he'll get you to Cat's Cradle, and from there you can take ship anywhere you need to go. A roundabout route, to be sure, but certainly unexpected and unwatched.

Honestly, at this point, we need allies more than anything else, and the Whitewings will always just be Anti-Imperial by virtue. Thus, we might be able to grab more frens in a true fire emblem fashion if we go to the Felicians
 
[X] I will be teleporting you to Peace Point. From there, it will be easy for you to get into Whitewing territory, and they will ferry you back to Agrithe. There is a line of credit for the Hall to pay for your travel; simply deliver this note to the Mercenary Center in Syrene; they'll send you on your way. I do not foresee any dangers along this path.

I really want to go meet the cat people, but the whitewings are the most direct route to get back to base ASAP, and we're a powerful superiority flyer ourselves if necessary.

Edit: whopse, I was on my phone.
 
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[X] This will seem a strange route, but I assure you it will work. With the armies of the Empire on the march, travel in the Empire itself is too dangerous. However, before I became Archmage, I saved the life of a Feliceian, and I have maintained quiet but good relations with their tribe ever since. I'll teleport you to the border between our lands, cross the river and they'll find you fairly quickly. Ask for Moonwatcher Leaping-Grass, he'll get you to Cat's Cradle, and from there you can take ship anywhere you need to go. A roundabout route, to be sure, but certainly unexpected and unwatched.
 
I and the rest of the voting public seem to be somewhat torn. On the one hand, cat people! On the other hand, the Whitewings are probably the most reliably fast reliably anti-Empire peole around.
 
[X] I will be teleporting you to Peace Point. From there, it will be easy for you to get into Whitewing territory, and they will ferry you back to Agrithe. There is a line of credit for the Hall to pay for your travel; simply deliver this note to the Mercenary Center in Syrene; they'll send you on your way. I do not foresee any dangers along this path.


One Manakete At Sufficient Velocity seems to work so far. Continue to outspeed their OODA loop
 
AN: Man the first part of this chapter was kicking my a**. I'm still not completely happy with the arcano-babble explanation how Mend works, but it was the best I could come up with other than "just add more power" which is boring.

I really liked it! The description of the ways magic must manage energy flows was really nice. It reminded me a bit of computer programming and electrical engineering.

There is, in fact, one. You have met them.

I'm thinking Thundercrier, or Ryza's father? Both would be highly skilled users of many magics.

[X] I will be teleporting you to Peace Point. From there, it will be easy for you to get into Whitewing territory, and they will ferry you back to Agrithe. There is a line of credit for the Hall to pay for your travel; simply deliver this note to the Mercenary Center in Syrene; they'll send you on your way. I do not foresee any dangers along this path.

Speed is a virtue. Little can keep up with the Whitewings, and the little that can, well, it would have to deal with the Whitewings and an angry dragon-form.
 
You even were happy for her yesterday!"
Unless I am badly mistaken, this is grammatically correct, but still awkward. I recommend changing it to "were even".

"I was just about to take a few more over to Whitewater Hall.
For a second there, I misread this as "Whatever Hall". :V

concerned that there would be people who would those who would fear you
Something went wrong here.

"I'm know there are, I've met some of them
"I"

"-still think that those soldiers are here for the dragon," one of the girls says.

"You're crazy, Mary!" another boy hisses.
So who's the first boy here?

"I'm not an Ascendant: I was born how I am: no magical changing necessary."
I am positive that this is not punctuated properly. I believe that the first colon should be either a period or a semi-colon depending on how this is supposed to flow, and that the second colon should be a comma.

"I mean, I trust Archmage Stormspeaker that he knows what he's doing, but it's still a little odd."
Firstly, the "that" should be before "Archmage". Secondly, that "he" is redundant at best and should be removed.

Just as explained, the raw torrent energy is first contained in the crystal before being released through its multiple streams, sufficing the whole rat's body in magic rather than just a focused point.
"suffusing"?

Thankfully; since the Marble Hall is on the top of a hill,
That semi-colon should be a comma.

In fact… you squint: yep; that's a trio of mages
Once again, I am positive that this is not punctuated properly. I believe that the colon should be a period, the semi-colon should be a comma, and the "yep" should be capitalized into "Yep".

"You seem hard at work,"
This sentence should end in a period.

You probably could use White tower's one as well,
Unless I am badly mistaken, this is grammatically correct, but awkward. I recommend changing it to "use the White tower's".

The more you look… yea, there're a lot more than twenty of them now!
While my spellcheck isn't reacting to "yea", I believe that either it's a typo of "yes" or "yep", or it's supposed to be "yeah". Also, I recommend changing "there're" to "there are", at least when narrating.

The lines of Wyrmblood and Thundercrier have always been most successful when acting in concert"
This sentence is missing its punctuation.

[X] I will be teleporting you to Peace Point. From there, it will be easy for you to get into Whitewing territory, and they will ferry you back to Agrithe. There is a line of credit for the Hall to pay for your travel; simply deliver this note to the Mercenary Center in Syrene; they'll send you on your way. I do not foresee any dangers along this path.

Regarding Alectai's concern about running into the Conspiracy on this route, I think he's rightly concerned for the wrong reason. I doubt that the Conspiracy knows about Ryza at this point, since while we didn't take the Boon that would cause rumors of Ryza's nature to be outright dismissed, we also didn't take the Bane that would cause them to be widely believed. And even if I'm wrong on that point, it would still take time for that information to reach them and then for them set people up in Whitewing territory specifically to intercept Ryza.

With that said, I do believe we have a non-negligible chance of running into the Conspiracy anyway because we know on a meta level that they're already in the area sabotaging diplomatic relations between the Whitewings and the Empire, so if we encounter them, I imagine it will be either a fluke or a case of improvisation by the local members of the Conspiracy rather than something that the ones pulling the strings actually planned.
 
[X] This will seem a strange route, but I assure you it will work. With the armies of the Empire on the march, travel in the Empire itself is too dangerous. However, before I became Archmage, I saved the life of a Feliceian, and I have maintained quiet but good relations with their tribe ever since. I'll teleport you to the border between our lands, cross the river and they'll find you fairly quickly. Ask for Moonwatcher Leaping-Grass, he'll get you to Cat's Cradle, and from there you can take ship anywhere you need to go. A roundabout route, to be sure, but certainly unexpected and unwatched.

I think this is worth the loss of speed because of the Voice doing a racism in his big bad imperial speech(tm). Probably a flag to check in on them.
 
[X] I will be teleporting you to Peace Point. From there, it will be easy for you to get into Whitewing territory, and they will ferry you back to Agrithe. There is a line of credit for the Hall to pay for your travel; simply deliver this note to the Mercenary Center in Syrene; they'll send you on your way. I do not foresee any dangers along this path.

We might get disrupted, but disrupting us will undoubtedly also disrupt whatever they're planning there which is valuable in and of itself.
 
[X] I will be teleporting you to Peace Point. From there, it will be easy for you to get into Whitewing territory, and they will ferry you back to Agrithe. There is a line of credit for the Hall to pay for your travel; simply deliver this note to the Mercenary Center in Syrene; they'll send you on your way. I do not foresee any dangers along this path.

I just wanna get back to characters we already know instead of taking a long detour to make completely unrelated friends right now.
 
[X] This will seem a strange route, but I assure you it will work. With the armies of the Empire on the march, travel in the Empire itself is too dangerous. However, before I became Archmage, I saved the life of a Feliceian, and I have maintained quiet but good relations with their tribe ever since. I'll teleport you to the border between our lands, cross the river and they'll find you fairly quickly. Ask for Moonwatcher Leaping-Grass, he'll get you to Cat's Cradle, and from there you can take ship anywhere you need to go. A roundabout route, to be sure, but certainly unexpected and unwatched.
 
[X] I will be teleporting you to Peace Point. From there, it will be easy for you to get into Whitewing territory, and they will ferry you back to Agrithe. There is a line of credit for the Hall to pay for your travel; simply deliver this note to the Mercenary Center in Syrene; they'll send you on your way. I do not foresee any dangers along this path.
 
[X] I will be teleporting you to Peace Point. From there, it will be easy for you to get into Whitewing territory, and they will ferry you back to Agrithe. There is a line of credit for the Hall to pay for your travel; simply deliver this note to the Mercenary Center in Syrene; they'll send you on your way. I do not foresee any dangers along this path.

Cat people are great, but honestly I just want more Whitewings.
 
[X] I will be teleporting you to Peace Point. From there, it will be easy for you to get into Whitewing territory, and they will ferry you back to Agrithe. There is a line of credit for the Hall to pay for your travel; simply deliver this note to the Mercenary Center in Syrene; they'll send you on your way. I do not foresee any dangers along this path.
 
[X] I will be teleporting you to Peace Point. From there, it will be easy for you to get into Whitewing territory, and they will ferry you back to Agrithe. There is a line of credit for the Hall to pay for your travel; simply deliver this note to the Mercenary Center in Syrene; they'll send you on your way. I do not foresee any dangers along this path.
 
[X] This will seem a strange route, but I assure you it will work. With the armies of the Empire on the march, travel in the Empire itself is too dangerous. However, before I became Archmage, I saved the life of a Feliceian, and I have maintained quiet but good relations with their tribe ever since. I'll teleport you to the border between our lands, cross the river and they'll find you fairly quickly. Ask for Moonwatcher Leaping-Grass, he'll get you to Cat's Cradle, and from there you can take ship anywhere you need to go. A roundabout route, to be sure, but certainly unexpected and unwatched.

Cat people
 
"Thus, the designers of the Mend staff used a runic structure they'd discovered in a pre-Fell ruin to create runes that would store the healing energy before releasing it
Ryza glosses over this because she's good enough with control that she doesn't need this part but this sounds like a potential vital piece of information for our longer-term "Let humans keep using magic without it being built upon atrocities" project. Ryza's previous first idea of "why not feedback loops tho?" was shot down because by the time a human could get it to output something even at the level of a basic spell they'd have burned out the loop... but if there's an existing runic structure that lets you build up the amount before you send it off to the next stage... we might have something here?

[X] I will be teleporting you to Peace Point. From there, it will be easy for you to get into Whitewing territory, and they will ferry you back to Agrithe. There is a line of credit for the Hall to pay for your travel; simply deliver this note to the Mercenary Center in Syrene; they'll send you on your way. I do not foresee any dangers along this path.

If I didn't feel like we were working under something of a time constraint between Artemis's side of things as well as just letting the Archduke know what's being going on at the Hall I'd be all over going to see the Feliceians. I'm still tempted too now because the Voice's report to the Archmage drops some interesting hooks there, but alas. I've been interested in getting to know more about the Whitewings for a while now too, most of the characters aligned with them we've met have seemed cool.
 
[X] This will seem a strange route, but I assure you it will work. With the armies of the Empire on the march, travel in the Empire itself is too dangerous. However, before I became Archmage, I saved the life of a Feliceian, and I have maintained quiet but good relations with their tribe ever since. I'll teleport you to the border between our lands, cross the river and they'll find you fairly quickly. Ask for Moonwatcher Leaping-Grass, he'll get you to Cat's Cradle, and from there you can take ship anywhere you need to go. A roundabout route, to be sure, but certainly unexpected and unwatched.

We've had cat folk as a world info but we haven't had a chance to explore that before now.
 
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