Skyrim talk:In My Time Of Need

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Archive 1: Nov 2011 - Feb 2012

Alternative Path

I noticed the alternative path note about luring Saadia to the stables then killing Kematu after he's paralyzed Saadia, in order to get Kematu's reward and the extra gold that he carries. It's noted however that Saadia then becomes hostile, I'm wondering what happens if you manage to escape before she gets back up, or if you calm her then run away. Will she return to life as normal, or just wait at the stables and attack you on sight? -- Haravikk 14:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Alik'r permanently in Whiterun

My character, also a Redguard, sided with Saadia and ended up killing Kematu and his companions in Swindler's Cave. A sudden melee attack took down Kematu and six Alik'r without waiting for the automatic conversation to begin. Swindler's Cave did not show as 'cleared' (a known bug) and as I am on PC I used the console to rectify this. However there are now two Alik'r standing permanently just inside Whiterun. They have no conversation options and just say "Good Morning" (if it's that time of day) or "What do you need?" as I pass by. The other NPC's are oblivious to their presence. --Mastarna 18:44, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

It's nothing specific to how you did it, they seem to get stuck simply because you sided with Saadia and did things her way. The best way to resolve the quest for Saadia seems to be to report her presence to the Alik'r in Rorikstead, then lead Saadia out to the Whiterun stables where Kematu will confront her. Just kill Kematu at this point, while Saadia is a little annoyed that you lied to her, you still get rid of Kematu for her and get her reward, plus his gold and equipment. Doing it this way prevents the Alik'r warriors from ending up stuck in Whiterun. In my first play through I ended up with them stuck in Whiterun, but I… accidentally killed them during the battle for Whiterun, and solved the problem that way ;) -- Haravikk 19:44, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The bug causing the two Alik'r to persist in Whiterun is fixed by the USKP (v. 1.1). --Blackpete (talk) 05:13, 8 October 2013 (GMT)

They always die during the battle for Whiterun. If you don't kill them, then they always get killed in the melee. They're not essential, also, if you don't start the civil war but have Dawnguard installed they usually die in vampire attacks. Following Haravikk's method doesn't get you the loot from Swindler's Cave. --Morrolan (talk) 14:01, 8 October 2013 (GMT)

starting the quest

i ran into two alik'r warrior wandering around skyrim. i talked to them and they told me the story, but it didn't give me any quest, miscellaneous or named. will they still show up in whiterun, or even in the world again, and officially give me the quest?174.61.251.163 06:01, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

The wandering Alik'r warriors are actually not the same Alik'r warriors that give you the quest. You should still see the ones in Whiterun, and they will be the ones to give you the quest. — Unsigned comment by Alphabetface (talk • contribs) at 07:07 on 23 June 2012

Thalmor Hit Squad

In one playthrough, I helped Saadia get captured by Kematu. A little while later, I got jumped by a Thalmor Hit Squad, having never killed a single Thalmor NPC in the game, or done Diplomatic Immunity. I was wondering if this might be worthwhile to mention. Leman Russ (talk) 16:27, 1 November 2012 (GMT)

The Thalmor random encounters are only dependent on your level, nothing else is needed to trigger them. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 16:29, 1 November 2012 (GMT)

Kematu Bug

I brought Saadia to the stable, and basically immediately killed Kematu. The moment I talked to her after this, Kematu's body vanished from the world. I know its not just his corpse falling into the world, because I can loot him before talking to Saadia, after which point the corpse vanishes. I don't know if its a bug or just...weird programming. Would like feedback before I add anything to the page. 74.134.243.62 23:10, 23 February 2013 (GMT)

I think she's lying...

Regarding:

"She claims that she is actually a noble from Hammerfell, and the Alik'r have been sent after her because she publicly spoke out against the Aldmeri Dominion."

and

"Both sides will claim to be acting against the Aldmeri Dominion and both sides will claim the other is acting on the Dominion's behalf, so it's not really clear who's on what side. Additionally, there are no notes or other clues to either verify or falsify the truthfulness in either party's claims."

Seeing as the Redguards continued to defy the White-Gold Concordat, Hammerfell was released as an independent state and the AD completely withdrew...is it really plausible that she had to leave for opposing the AD? Even if she did, it wouldn't make much sense for Alik'r to be chasing her on behalf of the AD once Hammerfell completely forced them out, right?

I find it makes much more sense, according to the lore, that she is indeed being hunted down for supporting the AD, rather than speaking out against them.

Thoughts? — Unsigned comment by 80.47.34.171 (talk) at 16:25 on 15 April 2013 (GMT)

My thoughts are that we have had this discussion before, if you just take a short look at the archive link up in the right corner of this page. —MortenOSlash (talk) 16:49, 15 April 2013 (GMT)

This topic is (now) unrelated to the content of the article, and more suited to the forums. Please feel free to continue the discussion there. This topic is now closed.

Stuck on "Kill or talk to Kematu"

The bug "If you do not directly kill Kematu (i.e., Frenzy or Fury on him or the Alik'r), the quest will be stuck on "Kill or talk to Kematu". See Quest Stages and skip to step 160 to progress the quest." is labeled as unconfirmed, however I encountered it on PC today.

I killed Kematu by throwing him off the waterfall using the Fus-Roh-Da, so I guess I didn't kill "directly". — Unsigned comment by 79.50.145.143 (talk) at 01:34 on 23 May 2013

Thankyou, the page will be updated. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 01:57, 23 May 2013 (GMT)

Saadia suddenly disappears.

I have this bug where Saadia suddenly disappears whenever I try to kill her after doing the trick to get both rewards (i.e, killing Kematu and then calming Saadia after handling her over(and I'm using the Ebony Blade and I don't get any charge) much like how Malborn suddenly disappears when he is near the Morrowind border (near the Refugees' Rest). I think it may have been introduced by USKP, since it's the only mod that I have before when I'm still doing this quest and I did not encounter this bug on my first playthrough where I don't have any mods installed. But that's just a theory though. I wonder if anyone also had that bug. Incohatus (talk) 10:36, 25 February 2014 (GMT)

I can confirm that this bug exists. I also tried to do the trick to get legitimate rewards from both of them (not the "Double Agent" one). I also have my Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch installed. I would also like to know if this Unofficial Patch causes this to happen and whether or not this is game-breaking? A respond to this is very much expected and greatly appreaciated. — Unsigned comment by 180.245.135.191 (talk) at 17:25 on 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Clearing Swindler's Den

Just a note around the bug having to do with clearing the cavern. I completed the quest a long time ago, taking Kematu's side. Swindler's Den was marked as cleared. Then, much more recently, I started some of the Companions' quests, and got sent back to Swindler's Den to find a piece of Ysgramor's axe (this is the radiant system, I guess?). There were plenty of bandits on the way in, just like before, and then the Alik'r were back in the final cavern again. I starting killing them before I realized who they were, so I don't know if there were any dialog options.

So this is odd, kind of the opposite of what others are reporting: my Swindler's Den was marked as cleared, but everybody was still in it ... — Unsigned comment by 216.165.95.77 (talk) at 17:46 on 26 February 2014 (GMT)

Prerequisite Quest

My edit to mark Bleak Falls Barrow as a prerq for this was reverted. The explanation was that this "incidental" and thus does not count. I'm not sure I understand. You clearly need to finish BFB (in any game path version) for this quest to trigger, so BFB is a prereq by definition, right? 217.122.94.234 19:37, 20 May 2014 (GMT)

A prerequisite does mean “required” to proceed. Bleak Falls Barrow quest is a prerequisite for Dragon Rising, which, in turn, makes In My Time of Need available. However, IMToN is a side quest, and runs peripherally, or incidentally, and not a part of the main quest line. Does this help?--Beezer1029 (talk) 21:29, 20 May 2014 (GMT)

Kematu Lies, Saadia Dies

If you betray Saadia and give her to Kematu, he tells you that he won't kill her, he'll take her back to Hammerfell to face trial. But, he doesn't. Shortly thereafter, an urn appears in the Hall of the Dead in Whiterun labeled "Saadia's Burial Urn", and contains her clothing and items. This should probably be inserted into the article somewhere. image 67.0.7.129 14:43, 12 June 2014 (GMT)

This would need checked before it gets added because it looks like the quest only disables her not kills her. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 00:27, 13 June 2014 (GMT)

Hello again. I started a new game and checked, and all I can tell you is the urn isn't there for me when I looked before the quest starts. When I then went to resolve it in Kematu's favor, the urn appeared sometime following the time when Saadia (who otherwise remains paralyzed on the ground) is disabled along with Kematu and vanishes from the game. It is my opinion that so far as the story of Saadia and Kematu is concerned, the appearance of the burial urn would mean she died and was buried, and thus Kematu's claim he will take her alive to Hammerfell is untrue. PLEASE NOTE: I'm NOT saying "Saadia's story is the true story", nor am I saying "Kematu's story is the true story." I think both of them are lying for their own reasons, and there's a bit of muddle both intentionally and unintentionally inserted into their dialogue, with the unintentional bits apparently left in just to make it harder to choose between them, and the point of muddling their stories being to make the player believe they made the wrong choice no matter whom you decided to side with. If we allow for the possibility of characters mis-speaking and/or saying what they believe to be true rather than what really is true (as happens in several other in-game dialogues and in the lore-books), both of their stories may have some element of truth AND untruth to them, further muddling the player's choice. With this in mind, it is my opinion that the appearance of the burial urn may, in fact, be even more intentional muddling, to make the player believe they might have made the wrong choice regardless of which side they actually chose. 67.0.82.24 18:19, 22 June 2014 (GMT)

Oh - and in checking again, I find the urn also appears if I simply kill her. 67.0.82.24 20:36, 22 June 2014 (GMT)

It's just a mechanics thing, since she's a Whiterun hold citizen as far as the game is concerned and being removed from the game marks her as dead, triggering the urn's appearance.--66.102.8.183 09:35, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Verified, yep, that's the situation. The game doesn't simply disable her where she was if you complete the quest in Kematu's favor, it marks her 'dead' which triggers the 'cleanup' script and pops her goods into the urn. Whether this is just a quick answer to how to get rid of the character that some coder came up with, I don't know - but, she is definitely dead as far as the in-game lore is concerned, you find her urn. 174.28.46.53 18:11, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

The Vanishing Alik'r

Before I talked to Saadia, I know I saw some Alik'r sitting around the Frostfruit Inn in Rorikstead, waiting for someone to bring them information. Now that I have spoken to Saadia about her situation, not only are the Alik'r gone from Rorikstead, but the quest marker to speak to them is pointing me to some random spot outside near Pelagia Farm (and somehow they're not there either). It's like the game is trying to force me to go to Swindler's Den. --Shahrazad the Listener (talk) 14:58, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

To continue, I attempted to forcibly advance the quest via the console to stage 125 (where it would have been if I'd been able to talk to Kematu), and I still had the objective "Talk to the Alik'r Prisoner OR Inform the Alik'r of Saadia's location". When I tried to talk to the prisoner, all he gave me were generic lines of dialogue. I tried to advance it to the point where I lead her to the stables, and I lost all of Saadia's dialogue options; all she did was ask me for news of the Alik'r. Finally, I forcibly completed the quest as if I'd handed her over to Kematu, and she immediately turned hostile and attacked. For whatever reason, no one in the Bannered Mare intervened one way or the other, and I ended up killing her. --Shahrazad the Listener (talk) 15:11, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

I didn't even know it was possible to approach Saadia without having spoken with the Alik'r first. It sounds like you tried most of the reasonable things to try, under the circumstances. If you're using the unofficial patch, you should definitely submit this to them as a bug report, since it's rare to have a quest go that badly wrong with the patch. If you're not using it, then obviously don't do that. :) – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 15:26, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

I did speak to the first Alik'r that appear in Whiterun in order to receive the quest; sorry if that wasn't clear. After that point, I saw the Alik'r in the inn in Rorikstead without trying to talk to them; it was only after I spoke to Saadia and confirmed she was the one they were looking for that they disappeared and the false quest marker appeared. --Shahrazad the Listener (talk) 16:34, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

As a further follow-up to this bug, there is a single Alik'r hanging around the Whiterun gate now, and I'm sporadically hearing the guards complaining about having these "mercenaries from Hammerfell" around...in Riften. I was reasonably sure this particular line of guard dialogue wasn't supposed to be heard outside of Whiterun Hold. --Shahrazad the Listener (talk) 23:07, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Failed to reproduce alternative endings

Hello

I read the following paragraphs in the article:

While Kematu and Saadia are talking at the stables, you can still kill Kematu before he casts the spell on Saadia. This will get you the reward from Saadia and the gold that Kematu is carrying, without having to fight the rest of the Alik'r. If you kill him after he casts the spell, however, Saadia will attack you when she gets back up. [...]

Alternatively, allow Kematu to cast the spell on Saadia and collect the 500 gold reward, thus ending the quest, then kill Kematu to undo the spell on Saadia. At this point, Saadia will be hostile right away, so use a Calm spell on her, then talk to her, and she will give you the 500 gold reward for killing Kematu. [...]

I tried it in Skyrim Anniversary Edition and got entirely different results:

1. Killing Kematu before he casts a spell on Saadia counts as murder and turns Saadia hostile. You only get 250 gold from Kematu's body before the guards arrive.
2. Killing Kematu after he casts the spell on Saadia is legal. Saadia awards you 500 gold. Depending on what you tell her, she might even be nice to you. You can loot Kematu's body for another 250 gold before talking to Saadia because once Saadia pays you, Kematu's body disappears.
3. After Kematu awards you 500 gold, Saadia's body becomes unavailable. It disappears shortly after. I couldn't do further testing on this case because I accidentally overwrote my quicksave.

107.150.30.70 13:04, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Saadia's Burial Urn

The note about her burial urn needs to be removed. I have tested this quest extensively in Special Edition and Legendary Edition, with and without mods, and her urn never appears after turning her over to Kematu. I've waited as long as 106 in-game days and the urn never appears. On the other hand, if I kill her, her burial urn is enabled after 12 in-game hours.

Also, if you go through the quest scripting you'll see that she is only disabled, not killed. Enabling her urn is handled by the script WIDeadBodyCleanupScript. The cleanup functions handled by the script respond only to the OnDeath() event and nothing else.

Nowhere in the quest is she killed. After turning her over to Kematu, she is disabled, not killed. You can see this in the scripting for stage 255 which ends the quest after turning her over to Kematu. mhb2 (talk) 14:59, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

EDIT: A month later with no replies. Here I will go through Saadia and her quest and explain how they are scripted.

Like many unique, named actors in the game, Saadia has a script called "WIDeadBodyCleanupScript" attached. As explained in a comment in the script itself:

"This script cleans up dead actors, enables a container (ie grave/crypt) and moves all their inventory, after it Loads/unloads after a certain period of time."

As defined in the script in Saadia's case, this "certain period of time" is 0.5 days. The cleanup is triggered by the OnDeath() event and ONLY by the OnDeath() event for the associated actor. In particular, disabling or deleting an NPC does not trigger any of the cleanup script's functions, including the enabling of an urn for those NPCs that have an urn.

In the MS08 quest, Saadia's quest alias has a script called MS08SaadiaScript. The relevant parts of this script are:

Event OnUnload()

MS08QuestScript QuestScript = MS08 as MS08QuestScript

if MS08.GetStage() == 201

QuestScript.CleanUpCheck()

endif

EndEvent

The CleanUpCheck() function is in MS08QuestScript:

FUNCTION CleanupCheck()

 ; CleanUpCheckVar = CleanUpCheckVar + 1

 ; if CleanUpCheckVar == 2

SetStage(255)

 ; endif

EndFunction

Stage 255 is scripted as follows:

Alias_Saadia.GetReference().Disable()

Alias_Kematu.GetReference().Disable()

Stop()

at which point the quest is ended. Note that Saadia is disabled: she is NOT killed.

The next relevant part of MS08SaadiaScript is:

Event OnDeath(Actor Killer)

if ( Self.GetReference()).GetDistance(MS08Kematu.GetReference()) < 1000

MS08QuestScript QuestScript = MS08 as MS08QuestScript

QuestScript.KematuAngry = 1

endif

MS08.SetStage(300)

EndEvent

This event handles the case where the player kills Saadia. Stage 300 is scripted as follows:

 ;quest failed

Alias_DungeonLoc.Clear()

Stop()

When the player turns her over to Kematu, a short scene (MS08AmbushScene) is played out between Saadia and Kematu which ends with Kematu paralyzing Saadia. After this a dialogue option for Kematu starting with "What will you do now?" is made available. The script fragment for the end of this dialogue advances the quest to stage 201:

GetOwningQuest().SetStage(201)

Stage 201 is scripted as follows:

 ;Player helped Kematu

SetObjectiveCompleted(175)

Game.GetPlayer().AddItem(Gold, 500)

MS08SaadiaFaction.SetEnemy(PlayerFaction)

(Alias_Saadia.GetReference() as Actor).SetAV("Aggression", 1)

AchievementsQuest.IncSideQuests()

Alias_Kematu.GetActorReference().ModFavorPoints(kmyQuest.FavorRewardLarge.GetValueInt())

Alias_DungeonLoc.Clear()

 ;Stop()

As we saw above in the OnUnload() event in the script MS08SaadiaScript, reaching stage 201 triggers the CleanupCheck() function which advances the quest to stage 255 which is the stage where Saadia is disabled.

So that's it. Saadia's burial urn is not and cannot be activated if she's turned over to Kematu. Her urn is only enabled after her death and in this quest the only person who can kill Saadia is the player. The Note about her urn being enabled if she's turned over to Kematu needs to be removed since it is false.mhb2 (talk) 21:37, 28 February 2023 (UTC)