As usual in Bethesda games (played a lot of them + always all DLC) you encounter bugs/glitches. We get used to most of them since they do little harm, however sometimes you get gamebreaking bugs and/or glitches and it's even worse if this bug was in the original version as well and is still not patched. Looking this up on the Wikia shows how many people encountered this bug back then!
Broken Quest: At The Summit of Apocrypha (Last mainquest Dragonborn DLC).
What happens: After a certain person dies, you have to read the black book "Waking Dreams" and be transported back to Apocrypha. However, nothing happens when reading the book...or should I say books, since I have Waking Dreams two times for some unknown reason.
Tried Sollutions That Don't Work:
- Going to Apocrypha through any other Black Book, this works but the quest still doesn't continue since you are not in the right spot in that realm.
- Going back to Skyrim and reading it there and going back to Solstheim and reading it again.
- Reloading the save just after that persion dies in the Skaal village.
- Trying to drop the book and/or the duplicate of Waking Dreams, which is impossible since it's quest related and not an option.
- The Wikia also states that the person who dies should have Waking Dreams upon his body, however no black book is found. Even better, when exactly giving him the book before he dies, it's another black book that is taken!
So in short the only sollution is to use another save-file from before. However, all my save files already had the duplicate book and it didn't work there aswell. And as many other people I don't have another one from before going to Solstheim. So the only thing left is to start a new game and hope it doens't happen again, which doesn't make any sense since it should have long been patched!
Not only this but the quest itself, if you look it up, is one of the most broken quests in the game since other bugs in that same quest also stop people from finishing the DLC. Other bugs in this quest:
- Miraak stays ethereal and doesn't absorb the dragon soul because the dragonborn gets the soul instead.
- Miraak becomes invincible if brought to zero health before getting the next dragon soul.
- The dragon will not land and therefore the quest doens't continue.
- The dragon will not appear at the world wall.
- Upon arriving in Apocrypha the game may freeze.
The quest can be easily patched if they just do one of the following (in case of my problem and many others):
- Let the person who dies in the Skaal Village take all copies of Waking Dreams and give you a new copy upon death.
- Give another way of reaching the place in Apocrypha, for example a portal or using one of the other books who do work!
- Make Waking Dreams not essential at the start of this quest so it can be dropped and picked up, so you can use the real book and not a copy version!