"Huh. I don't think I would be able to keep one of those updated."

"Yeah, I fully expect that it will occasionally contain entries that are like 'I found a silver piece somewhere I guess?' and 'didn't write this down fast enough and forgot what I spent it on' and stuff," especially without banking software helpfully sticking transaction IDs on things, "but some info is better than none!" 

"Well, I guess if it works for you."

Supportive friends are great. 

Can she turn this adventure's loot and quest rewards into a re-hafted shovel and some mail gloves? 

Almost. Maybe if she talks to the Marshal and he gives some.

Shovelcrafting: more expensive than anticipated. All right, off to talk to the Marshal. "There were a lot of kobolds near the mine but the actual mine was full of giant spiders it turns out," she says. "I am not really sure if this is good or bad news but there you are." 

"That is worrisome. Did you have a chance to make it down to the Fargodeep mine?"

Oh right, there's another one. "No, we're going there next." 

"I can't call your mission complete until I have a report on both mines."

That's fair, she supposes.

To Fargodeep, then, hopefully with Diane. Mining along the way, as time and backpack space permits. Is it rude in real life to swing past farmhouses on their way and check if there are urgent problems in need of solving or does this get the traditional "oh good, adventurers, here's a random thing we need help with" response?  

Her memories say that's socially acceptable behavior, but there aren't any farmhouses on a direct line between Goldshire and Fargodeep Mine.

Ah, well. Just mining and kobolds it is, then, unless this time it's going to be giant beetles or something. 

This time it is kobolds all the way down. Diane stuff her pockets full of fabric scraps.

Cool, cool. She was not desperately in need of more surprises, resource gathering and kobolds she can handle. She's keeping an eye out for a ... bigger kobold, or something, though, like how there was a bigger spider. 

Nope, all the kobolds are regular-sized.

She has no complaints about this. They will scout the mine and report back to the Marshal that, yea verily, kobolds. 

Troubling. But good work. They can have a bit of money, and the option to pick a piece of equipment.

Fabulous! She wants gloves. 

Gloves can be had. She feels slightly more full of energy when she puts them on.

Ooooh, the feeling of strength from the belt was not just a coincidence! She has magic items magic magic magic magic eeeee. 

Does the Marshal have a new mission for her? On the one hand she really feels like she should head to Stormwind sooner than later but on the other hand before she got concussed she wasn't planning to go world-adventuring until she'd learned more stuff from Sammuel and now she also has this uncomfortable feeling that this is the human starting zone and if she leaves Elwynn Forest without finishing all the quests she might just be dangerously underleveled and get embarrassingly murdered by a Redshire chicken or something.

Nothing pressing. They could check in with Guard Thomas on the eastern road, it's been a while since his last report.

That goes on the to-do list but isn't urgent, okay.

In real life you don't just speedrun your way to max level and solve the entire kingdom's problems in five minutes; therefore, before she goes Adventuring again in an easterly direction to check in with the bridge guard and investigate murlocs and so on, she's going to try to spend a week in Goldshire getting ready for it. 'Getting ready' in this case means fighting kobolds and wolves until she's noticeably better at it, mining and smelting copper and attempting to learn to make simple armor out of it, running small errands for townsfolk, and wheedling Diane's teacher to show her what she'd need to practice to eventually learn to cast Frost Armor, because there is no way arbitrary class restrictions are a real thing. 

The first step in learning how to cast Frost Armor is to forget everything she knows about being a paladin.

This is quite literal and necessary. The way she's been taught to channel the Light for her magic is entirely inimical to the way a proper mage does things.

Damn it, that's actually a good non-arbitrary reason. How incredibly obnoxious of the universe. 

She thanks the mage trainer for his time anyway, sighing, and focuses on building up her combat skills. When she's dealing with individual kobolds reasonably easily such that she will not immediately die of putting down her weapon, she spends a little time carefully working on fighting without it, too, now that she has mail gloves and touching things isn't continuously the worst. She does not want to be caught suddenly completely incompetent if disarmed, woken up in the middle of the night, unable to locate repair materials in a timely fashion with no backup, et cetera. 

Unarmed fighting is possible, but notably more difficult than using her weapon.