So for a while I have had mercer's plans, even before I got deep into the thieves guild questline. (I didn't know the importance of it) I was having trouble getting "The Pursuit" assigned and I read somewhere that it was because I had Mercer's Plans in my inventory, so I dropped them, still unaware of the importance, now I met with karliah and Brynjolf wants me to find evidence of Mercer's plans or something like that (The Pursuit quest) and I don't have the plans. Help? I am level 36 and don't want to restart because of this glitch.

If you are on PC,

That should put the plans back in your inventory.

This is the Xbox forum...

> I read somewhere that it was because I had Mercer's Plans in my inventory <

That's actually true, I don't understand why you dropped them anyway ?

You could first of all try and then if the quest becomes glitchy you should searched a little, because there is a solution.

If you took Mercer's Plans before starting this quest, you cannot complete it

Solution:

Make sure to go back into "Riftweld Manor" to put the plans back on the desk, do this before finishing the previous quest "Hard Answers" and everything should proceed normally. (XBOX 360).

So, i don't know what you should do now, sorry.

A previous save would help a lot...

I dropped them because the quest "The Pursuit" doesn't start if i have them in my inventory. This looks promising just one question, should I put them back before starting the quest or can I load a save where I already collected the translating thing and just place them back before going to the Inn at Winterhold?