Hi Im a level 20 and had one companion from dragonsreach who died on me.. Now i try to use hirelings, says i have a companion? who do they see cause i see no one at all.. Thanks for any help as to how to fix this as i would love to hire a hireling. Is there anything i can do ? Or do i have to play this game, companion less?
Hi Chixaluv,
I think what you're referring to is actually a "follower." The Companions are a sort of guild of warriors that are also lycanthropes. The person accompanying you from Dragonsreach was probably Lydia, a follower that serves you while you are Thane of Whiterun. Unfortunately when she's killed, she won't respawn, so you wont be able to use her as a follower again.
That doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other followers to choose from! If you have joined a faction (such as The Companions, or the Thieves Guild, or whatever) and completed the Questlines up to a certain point, your compatriots in the faction will become available to you as followers. You can also hire someone to follow you, such as Janessa (she can be found in the Drunken Huntsman in Whiterun), but sometimes it's more worthwhile to complete a few quests and acquire followers that way.
If you're having the issue where you attempt to hire a follower and the system claims you already have one, then it could be one of two things:
1. Your previous follower wasn't really dead, just knocked unconscious. If you know where you say her last, you might go back and check. Sometimes Followers can be defeated without being killed.
2. You've encountered a glitch where the computer won't acknowledge your follower's death. Sometimes this can be fixed by completing a quest that requires another follower to join you (like when Farkas accompanies you to... whereever. He seems to go alot of places with you during Companion plotline quests). If completing a quest with a requires follower doesn't work, then you may have to load a previous save from before when your original follower died.