So I beat off all the mercenaries in Black Briar lodge and rode away to safety on Frost with his lineage papers. I followed the quest marker to where I was supposed to meet Louis (a little north of Riften), and nothing. I can't find him anywhere. Do I need to wait for a certain time of day? I told Maven Black-Briar of the plot. Would that have an effect? I want to finish this quest.
UPDATED: So after fast traveling to a new city, to see if that would trigger him to show up, the prompt for Frost now says "Ride Frost" instead of "Steal Frost." Does that mean I can no longer finish the mission?
23 Answers
Louis Letrush may disappear if you talk to Sibbi Black-Briar before accepting Louis deal. The solution described by Elder Scrolls Wiki will require you to go back a few saves if you're not on PC.
Reveal the plan to Maven_Black-Briar and continue the quest as normal. In order to trigger Louis' appearance, you must steal the papers which will be unmarked. Speaking to Maven may cause the "steal the papers" portion of the quest to be marked complete, and you'll even receive a notice that you've accepted the papers but if they are not in your inventory then you must steal them from the lodge or the quest cannot be completed.
In case you are playing on PC you can use console commands - case sensitive - to place him by your side or move to his position, respectively.
player.placeatme 13368 1
or
3player.moveto 19DCA
The only way I got it to work was by creating a new copy of him (player.placeatme -his ID) when he spawns in the quest continues normally.
Go back to the black briar lodge, kill all the mercenaries and go to the basement where you should find a table with a paper (frost's paper). I don't specifically know where the table is but it can be easily found. Once you stole the paper the quest will tell you to steal frost and then meet up with him. I haven't found him there though but I just waited until 10:00 am he just suddenly appeared out of nowhere. That's all I know but I'm not quite sure if it would work for you.
