Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Technical Problems another non bug, just an unclear quest.

if done out of order, the events don't trigger the experience reward, apparently.

the ideal solution to the quest: in the west temple grounds in a garden just to the right of the left of the locked jail buildings, north of witch Cassandra, one finds a cursed man turning into crystal. he speaks of a black imp. when you go to speak to the imp you discover something about the crystal forest being the cause. you return to the man to inform him, and he requests you hurry. just south of the cave the imp dwells in, east of the teleporter, one finds 4 altars around a central orange crystal. ideally this is when you interact with the central crystal, and then each altar, returning to the crystal. once this is done, you should be able to return to the cursed man and solve the quest. this is the ideal situation.

however, there is a problem.

this is what i did: in my wanderings, i ended up interacting with the air altar (which prompted me as if it were the fire altar). then i ended up returning to town, and talking to the cursed man, then speaking with the imp. i travelled south, and found the remaining altars (the fire altar behaves as if it were air), interacted with them, and then spoke to the orange crystal. it asked me to resolve the issues with the altars, which i already had done. then i spoke with it again, and it thanked me. i returned to town, and found the cursed man, in time. i spoke with him and revealed the imp is not the cause. also revealed what the imp said about him being in the crystal forest. he asks me to fix the problem and find out what is going on. now i discovered i have 4 red flags on the spirit altars. blast. i've already interacted with them. i speak with him again, and he wants a progress report. i return to the crystal forest and speak with the orange crystal. its busy healing the forest after you fix the altars. the altars are silent now as well. returning to the man, he's still asking for a progress report. and i don't have the option to tell him about the altars or the forest spirit in the orange crystal. hence, the quest seems unsolvable now.

so now because of the lack of doing things in order and a rather unclear quest to begin with in terms of where to go next, i cannot finish it, and get the experience.

all in all, the altars should not be able to be interacted with until the right time, if the quest is going to be broken like this. otherwise, he should be cured in spite of doing things out of order.

also, note the fact that the dialog for the air and fire altars are reversed.

The spirit of the forest is not the crystal you need for the cursed man quest. There is another crystal to the far west of the teleporter and a bit north...

And it is marked with a red flag on your map once you return and speak to the cursed man - that also triggers a witch appearing by the crystal (she is not there until you do this).

interesting. well thanks then. i was wrong. but boy was that whole thing confusing. eh?

mainly due to the fact that the journal says i found the cure and i'm thinking, it was something i'd already done because i didn't have anything and i certainly don't recall speaking w/ the witch or anything.