[@PrinceAlexus] Well, it appears so. You may have noticed that Pastor Jimmy is in free-play mode, so you could take them over until the end of the mission. Alternatively, you could create your own character. Ultimately it’s down to [@Mae], but I have had a couple of ideas for ‘switching out’ so to speak - if the party is still near the entrance, a character from town could arrive, and enters the mine as usual. In return, a character in the current party ‘retreats’ back to town. Alternatively, we could do a ‘rescue’ event, where your character is trapped in the caves and they count as a Discovery Event. After healing you up, or repairing your sanity with Whiskey, because those are the two stats you need to keep up (I figured out what the Whiskey was for while I was writing this post). Then, as before, one of the characters retreats, due to a lack of supplies, while the rescued character stays behind as a guide or something.

Also, damn, now I want to make a reserve character.