House of God Quest - Death is the only solution [Spoilers]

[Nemo]

So found Leshek when I was exploring the Mill, which prompted bringing him to the overseer. I then followed the two guards in charge of arresting Zmola and knocked him out with my fists. Strangely, the guards did not continue their arrest and simply left. Zmola then stood up after a few minutes and continued his normal routine as if nothing had happened. So choked him unconcious and decided to carry his body back to the overseer, I mean the quest was log was still telling me to stop him. Unfortunately, the guards tried to arrest me for carrying a body over my shoulders. So, I thought, I had probably bugged the quest out and prevented the guards from arresting him. But after I reloaded the save and followed the guards to their target, they then proceeded to murder him!!! It goes without saying, that I figured out Zmola doesn't surrender to anyone no matter the odds, unlike your player character can.
So, I then reloaded back in time to before the moment I accidentaly found Leshek in the Mill and went to the rendez-vous point Zmola had set up with me. After finishing business there, I proceeded to ride my horse as fast as possible to intercept Zmola at the Mill. Turns out, no matter how fast or slow you are, you always arrive just in time to see Zmola walking into the night (right past oblivious peasants mind you!!) with Leshek on his shoulder. So I knocked him out with my fists again. Sadly the quest didn't update, and when he came to, Zmola simply ran off into the night. Aha! I thought to myself, maybe I just need a non-lethal weapon to take him out. So, armed this time with a bludgeon, I tried both possibilities of catching Zmola in the questline. Unfortunately, it seems the bludgeon is more lethal then I expected, and his died shortly after being knocked to the ground.

So, has anyone found a way to arrest Zmola in a peaceful manner? It seems the developers didn't account for this desire on the part of the players, much to my disapointment and slight frustration. I've enjoyed the game so far with few complaints, but this seems to be a glaring oversight in an otherwise enjoyable quest. As a side note, I had noticed a similar thing with the hunstmen in the witch quest but since I hadn't tried to exhaust all possibilites that time I had thought it was my fault for not figuring out the non-lethal solution to the problem.

[Vadim M.]

I haven't been able to do it, but maybe when leshek tells you that Zmola is the culprit, you can do an intimidation speech test something along the lines of "I'll kill you!" Though it seems like a rather hard test. Would love to know what it does.

[Leah]

AY! So I've done thorough testing and concluded arresting him is flat out bugged/unimplemented.

Seemingly the only way to save Leshek is to magically know he's in the mill and get his confession. Bringing Leshek to the Overseer to confess leads to the Overseer calling guards on Zmola. The guards' intent is to kill him and nothing more.

To overcome this, you have to quickly outrun the guards out into the construction zone, find him before the guards trigger him to fight them and stealth KO him (I also found in one run that punching him at this state, when he doesn't expect it, rapidly to the point where he KOs works as well). Commiting criminal acts against Zmola get flagged to not set anyone off, so you can stealth knock him out, fight/kill him and steal his stuff in front of people without them getting triggered.

Very important! Steal his sword, no one will think you're commiting a crime despite it saying steal when you loot his inventory. This makes fighting him later easier.

After you stealth KO him, the guards sheathe their weapons and for some reason run outside the gate of the monastery; I haven't followed them to see where they go. After a short interval of time, Zmola gets back up and his AI is normal and the guards never come back to arrest him.

At this point you can confront Zmola with 3 different options. One is a threaten check where you shout you're going to kill him, not helpful to keeping him alive and untested by me. The 2nd you ask him to explain himself and maybe you'd understand, but he reveals he wanted to become the master builder through his scheme and shortly turns on you to fight. The third option you shout you're taking him to the monastery to lock him up or whatever, but he says something similar to,
"You'll never take me alive!" and tries to fight you.

At this point of him fighting you and without having the guards to stupidly kill him, you can use your FISTS to knock him unconcious. Sadly, this does nothing. He just keeps getting up after short intervals of time and gets knocked back out with one hit. Seemingly trying to carry his body causes the guards to attack/arrest you and for people to scream in terror. If you let Zmola get back up after knocking him unconcious with your fists and let him run near the stairs to the Overseer, knock him out for a third near the stairs with a fisticuff tackle. Wait for no one to be around, carry his body up the stairs and go to the Overseer with him on your back. Neither the Overseer nor Leshek get triggered and talking to the Overseer with him on your back brings up no dialogue choices.

Update. Eventually if you move enough into them Leshek and the Overseer notice and call the guards on you. Am going to test the threaten check.

[Tolknaz]

Good job researching this Leah And Nemo! I can confirm, that this quest is still bugged as hell after 1.3.1 As far as i can say there is only one way to save Leshek and that is finding him before going to meet Zmola in the evening. There is no way to catch Zmola without killing him. Either Henry kills him, or the guards do. If the guards kill him, Henry still tells the Overseer, that he had to kill Zmola in self defence. Furthermore Zmola also counts as a civilian death, so if you're trying to avoid civilian kills (like i was), keep it in mind. By the way, guards killing him doesn't count against your civilian kills counter.

[Nemo]

I tried the intimidation check after downing an artemisia potion but all he says is something along the lines of "I'd like to see you try and kill me" and attacks you. Knocking him unconcious once again does nothing to reduce his desire for a glorious death. Bringing his unconcious body to the overseer also does nothing. Going on a limb, I even tried waiting for Zmola at Leshek's hiding spot but all that happens is that Leshek stood up from his stool at around 1am and mysteriously vanished into thin air. I can only conclude he must be some sort of magician or fairy ;P

It's a shame the game forces us to kill him no matter our choices and desires. I guess he would have been hung anyway for his crimes, but it would have been a more enjoyable and less jarring quest if the guards at least attempt to arrest him if he's unconcious. I mean all those other prisoners who were found and executed mentioned in "Money for old rope" were far more aggresive and did far more terrible things. And yet they were imprisoned and not killed during their arrest.

P.S. If this is a bug however and not a development oversight, then I suggest someone move this discussion to the bug report section.