You can proceed to next mish on a failed timer, I know that. It's built in to Full Circle. I would argue that the occasional failure isn't a bad thing. However, the way AE works (without branches) means the next mish is the next mish, regardless of outcome. it has to be a failure that advances to the same point. Just the way it is. This makes writing the mish completion (failure) box key . What this ends up being (for me) is a lot of Deus Ex Machina stuff, for example, "Well, you didn't get to the macguffin in time, but not to worry. You kept them busy long enough for a PPD stealth team to get in there and bring it out." In the case of Full Circle, said mish (which is VERY hard to complete successfully), is tangential to the main plot, and is mainly used as away to set the stakes for the arc (I'd say more, but people might want to play it, so I'll leave it a that).