Script To Allow Two Followers

[Allannaa]

I had originally posted this in another thread but I didn't want to hijack that person's questions, so I'm reposting a new thread.
 
I have no trouble at all creating a custom follower; I've done it lots of times.  Kedris is no exception; he works, he acts like a vanilla follower; he can be married, I remembered to Ctrl+ F4 him so he doesn't have the grey face (fur, in his case) bug.  He's basically perfect....
 
BUT...
 
I want to have one follower in addition to Kedris, and I do NOT want to have to use another mod (EFF, UFO, etc, etc).  Those mods are great for their purpose but they do far more than I need or want.  I don't want 100 followers or even five.  I just want to be able to have one additional follower in addition to my own.  I don't want to do ANYTHING ELSE -- Kedris himself works perfectly, and I don't want him to do a bunch of idles, ride horses, bite my neck , or anything else.  I just want to have Kedris plus any one other follower at the same time, without having to use the console to "setplayerfollowercount to 0".
 
I thought it would be simple -- I thought I'd make a quest to hold the script, and then write something very short so that Lydia or Faendal or Serana (or whoever) won't say "Looks like you already have..." and will go ahead and become a follower. 
 
Here's what I did -- But it doesn't work, and I don't know why.  This is the entire workflow, so that if I inadvertantly left out a step or did something goofy, perhaps someone will notice and tell me so I can fix it.

 

1)  I loaded my plugin "AllaSkyrimFollower" and set it to Active

2)  I created a quest and called it "AllaSkyrimFollowerQuest".  I set the Type to None, ticked StartGameEnabled, and ticked Run Once.  I clicked okay, then Saved the plugin.

3)  I double-clicked AllaSkyrimFollowerQuest to edit it.  In the Scripts tab, I put the following script.  The script compiled without a problem, so I Saved the script, then clicked OK on AllaSkyrimFollowerQuest to close it.  I Saved the plugin.

ScriptName AllaFollowerScript extends Quest Conditional
{Allows the player to have a follower in addition to Kedris}

GlobalVariable Property AllaPlayerFollowerCount  Auto  
;Gets the Player Follower Count

ReferenceAlias Property AllaFollowerAlias Auto
;Sets Kedris as the Follower

Message Property  FollowerDismissMessage Auto
Message Property  FollowerDismissMessageWedding Auto
;Not sure these are needed but just in case

Faction Property pCurrentHireling Auto
;Not sure this is needed either
;Leaving it out did nothing and other followers still said the Looks like you already have line

Weapon Property HuntingBow Auto
Ammo Property SteelArrow Auto
;Should remove stupid default hunting bow in favour of what I gave him


Function SetFollower(ObjectReference FollowerRef)

	actor FollowerActor = FollowerRef as Actor
	FollowerActor.SetPlayerTeammate()
	AllaFollowerAlias.ForceRefTo(FollowerActor)
	AllaPlayerFollowerCount.SetValue(0)
	
EndFunction

4)  I checked my MyDocuments>Games>Skyrim>Saves folder -- it's completely empty because I deleted all prior saves yesterday before shutting the computer down for the night.

5)  I made sure AllaSkyrimFollower was checked in the Data Files.

6)  I started Skyrim from my SKSE shortcut, typed ~ to open console, then typed COC RiverwoodBridge (my start-cell of choice).

Kedris was where he was supposed to be; he has the dialogue he's supposed to ("Follow me, I need your help", then his response "Then lead on, friend!") and he follows as he should.   In other words, up to this point, nothing is changed or broken; Kedris works exactly like he did yesterday.

7)  We went to Riverwood, I went through the little piece of nonsense with Sven and Camilla in order to make it possible to get Sven as a follower....

... And it didn't work.  I got the standard "Looks like you've already got someone..." line from Sven.

 

Since it didn't work, I deleted the Saves in the above folder, shut down the computer and rebooted, started Skyrim with the SKSE shortcut, and started a New game, cart ride and all.  Again, Kedris himself works great.  But I'm still not able to recruit a second follower.

 

Should I have assigned a "Type" to the quest?

 

Should I have left "Run Once" UNticked?

 

Should I have put the script in the game's default follower quest instead of in the separate quest I made?  I was afraid if I did that, I'd screw up the vanilla side, or screw up Kedris.
 
Should I have attached it to Kedris himself -- and NOT put it in a quest?
 
I'm going nuts trying to figure this out.  (I already went nuts working on another mod, which is why I am trying to revamp this one.)