Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks True Soul Nere & Meerna

Is there really no way to save Meerna from True Soul Nere?

For clarification purposes, Meerna and her brother are Deep Gnome slaves forced to excavate the Temple of Shar, but she gets trapped under the rubble with Nere and then he throws her into the lava out of frustration afterwards.

Since this is the only quest in the game that actually takes the passage of time into consideration (every long rest annoys Nere further and he dies after the 3rd). I thought by not dawdling and immediately rescuing them would make True Soul Nere less annoyed so he would not express his frustrations upon Meerna. But unfortunately it doesn't seem to be the case, as he still kills her.

Kind of disappointing to just be standing there with our hands crossed as he goes to kill her. I'd at least expect an option to intervene and by doing so sacrifice any potential knowledge from Nere in order to save her life.

+1

It is very strange that we do not get an option to intervene here.

understand that this area was rushed into the public build a few patches back and has parts yet to be unlocked

however no, currently there is no way to do this quest... even if you save the all the gnomes they still just disappear from the game

I distinctly remember there being an option, did they remove it? I will check. Doing a Mac goody goody playthrough.

I do not recall. Certainly in my recent playthroughs, there’s at least one gnome outside the rockfall who it seems can’t be saved, though we can intervene in time for the others.

I do have a lot of sympathy for what I think Larian are trying to do in terms of story-telling and mood here and in other places where, however good our intentions, we can’t save everyone. Plus, in this case, their desire to highlight the danger posed by the lava and being flung into it and hint at it as a strategy that either we or the enemies might use in the coming battle.

But I totally agree that if it’s going to be impossible to save someone, this needs to be plausible else it’s just frustrating. And in this case it’s not plausible, as there seems to be plenty of time to do something. If Nere came blasting out from behind the rockfall and sent her flying into the lava before saying a word this scene would make more sense to me.

If you kill Thrinn before blasting the cave-in, might do it, I wasn't sure if skipping that scene saved her or not never being sure which gnome it was that he pushes into the lava.
It looks like that bit of the cutscene was added after patch 6, maybe that's what Blackheifer is remembering.