(Possible spoilers)

This is a little strange--so, did you lower the bridge? You don't say. (Ok--you didn't--see next section.) When the bridge is lowered and she's still alive and kicking...the boy runs up to her, happy to see her. You talk to the boy and then she tells you they are going to town and maybe she'll see you around (she goes to town if she lives and you will see her again if you want, with her son.) And they leave. When she's alive all of the stuff on the ground floor of the house is red, although you can go through the hatch and loot without a problem below.

OTOH, if she dies, then nothing in the house on the ground floor turns red and it is all accessible. When you talk to the boy you discover he's going into town to stay with relatives. He disappears.

I played through it twice--the first time she died, the second time I saved her without much trouble, so that's how I know about both outcomes. I experienced no bugs of any kind. OK, so when she asked you to lower the bridge you did not. That's where you goofed. You should have lowered the bridge and talked to them *first*--and you'd have gotten your XP and the rest of it.

Think about the situation and imagine you were there--when she asked you to lower the bridge, why on earth would you ignore her as if she wasn't there, ignore her son--when he was the one who gave you the quest in the first place, and immediately run into the house and start stealing stuff? That makes no sense at all.

Yea, I think you simply didn't play the scene correctly and that you've forgotten what you did/didn't do...;) Again, played fine for me twice in a row.

Let me see if I can guess--you *did not save your game* immediately before engaging in the Voidwoken fight, eh? So you are quitting because you don't want to have to retrace your steps to get there again. Man, with these games I save constantly--manually--and I title the saves, too. The way it looks is that you didn't get XP because you didn't complete the quest and the two of them left for town before you ended the quest by talking to them.

This is not a hard fight, imo. Try again, but this time do the quest rationally--as if you were there--and *interact with the NPCs* intelligently. You'll get your XPs for the quest, they'll go into town, and then you can loot the ground floor or not, as it will be red...;) Better luck next time...;) There are two ways to get into the basement area, btw. The hatch in the house is only one of them.

I agree with you that this is a great game! Anyway, I hope this helps you.