[i]'Sixty thousand for Mead... that can't be right, there's some other catch to this... you can't go three paces through this bloody snow-land without finding a bottle of Mead somewhere...'[/i]

The above thoughts raced over and over in the head of the Orc courier and veteran Gherken Grumar, as she slowly walked along the path to her destination, taking long strides so she wouldn't get too far ahead of the Imperial lady next to her, what with her height and all. Didn't know much about her, and didn't care to. She looked like a shady sort.

As was custom in these kinds of trips, the Orc had a bottle of Beer in one hand as she strode along, of which she took momentary swigs. But she stopped in her tracks and took an even longer swig when she got closer to the front gates, already open, and witnessed her destination, the, um... thriving Imperial fort town of Helgen.

Formerly. Now it seemed to be the smouldering, Bandit-infested ruin of Helgen. The people ahead of her didn't look like Bandits, though. They were too diverse and well-equipped to be local degenerates; she'd been to Skyrim before, so she knew what Bandits tended to look like. There were some people on the ground that looked like they could have been bandits, though, except for the prissy-looking guy in a robe with an arrow jutting out his jugular.

"Agh, crap." She lamented to herself, before taking another swig and approaching the band of people gathered at the gates. Figuring that they may be on the same job as she (after all, she was told there'd be several), she chose to take out her Collector-approved scroll in advance.

Sure enough, the lot of them darted around, on alert, when she and her shady companion approached. This was good. All signs pointed to these men and women being able to handle themselves.

"I ain't late to... whatever in Oblivion happened here, am I?" She asked, half-jokingly. Good fights were a reliable form of entertainment on long journeys with no company, after all. Good fights. Not bad fights, like wars where non-fighters get caught up in the bloodshed.

However, it seemed that the universe didn't have a sense of humour, as mere moments after she said this and before any of her new best friends could react, more Bandits appeared from the ruins. Eleven of them, including a great hulk of a man that made her eyes widen a little for a moment. He was even taller than her, which was weird for a Nord. Must have been born with some kind of birth defect.

"Bloody typical!" She yelled in response to this new situation, hurling her now-empty bottle of Beer onto the ground. As six of the Bandits started charging at them, she dropped her cumbersome Courier bag on the ground nearby and unsheathed her enormous Battle-axe... though it was more like a long-handled Cleaver, but still, it chopped things and that's all that matters.

Unfortunately, one of the Bandits seemed to get the jump on her and fired an arrow right at her, grazing her on the shoulder. She grunted and flinched slightly, but didn't falter. It was the Alcohol, probably.

Focusing her stance, she began to duck and weave to avoid any other arrows that came her way, hoping that one of her companions would be able to take them out from this distance. The six charging Bandits were typical; unsophisticated, untrained and unfocused rage attacks. Two of them were coming at her specifically, obviously thinking of her as a priority due to her size. Wise. Or stupid. Depends.

Sidestepping to her left as the two Bandits got especially close, she ducked down and swung her Axe in a wide arc, striking the two in the legs as they ran. One of them... she could have sworn she saw his leg come off as he flew, screaming, towards one of the other fighters; the Argonian, to be precise. The other one did a sort of backflip and landed right next to her. Wasting no time, she spun back around to face him, raised her Axe over the general area of his head, and chopped the top of his skull off.

It wasn't exactly a clean cut... the top of his head seemed to fragment, and his brains spilled out. But he was dead, that was for sure. And more importantly, the damage that had been done to her enemies had channeled their health through her weapon, and she felt a sharp yet soothing sensation in her shoulder as that arrow-graze healed itself.

Turning her attention to the Chief, she thought about going to deal with him after the archers got chased away by what looked like some kind of fiery Daedra, but decided against it until after they'd actually died. Hopefully the others would think this as well, as she turned her attention to the other charging Bandits. Common military tactic: people always go for the big ones, so send them in with swarms of little ones. Gherken knew that one well.