I think the escort quests are an evil stumbling block for many players.. i didn't start doing till NG+ and even then Portcrystal cheated through them.. there's also the chance he doesn't "get" which quests are main quests and is just wandering aimlessly.
I heard a lot of people complaining about the escort quests, but I did them as I found them and never had any trouble. In fact, during one of my escort quests - the one with Selene - she actually stayed with me for like 8 hours as I did shit around the world, because I kept avoiding going to that healing spring WAY up north (I hadn't visited that when I took the quest so I was being scary), and she just fucking became our team mascot like a boss. We fought all manner of big enemies with her in tow, and somehow she always survived. As if to thank me, she's the one who entered my cutscenes at the game end.
I only ever failed one escort quest really early on and only because that asshole fell off a cliff randomly for no reason.