Zone: Bangkorai
Area: Kerbol’s Hollow
Side Quest: Freedom’s Chains

Issue: Not enough options, plot holes, and lore questionable.

So not to bore people about the entire thing, I found many issues when completing this quest. I'll list what we are offered.

- Save the couple.
- Save the village.

Now the thing I found confusing is that "Free will" is mentioned many times in the story script but its not fully explored. The leader hints the idea that a similar situation has happened before without the interference of a Hero (You) and that per-cautions had been set up to prevent situations from outsiders, hence the guard. Yet the Hero, walks right in with no confrontations; while the mate waits a full day. *Confusing*

Not only that when you proceed during the goals of the quest, you are given the option to speak too one of the infected on how they become infected and thus reveals that one the WWs that gave the infection, gave the information where this soon-to-be WW could travel too. Now to put aside in loop holes, she was hunting but there is only one pathway into Kerbol’s Hollow that is located on a mountain that not even the player can wall jump into; which rules out that she got infected near the village. Not only that if a WW told her where to go, to so called be cured, that also means that the WW made a choice not to join Kerbol’s Hollow. Which leads to the question on how he made that decision, since the Hero finds out on how the ritual works.

On top of that, going back to the quest, you find out that the mate that is there, has spent a full day and decided to go with the ritual. Now here is where it gets iffy. You interrupt the ritual and the leader hints she can still complete it. The hero discovers that in a way, for the infection to be controlled, the ritual is set up to bring the person into a hive mind, meaning that the person within that ritual loses their individuality and becomes a mindless drone. With that fact, this brought up a lot questions of my own.

- How did the leader discover this ritual and what makes her so special?
- Why can't the leader reverse the ritual on individual people, since it suggests that not all WWs agree with her methods. To back this up, there is already hints that WWs know about this village but chose to roam free and take their chances on Survival.
- If the breaking of the spell on one person, breaks the spell on all, couldn't they just lock up or sleep potion themselves and recast the ritual, on those that wanted to stay, again? (Sure its a hassle but it would give the leader the feature of compassion and understanding.)

In the end the only choices for the Hero to choose, is kill the rogue were-wolf, leaving the mate to hate the leader or... save the couple and sacrifice the entire village.

Too me, I find this story very lacking and incomplete. There are plenty of plot holes into it and I am just not really buying into the story line here in this area. Which leads to my conclusion that the writer did know know what he/she was doing and it was poorly done.

I ended up saving the couple but I also support the drone idea as its another option to contain the infection and continue to keep living somewhat normal lives. Now remember, before the infected become drones, they make a decision on the last of their free-will to live in the village. There fore you cannot say they were forced.