Oh yes, I've read it right. Twice he's said I was too late, when it was late night on the 3rd, or early morning the 4th, and the one time it worked for me was around mid-afternoon on the 4th.
This has all been done on a single playthrough, too. Using a single save just as I enter Klamanth and exiting, I've put a little variation on it because of time constraints, thus giving me a slightly different time when I get back.
But yeah. As I said, he's a messed up punk.
And, I have tried it on the 5th. That was actually the day I was returning on my first tries and the first few times he told me "I was too late." Thus began my initial attempts to speed things up (thus me having to actually go farrr back in a save, and essentially skip me running around Klamanth, as thats what made me late in the start.)
I've already began a "speed run" through from a totally new game. I hope to not get shafted again by him, now that I know Exactly what to do, and how soon I gotta be back. >_> I swear though.. if he fucks with me again...
Edit update 1: Ok... I've saved in a few special slots. And I've found some interesting and annoying bugs in regards to this even more. yeah, I'm vindictive, but moving on... (or obsessed.
). Oh, I got the quest finished ONE time yet again. But, I got shafted by that permanent -4 Perception somehow afterwards. When I woke up after finally finishing, I immediately looked.. and bam, 4 Perception. With no way to fix. And in this instance, I did not experience a sandstorm (that I know of)
1-It does not seem to matter if you don't go to Klamanth or Shack after leaving Arroyo. No matter what, the rumors still get spread and you HAVE to deal with Jordan when you return. This may or may not be attributing to the Hakunin shaman quest bugs I'm getting. And if not directly related, it is horribly exacerbating the problem (which is explained below)
2-Once you return, saving before you kill Jordan seems alright. But after you kill him, you CANNOT save. If you do, Hakunin starts saying that you're "too late." I found this out because, I got the fight set up, I just had to talk to Jordan and start, and I made a save at this moment. Everything was fine, for several tries (because killing him at lvl 2 with a char who does not have unarmed/melee tagged is a matter of luck and practice. Horribly so. you lose about 4 out of 5 fights.) That worked great, until I saved during one test right after the fight, because I was sick of doing it over and over again...
Which led to Hakunin forevermore saying I was too late afterwards once I had Jordan dead and that minor quest done. The date was (once again) the 3rd of August when I was all set to finish the apprenticeship with Hakunin. Saving on a different slot after the fight seemed to corrupt that one slot, and the previous save game before the Jordan fight. I've tested this to be sure (using the same save game before Jordan to kill him, and still getting "too late" afterwards.)
Final edit: I eventually completed this freaking thing of a quest. (Had to go straight from Arroyo to Shack then back, kill Jordan, and then do Hakunin all in one go without saving nor dying.)
... I hope that creepy bastard burns in hell.
