The Unrealism of the Poison Quest
If you're reading this, you've probably already screwed up the Poison Quest. Don't beat yourself up for it; messing this quest up is
actually very easy to do, because the natural reactions that make sense to you (as a human) aren't the responses that the
game expects you to make. Remember that you're dealing with a computer here.
Common Pitfall #1: Lothander tells you that Marek poisoned you, so killing Marek will solve the problem before it starts.
WRONG! Lothander is the one who initiates dialogue with you, thereby starting the quest and setting the
"PartyIsPoisoned" variable to 1. Therefore, Lothander is the guy who actually poisons you, not Marek. If you kill Marek and
not Lothander, Lothander will start the quest just as if Marek was still alive, and the quest will continue up to the point where
you're supposed to confront Marek�but he won't be there, as you left his body bleeding in an alleyway. You will be unable to finish
the quest, and you will die. If you kill Lothander and not Marek (or both together), Lothander obviously cannot initiate dialogue
later in the game, so the quest will never start and you will never become poisoned.
Common Pitfall #2: Drinking Marek's Potion of Antidote will cleanse your party members' systems of the poison.
WRONG! You must remember that "PartyIsPoisoned" is a game variable, and drinking Antidotes, no matter how
fancy, has no effect whatsoever on that variable. The ONLY thing that will set that variable back to 0 is confronting
Marek at the appointed place (and time�don't try going there prematurely). In most versions of the game, right after you
finish your conversation with Marek, your Text Window will show the blurb, "You have been cured of Marek's poison," and the party
will earn some EXP. Marek's Potion of Antidote is actually quite a good Potion�the equivalent of 10 regular Antidotes, all in one
little bottle�it just doesn't do what a lot of people expect it to do.