Dark Brotherhood Mission Strangely Aborted

[Wahooka]

I am trying to complete the Dark Brotherhood missions.

After getting the Deadrop letter about having to kill a merchant named Alval Uvani, I received an immediate Quest Update: Alval Uvani is dead. Go collect your reward and then recieve your next missions etc...

Since I never killed him, I assume he was accidentally killed at some point earlier in the game. It has always been my concern that NPC's that are important to quests can just be killed by random bear attacks or whatever. Since I am level 48, I don't know at what point this might have happened.

Or it is possible that this is a bug in the game, has anyone else experienced this problem? Is there a fix?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

That guy travels around alot, which usually makes him the most inconvenient person to kill because you usually have to track him down at some random location to kill him.

Because he travels around alot he most likely came close to you somewhere on the road where he was attacked and killed by enemies in the area. In the past I have seen him many times on the road and ignored him so I know you can cross paths with him every so often.

I actually kill him far in advance of that quest, before I even join the Dark Brotherhood.

Since you have to kill someone to get noticed by the Dark Brotherhood, he is the one I usually kill because I know I will have to kill him anyways and it saves me the trouble of having to track him down later.

Alot of the time when it comes time to kill him for the quest he is in Bravil and you have to wait around forever until he leaves, so I kill him when I see him on the road.

[Wahooka]

I think you're right, I have obviously come across him on the road sometime earlier in the game, and he was probably killed in a random bear attack :)

I thought that NPC's involved in quests can only become unconscious, that is why I thought this might be a bug.

Is it worth replaying part of the game in order to do this quest?