Alina’s Poisoner’s Puzzle

The Poisoned Soup

After Alteon is poisoned, suspicion falls on his Royal Alchemist. Alina goes to Raoul Silvertree’s manor to question him. The usually welcoming alchemist has shut his gates and rigged the manor with traps.

You find Raoul in a spell-trance and use Alina’s potion on his alchemy circle. It leaves him unable to lie, but he can still refuse to talk. When he learns Alina’s assistant drank the soup and is near death, he wants to get to the castle. You have to fight the creature he summoned before you can finish questioning him.

Raoul admits that Alina’s apprentice Shendra is his daughter. He had her deliver a bottle to the new cook, assuring her the soup would only make people a little sick. Shendra liked Alina, thought the king was kind and distrusted the man she called the Metal Man. Raoul wanted Alina’s job and intended to win favor by producing an antidote that would leave the king susceptible to the right person. Now he begs Alina to save Shendra.

Shendra survives but can barely speak. Swordhaven is falling into Chaos, and loyal knights are disappearing, including Captain Rolith. Shendra says something about the Silver Man, then seems to say good night. You hear good knight and realize she may know something about the Pactagonal Knights. When you ask again, she speaks of Silver and Gold and only one way to be Good. Alina takes up a sword coated in magic-laced poisons and sets out to find the missing knights as the PoisonMistress.

In Poisonforest, Jenna gives Alina herbs after you help rebuild her cottage. When you find the knights the traitors set on fire, Alina uses the herbs to make a salve while you free the captives. One of them, Rolith’s third-in-command, pretended to side with the traitors and learned that Xavier Lionfang was behind the plan. Alina brews a potion that eats through the fort’s gate. Inside, she asks how far you would go for the people you care about and coats your weapon with her Termination Tonic.

Xavier says his brother Maximillian sent him and that he coordinated the poisoning to weaken Alteon. He plans to send brainwashed Pactagonal Knights back to the castle, giving his brother allies close to the king, then spread his own version of what happened at the fort. He burned the knights who refused to join him. Rolith tracks his men to the fort and fights beside Alina. He tells her how safe he feels with her at his side and asks her to marry him in the middle of the battle.

Xavier asks what makes Alina’s methods different from his. She acknowledges the blood on her hands and says she uses the skills she has for a cause she believes in. Rolith proposes imprisonment and promises humane treatment if Xavier cooperates. You can sentence Xavier to life in prison, or order an interrogation with Alina’s Veri-tonic followed by a sentence of execution. In both cases, the guards escort him away. Alina and Rolith tell you they’re engaged and ask for help with their wedding.