I played vanilla Morrowind back in 2002, and bought Morrowind GOTY on Steam this summer. Eager to see some new content, I made a beeline for Khuul, just stopping to explore various towns and dungeons along the way. Currently I'm L5, Redguard Knight.

At Fort Frostmoth, I started "The Frostmoth Smugglers" quest. Gaea Artoria is my escort. Encountered Mus Roscious, and he two-shotted me. Obviously I am not strong enough for this quest, and Bloodmoon was evidently meant for high level characters.

Here's the problem - I saved in the middle of the quest. This is my only save, other than an auto-save which is also in the middle of the quest.

Can I just tell Artoria to wait in the caves, while I skulk back to Vvardenfell where I'll spend the next several months doing stock Morrowind stuff and levelling up in the process? Will she still be there when I'm ready to tackle the quest? Or did I screw up the quest by starting it before I was ready?