A dragon attacked Winterhold - how do I find Faralda?
I spoke with Faralda at the entrance to the College of Winterhold and she asked me to perform the Magelight spell. I bought it from her but before I could cast it a dragon attacked the city.
I killed the dragon, but when I return to the college entrance to speak with Faralda she had gone.
How do I find her and gain entrance to the College of Winterhold?
Solution 1:
tl;dr - Use Console (on PC) or Reload, get rid of the dragon, then talk to Faralda.
According to this list of bugs:
If a dragon attacks before you can cast the spell Faralda has requested, she will disappear entirely from the game
If you're on PC you can use the console command:
setstage MG01 30
This will set the First Lessons quest to the objective where you have cast the required spell and must speak to Mirabelle Ervine, the Master Wizard.
If you're not on PC there seems to be no clear solution. I would recommend reloading a previous save (as soon as possible before the dragon appeared) then hang around Winterhold to see if the dragon attacks this time. If it does then kill it, then attempt to talk to Faralda. Don't talk to Faralda at all until the dragon is dead or doesn't seem to be arriving at all.
The trigger for the bug seems to be the following events:
- Talk to Faralda and be asked to perform the spell
- Dragon attacks Winterhold and is killed
- Return to College entrance to perform spell
- Faralda has disappeared
Basically you want to avoid having points 1 and 2 run in that order - preferably the reverse.