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Broken Oar Grotto is a black hole.
Time to go find another dremora to fill the singularity in your black heart.
I thank you for your condolences; however, I believe I just discovered a fix. You'll have to bear with me as I am quite overcome with joy. After coming to terms with the loss of my Churl, I, like any red-blooded conjurer sought a replacement. Certainly, your suggestion to simply find another sounds easy; though, I am currently undertaking a level one playthrough, and
cannot "bump" into any other Dremora.
Well, this is what I'd thought. After reading through your forum's Thrall picture thread, I recalled the Dremora trapped by enchantments in Winterhold. Perhaps level four may be terribly underwhelming for a level 50, I thought, it may not be for a level one. This is what I had intended to do at the same time as readying my recently trapped Dremora Churl to be completely "invalidated." Now mind you, I was also working on a what-if plot to save my Churl. This was to gain the knowledge of all three words for Relenting Force to, in effect, throw my Churl out the grotto.
Upon attaining the third word, I was finally ready to run back to Broken Oar to take some of the items off him to move to Vlindrel Hall (by the way, thralls are amazing for storing items-- infinite carrying capacity, at least, in my Churl's case. I've not tried this on any other kind of thrall.) Something typical of my personality: Forgetting what it was I'd set out to do because of cuing so many other things around a short time-frame, I left Broken Oar after the exchange of some items. I fast travelled to Understone Keep, entered Vlindrel Hall, turned, and there he was. My Dremora Churl!
I cannot even begin to explain how this has happened. I can only try to recollect, as best I can, what it was I had done in the short time he had been trapped. Events as follows:
1. Exit Broken Oar Grotto
2. On way to Sleepfall Barrow to recover helmet for that guy in Solitude-- to 'help the people' to become Thane and receive Shield of Solitude, and stop in at Orphan's Tear because it's on the way. Killed them all, turned and noticed Churl hadn't showed up.
3. Fast travelled and ran back and forth a couple times until realizing Churl was still in Broken Oar. Entered and exited Broken Oar two times before assuming efforts were in vain. In a fit of wild unvarying denial attempted conjuring familiar (as I always do) and went to leave.... This is when I went online to hunt for answers. None surfaced beyond moving on or "believing" he'll one day come back to me if left "alive" in the grotto.
4. Choosing the latter, I kept him thralled, travelled to High Hrothggar, and began Jorgen Windcaller quest. Rented the attic room, received the last word, and travelled to Honningbrew for a little dishwashing.
5. Travelled to Broken Oar, conjured familiar (as I always do,) to grab more items, reanimated, saved while he was reanimating (because this is the kind of stuff I do... Left, travelled to Understone Keep, and ran to Vlindrel Hall. This is when I seen him.
Explanation:
My guess is, by leaving the grotto before the "reviving" animation was complete, tricked the game into thinking he spawned outside with me. Safe to say I'm not going to be troubleshooting this, guys. I'm sorry. I do not want to lose him again. But, for anyone desperate enough, or interested in seeing if this can work for everyone: Feel free to try.
As an experiment , I took a follower (Dark Brotherhood Initiate) inside Broken Oar and then told him to go back to the Sanctuary.
He has been stuck in there for over a skyrim year thus far.
As I've read, this is an issue with a couple followers. Luckily, my Jenassa had not succumbed to this obstacle. It seems there are a couple ways to remedy the issue for followers, although, they are very specific and-- far from what I can describe as a solution that provides an answer. Rather they instead resolve the issue magically. By this I mean: It makes no sense to me why it worked.
My suggested route through this is to get the quest to kill Captain Hargar from the executioner Ahtar first.
Go and clear the grotto BEFORE going to see Deeja during the Light`s Out quest.
this is a perfect opportunity to use disposable thralls like bandits, forsworn, or vampires.
when you return to the grotto Jaree-Ra will be alone and is an easy kill
Certainly. I had done this by accident on a few of my previous characters. Recollecting later, once the quest was active, that I had to enter the very grotto I'd just cleared. It's quite a treat to find out you only have to return to grab a single item or kill one person to satisfy a quest outline.
Tl; dr: Go Ctrl + F and type in "My guess is".