Hi folks,

I was just wondering how this is SUPPOSED to work?

I've been playing Skyrim since it was released and it's only ever happened to me twice.

The first time I didn't even notice and she was killed.

It happened again yesterday and it all left me a bit confused.

I got back home, to Lakeview Manor, after completing the Dawnguard finale to find a bandit running around outside my house, attacking one of my adopted children and my horse was attacking the bandit.

I just assumed it was part of a regular bandit raid and killed the bandit, looted the corpse and found a ransom note.

About 30 seconds later I got a "quest complete" message which, as it turned out, was because killing the bandit meant my wife got executed immediately.

I DID notice that the bandit wasn't a red dot on my HUD and was saying things like "why are you attacking me?" and "I'm on your side!" during the fight.

So, reload my save from Castle Volkihar, travel back to Lakeview Manor again and the same thing is happening again.

This time I just let it all play out.

The bandit was chasing my child around, the horse attacked the bandit, the horse got killed (which sealed the fate of the bandit kidnappers), the child eventually ran inside my house and then the bandit ran away.

Meanwhile, Serana just stood next to me, moaning about the "beautiful Skyrim weather", so I guess she didn't have a problem with the bandit killing my horse and swinging a sword at my kid either.

Since I already knew (from the first run-through of these events) what was going on, I headed over to the mine where the kidnappers were based, slit all their throats and rescued my wife.

So, I was just wondering how this is SUPPOSED to work.

Is the bandit supposed to confront you and give you the ransom letter in a similar way to what Couriers do?