So, I finished the 'main' thread of the Companions questline and decided to go back and do some of the other work offered by the members. One of these jobs was labeled "Rescue Mission" and I was supposed to go rescue an NPC from a place called something like Pinewood Cave. After killing the vampires guarding him, I freed him from his cage and the objective changed to escorting him back to Riften. Not wanting to walk all the way there, I elected to fast travel. When I arrived, it notified me that the objective was now complete and that the next objective of the quest was to "take leave from Vipir the Swift" and the objective marker was pointing me to the ratway. The funny thing was that I didn't remember Vipir the Swfit being the NPC I was originally sent to rescue, but his name was in all the quest objectives when I brought up my journal to check, so I guess I just wasn't paying attention.

Anyway, I followed the quest marker into a place called the Ragged Flagon and saw that the objective marker had then moved to behind a locked 'store room' door that could only be opened with a key. After pickpocketing all the NPCs in the place for the key and then trying to kill them to see if it only showed up then (except they were almost all quest-important unkillable characters), I spent another few hours exploring every inch of the entire ratway system, hoping to find that damned key but still came up empty. Finally, I returned to the the Companion headquarters by DragonsReach to try and finish the quest or get a new one, but everyone just said that I had a mission in progress and that I couldn't take anymore. I don't know if I've been this frustrated at a game before, which is sad considering that I've been having a blast up untilt his point.

Anyway, anyone have any ideas? Is this a glitch or am I just doing something wrong?

Boards moves insanely fast. Please help!
Bump

Last bump. Fingers crossed.

Probably a glitch, that door leads to the Thieves' Guild area, so if you aren't in the guild, it has to be a glitch.