Cidhna Mine quest breaks if you side with the Forsworn first

[WhiterunModder]

I just realized I might've softlocked myself and I'm trying to figure out if there's a console fix or if I need to reload. Playing on PC so at least I have options, but I want to know if this is a known thing.

So I did the Forsworn Conspiracy quest in Markarth, sided with the Forsworn in the mine, got the key from Madanach. Went back to the surface thinking I'd wrap up the guards' side of things later. Now when I try to talk to the guards outside about the murders, they just... won't initiate dialogue about the actual quest. They treat me like I'm hostile or something.

Did I lock myself out of the quest entirely by going Forsworn first? I thought you could do both paths depending on your choices but maybe the quest flags broke. Has anyone else run into this or is it just a load order issue on my end? I'm running USSEP and a few quest mods so it could be a conflict.

 

[DragonbornVet]

Yeah, you've locked yourself out of the guards' path. The Forsworn Conspiracy quest has a hard branch - once you side with Madanach and get that key, the guards become permanently hostile to you as far as the quest is concerned. You can't do both paths in a single playthrough, despite what it might seem like.

It's not a softlock though, the quest just ends on the Forsworn side. You won't be able to complete the guards' objectives, but you're not stuck in a broken state - you just made a mutually exclusive choice. The guards won't talk to you about the murders because from their perspective you're now allied with the people who killed those people.

If you really want to do the guards' path instead, you'd need to reload a save before you went into the mine with Madanach. USSEP shouldn't cause this - that's just how the quest is designed. A quest mod could theoretically be interfering, but this is vanilla behavior.