Vilja Joining the Bard's College - Questions/Problems

[Samustus]

First, let me say thank you for bringing Vilja to Skyrim and for making her more interesting than ever!

Quest: Vilja Joining the Bard College

I have been working on this quest for a very long time now and don't seem to be progressing at all. The problem started when I changed the location of the fourth book by talking to Wilbert, and all my previous journal entries disappeared. Since then, Wilbert sent me to get a chant from a dungeon and inside the chest at the end I found TWO chants. One 'Bard Chants' and another 'Bard Chants - Part 1'. Picking up both triggered a double event (at least I think so anyway). Wilbert accepted the 'Bard Chants', but the 'Bard Chants - Part 1' is sitting in my inventory without any apparent purpose, seeing as I already gave a copy to Wilbert.

My quest journal for this quest, since the location change, looks as follows:

Bring the Book of Chants to Wilbert of the Bard's College (uncompleted) - This never seems to complete..

Bring the Book of Chants to Wilbert of the Bard's College (completed)

Retrieve the fourth Book of Chants from Glemorial Cavern (completed)

Is this normal? I have done more than 25 quests now for Wilbert with assorted chant quests and bard college quests (which I wish I could skip), but nothing in my journal updates when I get a chant book. I have given Vilja 3, maybe 4, chants now and I have no way of knowing where I stand with this quest. Wilbert has even stopped giving me chants for Vilja. I can't find any way for me to see if Vilja has the chants or how to get her to use them. It feels like I'm stuck in an infinite loop of quest hell. Enough is enough!

Any suggestions? I want this darned quest over with now and to move on. I wish there was some kind of feedback from Vilja to let me know what she's learned.

[Dova]

Hi Samustus,

A few questions for you:

1 - What is the value returned if you type into the console:

GetStage AAEMBardcollegeQuest

2 - Do you have an earlier save prior to this problem? If so, what is the value returned if you type the same console command?

3 - Did you upgrade to Vilja ver 2.03 at some point in this playthrough?

4 - The book "Bard Chant" without part numbers is for the neverending radiant quests after. If you talk to Wilbert, do you have an option to tell him "The location is unreasonable! I can not go there."?

[Samustus]

Thanks for replying.

1 - With the problem (current save) my returned value is: 52
2 - Without the problem (old save - before retrieving chant four) my returned value is: 40
3 - No. Clean install from start.
4 - For the newer save, yes. But nothing changes in my quest journal if I do ask. For the older save, if I ask for a change in location, then I get the quest journal as shown in the first post, which seems to be the problem. What should happen after I retrieve the 4th chant? Do I get sent to get another? or is it meant to end?

The original reason I wanted to change locations was because I have the Vilja Solstheim patch installed and the quest must have pointed me to a location there, but I haven't been there yet.

[Dova]

Sounds like the save with "problem" already registered that you retrieved the 4th book, and it seems you are only doing the radiant quests now. Have you talked to Vilja and give her the book to study? And you don't recall Wilbert giving you the book "Bard Chants for beginners"?

The bard chant quest chooses all available radiant quest locations, even the ones added by mods, but Vilja in Solstheim add-on only adds dialogues for Vilja to beaware that she's in Solstheim. The location you didn't want to go was probably added by Dragonborn DLC.

Feb 20, 2014 15:14:17 GMT Samustus said:

4 - For the newer save, yes. But nothing changes in my quest journal if I do ask. For the older save, if I ask for a change in location, then I get the quest journal as shown in the first post, which seems to be the problem. What should happen after I retrieve the 4th chant? Do I get sent to get another? or is it meant to end?

This is suggesting there's a jump in quest stages by changing location for the last book, and this is odd, will take a look.

For now, I suggest you talk to Vilja:
1 - "Traveling together"
2 - "Off topic - Configuration and setting"
3 - "We have already done (some) of your quests"
4 - Go to Beata in the Bannered Mare and go through her dialogue options, and tell her, "We have found all the books and Vilja has learnt some chants."

[Samustus]

Feb 20, 2014 16:21:38 GMT Dova said:

Have you talked to Vilja and give her the book to study? And you don't recall Wilbert giving you the book "Bard Chants for beginners"?

'Bard Chants for Beginners' was the first thing I gave her, if I remember, after finishing the fourth quest. Anyway, during the quests he gave me after that, I reached a stage every so often that he said he had another chant for Vilja which I gave to her immediately (she says "You have something for me?" or similar). The quests in my journal stopped updating, however, as I showed you above. After giving her a few chants he stopped giving me chants to give her, but the quest never ended. Sorry I can't be more precise. So, it seems that the quest was progressing, but somehow the updating got stuck somewhere?

Final question. Do you think picking up "Bard Chants - Part One" (which shouldn't have been there), in the chest with two chants, was the cause? I seem to recall a double update sound when I picked them both up, but could be wrong. Maybe picking the second one up caused the loop. Not sure.

I will follow your instructions and go and see Beata.

Thanks for all your help!

[Samustus]

It worked! Thank you.

Having Beata in-game is a stroke of genius! Stops people from messing things up using the console and allows the modders to fix things the way it should be done using Beata. Wonderful idea.

Thanks again.