Exile 1 - Fresco (figured out)

[Ryath]

Hi there. I'm trying to work my way through the original trilogy and I'm stuck toward the end of Exile 1. I've received instructions from Aydin, have the royal seal in hand, but if I approach the fresco it just says it's "irrelevant." Has anyone else encountered this bug? I'm wondering if it's something that was ironed out in later versions. I'm playing Windows version 1.1b because I wanted the old graphics; was that a terrible mistake?

 

Before you ask, I've already run into another bug where the game didn't recognize my progress, but I was able to fix that with the save editor. This time even the editor says I know the correct ritual... I'm just not being prompted to perform it.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Ryath

[Slawbug]

Welcome!

 

These are not known bugs in any version of Exile, AFAIK.  (And using the older graphics is 100% okay and shouldn't cause you any issues.)

 

As you've no doubt noticed, Exile doesn't generally guide the player to exactly the right spot to proceed, the way we are sometimes used to in more recent games.  This includes in conversation; sometimes you might have gotten general directions from an NPC, but without bringing up the specific keyword at issue, you don't actually get the required information in-game.  It's not enough to know it as the player; you actually have to hear it in conversation from the NPC.  If you have the conversation, then reload a previous save, then of course it won't have stuck.  You can tell these moments because the dialogue will end with a parenthetical note such as: "(You take note of this.)"  Since you previously got stuck with something along those lines, I wonder if that's happened again?

 

The ritual is separate from using the seal on the fresco.  To do that, you need to have been instructed to do so by Aydin.

 

Is it possible you either (a) did not hear "(You take note of this.)" from Aydin, or (b) reloaded after hearing it?  If you heard that from Aydin (and have the seal) you will see the second dialogue below instead of the first.

 

It's pretty, but irrelevant.

You are mainly interested in the small depressed area Aydin described to you, in one corner of the mural.
The depression looks tailor-made to fit your royal seal.

[Ryath]

Oh my gosh. I was just running down the checklist of items/instructions and realized I don't actually have the royal seal in this save. Just grabbed it and then came back and it works.😩

 

The previous issue actually wasn't a "(You take note of this.)" conversation problem. It was related to getting the scroll for Khoth. I tried every possible keyword I could think of to get her to realize I had the scroll in my inventory but she just kept telling me to go get it instead.

[Slawbug]

Welp.  Glad you figured it out!