Good job so far. I played through the demo and have the following comments.

I found the following point that seems to be game ending unless I am missing something.


I found a few typos.

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  Early in the game, I think it was Kel who said "Niether of us can travel alone."

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  The green-haired innkeeper spelled prejudiced and permission wrong.

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  I think there was another point where apology was spelled appology, but I forget where.

Around Averdene, there are several towns on the map, but none of these can be entered. I am not sure if they are just meant to indicate that this is a generally populated area, but I found this rather confusing. Or perhaps there is a way to enter these later. If there are just decorative, I would suggest removing them.

I wasn't sure what the Hit skill did. I believe it was grayed out in every battle.

I would suggest shortening the pause after gaining items from a treasure chest. After the message pops up telling the player what was found, it takes a little bit to be able to move again.

The cuts scenes seemed to move a little slowly since the player can't move the text forward. This is obviously intentional, but I personally felt that the cuts scenes tended to drag somewhat since I read faster than the text was progressing. Perhaps it might not hurt to allow the player to advance the text as well.

I played through the demo too. I can tell you have something grand in mind, story-wise, but the gameplay elements are falling flat.

-Hit and Hack. There's no reason for both of them, as the characters can only ever use one or the other. It's one thing if you're going to make the strategic distinction between Slash and Stab, like with a sword, but it's pointless here, and only slows down the action. You're better off simplifying them to just 'Attack'.
-The mapping is horrendous. Towns are laid out in perfect grids. Doodads are dropped haphazardly. You even used countertops as walls in some indoor areas. This aspect of your game desperately needs attention. Fortunately, RMN has tools available like Archeia_Nessiah's Dos and Don'ts of Mapping series, the screenshot topic, and the ability to flag screenshots for feedback in the Development thread. For a starting point, I'd recommend checking out other VX Ace games that use graphics like yours, seeing how they did it, and simply copying.
-Storyline items progressed a little TOO quickly. Elyn and Kel started falling in love unconvincingly fast, especially when you consider the racial taboos they would have to first overcome. You also don't need to drag out all the king's royal spies at once as a plot device. One reasonably strong one should be sufficient.

Nitpicks
-For some reason I can dash on the world map, but not in the towns. Normally its the other way around (though world map dashing is handy for grinding).
-When using Heal on the map, it should NOT eject you from the menu. Players tend to do their healing in bulk. This a definite no-no.
-Heal missed ~_~ It only missed once on me, but regular heal spells aren't supposed to miss. That's reserved for the quirky heals that cost less MP or are early full-party targeting.
-I think this is the first RM game I've played where the player is blocked by chairs. These are normally flagged as passable.
-I needed 500T as a plot device. It'd be one thing if it was some piddly sum, but 500T is substantial at this point in the game, and I burnt most of my money on food for the orphanage. It didn't take long to grind back up, but foisting grinding on the player is generally a bad idea.

Anyway, I'm sorry if I'm coming across as harsh. I can tell something interesting is at work here and I'd like to see it continued.

author=ImmortalDreams
The entire Secret Guard being there needs to happen at the end for a reason.

Having them all appear at the same time and plopping them into a single battle is an infodump. It won't give them a proper introduction, which they probably warrant as future bosses.
You can introduce the collective "Secret Guard" using two or three members instead of the full team. In the next chapter, you can slowly introduce and flesh out the remaining ones via cutscenes or pre-battle dialogue.

author=ImmortalDreams
Looking at Archeia_Nessiah's tutorial makes me think I should remap quite a few things. I don't think everything is awful, though.

Yeah, that's true. It's not all awful, persay. Standards are pretty high around here, so countertop walls and small villages arranged in a perfect grid are irksome.