Tracking the Skinner Murderer to Umar Hills [SPOILERS]

[IonNerd]

I have a question for the community about the Skinner Murders Quest that is available in the Bridge District.

SPOILERS follow:
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After chasing the "skinner" murderer out of Athkatla, you find a note in his hideout that relates of a planned meeting between the murderer and a merchant in the Umar Hills. The instructions in the note say that the merchant will identify the murderer through two methods: 1) the murderer must purchase the "History of the Zhentarim," a book the merchant will have in his stock of wares; 2) the murderer must provide the "secret name" of the merchant. The note provides a very complicated riddle for solving the merchant's secret name from the secret name of the supposed "master" that commanded the murderer to his crimes.

Anyway, I read in numerous walkthroughs that the secret name of the merchant is "Darcin Cole." But, does anyone know how this name can be derived from the instructions in the note? (I am just curious, as the riddle in the note seems very intricately designed. Somebody at Bioqare must have spent a lot of effort in its formulation.) Who is the "master" of the murderer to which the note refers? I heard somewhere that the whole murder plot is somehow related to the Twisted Rune organization, and there is a secret hideout of the Twisted Rune in the Bridge District (where the whole business started in the first place). This hideout is led by a very high-level wizard named Shangalar. Is this the "master" behind the murders?

Has anyone figured out the riddle in the note?

Thanks.

[ 02-22-2005, 05:07 PM: Message edited by: IonNerd ]

[Neomi]

Heh. One of the unfortunate things about playing the game through so many times is that you know the answer to all the riddles by rote, so you don't need to think about them anymore. It's too bad the designers didn't build in different puzzles just to keep us on our toes! Anyway, enjoy your one chance to "solve the mystery of the skinner murders" on your own... I'm pretty sure I solved it my first time through but then again I might have just tossed my hands up and used trial-and-error.

Oh, and the other unfortunate part about the skinner murder/Twisted Rune quests is that they were never really finished, so the only way you find the head honchos (fun battle by the way) is by poking your nose through doorways in the Bridge district. From what I've heard, the quest is fleshed out in the unfinished business mod, though I've never downloaded it myself.

By the way, WELCOME to Ironworks.

[IonNerd]

Thanks for the welcome, Neomi! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[SixOfSpades]

Volothamp's Comeuppance states that (in connection with the fact that there's no way to stop the culprit before he gets away), "The name of the guy who teleported away before you could get his autograph was Vellin Dahn." That's where BioWare essentially dropped the ball, because there's no way you can solve the riddle without that name, and the only way to get the name is by scrolling up past dozens of lines of battle text--and that's if that line is still there in the Text Window at all. (The possibility of reading the note before encountering Vellin Dahn, thus being armed with the foreknowledge that his name is important, can be ruled out, given that the entire scenario is an emergency--there's barely enough time to clear a path through the Traps, let alone puzzle over notes.)

"My secret name is derived from that of your immediate master," -- meaning that you can't do a damn thing without the name Vellin Dahn.

"Our names are the same in their scale and their cut," -- meaning they contain the same number of letters, and the break between the name falls in the same place.

"The first of my first is the same as the first of his last," -- The first letter of (secret person's) first name is the same as the first letter of (immediate master's) last name.

And so on.

[Pop 'n Fresh]

U mean there is no way to get the Person before he goes downstairs. Can't you charm him or anything. When i first saw him i ran to him thus setting of a stinking cloud trap and both of us continually twitched for a minute or so. SO can you get massively high magic resistantce on 1 character and then use Charm Person with that character. I would expect the stinking cloud would give u enough time but i'm just not powerful enough to try n e experimenting with teh game.