diff --git a/crates/sylpheed-formats/examples/sound_cue_fields.rs b/crates/sylpheed-formats/examples/sound_cue_fields.rs
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..a50cc8bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/crates/sylpheed-formats/examples/sound_cue_fields.rs
@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+//! F2 — is a per-cue or per-bus GAIN on the disc?
+//!
+//! The port has no gain value anywhere in its export: `confirm` peaks at
+//! −0.0 dBFS and sits 3 dB above the music. A cue record commonly carries a
+//! volume beside its wave index. This asks the disc directly rather than
+//! choosing a number.
+//!
+//! Method: dump every token of every `tables.pak` object whose tokens mention
+//! SOUND/BANK/SE/BGM, so a gain field would appear as a token if one exists.
+//! ⚠️ A NEGATIVE here is only as good as its coverage, so this prints the token
+//! count per object and does not filter — a field missed by a filter would read
+//! exactly like a field that is not there.
+//!
+//!     cargo run --release -p sylpheed-formats --example sound_cue_fields -- $SYLPHEED_DISC
+use sylpheed_formats::{idxd::IdxdObject, pak::PakArchive};
+
+fn main() {
+    let a: Vec<String> = std::env::args().collect();
+    let root = a.get(1).cloned().unwrap_or_else(|| std::env::var("SYLPHEED_DISC").unwrap());
+    let arc = PakArchive::open(format!("{root}/dat/tables.pak")).unwrap();
+
+    // Anything a gain would plausibly be called, plus the audio nouns.
+    const GAINY: &[&str] = &["VOL", "GAIN", "LEVEL", "DB", "ATTEN", "AMP", "MIX", "LOUD"];
+    let mut audio_objs = 0usize;
+    let mut gain_hits: Vec<(usize, String)> = Vec::new();
+
+    for (i, e) in arc.entries().iter().enumerate() {
+        let Ok(b) = arc.read(e) else { continue };
+        let Ok(o) = IdxdObject::parse(&b) else { continue };
+        let t = o.tokens();
+        let up: Vec<String> = t.iter().map(|s| s.to_uppercase()).collect();
+        let is_audio = up.iter().any(|s| {
+            s.contains("SOUND") || s.contains("BANK_") || s.starts_with("SE_") || s.starts_with("BGM_")
+        });
+        if !is_audio { continue }
+        audio_objs += 1;
+        println!("audio object #{i}: schema {:08x}, {} tokens", o.schema_hash, t.len());
+        for (j, tok) in up.iter().enumerate() {
+            if GAINY.iter().any(|g| tok.contains(g)) {
+                gain_hits.push((i, t[j].clone()));
+            }
+        }
+    }
+
+    println!("\naudio-bearing objects examined: {audio_objs}");
+    println!("tokens matching {GAINY:?}: {}", gain_hits.len());
+    for (i, tok) in &gain_hits {
+        println!("   object #{i}: {tok}");
+    }
+    if gain_hits.is_empty() {
+        println!("\n==> NO gain-like token in any audio object of tables.pak.");
+    }
+
+    // CONTROL: the search must be able to FIND a token when one is present.
+    // Without this, "no hits" is indistinguishable from a broken matcher.
+    let mut ctrl = 0usize;
+    for e in arc.entries() {
+        let Ok(b) = arc.read(e) else { continue };
+        let Ok(o) = IdxdObject::parse(&b) else { continue };
+        ctrl += o.tokens().iter().filter(|s| s.to_uppercase().contains("SE_UI")).count();
+    }
+    println!("\nCONTROL — the same matcher looking for a token known to exist (\"SE_UI\"): {ctrl} hits");
+    println!("   {}", if ctrl > 0 { "PASS: the matcher finds tokens that are there" }
+                      else { "FAIL: matcher is broken, the negative above means nothing" });
+}
diff --git a/docs/re/f2-no-gain-field-in-tables.md b/docs/re/f2-no-gain-field-in-tables.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..b7fbc84d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/re/f2-no-gain-field-in-tables.md
@@ -0,0 +1,87 @@
+# ❔ F2 — **no gain field in `tables.pak`.** Undecodable so far, with reach
+
+**Status: ❔ undecodable, with reach** — the strongest of the three classifications
+this could honestly get. 2026-09-02. Instrument: ⟨disc⟩ — `dat/tables.pak` read
+exhaustively, with a control.
+
+The port has **no gain value anywhere** in its export; `confirm` peaks at
+−0.0 dBFS and sits 3 dB above the music. F2 asks whether a per-cue or per-bus
+volume is on the disc, so nobody has to choose one.
+
+---
+
+## The answer: not in `tables.pak`
+
+**5 audio-bearing objects, 0 gain-like fields.**
+
+```
+audio object #15  schema 3abe9c0c     38 tokens
+audio object #18  schema 3abe9c0c     39 tokens
+audio object #36  schema 070ed386    135 tokens
+audio object #39  schema 13cb84ba  13907 tokens
+audio object #45  schema 13cb84ba  16741 tokens
+
+tokens matching [VOL GAIN LEVEL DB ATTEN AMP MIX LOUD]: 0
+```
+
+**Control — the same matcher looking for a token known to be there:** `SE_UI`
+returns **38 hits**. ✅ **PASS.** Without it, "0 hits" and "broken matcher" are the
+same observation, and this corpus has published that mistake before.
+
+## 🔴 Why the negative is stronger than a name search usually is
+
+A name search normally cannot exclude an **unnamed numeric column** — and I
+expected that to be this page's limitation. Dumping the schema shows it is not.
+The token stream is **value-then-key pairs**:
+
+```
+  1 0x060523                        2 VERSION
+  4 dat\GP_OPTIONS.pak+eng\         5 PATH
+ 33 40                             34 LINE_PITCH
+ 35 0                              36 Y_OFFSET_ANALOG_STICK
+```
+
+**Numbers are tokens and they carry names.** `40` is a token, and so is
+`LINE_PITCH`. So a gain in this format would have a *name*, and the name search
+covers exactly the space where it would live. That is what turns "I did not find
+one" into "one is not there **in this file**".
+
+## ⚠️ Reach — the two places I did NOT look
+
+1. **The `.slb` bank headers.** `BANK_SE` names a single bank, `Static.slb`, and a
+   per-wave gain beside a wave index is the other conventional home for this. The
+   banks are **inside paks** — no `.slb` exists on the extracted disc as a loose
+   file — so inspecting the header costs a pak extraction I did not have budget
+   for this iteration. **This is the first thing the next attempt should do.**
+2. **The executable.** A mix could be immediates in the sound-play path;
+   `sub_821C5580` is a decoded entry point into it.
+
+**So this is not yet "the mix is not on the disc".** It is *"the mix is not in the
+table where a cue's fields live"*, which is a real narrowing and not the whole
+answer.
+
+📌 One adjacent fact, offered as a pointer and not a finding: object #15 lists
+`po_sound_scr.prt → SOUND` among `GP_OPTIONS`' screens. **There is a user-facing
+sound options screen**, so at least one volume exists as *runtime state*. That is a
+different thing from a per-cue mix and does not answer F2 either way — but if the
+next attempt finds no authored gain anywhere, a user-settable master is where the
+game's own levels would come from.
+
+## For the port
+
+**Keep authoring nothing yet.** The place a gain would most likely be has not been
+looked at. If the bank headers come back empty too, the honest classification
+becomes *undecodable* across all three sites and the port authors a mix knowing it
+is authoring — which is the outcome this exercise exists to make explicit rather
+than accidental.
+
+## Refutation attempt, recorded per the adversarial duty
+
+**Target:** the play-test's framing that *"a cue record commonly carries a volume
+beside its wave index"*.
+
+**Result: not refuted, and not confirmed — the premise is untested where it
+matters.** The cue *records* in `tables.pak` carry an id and a name and no volume.
+But "beside its wave index" points at the **bank**, not the table, and the wave
+index lives in the `.slb`. The framing is sound; it just aims at a file this page
+did not open.