Well, after all, weapons were invented because they are easier than using your hands, so, valid. It's fun, though, in the way of things that are interestingly different and challenging. 

Before she embarks on her next adventure, her trainer says she is ready to learn some new spells.

New spells!!! 

She listens attentively with only a little restless excited bouncing. 

They're both ways to channel the Holy Light to help instead of harm. First is a relatively straightforward healing spell, good for most minor battlefield injuries. Second is a spell called a Blessing, which bolsters one's strength.

The universe is forgiven for not letting her have frost armor because healing spells!!!

Theri is so, so excited about this. She has never been great at being a dedicated instance healer but hitting things and then also casually saving nearby lives is basically the central joy of paladining. She crosses off how do: blessings on her to-do list, makes sure she can transition smoothly between swinging her mace-replacement shovel and casting Holy Light, and then skips gleefully off to meet Diane. 

"Hey! Ready to go?"

"I think so! I have a heal spell now!" 

"Ooh, nice."

Now all she has to do is learn Absolution and all problems are solved no, there's almost certainly some reason in real life you can't just mass rez destroyed cities. Alas. 

"Do you think the guy not reporting on time is because of murlocs, or it's going to turn out to be something totally unrelated?" she wonders as they set off in an easterly direction. 

"I kind of hope it's murlocs. Murlocs seem on the manageable end of things it could be. If it's, like, dragons, we might have to run away."

"Mm, yeah, that would be not great. Someday maybe I will be able to fight a dragon if I try hard and believe in myself, but definitely not today." 

"If it was actually dragons though I think we would see more fire and smoke and stuff."

Nod, nod. "Maybe not if - no, I was gonna say 'maybe not if small dragons' but on further reflection small dragons are presumably baby dragons and those are not likely to have good control over what they're setting on fire so even if the resulting fires are smaller there'd be more of them." 

"I bet baby dragons are cute."

"Oh man probably," nod. "Alas, also probably a form of cute to be admired from a distance lest mama dragon take offense? Although I could kinda see them not being that worried about it, as far as dragons are concerned I feel like humans have approximately the threat level of pigeons." 

"Dragons are meaner than we are to pigeons, though."

"I mean some people are jerks who kill pigeons. Also it kinda depends on the dragon, right, aren't some of them sorta friendly? In like a.... terrifying dubiously helpful god way?" 

"I haven't ever really heard of a friendly dragon."

There's a Chromie joke here somewhere about past events that haven't happened yet, she's sure of it, but she can't quite put it together. 

"Oh," she says instead, awkwardly, and then contemplates the example of Ysera and says, "I think I maybe had a dream about one and forgot it wasn't real." 

"Must have been a good dream."

"I can't usually remember all my dreams but probably."

Do they find any murlocs before and/or at the same time as the guard post? 

The guard at the bridge is in no way troubled by any sort of fishy peril, as far as they can tell.

Huh. That's ..... good ... she guesses. 

Does he have anything at all to report? "The Marshal was kinda worried because he hadn't heard from you for a while," she adds to explain this inquiry. 

"We've noticed some murlocs in the area," he says. "Rolf and Malakai went upriver a few days ago to scout, but they haven't come back yet. I'm starting to get worried."

Only a few days ago, huh. Would this have looked different if she had come to a different conclusion about the merits of questline speedrunning, she wonders. 

"Oh dear. We'll go look for them, then," she says, in what she hopes is a confident and reassuring manner.