Skyrim:Rescue Mission

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Fulfill a contract given to the Companions to rescue a kidnapped citizen. Quest Giver: Skjor or Vilkas Location(s): Whiterun, Jorrvaskr Prerequisite Quest: Take Up Arms Reward: 100 gold ID: CR08

Quick Walkthrough

1. Speak to Skjor or Vilkas in Jorrvaskr.
2. Travel to the randomly-determined location.
3. Rescue the citizen from the location's enemies.
4. Escort the citizen back to their hometown.
5. Return to Skjor or Vilkas for your reward.

Detailed Walkthrough

Either Vilkas or Skjor has received notice that someone has been kidnapped, and the Companions have been asked to attempt a rescue. He will send you to the location of the kidnapped individual and tell you to free them from the location and then escort them to their nearby home. See Radiant Options below for possible variations of this quest.

Note that this is a repeating quest: each time you go to Vilkas or Skjor (when told to ask a Companion for work), he will give a different version of the quest.

Radiant Options

This quest has several radiant options. The criteria used to select victims for this quest are:

• The victim must live in one of the marked habitation areas listed below.
• Must not have unique voice acting.
• Must not be a part of the following factions: PlayerHousecarlFaction, The Companions, CurrentHireling, JobJarlFaction, or CurrentFollowerFaction.
• Must not be marked as an Essential NPC.
• The victim's faction can not be related to the player.
• Must be a unique character (excludes guards, etc.).

NPC Residences

The victim can be randomly selected from over 200 potential NPCs residing in one of the areas listed below:

Eastmarch	Falkreath Hold	Haafingar	Hjaalmarch	The Pale	The Reach	The Rift	Whiterun Hold	Winterhold	SolstheimDB
Brandy-Mug Farm Darkwater Crossing Gloombound Mine Hlaalu Farm Hollyfrost Farm Kynesgrove Mixwater Mill Narzulbur Windhelm	Falkreath Half-moon Mill	Dragon Bridge Katla's Farm Solitude Solitude Sawmill	Abandoned Shack Morthal Stonehills	Anga's Mill Dawnstar Loreius Farm Nightgate Inn	Dushnikh Yal Karthwasten Kolskeggr Mine Left Hand Mine Markarth Mor Khazgur Old Hroldan Inn Salvius Farm Soljund's Sinkhole	Heartwood Mill Ivarstead Largashbur Merryfair Farm Riften Sarethi Farm Shor's Stone Snow-Shod Farm	Battle-Born Farm Chillfurrow Farm Honningbrew Meadery Pelagia Farm Riverwood Rorikstead Whiterun	College of Winterhold Deekus Camp Whistling Mine Winterhold	Raven Rock Skaal Village Tel Mithryn

Quest Locations

The radiant location is randomly chosen from 50 possible locations, amounting to a large fraction of the dungeons that contain boss-type enemies and have a place where a captive can be locked up. The location will be limited to holds that you have previously visited, so early in the game you may only receive destinations within Whiterun Hold, but later in the game there are many more possible destinations. All possible locations are listed in the table below.

Eastmarch	Falkreath Hold	Haafingar	Hjaalmarch	The Pale	The Reach	The Rift	Whiterun Hold	Winterhold	SolstheimDB
A Bandit Camp or Bandit-occupied fort (21 possible locations)
Cragslane Cavern Gallows Rock Lost Knife Hideout Uttering Hills Camp	Bilegulch Mine Cracked Tusk Keep Embershard Mine Knifepoint Ridge		Orotheim Robber's Gorge	Frostmere Crypt		Broken Helm Hollow Faldar's Tooth Treva's Watch	Halted Stream Camp Redoran's Retreat Silent Moons Camp Valtheim Towers White River Watch	Fort Fellhammer Wreck of the Winter War
A Falmer Hive (9 possible locations):
		Lost Echo Cave	Chillwind Depths		Gloomreach Liar's Retreat	Darkwater Pass Tolvald's Cave	Shimmermist Cave	Frostflow Lighthouse Stillborn Cave
A Hagraven Nest (6 possible locations):
	Orphan Rock	Ravenscar Hollow			Blind Cliff Cave Hag's End Lost Valley Redoubt		Serpent's Bluff Redoubt
A Vampire Lair (3 possible locations):
Mara's Eye Pond		Pinemoon Cave					Broken Fang Cave
A Warlock Lair (11 possible locations):
Cragwallow Slope Morvunskar	Brittleshin Pass Ilinalta's Deep Sunderstone (Greywater) Gorge	Northwatch Keep				Darklight Tower	Brittleshin Pass Fellglow Keep Rannveig's Fast	Hob's Fall Cave Yngvild

• Note that the categories for each of the location types above will list all locations with the given type of occupant, including locations that do not have a boss-type enemy or do not have place to lock up captives; therefore, some of the locations listed in the categories are not possible destinations for this quest.

Notes

• If you complete this quest successfully, then the citizen you rescue becomes a friend of yours. This may affect thane quests and other aspects of the game.

Bugs

• The hostage may not follow you when you've saved them. Arriving at their hometown should update the quest, though you may have to talk to them afterwards. ^?
  • PC players can use the console by targeting them and using moveto player.
• The hostage may be at their village/town instead of the area the quest says to go to. ^?
  • This might be resolved by entering their home, then leaving immediately. This fix is reported to not work for Heimskr, as he is bugged indefinitely at the statue of Talos. Heimskr might not spawn at the hostage point and will stay at the shrine, however, this might be resolved by not warping to Whiterun but outside of town where he may actually be making his way to his hostage point where he can then be rescued and taken home. (On ps3)
• The hostage you need to rescue may be none other than Sinding, even if you killed him in Ill Met By Moonlight. He will be in werewolf form, yet still able to talk to you. When he gets to Falkreath, no one there will react to the werewolf walking around in public. ^?
• The hostage may be an NPC who has already died. In this case, the corpse will be found in the radiant location. ^?

• • PROBLEM: In the rescue mission the person you are supposed to rescue is invisible (not game invisible, they are NOT there). You can't complete the quest because you can't initiate them to follow you to safety.

FIX: Open the game console (~ for PC users) and type this in to force the next quest line: "setstage cr08 21" without the quotes. That will have him follow you (even though he does not exist).

NEXT: Fast travel to the Mill (or wherever they tell you to go, it is different per console). It will give you the next update.

NEW PROBLEM: It says "take your leave of (name)", which again, since (name) does not exist, you can't.

FIX: Open the console again and type in: "setstage cr08 25" again without quotes. It will tell you to go back to Vilkas and end the quest (which he will accept as complete).

FIX: (On PS3) Found Heimskr at correct hostage point spawn location by exploiting "Underneath Whiterun" glitch. Usually when you are at the hostage point, Heimskr is marked to be still in Whiterun. On returning to Whiterun, he is then marked at the hostage point. Solved by dropping underneath whiterun (There is a glitch by the house of Clan Gray-Mane. See Youtube for help) and travelling directly to the hostage point in the untextured map. This possibly only works for missions where the radiant rescue point is a landmark rather than a cave/dungeon. In my case it was "Wreck of the Winter War", and Heimskr was found floating in the sea where the wreck normally would be in the fully textured Skyrim map.

--It appears that sometimes when you are given the quest, the civilian has not yet been captured or is just walking around. The NPC will not follow you and just walks around and is either busy or gives you default scripting. Unknown fix. (Rescue Endon from Chillwind Depths)

Quest Stages

Rescue Mission (CR08)
Stage	Finishes Quest	Journal Entry
10		<Alias=Victim> has been kidnapped and taken to <Alias=Lair>. I need to get <Alias.PronounObj=Victim> back to <Alias=VictimHome>. (Objective is assigned): Rescue <Alias=Victim> from <Alias=Lair>
20		(Objective is assigned): Talk to <Alias=Victim>
21		(Objective is assigned): Escort <Alias=Victim> back to <Alias=VictimHome>
22		(Objective is assigned): Take your leave of <Alias=Victim>
25		I rescued <Alias=Victim> from <Alias=Lair> and escorted <Alias.PronounObj=Victim> back to <Alias=VictimHome>. (Objective is assigned): Return to <Alias.ShortName=Questgiver>
50		I found <Alias=Victim> in <Alias=Lair> but <Alias.Pronoun=Victim> died.
100

• The following empty quest stages were omitted from the table: 0, 1, 150, 200, 250

 

Notes

• Any text displayed in angle brackets (e.g., <Alias=LocationHold>) is dynamically set by the Radiant Quest system, and will be filled in with the appropriate word(s) when seen in game.
• Not all Journal Entries may appear in your journal; which entries appear and which entries do not depends on the manner in which the quest is done.
• Stages are not always in order of progress. This is usually the case with quests that have multiple possible outcomes or quests where certain tasks may be done in any order. Some stages may therefore repeat objectives seen in other stages.
• If an entry is marked as "Finishes Quest" it means the quest disappears from the Active Quest list, but you may still receive new entries for that quest.
• On the PC, it is possible to use the console to advance through the quest by entering setstage CR08 stage, where stage is the number of the stage you wish to complete. It is not possible to un-complete (i.e. go back) quest stages, but it is possible to clear all stages of the quest using resetquest CR08.