Illusion Dispelled in Ust Natha

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I'm wondering if my recent experience in Ust Natha is part of the vanilla game, and I just have never experienced it before.

There we were, being a good little "drow" party, doing as Solufein and Phaere asked of us. We had been given 3 days to do as we please, after which time we were to check in with Phaere for a new task.

During that time of rest I checked out the upper floor of the Ust Natha tavern, and wham, my drow illusion was dispelled. This has NEVER happened to me before, and I'm just wondering if this is part of the game that I've been lucky never to experience before. I know I've visisted the upper floors of the tavern before, but perhaps it was the particular timing of my visit. It was between killing the beholder in the city and getting the orders to kill a rock gnome patrol (don't feel like trying to spell sverfiblin). I had only burned around 1 1/2 days of the 3 given me, so it wasn't like I was taking too long to report in.

I do have a few mods intstalled, including IA4.2, UB, BG Tweakpack, Questpack and Banter Pack, but I can't imagine why any of those would mess with such a setting.

The unfortunate part is that I did a quicksave once I got upstairs, and even my autosave generated right before trying to go up is resulting in the illusion being dispelled. My last "safety save" is right before entering the illithid city, so I guess I'll have to do that all over, as well as a few other minor things. Oh well.

 

It's never happened to me, and I am almost always playing an entirely unmodded game, with the exception of a fixpack (most often Baldurdash). I haven't heard about it happening to anyone else, either, and I have done a lot of reading on these and other boards. I'd suspect one of the mods you're using, or perhaps an unintended interaction between them, Doesn't Sikret recommend that no other mods besides the Baldurdash fixpack be installed if you are going to use IA?

 

It sounds like an good ol' "every now and then" bug to me (which really stings). I seem to recall something like that happening to me as well, but I don't exactly remember where and during what time it happened. Somewhere during a mission in Ust Natha tho, so it could be the same "bug" (or whatever triggered the dispell) that you just experienced.

 

Okay, well it must be related to a mod then. I've played too many unmodded games not to have seen this before (I resisted mods for a long time for fear of bugs).

The strange thing is that as soon as my illusion is dispelled Soluafein (sp?) teleports in tells me that "if I wanted to infiltrate the ranks of the drow, I shouldn't have brought undue attention on myself," or something to that affect. I'm not sure how going to indulge in some drow passion is bringing undue attention to myself, that's a big part of what drow culture is all about. So going to do this very drow like act (well, technically I had just gone up to explore) resulting in singling me out seems odd.

But apparently arming and releasing a large group of slaves is viewed as perfectly normally. What else is a group unsupervised slaves going to do, but run, once let out of the city?

 

Did you have to sleep a lot while getting through the other tasks? Did you go past the overall timer point for the whole Ust Natha thing? I did that once taking to long to do the dungeons while trying to collect all my pretty magical items from the different ones.

 

I rested very rarely, and got things done well within the prescribed timeframes. In fact, when I reloaded from an earlier save (had to redo the illithid city) I didn't have this problem at all, and I don't think I did things any faster after the reload. I merely stayed away from lust chambers.

I'm always very conscientious of time when doing the Ust Natha quests.

 

Once the matron mother gives you the quest to recover the item from the Kuo-Toa, Beholders, or Mind Flayers, there is a time limit. Normally, you have enough time to clear two of the three dungeons. Usually in the third, time runs out and you're caught.

This is real-time, not game time. Resting has no effect on it.

 

Yeah, I always make sure that by the time she makes that request, I've already killed the Kua-Toa Prince, the Elder Orb, AND the Master Brain.

I don't tell Matron Ardulace at that moment that I have any of the items, to give me ample to finish out minor quests within the city (the Jarlaxe/Deirex quest and house Jae'lat stuff mainly, oh and freeing the slaves).

And as I mentioned in my first post, the alarm sounded after helping Phaere kill the "wrong" Elder orb in Ust Natha, and before getting her orders to rough up the Rock Gnomes. So obviously, much earlier in the game than the point you mention.

I'm really not sure what the cause of this was. Someone mentioned seeing random bugs where this kind of thing can occur. It was a first for me, but I've since moved on .