The town is now crawling with soldiers. Lock narrowly evades begin caught by one as the scene begins. 1-21 "Under Martial Law" now plays in the town.

Lock starts this scene with nothing equipped. Make sure to give him some equipment before doing any fighting! Losing won't actually get you a game over for most of the scenario, instead dumping Lock back to where he started, but why make it easy on them?

Most of the town is blocked off by soldiers too tough to beat, and the only other passage across town is blocked by a boy who will only allow merchants through unless his grandfather says otherwise, and the grandfather won't talk about anything except the sake that hasn't come yet.

While you're here, consider getting in a fight with at least one of those mech riders. Lock by himself can't realistically beat the Heavy Armor he'll end up fighting, but running away or even losing is enough to make them appear on the Beast Plain later. And if you're lucky, you can even steal an Iron Helm from one, but more often than not, you'll just get a Potion. Even completionists can skip them for now, though, since they'll show up in the massive battle at Narshe later.

Realizing he needs a disguise to get anywhere, Lock sneaks around until....

The NA version took a bit of artistic license on this line, but I can't say it's not amusing....

They start fighting, and Lock steals from him, because, well, he can. That's when things get entertaining....

The merchant flees combat in embarrassment, leaving Lock disguised as a merchant, so he heads back to the boy.

Some inside information should help, but the soldiers won't talk to Lock. However, grunts in several places are looking for a fight....

Lock, of course, takes advantage of the situation to steal a uniform.

Now that he's in an Imperial uniform, the soldiers, most of them drinking in the bar, will talk to Lock candidly.

I think he means: Why bother to stop drinking if he's already late anyway?

One soldier outside mistakes Lock for his relief and heads for the bar.

With more freedom to move about and information about a secret passage out of town, Lock sees a chance to escape. The news about the traitorous general could be important too. But first, he needs to change disguises to interact freely with the citizens. Fortunately, there's paranoid merchant who'll do just fine....

After the usual clothes-grabbing, Lock decides the sake will come in handy, and takes that too. That old man who was a servant at the northern mansion might know something, and this is more likely than anything to get him talking....

(talking to the kid downstairs)

By no great surprise, the correct answer is "courage".

The boy opens a secret door in the wall.

Lock goes through, emerging inside the northern mansion. The army seems to be using it as headquarters, but they ignore Lock. The secret passage out of town should be around somewhere, and it's likely that the renegade general is too. Exploring the house carefully, Lock finds a concealed staircase on the top floor that goes all the way to the basement. If he's still in disguise, he has the option of changing back to his usual outfit at this point:

Lock hears an odd noise from a side room, and carefully peers through an opening in the door....

Two soldiers stand inside the room. One is repeatedly striking the woman who was at Gastra's speech in Tina's flashback. She wears a green outfit and white cape. Her blond hair, bound only by a blue hairpiece around the back of her head, falls to about the middle of her back (fanart tends to prefer a normal cloth all-the-way-around headband, but both Amano's art and the in-game sprites and character portrait suggest something that is fancier and does not extend to the front of her head). Despite her situation, she maintains an air of dignity. The soldiers start gloating.

Interestingly, this introduction parallels Shadow's, with the mention of an unseen true self.

The cruel soldier laughs a cruel soldier laugh. He's got nothing on Cefca, though.

My translation of Celes's line is part guess, but it definitely involves trampling the weak, and it's definitely full of contempt.

Additionally, Celes is speaking with a bit of a masculine tone, and continues to do so for quite some time....

He hits her again, hard enough that she collapses.

The ranking guard exits. If dressed as an Imperial soldier, Lock stands by the door and salutes; otherwise he watches the guard leave from a ceiling beam, then hops down. Either way, he heads into the room. Despite his boast, the remaining guard is already asleep. Lock checks on Celes and is faced with a choice:

Well...? You ARE going to release her, right?

Celes's line is slightly odd, because she's suddenly talking more femininely. Maybe it's an oversight, maybe the sarcastic tone negates that, or maybe.... Well, the above exchange is quite similar to the scene in which Luke meets Leia in Star Wars (though certainly not identical in either English or Japanese). Maybe coincidence, probably not.

Lock cuts her off.

He winks at her, and walks toward the door.

The soldier is a fairly restless sleeper, and seems to be obsessed with food.

But a quick search turns up a key to wind clocks.

Celes, like Tina, has MP and can cast a few basic spells, but her specialty is Ice rather than Flame. Other than that, and her special battle command (which I'll cover when the game does), she's quite similar in combat.

In another room, there's an old clock that isn't running. Winding the clock reveals another secret passage. Equipment for Celes is scattered around the passage, but there are also Imperial soldiers and attack dogs. Fairly soon, they reach the far end, on the edge of town.

With that rather cryptic remark, they leave town.

"Under Martial Law" continues playing even on the world map, until they enter the cave that leads back towards Narshe, where "The Phantom Forest" plays as usual. The monsters have been replaced with stronger ones, and there's also a strange rumbling noise every so often....

Additionally, any chests not opened earlier have different contents if opened now.

Lock eventually feels the need to comment.

Just as they're about to go out the other exit, the rumbling gets worse, and closer.

You guessed it, it's another boss battle, with even more in-battle conversation...!

For those who hadn't guessed, Celes's combat ability is Magicseal Sword, which allows her to negate most magic (in short, see her character entry for details). The ability comes in handy against the Dig Armor, since it uses magic attacks more often than not, and with Lock on offense, it soon falls.

Alternately, using the Thunder Rod found in one of the chests in the cave (if said chest wasn't opened earlier) will finish it off in one hit.

The music fades out. Cut back to the black room, with the remaining scenarios, unless all are complete.