So Crock has the nerve kidnap one of my faithful companions, and after he so much as admits it to our faces, we decide to kill the filthy bastard rather than perform his obnoxious little errand.

So now we head upstairs to rescue the poor adventurer in distress, and then... nothing happens. Still missing. We search the place up and down and sideways and all around. Still no sign.

Ordinarily this would be a simple matter of restoring and carrying on from there. But there's just one small problem with that: this is an ironman game.

Am I condemned to finish the game with a missing party member?

if I remember correltly your kipnap party member is inside that house.

since you don't have a save game then...

Actually, it's better to do the quest; you get some nice experience for killing the frog (and then you can off Crock if he has nothing else you want to buy).

Of course, you don't have that choice in Ironman. Did you check out all the chests upstairs? I recall - somewhat vaguely - that the missing person may be in a chest or somesuch.

<center>Nightowl2</center>

You know a lot of irate players kill Crock.

Don't be so touchy!! All he did was kidnap one of your party members and demand you do his bidding in order to get him or her back. Is that so bad...?

Well, yeah, I guess it is.

But still, there is a good reason to save the old fart... Mana Stones. These come in quite handy if you have magic characters in your party, so even if you have all the Wrist Rockets, Ankh's and spells you need, you might let him live for those.

They only have three uses, and after two uses you need to bring it to a vendor and sell and buy it back, just so it won't disappear. But they can be used by anyone, not just the one who's magic will be replenished, and that makes them very powerful. The stuff Crock has in his chests in the back (once your character is back) isn't all that impressive... let him keep it.

There is a chest upstairs. When you open it... your party member pops out and says some very humorous things [img]smile.gif[/img]

So if you didn't open that chest, you wont get your party member back.

In fact, I did open the chest. I did it quite a few times. Enough to hear all seven remaining members of my party say "Nothing in there" in two different ways each. Still no sign of the missing person. There's only one chest in the room, and I hunted for other hotspots all around. Nothing. I've played and finished the game before, but all three ironman games I've tried have ended up in this same deadlock. The first time I just walked in and killed Crock. Second time I answered "yes" to his offer of a quest, then killed him. Third time I answered "No" to his quest and then killed him. All three times I went upstairs to a room with a chest holding a few paltry items and no missing party member. Ironically, this problem has never happened to me in a non-ironman game.