Person to rescue is dead ... WTF

[RajaAgni]

Companion sent me to resue Eltrys from Darkwater Pass but went there and found him dead! What can I do to finish this quest and continue the companion quests?

[Karmo]

reload a save before you got that specific quest?

doing that will allow you to "save-scum" for a specific quest if you want,say you want a brawl quest but get a rescure quest,you can constantly reload the save before getting the quest and get a new one each time,so maybe that might help

thats the only thing i can think of doing in this situation,as i would of assumed that the quest would of failed if they died,but if it didnt then it might of bugged out

i would aslo suggest using dead thrall,but i dont think the companions look favourably upon magic or necromancy,nor would it actually so anything probable,but you never know,it might just need the actor (npc) to get to a specific area/spot

[♥ Barney ♥]

You just go back to Farkas or Vilkas or whoever gave you the quest and tell them they are dead, they say 'shame, don't let it happen again' and the quest is failed. You then get another quest.

The rescue a citizen quest is a radiant quest so they will keep giving you the quest even if you fail a few times, but you need to report back to the companions if the citizen ends up dead so it will end the quest and you can get a new one.

Eltrys is part of the Forsworn Conspiracy quest in Markarth (the first one you get when you enter Markarth) and if you've finished that quest, in which Eltrys dies when the guards arrest you, maybe the game picked him and because he's already dead that's why you found him already dead in Darkwater Pass.

[Dizzy]

Can look up the NPC's ID and revive them from the console, if all else fails.

[Belanos]

Originally posted by Dizzy:

Can look up the NPC's ID and revive them from the console, if all else fails.

That wouldn't work in the event of a quest character. The game will have run a death script and will always consider that NPC to be dead.

[Gertjan]

Check the quest log; if it states that the NPC is dead, simply return to the quest giver.
If the quest log doesn't state anything, use the method above (and quoted below) to revive or respawn the NPC

Originally posted by Belanos:

Originally posted by Dizzy:

Can look up the NPC's ID and revive them from the console, if all else fails.

That wouldn't work in the event of a quest character. The game will have run a death script and will always consider that NPC to be dead.

You can substitute a "spawn" command instead, which creates a new version of said NPC, which didn't die yet.

[Uncle64]

No you should not re-spawn dead people, and you should not make new copies of them.
Since the quest OP have is connected to one ID, not the name of the NPC.

[RajaAgni]

Well, tried going back to Vilkas but he just says that I need to complete the quest. Using a previous save is no good since I have been overwriting my last save for some time. BUT, I decided to use the setstage console command to advance the quest. I never use console commands but since this was a game bug I did. I did go through the motion of dragging from darkwater to markarth though. Quite the trip.

Thanx fellow dragon born!

[Uncle64]

Ok. so the set stage did work. Good. Then more happy gaming then :)