D:OS (*SPOILERS*) First town quests going off the rails

Many unmarked spoilers within! Don't read this topic unless you're done with the first town!

I think it all started when I went to the mortician too early. It's one of the first buildings in the town's upper level and I went in and decided to go take a peek at his diary. I confronted him with it and he blurted out four suspects. This was before I had even spoken to Ahru about the murders, never mind checking out the murder scene. I continued on with the quest to the point where I was actually supposed to talk to the mortician but speaking to him didn't reveal anything new (as I already had that info). I went to confront all the people he mentioned but there were no new dialog options. In fact, the only person that I was able to mention that list to was the Legion captain and he didn't have anything useful to say. Hmmm… seems a bit odd but maybe it's supposed to be that way.

I eventually figured out the smelling thing and started hunting for items but I was only able to find Esmeralda's. That cleared her of the murder but everyone else was still suspect. By this time I had gotten a bit tired of the murder and went out of town to start doing some of those quest. I did quite a lot of them, actually. I got the lighthouse done, the archeologist, and even helped some Fab 5 dupes finish of a construct. I found some nasty level 6 folks beyond there so I backed off and did the Black Cove.

I eventually got over to the villa area and found a hut owned by the healer. It looked like some nice stuff was in there so I hacked/burned the door down and found some evidence that he was helping the undead. Ah ha! I pop back to town to confront him and… nothing. No new menu options. Errr??

Hey, wait, I'm well above level 6 now, I better go get those guys I left until later. So I rip those thieves up and two new journal entries show up: one for the quest they are part of and another in the murder mystery! That journal entry tells me that "the path mentioned in Evelyn's diary was guarded"!? Errrr!? What diary!?!?

I go back to the church area and get down below the church. I can't get through the force field but I can see the town's doctor back there and it looks like he's dying. Well, I haven't got the key to get in (I don't think) so I go back to town and check the healing house. The doctor is gone now but Evelyn is still hanging around and still giving me no new dialog options.

By this time I'm getting pretty frustrated so I close the doors and kill her off. She's got a key to her house and a smelly scarf. I get the scarf checked out and, yes, Evelyn is implicated. I go into her house, get the goods on her, and head down to the cave. Just before going into the cave, my characters remark on what might happen if Evelyn is in there… odd, given that I just killed her off.

So right now I'm hoping the murder mystery all resolves itself in the end. The undead scourge quest may or may not be stuck but it sure is acting strange - it has yet to acknowledge that I know who-dun-it. The councilor's wife quest still seems to think I suspect Esmeralda. Oh, and the guys I saved from the Fab5's tricks are supposed to be with the Legion but I sure haven't been able to find them.

Honestly, though, this is looking pretty dubious to me. I'm not seeing a lot of howling about bugs so I assume I've managed to get into a rare situation but it's still getting frustrating. I'm well into Day 7, I don't want to start all over again!

Here you go without writing spoilers here is a walk-through for the first chapter. I had the same problem as you did, and just restarted a new play-through myself.

Link- http://guides.gamepressure.com/divinityoriginalsin/

I'm not sure how the questline plays out if you've killed Evelyn before the cave. That might really throw the entire thing out of whack and be a bug.

It's one of the first buildings in the town's upper level and I went in and decided to go take a peek at his diary. I confronted him with it and he blurted out four suspects. This was before I had even spoken to Ahru about the murders

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No it didn't start there as I did exactly the same thing and nothing was messed up in my game.

I eventually got over to the villa area and found a hut owned by the healer. It looked like some nice stuff was in there so I hacked/burned the door down and found some evidence that he was helping the undead. Ah ha! I pop back to town to confront him and… nothing.

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He is not supposed to be in town after you find his hut.

Honestly dunno. I did things pretty randomly and everything unfolded properly for me.
The only difference from what you wrote is I didn't kill Evelyn in the town but found her later in some sort of a temple.

That's what you get for being so eager to whack people.

Thanks folks! I'll see what happens. Hopefully it will all work out and the only real harm will be a journal that reads a bit like a Kurt Vonnegut novel.

JDR13 said:

That's what you get for being so eager to whack people.

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...and so it goes.

One thing you need to watch out for is making sure that important quest items are in the inventory of the person who is doing the talking.

When I first talked to the dog, I also only had Esmerelda's panties (ew) as a dialog option for him to sniff. And yet, I distinctly remembered seeing some smelly socks and coat in my inventory. Turns out, those were in my other character's inventory. When I moved them to my character that had Pet Pal, suddenly I could have the dog sniff them, and sure enough one of them led to the culprit and suddenly all sorts of new dialog options were available everywhere.

So beware if you're switching between two characters often. You should pick one person to carry all your quest items, and do the talking. Note that this applies to keys as well...

Heck, I'm still wearing.... <AHEM> my CHARACTER is still wearing those panties. I haven't found many good items for that slot and I'm too lazy to make my own.

They still give a point to charisma? She must have smelled really nice

Yes they do. I don't think it's about smell but about kinky sexy pic of it.