Trouble finishing Nermine's rare counter

[Jimmmah]

I've gotten Nermine's rare counter quest to the third one where you track down jewelry.

I've found the museum backdoor
Discovered hyenas have entered the sewers
Completed the little lost lamb quest and found Maryyene
And now I'm stuck...

The guide says to find the hyena challenging event, but when I hunt for it and find it, I get a message about leaving before the gang gets there. So I tried hunting the hyena hideout, I got inside, fucked gina until I could challenge the Matriarch, and now I'm the Matriarch, but I still have no silver jewelry for Nermine...

I've no idea what to do now, and if I just explore outside, I can't find the Hyena Challenging, and when I hunt for it, my guy just leaves instead of meeting anyone... Not sure what to do here

[Savriss]

Have you tried talking to Mary?

[Jimmmah]

Yepp, I've talked to Mary and slept with her a bunch of times, and I've tried hunting the Hyena Challenging event a few times before and after the lost lamb quest as well as before and after becoming the matriarch in the separate Gina/Hyena-Hideout quests to become Matriarch.

I'm completely at my wits end and have never been able to finish Nermine's quest because of this one part... Really frustrating, so I appreciate any help. Has anyone else here ever finished the rare counter quests?

[Savriss]

Hey there,

I complete it in most playthroughs, both because the jackalmorph is one of my favourite and because Nermine is awesome.

That being said, getting there has always been an exercise in frustration for me, as well. The quest could well benefit from a few more pointers or a 'state of quest' detail.

Are you certain you are at the point you need to hunt down the gang? The step before has a stat test in it and if you are using a walkthrough it may be possible you hunted and found the event but failed the test and didn't spot that... which has happened to me more than once.

I suggest trying to hunt each of the events at the museum again. If it tells you that you don't think you can find what you're looking for here, then you've resolved that step.

[TigerStripes]

Did you get Mary's big conversation chunk about having seen the hyenas?
- If not, you may need to do the step at the Museum to do either 'Stolen Artifacts' or 'Alternate Entry' again to completion and then talk to Mary to access the dialog scene.
- If so, it's time to move on to the hyenas.

You do not need to go through the whole process of finding the gang and becoming the Matriarch to complete the quest, as you can find the hyenas and challenge their Matriarch as part of the event to claim the jewelry. Being the Matriarch just means you to walk away with it without a fight. The event for this is 'Hyena Challenging'. When you hunt for it, is it found and does it give anything more than a single paragraph of filler?
- If not found, the event is closed. Either you already passed it (by being the Matriarch) or failed it completely (now unable to complete the quest). To test which, try returning to Nermine and trying to advance the quest.
- If found and the event progresses into scenes with the hyenas, you're in the event. Get your jewelry.
- If found and the event does not progress, as before you are missing a previous step. Try dealing with the Museum events and talking to Mary.

[Jimmmah]

Did you get Mary's big conversation chunk about having seen the hyenas?
- If not, you may need to do the step at the Museum to do either 'Stolen Artifacts' or 'Alternate Entry' again to completion and then talk to Mary to access the dialog scene.
- If so, it's time to move on to the hyenas.

You do not need to go through the whole process of finding the gang and becoming the Matriarch to complete the quest, as you can find the hyenas and challenge their Matriarch as part of the event to claim the jewelry. Being the Matriarch just means you to walk away with it without a fight. The event for this is 'Hyena Challenging'. When you hunt for it, is it found and does it give anything more than a single paragraph of filler?
- If not found, the event is closed. Either you already passed it (by being the Matriarch) or failed it completely (now unable to complete the quest). To test which, try returning to Nermine and trying to advance the quest.
- If found and the event progresses into scenes with the hyenas, you're in the event. Get your jewelry.
- If found and the event does not progress, as before you are missing a previous step. Try dealing with the Museum events and talking to Mary.

That's too bad then cause it must be a glitch. I don't get a message that what I'm hunting cannot be found if I search for either Museum event, and I already recall passing the check and getting the messages about the hyena's. Talking to Mary doesn't change anything nor does sleeping with her and when I talk to Nermine, she tells me to check the museum lol

Hunting the Hyena Challenging event also always gives me the same answer of better leave before they get here. I think Mary's message about the Hyena never triggered and it seems I can't get it to trigger now either... If I ever redo this, I wonder if it's better to find Mary before the quest or after, which I usually do and fail.

The other thing I don't get, shouldn't I be able to enter the Hyena Challenging event even without Nermine's quest? Otherwise how could I already be Matriarch when I get the quest? When I tried loading a fresh game and hunting the hyena challenging event, I still get the same stupid single paragraph message of, better get out of her -- so even with a blank slate I'm not sure how to get anything out of the Hyena Challenging even....

Oh well

[TigerStripes]

<Rare Items Quest>

If you're trying out the events at the Museum and you're still able to hunt them, then they're not resolved. I'd say to go back over the steps, find those events again, starting from the earliest of them. If you find one of the events and you only get a short message, then you're attempting that step of the quest too early. If you get the full event, then you're back on track and continue from that point. The message you're getting from the 'Hyena Challenging' means you're somewhere before that point on the quest. Please try the Museum steps again and tell me what you get when you make contact with the event or tell me if you get the message that the event cannot be found. Also, it seems you need to talk to Valerie at some point during that quest, so try that as well.

If you're loading from a saveword, I don't believe Nermine's quests are saved and that's probably your problem. You may have the infection on a body part, but that's lingering from the restore. You may need to restart the quest from the beginning if that is the case.

With finding Mary, it doesn't matter if it's done before or after. Also, if you fail when trying to find her, you just have to keep trying.

As for the 'Hyena Challenging' vs 'Formal Matriarch Challenge' issue:
- The 'Hyena Challenging' event is just that, an event - found by exploring/hunting and available w/o becoming a gang member. It is not used for becoming the Matriarch. It is a separate event that you must encounter and succeed (by either beating the Matriarch or already being the Matriarch). As well, if you're a lower ranked gang member, you'll be blocked from even trying to do the 'Hyena Challenging' event and fail automatically. Winning against the Matriarch as part of the Hyena Challenging event does not make you into the new Matriarch - it just gets you the victory sex and rewards you with the jewellery for the quest.
- The formal challenge is reached by interacting with Gina and choosing to attempt the challenge. This is how you become the Matriarch. It is separate from the 'Hyena Challenging' event and will not directly yield the jewellery you're looking for as part of the quest. What it will do is influence the nature of the scene you'll get when you do the 'Hyena Challenging' event at that stage of the quest. Your position (if any) in the gang will alter the scene and will even bar you from even making the attempt if you're a lower-ranked member. For reference, non-gang-members may challenge freely

The reason you only get that same short paragraph for the 'Hyena Challenging' and other stages of the quest when you find them ahead of time is because of how the quest was originally built. The thinking had been to have the quest-specific content appear when at that point in the quest, but still something to come up when it's found early. This is an outdated technique and more modern quests have the events only become available at all when needed.

[Jimmmah]

Wow I do appreciate the help and advice TigerStripes, and that all makes sense now about the Matriarch, but ya -- when I search in the museum I get

"You don't think what you're looking for can be found here," for both the "stolen artifacts," and, "alternate entry," events. Talking to Valerie or Nermine doesn't yield anything either, the former mentioning something random about a minotaur and the latter telling me to check the museum

I've also only ever loaded from restore points, and talking to Mary doesn't seem to do anything.


I feel like the last event related message I received was knowing the Hyenas are in the sewers, I'm not sure if saving Mary yielded a response regarding the Hyenas, but I'm pretty much at my wit's end on how to trigger an event again. I wouldn't even mind if I knew how to avoid this in the future, but it seems like such a wild card this quest lol

Out of curiosity does Mary tell you about the Hyena's when you first meet her after saving her? (When you decide between her and Leon?) Because I have a save right before rescuing her and right before meeting her at the New Ewe store after rescuing her, and neither yields any hyena related response -- despite both saves giving me nothing when searching in the Museum and both saves ocurring after I've made a succesful perception check at the alternate entry event. At this point I feel like I want to figure it out for curiosity more than anything lol

[Darthan]

If you are getting the message "Traveling through the streets of the mostly deserted city, you come across an area completely painted in some kind of strange gang signs placed one on top of the other, noticing that the paint is still fresh in some places, you decide it might be best to leave the area as quietly and quickly as possible, before one of the strange gang members returns and finds you here." when searching for the Hyena challenging event you have not activated that part of the quest yet.

Since you are getting the "You don't think what you're looking for can be found here." message for the stolen artifacts and alternate entry events the next step would be to talk to Mary. She should mention something about hyenas in the sewers which will move the quest on to the next step which will allow you to complete the hyena challenging event. If talking to Mary does not lead to the conversation about the hyenas in the sewer then something has glitched and you will likely need to reload from before you started the quest and try again.