Highvale Outskirts mirror/Esmeralda quest bug

This quest has a bug, but there is a workaround.

The repro steps (as best I can recall with a single playthrough) are as follows:

1. Touch the mirror in the tower
2. Find 1 ghostly echo. I found the one by the lake.
   
3. Visit Esmeralda. (I may have completed one of the skull quests after visiting her at this point, but not certain)
   
4. Find 2 more ghostly echos (3 in total at this point)
5. Visit Esmeralda. Ask her about all the steps by clicking the through the dialog prompts. For "step two", I believe she said we're already past step 2, so I didn't get a quest update for it, but she did give an update for the subsequent "step". (I believe I went on to complete the hexe and elder skull quests at this point and turned them in to Esmeralda).
   
6. Find the 4th ghostly echo and complete its quests to unlock the mirrors.
   
7. At this point the mirror in the farmhouse and cabin should be unlocked, but not the tower. The tower mirror should say it doesn't recognize you.
   
8. Tell her about captain burnes' secret. At this point, there will be no active quest goals related to this quest. This is a rather confusing situation as there are yet unfinished parts to the quest.
9. From this point forward, things are more recent in my memory and more certain. I asked her about "step two" (manually typed it in, not clicked). This added the quest goal to re-visit the tower mirror.
10. Before visiting the tower mirror, I asked her about "final step". This added the quest goal to go through the big mirror.
11. I visited the tower mirror and went through it, but the quest goal didn't appear to change (maybe intended?).
12. At this point, the quest is in a bugged state. To recap, the current state is as follows. I have two quest goals (go through tower mirror and go through big mirror). I can go through all 3 small mirrors, but if I click on the big mirror, it says I do not have the required knowledge. Also, upon asking Esmeralda, about "step two", "step three", "final step", or anything else I tried, the quest goals did not update even though I had went through the tower mirror.

In the bugged state described in #12, there appeared to be no way to progress the quest forward.

Relogging (sort of) fixed the bugged quest state. Upon logging back in, the quest goal to enter the tower mirror was removed, and the quest goal to enter the big mirror remained. However, when trying to go through the big mirror after relogging, I still got the message that I didn't have the required knowledge. I went to talk to Esmeralda again and manually asked her about all the steps, but nothing appeared to change. In spite of that, I went back to the big mirror and was relieved to find I was able to click through the mirror this time.

 

Have you spoken to all 4 of the ghostly echoes to get the ghostly echo essence?

 

Yes. I'm fairly sure those were all done by #6.

Prior to discovering Captain Burnes's secret (#8 in OP), I certainly had found all 4 ghosts and clicked through all the dialog prompt at Esmeralda.

Edit: I updated the OP with additional info about when I completed the ghostly echo parts.

 

Do you have the ghostly echo essence in your quest items list? If you don’t, go speak to all 4 again and the last one will give you the essence.

 

If I recall correctly, I got the essence from the 4th ghostly echo and turned it in in #6. After turning it in, the tower mirror did not recognize me, but the farmhouse and cabin mirrors did work.

 

Do you have all 3 of the geist skulls? The geist, hex and Elder?

 

Yes. Those were turned in at or before #6.

 

Ok not sure how to help then.

Also this quest does not stop you from the main Courage quest, just FYI.

 

Oh, I managed to get it fixed by relogging (that removed one of the two quest objectives), then talking to Esmeralda again (even though she didn't say anything new). For some reason, that unlocked the big mirror.

Thanks for trying to help though!