Check on Laira.

With the project of your new armour still in the early alpha stages, you're curious if your trusty smithy has made any progress. You head out after things are settled with your guests. While you're busy, Nyllia will take care of them, which is incredibly helpful. The more your numbers grow, the less you'll be able to manage every little thing, especially if you're constantly taking care of other business. From what you can tell, Vex has Masumi to deal with matters for her, though you can't imagine putting Castle Phoenix completely in the hands of either Niki, Eva, or Amara, even the latter. Amara might be a little more responsible, but she's not a leadership type.

You knock on the door of the blacksmith after not spotting anyone outside. The door opens.

Laira is dressed as she usually is while working despite not being working up a sweat over the forge. You have to only hope she doesn't notice the fact that your eyes darted straight down the moment the door opened up, though resisting such a thing is impossible, even for a Demon King! She seems happy, and she's not alone in the shop. Sitting on a table is Mina the squeakin, surrounded by papers with sketches.

"Hey. What's up?" you ask.

Mina waves from afar. "I'm helping Laira design your new set of armour, and I think we've hit a breakthrough. It's going to take some time to put it all together though, but we should have the necessarily supplies already."

"I'm so excited!" Laira says. She throws her fists up and bounces with joy. Boy does she ever bounce. "Sure, it isn't a legendary arrow built to pierce the amulet of a Demon King, but that was a tiny consumable designed of some blueprints. This new project is our own design. It's going to be stronger than metal, yet not nearly as heavy or restrictive. These scales are amazing, Kyle. Super hard to work with, but we're figuring it out."

Dragon scales are always the best crafting resource in RPGs, and this dragon was some kind of weird cosmic monster. I believe it what they're saying. "I'm so excited too," you say. "Pretty soon here, I'm going to be heading out to Tolis to meet with Shadow Garden. How are things with that, Mina?"

The mouse nods. "Good. I really wish I could keep working on this armour, but I really should come with you."

"It's all right," Laira says. "You helped a ton, and I get it. Now it's all about getting my hands dirty."

There's another knock on the door behind you.

"Oh? I wonder who that is," you say. "It's your shop, so it isn't my place to let someone in, eh?"

Laira chuckles. "Come in~."

The door slowly creeps opens. There's a chill in the air, and emerging from behind the wood is a ghostly visage... Once again, Mela has appeared! She floats into the room as the door slowly shuts behind her.

"Hey you didn't go through the wall this time," you comment.

She nods and pokes her index fingers together. "Mhm. Now that I have been on good behaviour, may I ask to come with you?"

"Like, to the city?"

She nods again. "I have been cooped up in an old manor, and now a castle. B-But feel free to decline of course."

Honestly, having a ghost with us isn't a bad thing. She can go through walls, and she's quite powerful too, being a banshee. I never thought she'd want to actually come on adventure, especially since the most she can do is scream or pick things up. "If it means that much to you, of course you can come."

Mina climbs down from the table and hustles over. "It's okay. I've worked along side undead before. I think they're quite interesting."

You laugh. "I guess in the capital city's criminal underground, there are far stranger things than ghosts, huh?"

"That's right. May I ask, Demon King, what our plan is when we get there?"

"To be honest, I'm hoping Rose and her people can help us gather information. We don't know much about this king, and no matter what, I gotta find the old queen. If she's still alive, I think we need to save her, even if people do think we're the Empire's enemy."

Mela floats in close. You feel the gentle touch of her ghostly hand on your shoulder, and her hair against you feels like nothing more than a breeze. "That is very noble of you," she says with a smile.

You shiver. "C-Cold," you mumble. "Thanks. But, we should get one or two more, just in case. I have no idea what sort of threats we'll face, because I don't know what we'll even need to do in order to accomplish our goals. But I'll keep the Arcane Eye back here with someone, and we'll be as careful as we can be. We escaped the city through that tunnel last time, but I doubt it's still there now. Worst case scenario, I've gotten a lot better with my Bunny Hop. I think I can manage to grab our whole party and woosh us to safety."

Mina salutes. "Then you have my artificer expertise and my connections with Shadow Garden."

"And I am quite knowledgeable, as I hope you know, especially on the biology of various races and monsters here in Abso," Mela says. "So please ask me anything. Did you know that as far as we understand, only elves can possess the mutation that affects our Amara. It has to do with the flow of mana within our bodies, which differs just enough to where on an extremely rare occasion, this circuit bunches up, right around the area of the reproductive organs. It is actually not at all harmful, and has benefits as well, which I believe she understands, as the condition is quite curable. She is very kind to bare such a burden for more potent magic, just to help others. And are you aware that it is just as rare for a catfolk to be able to be paralyzed via their tail as it is with Snow? Unfortunately, there are no benefits for such a condition, but..."

Laira nods, though her brain looks like it could start steaming as much as the forge. "Ah-huh. I see." She turns to you. "Is this how people feel when I ramble on about smithing?"

Mina raises her hand. "Oh, I can do it too! I know so much about crafting all sorts of magical trinkets. If you'd like, Demon King, I can tell you all about them."

You chuckle. Nerd party, let's go. Time to see who else is coming, and then we can set off.