Hello,

Yesterday I ran into a bug that is preventing me from advancing in the Companions quest line.

Aela gave me objective to kill the lieutenant of the Silver Hand at Valtheim Towers. The quest is called 'Striking the heart' (ID: CR09). When I arrive at the towers, the place is empty. The quest marker points at the floor and there is no one to kill. I've tried manually completing the quest in the console, but it wouldn't allow me to continue the rest of the quest chain as Aela told me I still had a job running for her. I also tried no-clip to see if he might be under the floor, but he is nowhere to be seen.

I have googled the quest and there are several other people with the same problem, but no fix or workaround.

Please let me know if there IS a work around, and if not... look into the quest. I'm really bummed out that I can't progress with the Companions.


Thanks!

Try waiting 30 in-game days. This should completely reset the cell which contains the leader, and hopefully spawn him.

Thanks, will try when I get home. Is there a way to wait 30 days instantly? Or do I need to do this in 24 hour increments? Maybe a console command?

Thanks!

Unfortunately it didn't work. I slept 32x 24 hours (manually, that was boring!) just to be sure... but the Valtheim towers are still completely absent of any form of life.

Guess I just have to wait and hope for a fix from Bethesda

Not sure if allowed, but bump before going to sleep!

Are you sure it was at Valtheim Towers? Isn't Valtheim Towers the "bridge" over the river, on the road between Whiterun and Windhelm? I did the Companions story arc a few days ago, and I don't remember any of the quests being located there?

OK, I just checked uesp, and apparently the location is randomized from one playthrough to another, so I guess it's entirely possible that for you, the game selected Valtheim Towers. I wonder, had you already cleared it before the companions quest, and so that's why it's empty? Usually there's generic bandits there. I even got a bounty quest on one of my chars to kill the bandit leader there.

Hey, I have an idea - maybe you have another quest, like a miscellaneous bounty like I did, still unfinished in your journal? Maybe you got such a bounty, but never went back to the quest giver NPC to claim the bounty? Perhaps you need to clear that other quest related to that location before it can respawn?

As for waiting 30 in-game days for the location to reset, is that actually necessary? I've noticed before, sometimes, that I can clear a location, then go back like a day or two later (I discovered this when I returned to a fort I had cleared just the previous day to collect some more loot I couldn't carry the first time), and sometimes the location has already reset.

I think you might be on to something... very good point. I have heaps of quests open, some finished and some running. I do remember having a quest for that place that made me clear it out in the first place. Will try tomorrow!

Thanks for the suggestion.

Alright, I checked my questlog. No quest related to Valtheim towers in there

My quest line is still bugged, Bethesda! Please consider this for the next patch!

Well, one last suggestion - sort of a deperate hope, but perhaps the Silverhand leader is actually alive, in the area nearby Valtheim Towers somewhere? Like, maybe he's down in the river, or on the rocks nearby or something? Maybe not, but might be worth doing some exploring to see if he's in the area somewhere and you just hadn't found him because he wasn't really where he should have been.

There's got to be a console command you can use to setstage XXXX STAGE# to move it to the completed stage? How about:

setstage CR09 20

I tried looking in the vicinity of the towers... no dice.

Thanks for the suggestion though.. much appreciated that you think along

Awesome! This worked! Thanks alot, Moloiriel too.

Youre welcome. I've had to do this with a few quests. For pretty much all the quests, uesp has each stage ## listed. If you are stuck like this, just use that setstage command to move the quest forward.

Unfortunately I've run into the same problem, but mine is at Treva's Watch.

When I picked up the quest, it did not give me a quest marker on my map so I had to look for Treva's Watch on my map in order to travel to it.
Treva's Watch is currently indicating "Cleared" status, and no amount of setstage CR09 has fixed anything.

Again, in my particular situation the quest target was not defined prior to investigating Treva's Watch. Is there a secondary console command that might bring the NPC in question to my location so I can kill him and complete this quest?

svcks! A bump for you.. hope some one can think of a solution. I can't at the moment

setstage cr09 20 worked for me. It set the quest location as Redoran's Retreat with the same issue at the quest marker pointing at the ground.

Thanks, MassRelay!