How I find the children?

Alrighty, based on your reports, here's what the game thinks.

First of all, if you have the Advanced Factfinder : Rackham reputation, that means you've found two pieces of evidence of the three you need. This explains why Captain Abiram doesn't have much to say and why you can't tell him you've solved the case - you haven't.

Anyway, Rakham is your man, so I've highlighted the pertinent Rakham flags and vars below.

Global flags:

You haven't talked to Panathaes while he was unconscious.
Boroquin won't talk to you anymore.
You cast Fear or Cause Fear on Rakham.
You didn't cast Charm Monster or Charm Person on Boroquin.
Rakham confessed.
Boroquin did not confess.
Panathaes did not confess.

Global variables:

You accepted the tunnels job from Captain Abiram.
You've met both stewards, Panathaes was activated, you met Panathaes, and both kids were activated.
Rakham is the kidnapper.
You have no evidence against Panathaes.
You have no evidence against Boroquin.
You have two pieces of evidence against Rakham.
You haven't turned Boroquin or Rakham in to Captain Abiram.
Rothbert and Becka were in your party and then left.
Panathaes has not joined and left your party.
You have 0 pieces of physical evidence against Panathaes.
You have 0 pieces of physical evidence against Boroquin.
You have 1 piece of physical evidence against Rakham.
You have 0 pieces of testimony against Panathaes.
You have 0 pieces of testimony against Boroquin.
You have 0 pieces of testimony against Rakham.
Rakham didn't narc anybody out.
Boroquin didn't narc anybody out.
Panathaes didn't narc anybody out.

So we can see from the flags and variables that the evidence you've compiled against Rakham consist of his confession, and one piece of physical evidence (presumably the child's locket, from what you said).

Naturally, the types of evidence you can collect (as Abiram explains) are confessions, testimony, and physical evidence. You already have a confession and one piece of physical evidence, so you either need to add physical evidence or testimony of others.

Possible physical evidence: the child's locket and Panathaes' notes. You have the locket. Did you read Panathaes' notes?

Possible testimony: from either Panathaes or Boroquin. You've got neither, and you won't get it from Boroquin now since you apparently pissed him off. That leaves Panathaes. But how do you get good info from a crazy guy?

There do seem to be some inconsistencies, which AFAIK are likely down to nothing more than ToEE's occasional flakiness, like you say you knocked out Panathaes but the game doesn't think you did (actually no, the game doesn't think you talked to him while he was, hint-hint), and I think you should be able to turn him in to Abiram regardless of whether he kidnapped the chldren, since he's an escaped prisoner. Could be we somehow haven't allowed for that contingency in the scripting/dialogue.

The evidence part of this quest is designed so that there's not only three pieces in existence, all of which you automatically need. There are potentially five pieces of evidence you can collect altogether against the kidnapper.

 

Hm, I think I see an error with the evidence counter script. Do you by any chance have a save from before you ever read the notes? It will only register the notes as evidence once upon reading them (which is correct, otherwise you could read the notes three times and solve the case), but it will also only register them as evidence if you have one or fewer pieces of evidence already. In your case, you have the locket, and then the notes get added as physical evidence but they don't get added as overall evidence because at that point you're at two pieces so the script doesn't run.

Anyway if you have such a save, I could give you a new file and you could test if it works but if not guess you should just increment the variable manually and give yourself the rep.

 

Open the console and input the following:

Code:

game.global_vars[554] = 2
game.global_vars[545] = 3

Then remove and add the right reputations like so:

Code:

game.party[0].reputation_remove(74)
game.party[0].reputation_add(77)

Then go see Captain Abiram.

 

The reputations code had an extra space above (before the underscore), since fixed.

 

No, you should be able to explain your evidence, so some flag or variable still isn't squaring up. Does he take Rakham and/or Panathaes at this point?

 

No, I don't think so. I'll have to look at Abiram's dialogue file again later.