Free Rugan without killing Zarys

[Ptahu]

Anyone know how manage this

[Metallicus]

The best way is don’t get Rugan to do stupid stuff like stealing from the Zhents. Your choice put you in this predicament so now you either kill him or kill Zarys.

[Izlude]

Originally posted by Ptahu:

Anyone know how manage this

dont convinced Rugan to do something dumb like try to betray a huge guild that has people everywhere when he is just a dude that cant handle some ghetto-werewolves.

[Etragorn]

You free him from life with death. Worked for me.

[PotatoNomad]

It's possible OP actually didn't make that call, because neither did I and I'm still faced with the choice of killing him or having the whole place turn hostile. (This quest has bugs all over it, tbh.)

I have a custom character, but the cutscene with Rugan triggered on Astarion (multiclassed Rogue/Bard) after the battle. Got the password for saving their lives, eventually convinced him we were there to take over the shipment.

Went to go pick up the chest, saw it was outlined in red even though both NPCs confirmed it was now my responsibility, so I fast-traveled to the Grove waypoint and back again to move them along. Chest was now outlined white, so I put the whole thing in Karlach's inventory. Didn't open it, didn't even lockpick it. Still says "Open (locked)" when viewing the context menu for it.

My Tav gives the password to the guy who's ready to bring the whole place down in the barn, and we're granted entry,

Cutscene with Zarys triggers on my Tav, I get no dialogue options, she just realizes partway through that I'm the one who rescued Rugan, any friend of Rugan is a friend of the family's, etc.

Cutscene ends, I take a few steps forward and suddenly the entire place goes hostile. I check the journal for any clue as to what happened, but all it tells me is "we tried to return the chest but things went wrong, guess it's ours now."

I reload the last autosave and dismiss any and all summons before triggering the cutscene, just in case that was causing aggro. I know NPCs freak out sometimes over summons, but I've never had any turn outright hostile as of yet, and doing this didn't solve the issue.

I troubleshoot some more, send a bug report, and eventually make it into the hideout after moving the chest from Karlach's inventory to Astarion's, and placing him further ahead of the others so that the Zarys cutscene triggered with him.

Everything is hunkydory, I get the artist released, do some trading, and press on (making sure I'm still on Astarion). Next cutscene with Zarys triggers and she's both accusing Rugan of stealing (which he didn't) and me of impersonation (guilty) at the same time.

So yeah, this quest is a mess lol.