Awesome cx I'm excited to bring the action back after the part at the castle.

That's true. We've got [i]a lot[/i] of side characters now xD

I honestly don't have any plans for when Eyaris would reveal that they have the staff. I usually come up with big picture ideas and let the rest of the story play out before I think about smaller details. So I'm good with anything at this point ^^ I could also see Crow being super worried about Penelope's safety if she goes back to the warfront, since he would remember the mercenary attacks back in Younis a few years ago and how ruthless the Eyarisian people were. We can see where the story goes when we get to the next war, haha.

Another more minor idea I was thinking would make sense for Crow would be that after he spends so much time at the castle and away from fighting in general, his aversion to blood would come back stronger, which makes it harder for him to fight when they go on the mission to Eyaris. I haven't fully decided what that's going to look like, but it seems logical to me, since the only reason he's been able to handle it thus far is because he pretty much immersed himself in battles in the current war and had to fight through it to survive. Once he takes time away, I could see him start having some PTSD related nightmares (he'd probably have made these worse by pushing himself so hard in the war) and be more intolerant to the sight of blood again.