Hey, good to hear you got back to health !
Had flashbacks with Darkmorrow Arena, and not that fond of that experience and title :P So if I understand correctly - game ends whenever you refuse contract? Sounds a little harsh...
That doesn't sound like a lot control. What benefit does player have of ending game prematurely, over gambling and dying on the journey ? How much money you can make also doesn't sound like an interesting mechanic for me personally...
Tough to say anything about blocking without actually seeing it in the game. If you feel ambitions you might want to include time domain into turn based system - ie. each action taking time during combat, like:
- enemy needs 5 time ticks to make attack connect after executing attack move. Then your character have to make evade move to ignore damage. Evasion takes time - of course MC has to notice and, react to attack taking some time ticks.
I believe this could lead to very interesting combat opportunities like baiting enemy to attack while you can pummel them when they are exposed in attack. Also certain skills could make you move faster/notice vulnerabilities etc.
Didn't play PoE so no opinion - though non-random choice of skills sound good.
Loving the chainmail bikini :D Escalating contracts sounds interesting, especially liking clothing deals, drinking and so on. Though just getting wrong contract to end your game prematurely isn't a good gameplay choice in my opinion...