Elsa was only just accommodating Tacitus, and now the kindly Redguard was eyeing him suspiciously. Better not tangle with that fellow, he thought. She's too much trouble anyway. Stick to what you know. He gradually made his way away from Elsa and walked along in silence. As the sun began to sink, Freyr emerged from the woods in a panic. Tacitus hadn't noticed that the Nord had even wandered away, but he had, and now he was back with fresh game. When Freyr directed the party's attention to the object of his panic, a wave of fear seemed to sweep through; a plume of smoke was visible from a nearby settlement, called Helgen. The dragon had done this. It was decided that the group would avoid Helgen and keep walking. Not long after this, they came across a watchtower occupied by bandits. Freyr and Elsa, the apparent wilderness experts of the group took out a few of the bandits and the group moved up, only to be accosted by four more bandits. The cocky Telvanni wizard ran his sword through the back of one, and then prepared two fistfuls of shock magic.
Suddenly, Tacitus turned to see a bulky Orc bandit charging him, clad in heavy iron armor and a battleaxe overhead. Tacitus reacted quickly, ducking and drawing his sword. The clumsy Orc's axe came down on the ground behind Tacitus, and he took the opportunity to go to work on the bandit. He sliced along the exposed skin between the Orc's torso armor and trousers, then stood up in the startled embrace of the bandit, driving his katana up through the smelly outlaw's armpit and out his back, knocking against the inside of the heavy armor. He then kicked the back of the bandit's knees, causing them to buckle, spun his blade so that it was backwards in his hand, and pulled the Orc in close to drive the blade up into his meaty ribs. When the bandit lay dead at his feet, Tacitus wiped his blade on some cloth protruding from under the corpse's armor, then set to another bandit. This one was clad in fur armor, and wielded a one-handed sword. The bandit spun his sword over his head before bringing it down with a cry. Tacitus deftly dodged the swipe, slamming his knee down onto the man's sword-hand, then elbowing him in the nose, throwing him backward, and driving his sword through the man's throat. Tacitus stood, panting, taking a brief respite from the combat. Usually he was drunk when he fought like that, and he was too numb to feel exhausted or hurt. But he was sober, and he damned himself for it.
Briefly a thought made itself known, to Tacitus' amusement; Let's see what she thinks of that, eh? Oh, who in Oblivion am I kidding. But at least she might respect me a little. But this thought was interrupted by the sight of Farth struggling against a mace-wielding bandit. To Tacitus' puzzlement, the bard was not faring well, even with his "size"-able advantage. Tacitus chuckled at his inward pun, then ran to the man's aid, kicking the bandit in the side and driving his katana through his chest.
