Hi I had a question about the True Enemy interlude quest. Our group seems to be split on how this should work.

The description on the scenario says the overlord has to say some blurb when a hero enters the town square. Afterwards it describes the ritual action that Rylen can take to summon Mirklace.

Half our group interprets this as Rylen cannot start testing for the ritual action until at least 1 hero makes it to the town square. However the other half argues that the description for the ritual test does not have the wording "You may now take the following action". In that case you should be able to start the ritual action right at the beginning of the mission. Other missions of a similar nature in the past did have the wording "You may now take the following action".

The session we tried True Enemy we did it with Rylen being able to do the ritual right away. Through a really lucky roll streak and perfect card draw the overlord summoned Mirklace on the first overlord turn and the heroes got slaughtered. This is why the group is arguing over the ruling. Did the heroes just get extremely unlucky or was it played wrong by Rylen doing the ritual action way too soon?

The whole point of the quest is for Rylan to do the ritual right away. He is doing the ritual, and the heroes are trying to kill him to stop it. The further along he gets, the stronger Mirklace is when he is summoned. It's silly to think that he can't start until a hero steps onto the tile- also, notably, you're right- there is no text implying "after the thing above happens, then..."

If you read the flavor text for context, that also tells you that the ritual is in progress .

I started Rylan doing the ritual at the beginning- and still only got 4 fatigue before he died.