I can't travel to the isle of despair

Hello fellow arcanum lovers.
I recently started a new playthrough and I'm playing an evil mage. After finishing the BMC Mines I went to report to Gilbert Bates. I told him his actions were a "callous betrayal" if i remember the line correctly, he replied that I was a tad bit rude. Things escalated quickly and now Mr Bates' Mansion is quite lifeless. I brought his journal back to Appleby, followed by Arcanum's richest man's animated corpse. Before delivering the journal I used Conjure Spirit on the body and he told me to ask Teach to gain passage for the Isle of Despair. I gave the journal to Appleby which made Bates' remains disappear. Once In Ashbury, I can't mention the Isle of Despair to Teach thus making it impossible to go there.

I'm using the latest Unofficial Patch.

What can I do to fix that mess?

 

Is it definitely Teach you're speaking to? And are you confident you did all the necessaries in the BMC Mines to move the story on? If so, then yeah that's a weird bug. On the tile for your save, it should say whether the game wants you to progress to the Isle of Despair, so that would be a good indicator.

I would use Virgil's Debug Menu (found here, you can remove the necessary file after the fact if you want) or this random exploit (found here) to try and solve the problem if it is a bug. I don't have much experience with the latter, but people mention they've used it to travel to the Isle of Despair. In any case, Virgil's Menu should work fine if he's still alive in your game - he'll still be at the Crash Site if you never took him on as a follower. Otherwise, and obviously, if you have an earlier save use that - but I guess if you did you probably wouldn't be asking this question.

 

Sorry for replying to a 2 y.o. thread, but this is the most recent one I’ve found...
Playing a thief, I wanna betray Bates but at the same time I don’t wanna lose the main plot quests.
The problem is: without talking to Bates I cannot go to Isle of Despair, but if I talk to Bates, Appleby won’t accept his journal anymore and he will hate me.
Any suggestions?

 

You don't need to talk to Bates, reading the Bates' journal (the one you're supposed to steal) will start the next main quest. You can then turn it into Appleby (or if you have already turned it back into Appleby, steal it back off him or kill him for it to read it if that is something that breaks the quest).

From resolving that quest arc as per OP's post (i.e. speaking to Gudmund Ore-Bender in the BMC mine and looking at the Pillar of Truth) if you travel to Ashbury you should always be able to travel to the Isle of Despair with Teach (regardless of your interactions with Bates, even if you sell him out/kill him. You can also sell Bates out to the Tarantarian IIRC).

The quest breaking as the OP described above is something I've never heard of before and something I'm sure Drog would have caught in his patching (and not something that came up in the several repeat playthroughs of many people who played Arcanum on here, myself included - despite trying to extensively probe in-game options). As the OP didn't respond, I'm inclined to think they overlooked something that would have allowed for quest progression rather than this being a bonafide bug.

 

Ok I’ve understood, but Teach still tells me to speak with his man (Bates).
Maybe I’m just not getting it, but that’s how I see it; Bates will disappear if I take the journal to Appleby (and so I cannot get to Isle of Despair), and if I talk to Bates, Appleby won’t talk to me again because I’ve sided with GB.

 

Have you got a screen-shot of what he says? I don't have the game installed so it's hard to tell what the specific issue is (as mentioned, I'm sure I've betrayed Bates before, which should trigger alternate dialogue with Teach so long as you read Bates' journal and resolved the quest in the BMC Mines).

If you haven't read his journal and gone to the BMC Mines and resolved the quest, do that before speaking to Teach. That is the necessary trigger for the dialogue to open up.

 

I was about to upload screenshots but it says they are too large.
Anyways, I’ve read Bates’ journal (ad I CANNOT sell him to the Tarantian office), but Teach keeps telling me that he has an ‘employee’ whom I have to talk to (to get to I.o.D.), and his name his GB. I ask him which connection they have and where this Bates lives, and the captain just says he’s living in Tarant; then I only have the option ‘ok, I’ll talk to him then’.

 

Have you definitely gone to the Black Mountain Clan Mines (listed as BMC Mines on the map)? They are north-west of Tarant, in the Stonewall mountain range.

You need to do this to learn that the BMC dwarves were exiled to the Isle of Despair, only then will you be able to travel there with Teach. As mentioned, the trigger should be clicking on the Pillar of Truth and speaking to Gudmund on the level of the mines with the throne room, down a long corridor full of traps through the doors in the back of that room.

I'm not 100% you can sell the story to the Tarantarian, possibly it just opens up dialogue (as mentioned it's a while since I've played, so I could be mis-remembering). In any case it would only be for some money anyway.

For clarity what you want to do is: Steal journal, read journal, turn journal into Appleby, do BMC Mines (Pillar of Truth), go to Teach.

 

Thanks for the lightning-fast reply, I will check everything ASAP

 

Update: it worked, I just needed to ruin GB’s reputation in order to have Teach to get me to Isle of Despair (for 500 gold).

 

Good to hear!