The biggest gripe with Divinity: Original Sin is Cyseal itself. Cyseal is love, Cyseal is life. You will find yourself endlessly wandering around this town with too many side quests to count. It takes a while to actually leave this beginner area in the game and one of the reasons for that is the mysterious murder of Counselor Jake.
There are multiple suspects, multiple areas, and multiple pieces of evidence. With the old and rather cluttered excuse for a quest log in Divinity: Original Sin, it can become hard figuring out what you have to do at all. The first thing you need to do is narrow down the suspect list.
The Suspects
After speaking with Arhu and Captain Aureus, you’ll find that the townsfolk are pointing multiple fingers. Jake’s wife seems to be flirting with the guard in her shop and we all love a good wife-murders-the-husband trope. Jake’s grave is peculiar and disturbed and the mortician won’t explain why. Then you have other options that come with questioning the townspeople like Esmeralda’s many lovers and the town healer’s apprentice.
You’ll have to question everyone in town for leads and information. The quest log won’t help you in regards to who you need to go to and what you need to interact with which is what makes this part of the game the longest. Or all of the game, really. It’s up to you and you’re trusty detective skills alone.
Leads - The Graveyard
The first thing you want to do before cracking down on anyone is to check Jake’s grave. There’s a graveyard to the back left end of the town. With Pet Pal you can talk to Jake’s very own trusty dog in this location. The dog knows something is up and can sniff out Jake’s scent if you bring him anything worthwhile from other peoples residences.
If you don’t have Pet Pal you can still dig up Jake’s grave to discover a sheep instead. This prompts asking the mortician what’s up. You need a shovel to dig it up. There’s one in the graveyard and by pressing and holding the Alt button you can find it tucked away in the earth. The only way to get anything out of the mortician is through persuasive skill checks. If you succeed, he confesses he stole a sheep to cover up the removal of Jake’s body, at the orders of mysterious people who payed him. This won’t lead you far to finding the killer, but it will write him off the list of suspects.
Leads - Crime Scene
The next place you want to go is the crime scene. You don’t have many choices to make here other than to investigate and question the barkeep. Doing this points many fingers towards Esmeralda and a lover as well as giving you more main story about Star Stone and the greater future of the world. But you still need cold hard evidence, all of this is just information to crack down on the murderer.
By talking to the bartender before or after checking the crime scene, you find out about the Duke of Ferol’s romance with Esmeralda. You can attempt to interrogate him as he’s inside the tavern occasionally talking to another woman. This won’t get you far because you need to confront Esmeralda herself.
Leads - Esmeralda’s Shop
Esmeralda’s shop is the next best place to be. You need to write her off the list if you’re going to get anywhere. Or prove her guilty. To do this you’ll want to sneak into her back room. You’ll have to find the key for it up the stairs that are directly beside the front door to the shop. You can just go up them, steal the key which you can find by holding down the Alt button, and go back down without arousing the guard. In her bedroom upstairs you can find and steal some underwear in the chest for Jake’s dog to sniff out.
Once you go out the back and around to unlock the door, there will be two rooms inside. The first room you enter, there will be a closed book on the desk directly next to the door about murder. Looting this book will prompt experience and a log update where you’ll then be able to interrogate Esmeralda and use the book as evidence. The next room as an Inn Key on the desk and a door to the cellar. This key will unlock the once locked chest that was inside the crime scene room, which will grant evidence against the Duke of Ferol and Esmeralda.
The cellar also has some casual loot and a hidden room behind the bookshelf. There is a button behind some ham that trigger the bookshelf to move. It doesn’t highlight even when you press Alt and blends into the wall, but it’s there. Remove the ham on the shelf closest to the bookshelf and it should be below. Inside you’ll find lots of loot but most importantly a Bloody Dagger on the table. Picking it up will trigger experience and a log update. After gaining these three pieces of evidence against Esmeralda, you can confront her. She will deny and dismiss all arguments but will point you into another direction. Evelyn, the town healers apprentice.
Leads - Evelyn
Last but not least, it’s time to investigate the least likely suspect. Evelyn is located inside Thelyron’s Clinic on the map. If you’ve been inside before, she would be in the back tending to the sick and making beds. After you’ve heard about her through Esmeralda, though, she’s seemingly disappeared into thin air.
You can loot the bedroom connected to the med-bay by the key left on the dresser. The bedroom contains a chest and two keys. One key is underneath the wardrobe which unlocks the chest, the other is behind the chest! Hold down the Alt button to be sure. You can also find a piece of clothing for Jake’s dog to sniff if you spoke to him with Pet Pal. If and when you visit the clinic after Esmeralda brings Evelyn up, there will be a backpack where the key is.
All that the backpack contains is the key to her house. Her house is located behind the clinic and market, next to a fountain. There are two doors to enter. The bucket in front of the second door has a key under it. Inside her house there will be two chests and important pieces of paper. On the desk will be two pieces of paper that give you more information on what’s going on, but they won’t trigger a log update. The key you found outside opens the lock box chest and in the other chest contains the next puzzle piece. A Reveal spell. Do not use this or misplace it until you get to the next destination because it can’t be replaced and is used for this quest only.
The Beach
So you’ve written off Esmeralda as the killer. All you know for sure now is that Jake had source and that attracted the wrong people and somehow Evelyn is apart of it. You’ll want to investigate beyond the city walls at this point, more specifically to the beach. To get to the beach in question you need exit through the northern town gate. Enemies beyond the northern gate are level 5 and higher so the guards warn you about going further. Because of this you’ll want to finish up any town business and work on leveling up before venturing forth.
Once you’re ready, the only way to get to the beach is through a tunnel inside a cave which holds a boss fight. The cave is located passed the crashed caravan that’s in front of the north gate, up the hill and in between two waterfalls. Passed the cave and through the tunnel, you’ll reach the beach. Go left all the way down and cross the river where it’s most shallow to find a guy in swim trunks. He guards all from finding Evelyn and you either have to talk him out of it or fight him. Once you’ve dealt with him, face the strange stone wall and use the Reveal spell. Continue forth through the dungeon to find out what really happened to Jake.
Finishing The Job
So you’ve found out everything you needed to and it was a grim ending. Don’t forget to report back to the officials! Go back to Cyseal and speak with Captain Aureus about the events that occurred to close and complete the quest for good.
