How do evacuate and return work?

[The Vagrant Knight]

From what I gathered they're supposed to teleport you either to the entrance or to some key locations, but every time I use them, nothing happens at all. Picking a location from the list also does nothing and consumes the scroll.

Am I missing something? Does it simply not work when burdened or is there a chance to fail?

[Kitty Katyusha]

I noticed that Evacuate seemed to work for me while in a dungeon, though it took a moment. I was trying to throw it onto the ground to pick up something else and somehow ended up using it instead, and still had enough time to pick up the other item before being teleported out of the dungeon.

[Doomed]

So after using the scroll you must progress I think is was three turns before the spell truly takes effect. It's a kinda charge up thing.

[Astasia]

It works fine when burdened, it does not work when overweight/squashed. And as mentioned you have to wait a few turns for it to do anything, so it's not really an emergency get out of danger free card.

[The Vagrant Knight]

weird, I tried it a couple times now, maybe 3 or so, and I'm never overweight/squashed due to my paranoia after an instant death. Didn't work for me so far. If it takes about 3 turns, shouldn't it get triggered on my way back to the surface or does movement cancel it?

[Iyasenu]

Movement doesn't cancel it.
It's just not an immediate thing.

When you cast it, and select your destination, the log will say something like "the air tenses up around you" or something.
Then just walk around and then, zip, you're where you chose to go.

Are you using a scroll or spell? The spell can fail, the scroll won't.

[The Vagrant Knight]

They were scrolls, so not sure why nothing happened. I guess I'll just have to experiment with it a bit more when I find more, now that I know there's supposed to be a delay

[Ginrikuzuma]

Originally posted by The Vagrant Knight:

They were scrolls, so not sure why nothing happened. I guess I'll just have to experiment with it a bit more when I find more, now that I know there's supposed to be a delay

if you are not overweight/squashed and you did get the destination option to appear then the only reason I can think of for why its not working is that you probably tried to cast the spell a second time during the charge up period.

As Iyasenu said you will get a description saying the air around you is tensing up thats when its getting ready to activate.

If you use return again during that time the "air goes back to normal" as in you have cancelled the spell

[The Vagrant Knight]

Tried it again and this time it worked. Don't think I did anything differently, besides just holding space bar to pass time instead of running to the exit.

All I can think of is that I must have been too fast somehow (not that I was particlarly close to the exit the first times) and that moving levels cancels out the teleport.

Cheers for the help though!