*MAJOR FORSWORN CONSPIRACY QUEST SPOILERS*

In Markarth you learn of a conspiracy involving the Forsworn. Eventually the quest line leads to you being ambushed by guards in the temple of Talos. If you agree to come along quietly, you get sentenced to life in the mines. The quest progresses, and you are given the choice of helping the leader of the Forsworn or killing him.

I chose to listen to him initially, and then was never given the option of killing him again. So I simply killed him without the option to challenge him. The quest updated as normal and told me to search his body. I did. I took his key, and escaped through the ruins. Then the NPC (forget the name) met me and gave me all my items back, thanking me for eliminating the leader of the Forsworn.

Quest completed. So far so good. Anyway, many hours and quests later, I find myself back in Markarth. I have a disease, so I head to the temple of Talos, and...

...the guard ambush is back. Same dialogue. It prompts me to give up and go back to the mines, as if the whole quest has been reset. So I decided to fight them instead, and now I have a huge bounty in Markarth.

Needless to say, I'm reloading and avoiding the temple as a temporary fix. But this is first fairly big bug I've run into lol.

I just done that quest earlier.

After reading this I went to the shrine to talos again and got exactly the same bug as you.

Quite a serious glitch.

Also I chose to help them escape the mines. I'm gonna reload earlier save and see what happens if I chose to kill him.

The blessing given by the shrine is bugged as well. Even before getting the quest.

It's effect was "time between shouts is reduced 0%"

Seems a totally pointless effect if it's only 0%

I did some further testing.

Reloaded an earlier save and this time I chose the revenge option when talking to Madanach.

He attacked me so I killed him. After escaping and getting congratulated the guards in the shrine now say i've been pardoned instead of trying to arrest me again.

So the glitch only seems to effect you if you choose to help madanach escape.

It's glitched again. Went back a couple of game days later and the quest has reset again. So disregard my last post.

This same glitch happened to me as well. I chose to help Madanach escape with the other Forsworn. But now everytime I go back to just outside the city, the guards want to put me back in the mines "for life." Problem is, I have other saves kept from before this glitch. Anybody else find a solution yet?

Another though: Is there any person or element in the game that can remove all bounty? Maybe this could help out the glitch.

Glad to see I'm not alone. Well if it's this reproducible, I'm sure the next title update will address it. If a few people on the forum have it, hundreds of thousands of people our there in the world likely do lol.

Yea I really hope so. I'm gonna go bonkers if I have to avoid a major city for the entire game. Hopefully more people come out with the same issue so we get feedback from Bethesda.

Use the console command paycrimegold if you are playing on the PC version. Should fix the issue.

Just a thought. Have you tried committing a crime then paying off the fine to see if it resets the guards?

If you are on PC though do what the other guy said.

I was assuming setcrimegold was the command?
I tried that one but it did not work. I will try the other command. Although either way it'll still end up glitching again if a crime is committed.

I got the same issue as you, see my http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1272438-bugbroken-quest-forsworn-conspiracy-spoilers/.