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Those are all really good questions. I know Catapult and I have very different assumptions about how and why, but I got the feeling that it was Warburton, as well. Ascilia is a brave, reckless girl, but in that scene she is terrified. I toyed with the idea that it was an Ascian, and still think it could have been, but this assassin casts a shadow, which is something Ascians did not do in Verson 1.0 (and I still don't understand why they do in ARR). The only thing I can come up with for why Ascilia looks so terrified is that she just saw the guy who was supposed to resurrect her father open an empty coffin and then get stabbed by her father. Maybe he didn't come back the same man.

The Ul'dah storyline did have some focus on the lost zombification magicks of Sil'dih - at least the hope of doing it better than they did; eternal life tends to be something the rich spend a lot of money trying to attain in stories like these. Likewise, the gem from Heartstrike's hilt shatters when it hits the floor, which could indicate that the one Neille was holding is a fake. The real could have already been used on the corpse.

Do you have your own theory for the assassin's identity / why their face is avoided?

Well Travenchet our original wild-goose-chase was our original and only shadowless person and Ferne told us that he was an Ascian. So was this the true form of that Ascian or was it a possessed Elezen? Many of the Ascians we see (end of the storyline) are very Hyur in stature. Maybe the human nature of the Hyur allows them to be more likely to be possessed, weak wills? But of course there's no real separation between the races as all the races possess these traits.

As for the assassin's identity and my theory, it's not really a theory more so just 2 guesses. It's either Warburton or the reason we don't see his face is because it's simply an assassin that is unimportant and was just there fulfilling the contract from Lord Lolorito. I forgot to add in my earlier post that an Ascian power wouldn't need to have come into play as the doors of the crypt were wide open when Mumapu left. As for the assassin being Warburton, yeah it would shock her...but I also think that she would have been relieved to see him alive, unless she was indeed traumatized with it all, after all he brought her to a strange city and then died and she was left all alone in a city of greed.



The dagger used to stab Nielle.



A similar dagger/sword being sold as we rode the caravan into Ul'dah (in the present 1572 6A.E.).

As you can see the assassin was left handed which I thought was unique as most of the game and NPCs that we saw in game and continue to see are right handed. Sadly watching the Ul'dah CS' I couldn't tell if Warburton was left handed. Also when you're inside that little instance before the parade happenings, you can talk to Warburton and Ascilia. Warburton asks if you know of any transportation as he's suppose to meet someone somewhere. Which is a bit odd to me as he came in to Ul'dah then needed to leave again, but to where? Silver Bazaar, Gold Bazaar, Little Ala Mhigo? As far as I know Little Ala Mhigo hadn't been established at the time as there hadn't been a lot of Ala Mhigan refugees yet. Yet now in 2.0 we know from Minfilia that her father was a spy and had valuable information on the Garleans. But Corguevais with knowledge from Ascilia said there was an even greater threat to Ul'dah...again Corguevais, the man with the same "mission" as Warburton. Bah it really racks my brain. Anyways back to the assassin, I still think Lord Lolorito was ultimately behind it. As with the Class quests from 1.0 (they contained LORE I loved it) Greinfarr was said to have believed Lolorito had had Nielle assassinated for stealing his Heartstrike. Funny thing is though Nielle's brother didn't seem to think Nielle's death was because of foul play or maybe people in Ul'dah are just use to it. But if I had to say which things I feel the strongest about it's this: Lord Lolorito had Nielle assassinated and Nielle was in shock because Warburton's body was not in the coffin and HIGHLY likely someone elses was perhaps it was Corguevais. I hope SE does answer many of these questions for me soon, though I'm sure I'm the only one questioning it all lol.

And yeah Moose, the Alacran stole the Sultana's Crown and the item given to them was (said) the item the Sil'dih Sultan used to create his zombie army. Who is behind the Alacran? Lord Lolorito. Yet supposedly the Ascian had the Alacran steal the item..which just doesn't seem right to me. Lord Lolorito was (atleast in 1.0) a very calculating man who would know what his underlings are doing and would only be doing them at his own behest...but of course Papasha? appears and chases the Alacran and I believe the Crown is recovered, but it's not said if the item was. Now why would Lord Lolorito want an item used to create zombies? Well that's just another theory all together~

Originally Posted by NoloeTazier

A similar dagger/sword being sold as we rode the caravan into Ul'dah (in the present 1572 6A.E.).

It's hard to tell if it's a hint or just duplicated resources. The Key, for instance, looks just like the horn used in Ul'dah to break the spell over the Goobbue and enrage the Coblyns. However, it's also the same horn a (seemingly) normal dock-worker Miqo'te blows to tell the ship to set sail. It even zooms right in on her doing it as Y'shtola looks on, yet seems completely inconsequential and a duplicated visual resource.

Originally Posted by NoloeTazier

Silver Bazaar, Gold Bazaar, Little Ala Mhigo?

He specifically mentions "a nearby hamlet," and the story makes mention that the Gold/Silver Bazaars had become refugee camps overflowing with Ala Mhigans even in 1562. Coming from a recent trip to Ala Mhigo, himself, Warburton may have been meeting resistance contacts there, perhaps?

Originally Posted by NoloeTazier

Now why would Lord Lolorito want an item used to create zombies?

Thancred supposed that it was to win the war with the Garleans, but if you can bring people back from the dead, that's a service you can charge for, and if you have the market cornered...

Why do we think there was another body in the coffin as opposed to it just being empty? And why Corguevais' body?

As far as I could see, he was an Imperial spy gathering intelligence on Ul'dah and he'd simply assumed that Warburton, am Imperial double agent, was doing the same work he was. I'd thought there was something to be said for Ascians in Ascilia's warnings of "something worse," but Thancred already knows what Ascians are - Y'shtola's part of his group and she mentions them by name in Limsa Lominsa during the same investigation period. What they didn't know in 1562 was that Primals were about to be summoned - but the Imperials knew this. When he escapes, Corguevais says that he would have learned of the danger facing Ul'dah sooner if they didn't kill Warburton. Now, Corguevais had just taken possession of Warburton's effects as part of his funeral, and Warburton's Journal, as we learned in 2.1, was stuffed with Imperial knowledge on primals. Corguevais and Ascilia could have been fleeing back to Ala Mhigo because they thought Ifrit was going to be tearing Ul'dah down in the near future.

Then, of course, there's this: A few quests later, Ifrit is a big reveal and the Ascian is an ominous foreshadow. An unreleased post-50 quest seems to imply that the beast tribes summoned their primals because they were terrified by attacks coming from the "Reaper" Ascian. Could the "Paragons" have been engaging in false flag operations? Could this have been part of a planned reveal later in the questline? It's probably been scrapped by now, anyway, lol.

Originally Posted by NoloeTazier

As you can see the assassin was left handed

Huh... nice catch! Alright, let's talk conspiracy for a moment. My original theory was that Warburton was the assassin - but I've been working on an alternate; I like to have a few. Let's go back to Ascians - maybe the Ascians couldn't possess a corpse. Maybe they didn't need to.

Thancred realizes that Neille means to resurrect Warburton and says to meet him at the Ossuary. When you get there, Thancred mentions that he's been waiting there for the Thaumaturges to unseal the magick wards that keep the Ossuary locked - yet somehow they've already been broken. The door is wide open not 50 yalms away - and at the bottom of the stairs is Neille, dying. We see an Echo that reveals just before you arrived to speak with Thancred, Neille's assassin ran him through. Not only does the assassin make the kill with his left hand, the assassin is wearing another blade on his left hip as NPCs normally do. It's visible for but a moment as he turns around.

Now, I'm sure there are tons of Hyurs who prefer that dagger. However, there was one in particular that we shouldn't forget was close by:

Perhaps Thancred's possession wasn't a new idea for A Realm Reborn. I bet Ascian magicks could break open the THM's seals.

But then... where was Warburton? Taken to prevent his resurrection and spouting of primal talk?

Of course, we can't overlook the most likely scenario of all, that drilling over this information since 2010 (tainted by open ends, half truths, and the story of A Realm Reborn) has driven me right off the path of reasonable ideas, lol.

Ok now that's just really freaky...you have to time a pause perfectly to see this and yes it does match Thancred's choice of weapon but it's so odd because in the cutscene you don't see this until this split second frame. It's clearly on his left side (Thancred keeps his there) but in the screenshot I posted, there's clearly nothing. No belt to even hold a dagger up, so maybe this is a clipping issue and only in this split second the character's wardrobe under it can be seen? If it is I can see the story tellers checking out the older version of the story and giving us what we have now with Lahabrea taking over Thancred...which we are told happens when Thancred despairs in losing Louisoix. So maybe originally Thancred was going to betray everyone then the changes happened and the new story tellers realized Thancred was popular with the ladies so it was 'best' to make him betray everyone only by being taken over cause he was sad cause Louisoix was/is gone...man really reaching here but that's a nice little find, you have good eyes for seeing that in the split second it's shown lol.

As for thinking it's another body in the coffin and not just empty, it's because of Nielle's shock. If he opened it and it was empty I believe the reaction would have been confusing not a "this cannot be" as he stares into a blank coffin. The reason I say Corguevais is a possibility is because Nielle knew what he looked like and Corguevais was part of that storyline so I don't see it as someone random. The Lalafell twins said they "took care of him." So what would be more shocking: an empty coffin or one with Corguevais in it. But of course the "it's impossible" line to me means it was someone highly unexpected and even Corguevais may not have brought out that kind of response as Nielle could probably care less if he was gone/dead I'm sure. I really don't know but yeah where would Warburton or his corpse be then?

Originally Posted by NoloeTazier

maybe this is a clipping issue

This is exactly what I was thinking. Sometimes, it seems like one texture is designed to be pasted right over another. For instance, load up Dark Matter Golem over at FFXIVMODELS in a fresh tab. Normal golem - normal golem - nor-POP! New texture. I think this assassin's outfit could easily have been laid over basic Thancred to create a temporary disguise and, whoops, his dagger clipped through the cloak. Or someone forgot to disable it for that section of recording. Or someone was like, "Let's put it there for one second and see if anyone ever notices." Hells if I know.

Originally Posted by NoloeTazier

The Lalafell twins said they "took care of him." So what would be more shocking: an empty coffin or one with Corguevais in it.

And that's exactly what I'd have said, lol. It's a good answer, and just as convincing evidence as any. Now, on one hand, we could consider his state of mind. We're told that he's full of guilt, and he's clearly anxious. Perhaps he was thinking, "I'm just going to open this, and use the dagger, and then everything is going to be okay, again. There won't be a death on my hands. This girl won't be an orphan. I won't have personally destroyed the one chance we have at learning what danger threatens Ul'dah. All I have to do i-EMPTY? NO. NO, THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE." On the other hand, though, you're absolutely right; you'd expect more of a "Huh? That's weird..." than a "HOW COULD THIS BE!?" Back on the other hand, maybe he just knows that once the Ossuary has a funeral and seals a coffin and locks it in a THM-warded crypt, you can be pretty confident he's going to stay in there. Thanalan's got enough zombies.

</shrug> We've solved a bunch, but we've got a ways to go. ^^