Light in the Darkness/Plot Details

Gentle Tiger: Especially not after the beating my pay took the last time...hm?

Adelheid: We have an assailant's unknown method of entry, and a victim slain in the dark...

Adelheid: Perhaps the Chief Engineer could construct a machine to calculate the possible vectors and points of--

Adelheid: Oh, I'm awfully sorry! I've been so focused on the mystery behind Senator Werner's assassination...

Adelheid: You see, I happen to be eavesdro--er, I happen to overhear a conversation between some Mythril Musketeers...

???: Progress report.

Volker: Nothing new. I've discovered no recalcitrant witnesses, no conflicting evidence on the senator's movements...

Zeid: You spoke again with the guard who discovered the body?

Volker: The details of his report remain unchanged.

Volker: He insists that the room had been locked since the morning, and was empty when he checked inside during his patrol--moments before the senator entered.

Five Moons: The guard you speak of is honest to a fault. We have no reason to doubt his testimony.

Zeid: Then we can assume the crime scene was unviolated at the time the body was discovered?

Zeid: How in Altana's name did this murderous wraith slip in and out unnoticed...?

Nicolaus: There is one other thing that seems out of place here.

Volker: Out with it, Nicolaus.

Nicolaus: It goes back to the report from the first guard...

Nicolaus: He stated the following:

Nicolaus: "I heard the senator's cry, and ran to investigate. I was obliged to break the door open in order to enter the room."

Nicolaus: He went on to mention "pitch blackness" when he described the situation within.

Nicolaus: Why didn't the senator light the lantern?

Zeid: ...!

Volker: Is it possible he was attacked before he had the chance?

Nicolaus: If that were true, then the body would have been found over here, where the tools for lighting the lantern are located.

Nicolaus: However it appears that the senator walked into the center of the room, without touching those tools at all.

Nicolaus: Why would he have gone so far into the room without a light by which to see?

Volker: That is unusual. There were no signs that the body was moved, either. We can only assume that he blundered through the dark of his own accord.

Nicolaus: Perhaps Senator Werner was fleeing from his attacker before he was stabbed... although the guard reported only a single cry.

Nicolaus: One presumes he cried out the moment his assailant plunged home the dagger.

Zeid: A murderous wraith, and a victim slain in the dark...

Zeid: What do you make of this Nicolaus?

Nicolaus: I honestly couldn't say. I have several theories, but I need more information to make a final judgment...

Adelheid: I used to study in the same classes as Mythril Muskeeter Nicolaus.

Adelheid: Even back then, he was famous among the students as the sleuth who solved mysteries like the "Case of the Vanishing Grimoire" and the "Case of the Missing Professor."

Adelheid: And yet this case has even Nicolaus stumped... I guess that's why I've become so obsessed with it.

Adelheid: Now where was I...? Ah yes, we must consider the surface area of the floor, and the potential speed of the fleeing assassin...

Klara: ...? Who goes there!?

Klara: A child? This is no place for games, little one.

Pagdako: C-C-Captain K-K-Klara...!

Pagdako: I, um, you see... I'm not here to play...

Klara: Then why are you here?

Pagdako: I-I-I... Oh boy...

Pagdako: (I can't believe Mythril Musketeer Klara is talking to me...!)

Klara: Not about to break under interrogation, are we?

Klara: Well, just see you don't come sneaking in here again, okay?

Pagdako: Y-y-yes, ma'am...

Gentle Tiger: Is something amiss, Captain?

Klara: That child was poking around in Cheif Engineer Cid's laboratory--the room where Senator Werner was assassinated.

Gentle Tiger: He what!? That's not possible...

Klara: Yes, no one here is to blame. Not the sentries. Not the guard. No one is at fault...

Gentle Tiger: I've been alert the entire time. How did he get in there...?

Pagdako: There was a guard at the entrance, so I crawled in through the ventilation shaft.

Dunbaff: What were you thinking, Pagdako?

Biggorf: Your recklessness could have gotten you hurt.

Pagdako: But...

Pagdako: But I've heard so many Humes saying that maybe Elder Werei and Gumbah were responsible for the senator's death!

Pagdako: I thought that if I could find the real culprit, their names would be cleared.

Garlbrei: Is that what they're saying? Those Humes will take any opportunity to drag us down...!

Dunbaff: I'll admit, there may be a few individuals among the Galkan community that didn't shed a tear at the senator's death. But that doesn't mean that we'd stoop to murder.

Volker: And I'm ashamed as a fellow Bastokan that any would accuse your elders of such.

Pagdako: Elder Werei!

Pagdako: Gumbah!

Pagdako: And Mythril Musketeer Volker!

Volker: The charge for inciting civil unrest has been dropped. There's no need for you to continue your...investigations.

Pagdako: That's great news.

Werei: Did you keep up your sword practice while I was gone?

Pagdako: Things are back to normal, I guess...

Garlbrei: President's dog! You think you can just waltz in here after accusing our elders of such foul deeds...!?

Gumbah: Calm yourself. This man is not one of the troops that arrested us. And he was gracious enough to escort us this far, knowing full well the reception he would receive.

Volker: Though it hardly begins to address this injustice, I apologize for the affront against your elders.

Garlbrei: Hmph. I defer to Gumbah's wishes. This time.

Werei: Let us be on our way.

Werei: Don't fall behind in your training, Pagdako.

Werei: (This Volker is a man to be watched. He may one day be a leader that both Hume and Galka can follow...so unlike his uncle Ulrich.)

Volker: Hm? Ah, the informant.

Volker: It appears that the weapons found in Grauberg were so old as to be completely unusable.

Volker: Have you ever heard of a race called the Antica?

Volker: They are antlike beastmen that nest in the Kuzotz region--the former homeland of the Galka.

Volker: Those weapons belonged to Galka slain by the Antica, many moons past. Werei and Gumbah kept them in that cave as a tribute to the fallen.

Volker: Losing a companion to war is always painful, no matter how many times you experience it. After losing an entire homeland, not to mention countless friends, I can only imagine how deep the well of Galkan sadness runs...

Five Moons: Volker!

Volker: What is it? What's happened?

Five Moons: The envoy escorting the San d'Orian ambassador, on his way to fill the diplomatic post here in Bastok, has fallen prey to a Quadav attack!

Volker: Baronet Dieuler!?

Five Moons: I'm afraid so. According to the squire who managed to break free, the ambassador was taken into a mine shaft that has an entrance in the Pashow Marshlands.

Volker: A mine shaft? Then we must set out before they have a chance to flee too deep into the tunnels.

Five Moons: There's a Goblin here in town by the name of Blatherix who has knowledge of the mining complex. I've sent Nicolaus to speak to him.

Five Moons: The Captain has ordered you and Zeid to launch a rescue mission at once.

Volker: Understood. We leave immediately.