1710 Crack Flag/2003—According to Victor Talbot

Synopsis
Victor Talbot, curious about the motivations and hidden nature of Huey Laforet, decides to delve into Huey's past for answers. He hopes to find some in a play written by poet Jean-Pierre Accardo, especially with regard to Huey's lover. Meanwhile, he has not forgotten about Elmer C. Albatross.
 * First Color Insert

Speaking with a fellow FBI agent, Victor shies away from recalling his own past and instead recalls what the situation in Lotto Valentino was like when he and Szilard Quates visited the city. He comments on the reign of his employers—House of Dormentaire—in Lotto Valentino that kindled when Carla Alvarez Santonia led a Dormentaire envoy to the city.
 * Second Color Insert

Victor's thoughts briefly return to Huey, but, at his colleague's smile, he flusteres and instead continues talking about Lotto Valentino. This time, he contextualizes Lotto Valentino as a city replete with alchemists, including Maiza Avaro's alchemy professor Dalton Strauss, one of the city's most renowned alchemists. The Avaro family itself funded alchemists from a workshop that housed the likes of Begg Garrott, Czeslaw Meyer, and Lebreau Fermet Viralesque, the last of whom was an immortal Victor still knows little about despite Fermet likewise having ties to the House of Dormentaire.
 * Third Color Insert

His mind never straying far from Huey, Victor wonders what Huey ultimately wanted to accomplish by becoming an immortal—and hopes his investigation will produce an answer to that much, at least.

Trivia

 * The Mars Clan that Victor mentions in the second color insert is a vampire clan based in Northern Germany. One of its vampiric members, Romy Mars, is the family's sole member in the early 2000s and appears in Ryohgo Narita's light novel series Vamp! As she is some hundreds of years old, she may have been alive during the events of 1710 Crack Flag.

Characters in Order of Appearance

 * Victor Talbot