Promises To Keep Glitch

[dolmore]

After dozens of playthroughs of Skyrim, I hit on something I hadn't seen before. After stealing the papers and the horse Frost the quest marker for Louis Letrush didn't show up on the map. He wasn't in his usual location in the woods, nor was he at Whiterun Stables.

I've scoured the countryside for him (or his corpse) and haven't been able to find him. But the quest is still in my journal telling me to deliver the horse.

This wouldn't bother me except that, without talking to him i can't actually take possession of the horse. If I fast travel without being mounted it automatically reappears back at Honeybrew House surrounded by mercenaries that need to be slaughtered so that I can re-steal the damned dragon magnet.

Tried reloading the game with no luck and haven't been able to find a fix for it on any gamer discussion groups. Anyone else had this happen?

[DPMR]

Most of the time you can leave the cell and sleep a few days, then return and you will find it reset.
Or
You could use set stage command to advance the game.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Promises_to_Keep

[dolmore]

Thanks. I had already tried the "rest-to-reset" trick without success.

I used the console command as you suggested and it did advance the quest. Just not in the way I wanted. It completed the task by giving the horse and papers to Letrush rather than letting me bash his brains out and keep it.

Not a big deal. All horses are dragon bait, but Frost seems to be a particularly delectable morsel that any dragon within a half mile can't resist.

[dolmore]

i figured it out. There's a glitch in the quest in that, if you spill the beans to Maven about the plot then the task of stealing the papers is automatically marked as complete in the journal even though you haven't taken them yet. Without the papers in your inventory, Letrush never shows up.

[DPMR]

Cool.

It is always nice to have an actual answer to an issue, something you often never get in Skyrim.

This really points out why it’s so hard to give actual good advice on this forum.
We never can know every thing that was done to the game, which makes it nice when the OP comes back and tells us what they found. Thanks