Wow. After doing all of that for over an hour... I fast traveled to the port at Wulfaswic and rode back to the event on my horse and the speech bubble was there. Glad I was able to take care of this but damn, that was so annoying.

I can't trigger this world event. There's no speech bubble to talk to the man. He simply walks around the ruins just talking to himself. I've shot out the wood on the top part of the ruins and nothing happens either. No fight triggers. Currently, I've reloaded an old save where the wood wasn't shot out to prevent the quest from bugging further if there is a fix.

I've read around the forums and notice other people are having the same issue but have yet to find a fix.

I've tried verifying game files, reloading old saves, quitting to desktop and restarting, quitting to title screen and restarting, completing all other mysteries in the area, meditating, interacting at day and night, removing all armor and weapons, blowing the horn, talking to him on horseback, fast traveling back and forth - NOTHING ... the only thing that I can think of is maybe it's because I'm not currently working on the Essexe arc that its not triggering? I'll see what happens after I finish up with the Suthsexe arc

He responds with some dialogue when I burst into the ruins with the horse but still I'm unable to interact with him.

Some help would be greatly appreciated. I've invested 110 hours into this game with hopes of going for a full 100% completion. It would disgust me if my 100% run was held back due to something so minor.