[0.14.5] Cannot take The Missing Prince quest

[Franchiver]

Greetings,

Despite reaching level 13, receiving Prince Lhotun's letter and having a non-negative (= 0) reputation with him, I find myself unable to get any dialogue with him. Please, what might I have missed?

[Jay_H]

It's hard to say. If you can upload your save, that would probably help to find out the problem.

[Franchiver]

Thank you. Here's my latest save. May it be helpful.

EDIT: Just tested with all my mods disabled - the Prince remained mute.

[Franchiver]

I wonder if I could have talked to the Prince then foolishly refused his quest during a previous visit in Castle Sentinel... Please, where in the save files may I check the state of the quest?

[Jay_H]

I looked inside your save file, and it says that Lhotun is "not available." That means he's supposed to be involved in another running quest, but I don't know what that would be. Nothing else running in your save file appears to involve him.

In the meantime, you can start the quest by using console command startquest S0000001. I did that, and the beginning prompt opened for me.

[Franchiver]

Strange, indeed. Thank you for the command!

[Interkarma]

Lhotun is involved in another active quest which makes him unavailable to start "Missing Prince".

The other quest is Sx988 "Mantella Revealed", which is completed but still in tombstone state (not running but still present for post-quest rumours). It's just an unfortunate bit of timing.

To resolve without console, fast travel around for a week or two until "Mantella Revealed" drops out of quest system. Then you can start "Missing Prince" normally. I tested this OK starting from your save.

A refinement here would be to allow NPCs to be available when previously owning quest has completed. The tombstone period is just for post-quest rumours and the like, it can release NPCs for purposes of availability check.

Edit: Have made that refinement.

[Franchiver]

Thank you for the investigation and the patch! I'll try that soon. By the way, I love that "tombstone period" term

[Franchiver]

It's unlocked! Thank you again!

[Interkarma]

That's great to hear, thanks for following up.