Zahua's quest seems broken - help needed

[Amphisbaena]

I have come across a problem with Zahua's quest. After defeating the Kraken and concluding the main story in White March, part 2, I speak to Zahua and go through the dialogue options to trigger his quest. After resting, a speech bubble is displayed in Zahua's portrait, indicating that he wants to talk to me. In his list of dialogue options, the option "You said you swore to return to liberate your people" is now highlighted, as if it contained new branches. However, it does not. Zahua never asks me to travel to Whitestone Hollow, and if I travel there on my own account, nothing happens. Reloading saves at earlier points in White March part 2 does not fix the problem.

Is assume this is a bug? If so, is there any way to fix this? Or perhaps a console command to trigger the quest?

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

You are vague about whether you've got the "Secrets of the Tacan" quest journal entry already. And you can't simply travel to Whitestone Hollow without quest progression.
https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Secrets_of_the_Tacan

[Du-Vu]

It's bugged. iirc... Make sure you're not already in Whitestone Hollow when he wants to talk, first thing. That happened to me. And try resting, transitioning areas, or restarting the game.

[Amphisbaena]

I just checked my quest log. No "Secrets of the Tacan" entry to be found. This is strange, because I have exhausted all of Zahua's dialogue options, and I he does seem to want to talk to me (speech bubble in his portrait), even though he has nothing new to say when I try. How to trigger this quest? Reloading, resting etc. have not helped.

[Du-Vu]

Have you tried restarting your whole PC? Talking to him once then transitioning between multiple areas until he wants to talk again? It's a weird bug. Nobody seems to know exactly what the problem is.

You can get to Whitestone Hollow before you get Zahua's quest. I think there's a couple of quests and a bounty there that open up the location. Maybe that has something to do with screwing up the quest logic.

[smilehigh]

Originally posted by Du-Vu:

You can get to Whitestone Hollow before you get Zahua's quest. I think there's a couple of quests and a bounty there that open up the location. Maybe that has something to do with screwing up the quest logic.

It's not supposed to. At least it always worked fine for me even if I had visited Whitestone Hollow before.

To the OP - try to click through all the dialogue options with Zahua even if you went through them before and they are not highlited anymore. IIRC the right option to continue this quest is hidden midway in one of the dialogue branches.

[Amphisbaena]

I have just been through Zahua's complete dialogue tree, after he has requested to speak to me. Nothing there, and his quest still does not show up in my quest journal. I did visit Whitestone Hollow before for other quests; as I had mentioned in my original post, I only tried to start Zahua's quest after completing the main quest for White March part 2 and most side quests.

Is there any way to trigger Zahua's quest via the console? I have been looking through instructions for the console, but I have not found anything. I would be reluctant to continue my game without being able to complete Zahua's quest.

[Amphisbaena]

And one more thing - after every time I rest, the dialogue speech bubble now shows up in Zahua's portrait, and the "You said you swore to return to liberate your people" is highlighted. However, when I click on this dialogue option, it only contains old dialogue.