"Theri!" a voice calls out. A fireball wooshes past to hit the kobold squarely in the chest. It runs around in a panic for a moment, then flops over with a dramatic final gurgle.

Theri is on the ground now.

"Ow?" she says, in the puzzled tones of a person who does not clearly remember how she got to be on the ground. 

"Oh my gosh, are you okay?" Her friend Diane rushes up to her side. "Here, I think I have an apple somewhere..." She starts patting the pockets in her favorite red shirt. She sewed it herself, saying that no one else will ever put as many pockets on a garment as she needs.

Ten minutes ago she was sitting at a computer. Ten minutes ago she was also hunting kobolds with her friend who she has known for years and has also never met. 

"My head hurts," she reports, slightly unsteadily. "Um. Apple sounds great thank you you're great." She glances down at herself to check whether she is otherwise okay and does a slight double-take. 

Is she holding a mace? Wait, of course she is, she mined the ore herself to take to the blacksmith and everything, it took forewhat. 

"Aha!" Diane pulls out an apple, only slightly bruised, and offers it to Theriel.

Spectacular. Now she can eat this apple very gratefully and have an excuse not to have to say any words using her face for a minute. 

Which is good, because they would be very garbled words, because Theriel is deeply, deeply confused. 

On the one hand, of the two sets of memories she now seems to have, the set where she remembers Diane and Goldshire and learning to use this heavy two-handed bludgeoning weapon are probably her real memories, since here she is in Goldshire with Diane. But on the other hand, the other set of memories seem to contain a lot of things Theriel of Goldshire could not possibly have just imagined in their entirety and had them be remotely internally consistent, such as for example a working understanding of computers or the ability to do calculus, and they are quite sure that Goldshire is not a real place. Although she's not sure she can derive the fundamental theorem of calculus from memory, maybe she is just hallucinating that it's a real thing? Is it possible to hallucinate so hard you invent Microsoft Office?? 

... huh, she feels way better now. Like, a weird amount better considering she almost certainly just got concussed. 

She tilts her head, pokes herself in the temple. No more pain. "Nice. Thanks Diane, you're a lifesaver." 

"Ehehe." She smiles smugly. "The power of pockets."

"The most important part of clothes." Nod, nod. 

Theriel gets up and dusts herself off. Blue pants, front-laced shirt, boots, mace. Okay, so she has... generic rpg starting equipment, that's totally fine and not at all weird. 

She hefts her weapon. The weight of it is strangely, comfortingly familiar. 

"Alright, let's try that again, shall we?" 

"Yeah! This time try remembering to dodge or block or whatever it is you do with that thing. My back's gonna start hurting if I have to carry us all day."

"Rude," says Theri, extremely fondly. 

And so they attempt to fight kobolds again. Whether or not she hallucinated the existence of computers, it does seem like if she tells her body to attack that thing right over there, it definitely has - 

- a cached response. 

The kobold does not like this very much. In fact, it very much does not like this.

Its indignant screech is cut short by another fireball to the chest. "HaHA! Take that!" crows Diane. "Nice one, Theri."

She grins broadly in Diane's general direction and goes after the next one. 

Hitting actual monsters in real life with an actual weapon is, it turns out, at least twice as satisfying as either of hitting actual people with fake weapons or hitting imaginary monsters with imaginary-real weapons. It is therefore incredibly tempting to dash around at top speed swinging wildly at everything and cackling, but - mages run out of mana, don't they? Theriel keeps half an eye on the one backing her up, ready to stop and wait if it seems called for. 

She waves for a pause after the next one, pulling a small flask out of a pocket and sitting down to drink.

Obliging pause. (Bounce gleefully on toes, spin in a circle.) More time to figure out what in the absolute heck is up with her brain. 

She grew up not so far from Echo Ridge Mine and yet, also, doesn't remember having heard of it, or going there. The nearest memories she can summon up of Goldshire involve getting sucked into open-world PVP somehow. (Into what now, why does she have a mental image of the street full of fire and orcs, that definitely didn't happen.) Did she forget doing this quest at first level? (Is she first level, what does that even mean.) Wasn't there something with - lots of open fields, and a mage in a Stormwind Guard uniform who was very proud of her when she threw her first Judgment and it wasn't Diane - 

This is fine. She's fine. Smashing kobolds is a fantastic stress relief mechanism. 

"Good to go?" 

"Ye-" She goes to put the bottle back in her pocket, then stops. "-Actually no. Need to summon some more water." She tosses the bottle aside. It poofs into nothingness when it hits the ground.

Diane holds her hands in front of her, making arcane gestures and muttering under her breath. A new flask appears in her hand, and she stuffs it away. "Okay, good to go."

Magic is neat. 

She is gonna be so jealous when Diane learns to teleport but, also, she is going to get to jump off buildings and bubble her way out of taking any damage and she cannot wait to find out how much more fun that is in real life. Er, assuming that's actually how that works. 

... Well, off they go again, and presumably eventually they will kill enough kobolds that she will get some evidence of how much reality resembles this video game she may or may not have hallucinated, right? Because either they will, unlike video game characters, experience normal human fatigue, or they will, like video game characters, level up. 

There's no ding, but neither is she overly tired by the time they've killed eight more kobolds. The remaining ones start shouting about candles and run away.

"I think that means we win!"

oh no the candles now she's sad about killing them get it together, Theri, if this is fake they're fake and if it's real they've been attacking real people. 

"Yeah! We were awesome!" Enthusiastic fist-pump. 

And now they ... collect payment? Loot the kobolds? Why is she expecting to see a floating yellow question mark that she can follow to know what to do, that is actually insane. 

Let's go with looking for loot, followed by reporting back to whoever is in charge of this little militia. 

They can scavenge a few copper pieces plus some miscellaneous shiny things from the bodies. Diane also collects some scrap fabric. It needs washed, but is still usable.

Then it's back to Marshal McBride at Northshire Abbey, who is in charge of the militia efforts here.

Ooh, miscellaneous shiny things! None of them good enough to make jewelry out of, probably, more's the pity. Theriel cheerfully reports to Marshal McBride that she and Diane killed ten kobolds, and is there anything else she/they can do to help? 

She resists the urge to add "arrest a large and memetic gnoll, perhaps," because that would be a bizarre thing to say and also possibly they would die, but only barely. (Should she be caring about efficient leveling? Eh, probably not, she's never leveled efficiently in her life. And the plot is all the way in the ocean right now or something anyway, right, they pretty much ignored the whole sword of Sargeras thing because Azshara is the exciting new - wait, why do her hallucinatory memories think there's a giant sword in the planet. Theriel does kind of live in the middle of nowhere and everything relatively speaking but she's pretty sure she would have heard about that.) 

There's been reports of a group of bandits nearby. They could check it out, if they're so eager to help. Milly Osworth is hanging around the monastery somewhere, and may know more. Marshal McBride will continue to stand here, overseeing things. It's a very important job, and keeps him quite busy.

If she's going to live here and be a paladin she probably needs to get over being nervous about hitting actual people with actual weapons smart quick, huh. 

.. Yeah, she's down for investigating some bandits. With Diane, hopefully. "You're in, right? Can't very well go fight things by yourself without me between you and the kindling," grin, "you'd get hit with a single leaf and die or something." 

"Excuse you," she pouts. "I'll have you know that I have weeded entire gardens without incident. But yes, obviously I'm in."

Giggle.

And they're off to see Milly Osworth! 

Milly is behind the abbey, gazing across the river.

"Oh, adventurers! Have you come to help?"

Gosh she is an adventurer now and not just a villager. That's so exciting.  

"Yes!!" 

"My vineyard has been taken over a group of bandits wearing strange red bandannas. They called themselves the Defias. Can you drive them off before they drink all the wine?"

"We're on it!"

Oh hey, she remembers this. This is about how these guys are all up in arms because of the death of what's his face the stonemason in the old Deadmines after Varian made several unwise governing choices, and then it turns out his daughter is in charge of them and it's all very dramatic and tragic. Why does she know that. ... Oh, this is a great opportunity to test if her bizarre concussion-induced memories bear any resemblance to reality! She can totally figure out what they're so mad about that they gave themselves a group name and if it's actually something to do with the stonemason's guild then maybe she actually knows things. 

"We should figure out why they're doing this," she suggests to Diane. 

Do any of the bandits in the vineyard talk if threatened and/or hit and/or (thank you, mage friend, Theri loves you, mage friend) set moderately on fire? 

They are generally defiant of the "Alliance lapdogs", and seem confident that someone named Garrick Padfoot will show them the error of their ways.

(The thieves also have more money and better quality stuff than the kobolds did.)

The sentiment is familiar but the name is not. Hm. 

Well, they can gather some loot and accomplish a quest objective, at least. 

(It is both reassuring and weirdly disappointing that she seems to have an actual backpack and not an invisible video game inventory.) 

"Do you think we should go back and tell the Marshal about this Garrick guy?" asks Diane as they rescue the last of the wine bottles.

"Yeah, good idea, that sounds like information he might be interested in." And he conveniently hardly ever moves from his supervisory spot, which is great because as soon as she needs to follow directions more complicated than 'behind this building you are already standing in front of' she is almost certainly going to have a problem with how she can hardly navigate her way out of a paper bag without a map.

(... or without Maps, really. Which definitely doesn't exist. Man, she is going to be feeling the internet withdrawal super hard any hour now.) 

Back to the abbey! They can drop off the wine with Milly, who gives them a silver apiece.

Marshal McBride strokes his chin thoughtfully at the news of the bandit leader. He'll have to think about what to do about this. In the meantime, the two of them can go ahead and pick out one piece of gear or a weapon each from the Militia's armory, since they've been working so hard.

Theriel accepts a silver coin cheerfully, thanks the Marshal for his time and the reward, and then stalls out slightly in the process of attempting to actually select one.

How is she supposed to decide which piece of gear is best without convenient hover info?? 

How about .... this nice belt? She doesn't have one of those at the moment and it will make her outfit feel less incomplete. 

It might be her imagination, but she feels just a little bit stronger after putting the belt on.

Diane chooses a brown cloak, on the basis of the spring nights still being a little crisp and also lots of surface area for additional pockets.

Huh. Weird but cool. Maybe with enough gear she'll feel not just like she's stronger than her possibly fictional desk-job self but like she's actually got superhuman strength, that'd be rad.

If they go back to Marshal McBride has he manifested any ideas about what to do about the Defias? 

The Marshal has concocted a brilliant scheme to deal with the Defias leader, to whit: send Theriel and Diane to deal with him.

Theriel is on board with this plan. Does he, uh... have any idea where this Garrick character might be physically located? 

Somewhere near the vineyard, most likely. But that's the sort of detail they can sort out themselves. He's the idea marshal.

Okay, sure, they can go back to the vineyard, they were just there and there are plenty of big tall plants that someone could theoretically have been hiding behind. 

Their mark will probably not be wearing a nametag, though. Or have his name floating conveniently above his head.

"Gosh," says Theriel loudly once they're back in the vicinity of the vineyard, "I sure hope that Garrick Padfoot guy isn't hiding around here somewhere to show us the error of our ways." 

"You think that'll work?"

Shrug. "No idea! But I don't have a spell for finding people, do you?" 

"Not unless you counting setting a really big fire, I guess? But Miss Osworth might not appreciate that."

Snicker. "Really effective pest control! And yet, no, she probably would not." 

If shouting is unfruitful perhaps next they could try canvassing the area in some sort of systematic fashion, going down each row of plants and checking behind particularly tall fenceposts and so on. 

This does not reveal any hiding bandit chiefs.

"-Hey, what about that clearing over there? It'd be pretty hard to sneak up on anyone hiding back there."

"Oh, yeah, let's look." Their collective combat strategy does not very much rely on sneaking so if he's hiding back there, seeing them coming won't help him very much! 

It would help even less if she could conjure hammers from the ether and throw them at range, but she does not seem to have a mental action that makes that happen. (Yet, growth mindset? Maybe she needs to get Brother Sammuel to show her how, when she was playing the game he was just a cosmetic holdover from earlier grittier versions and she would not have even remembered his name but here in her actual life he's who taught her practically everything she knows.)

Any bandit chiefs over here in this clearing? 

There is one, in fact.

"More lambs to the slaughter!" he shouts when he sees them, drawing his sword.

"Oh no," says Theriel, hefting her ridiculous mace, "but we have no mint jelly." 

Time to head into melee range at an enthusiastic run! 

Padfoot is a better fighter than her other opponents today have been. Still, he doesn't have a pocket mage, and it becomes obvious he's not going to win against the pair of them. He decides to try for a tactical retreat.

Her kingdom for Hammer of Justice.  

"Hey, no running away," she complains. 

She contemplates tackling him, has a vivid recollection of being stabbed in the midst of attempting to initiate grapple with a fake dagger which she would very much not like to repeat with an actual dagger, and instead shifts her angle of attack to try to encourage his "retreat" to swing around toward the monastery. 

Diane stops throwing fireballs and tags the fleeing bandit with a frostbolt, slowing him enough for Theriel to catch him.

She can take an opportunity when it's handed to her on a silver platter. 

... Is she going to have to decapitate him and carry his head to the Marshal or is there some less horrifying way to prove they did the thing? 

"We can probably just take the bandanna or something?" Diane says doubtfully, prodding the body with her foot. "Oh, hey, he's got some kind of badge on his shirt."

Theriel sighs with moderate relief. She's feeling weird enough about the, uh, actual human dead body that she personally killed. "Oh, good, that is way less gruesome and horrible," she says, and takes the badge. And his sword, for good measure. 

Back to the Marshal to receive a Good Job sticker? 

The badge, if she cares to examine it, proclaims the bearer to be a member in good standing of the Stonemason's Guild, No. 678. It has a lion's head above crossed hammer and chisel.

!!! 

She was right!! 

... wait, this might be terrible. Enthusiasm on hold until she figures out exactly how her freaky concussion knowledge maps to reality. It can't be directly, in the game practically every zone is at a different point in one of several timelines.

"You'd think at some point somebody would realize that you get fewer angry bandits if you just, like, pay people for their jobs," she says conversationally to Diane. 

"Huh?" Diane is confused what has prompted this comment.

"The stonemasons," she clarifies, showing Diane the badge. "They're mad because they didn't get paid, it was a whole thing, and if that's who the Defias are, that, uh, provides an obvious explanation for why they are bandits." 

"The stonemasons were craftsmen, though. Like artisans. They had families, and stuff. I don't think they could all be Defias."

"Wouldn't have to be all of them, just enough to cause," gesture around at the vineyard they recently had to clear a bunch of bandits out of, "a problem." 

"I guess... Well, let's go show the marshal."

Nod. 

What does the Marshal have to say about this interesting piece of evidence? 

He strokes his chin thoughtfully. "Hmm. Well done, you two. I'll see this finds its way to the appropriate hands." Theriel feels an odd warm glow.

"There are beds made up in the abbey. You can rest here for the night, and I'll write up a letter of commendation for you to take back to Goldshire with you in the morning."

Ah yes, the warm fuzzy glow of satisfaction in a job well no wait that can't be right. She's ever felt warm and fuzzy about accomplishing a task and it doesn't feel so much like an actual thing happening. Maybe she has more hit points! That would be cool, except for how there's not really any safe way to test it.

Theriel thanks the Marshal for his hospitality and the opportunity to help (she loves helping!), and then it is time to obtain some sweet, sweet rested XP sleep, as normal humans need to do. 

Yes, it has been a busy day. Diane gets slightly distracted by the many books on the shelves lining the abbey's walls.

Diane is extremely valid.

... are they allowed to touch the books and if so is any of them a history book? 

Yes, to both.

Great! 

In the time before they need to actually for real sleep, Theriel would like to at least skim whatever here is closest to claiming to be a history of the Alliance. She's not expecting to find anything on recent history - in a world without the printing press (although maybe they have a magic equivalent?) the history books probably update on a scale of generations, not years - but she wants to know what the perspective of the people who actually live in Azeroth is on the events of, like, the Warcraft games. She-who-lived-in-Goldshire-all-her-life doesn't know much more than "Stormwind is where the King lives and also there are elves somewhere probably." 

The evil orcish Horde first invaded Azeroth about forty years ago, and ravaged the kingdom of Stormwind. Later, the Northern Alliance of Lordaeron, Stromgarde, and Kul Tiras, with token support from the elves and dwarves returned to the south in force to drive the Horde back. The kingdom of Stormwind was restored and a watch set over the Dark Portal that the orcs came from. There was one additional push out from the Portal, but this was soundly defeated, and a brave group of volunteers, among them the great hero Anduin Lothar, the elven ranger Alleria Windrunner, and the archmage Khadgar, crossed over to seal it from the other side. Thanks to their sacrifice, humanity enjoyed a period of peace, with the evil orcs confined to internment camps or the deep wilds.

Some ten years ago, many things happened at once. The majority of the orcs, under the command of Thrall, migrated to Kalimdor. A plague of undeath swept through the north, and the kingdoms of Stromgarde and Lordaeron fell, betrayed by Prince Arthas Menethil. Arthas then led the undead Scourge on a path of destruction that destroyed the high elven kingdom of Quel'Thalas. The elves rebuilt their kingdom, but the humans did not. Lordaeron was claimed by Sylvanas Windrunner, styling herself the Banshee Queen, and her Forsaken, the undead former inhabitants of the region. Arthas Menethil disappeared, and is suspected to have traveled to icy Northrend with the remains of his Scourge.

Meanwhile, a Kul Tiran expedition to Kalimdor led by Jaina Proudmoore made contact with both the orcs and the mysterious night elves. After dealing with the treacherous orcs who succumbed again to the fel bloodlust, the Kul Tirans and the night elves joined forces to throw back the forces of the Burning Legion and their leader, Archimonde. The remnants of the Horde, still led by Thrall and now allied with the tauren, also made a small contribution to this effort. The night elves joined the Northern Alliance after this, now called simply the Alliance, with Stormwind returned to its rightful place as the leader.

Great, okay, that all seems basically familiar. It's sort of funny how the story of the last generation basically ends "and then Arthas runs off to Northrend to be evil" and then a zillion things happened which somehow all ended up right back at "and then Sylvanas runs off to Northrend to be evil." Ah, the cycle of unlife. Maybe there are political historians right now writing sad retrospectives about how to prevent it from happening ten years from now again, that would be depressingly hilarious. It won't help, she suspects, Azeroth being sort of perpetually on fire. 

She sleeps fitfully, and dreams of N'zoth. 

In the morning there is breakfast, and two letters of commendation for delivery to Marshal Duggan in Goldshire, should they decide to continue to aid the militia.

Mmm, breakfast. Theriel wonders if the fact that mana recovers with eating and drinking and can be ingested in the form of potions means magic in Azeroth is in general associated with a metabolic process for human(oid)s and doing lots of paladining will mean she has to eat more. Maybe Diane would know. "Hey, you know things about how magic works, do you suppose I am super hungry because of channeling the Light to be good at hitting things or is it just all the running around?" 

"Hm. It's a bit of both, I think? Mana can't just come from nothing."

"That makes sense." 

"As much as anything does, I guess. Oh! Except I found a book last night that had a spell for making mana cakes, and it said you could survive on them in a pinch."

"Huh. What a neat and also puzzling fact. I wonder if 'in a pinch' means, like, don't do it unless the alternative is starving to death because you'll be really painfully exhausted, or just don't do it all the time because eating nothing but sugar is not ideal for your health." 

"Dunno! It seems pretty easy, though, so I could cast it some and we can try."

"Science!" she agrees cheerfully. 

And once they've eaten their non-magical food, bid good-day to the people of the abbey and head back to Goldshire? 

Sounds like a plan!

They're stopped on the way out by someone who wants to know if they'll carry a letter to his brother the innkeeper in Goldshire. Even though the mailbox....... is right there.....

It would probably be rude to ask him if the problem is he can't afford the copper coins for postage, wouldn't it. Even though clearly he can afford ink and paper. 

"Sure, I guess, it won't be out of the way," shrugs Theriel. It'll be probably at least five minutes out of her way, actually, but she likes it when people tell her she's helpful. 

Diane grumbles about the mailbox thing for at least half the trip, once they're out of earshot.

This is a super reasonable response. Theriel spends most of this nodding agreeably and trying to resist the urge to make an incomprehensible comment about how the difference between walking and mail delivery is basically negligible at this distance compared to e-mail, and then it occurs to her that there is no way the Azeroth mail system in any way resembles the United States Postal Service. " - and wouldn't that probably even have been faster than waiting for us to walk, too," she agrees to Diane's latest grumble, "isn't the mail operated by elementals or something." 

"-I don't really know. I think you just build a mailbox and hope for the best."

"Pfffhfhahah oh my gosh what? There's not even a spell? You just - you just build a mailbox and magically the mail goes?? That's a strategy someone tried for the first time at some point and it worked?" 

Somehow this mental image makes the mailementals even cuter than they already were, which was very. 

"Maybe the elves made the spell first and it's just kept going since then."

"Ah, yes, that does seem like how elves." 

"I'd like to meet an elf someday."

Nod, nod. "They must be so fascinating! I think I'd be horribly jealous, though, thousands of years of lifetime, can you imagine?" 

"I would learn so many spells. A spell for every occasion. Just like bam, pow!" She mimes tossing off magic with flashy movements.

"Yeah! It'd be so cool! Everyone would be all, 'how do we solve this incredibly obscure arcane mystery? I know, we'll ask Archmage Diane, she has a thing for everything'!" grins Theriel. "And meanwhile I'd just be off gleefully spending centuries making needlessly elaborate jewelry and climbing mountains and stuff, like, call me when you require my approximately one spell for the one specific occasion of 'demons'."  

Diane laughs. "That comes up more often than it probably should, to be fair."

Snicker. "Not false." 

Anything else of interest along the road before they get back to Goldshire? 

Not especially, no. It's a nice, boring walk.

Lovely! In that case probably they can swing by the inn first thing, that'll be an easy to-do item to get out of the way before they split off to do between-adventures stuff. 

"Your brother couldn't be bothered to pay postage," Theriel informs Farley cheerfully, waving the letter at him as she hops casually over the entryway railing, and then stops in surprise to marvel at her own upper body strength. Apparently having spent much of one's life practicing to be a frontline melee combatant gets you different results from spending it doing math, who knew. 

"Aye, that sounds like Francis. Thank you, ladies. Would you care for a bite to eat?"

"Happy to help, and that sounds lovely!" 

Diane walks around the railing more sedately, and they can have a nice lunch of warm bread, soft cheese, and fresh water.

William Pestle, the local alchemist, wanders over to inquire how they found their day out on kobold patrol.

"So awesome!" enthuses Theriel. "We beat a bunch of kobolds and also some bandits and a bandit chief, I got hit a little but Diane was all prepared for that so it was totally fine, and the Abbeyfolk called us adventurers like we're real professionals now, it was really exciting!" 

Well, if they ever happen to adventure across any more kobolds, he could use some of their candles. He has some clients in Stormwind that purchase certain specialty potions that use the candle wax as one of their ingredients. He can certainly make it worth their time.

Huh, okay, she'll keep that in mind. Is kobold candle wax alchemically special in some way? 

Yes it is, for reasons that are unfortunately much too complex for a layperson to comprehend.

Fair enough. 

Once they're done with this nice social lunch, it's probably time to go liquidate stray loot. Is turning random objects into tiny accumulable quantities of coinage as easy here as her non-paladin self has always wished it would be in real life? 

The general store is not very picky, yeah. Soon her pockets are jingling with the sweet sweet clink of 2s38c.

Eeeeee. 

Honestly, for this she will pretty much happily forgive the absence of every other gamelike feature. (Fingers crossed for spirit healers, though.) 

Does Brother Sammuel have any exciting new things to teach her now that she's had a little bit of real combat? 

Yes! She is now ready to learn how to channel the Holy Light into persistent auras called seals. The first one she'll learn is called the Seal of Command. While active, it imbues her weapon with the power of the Light, increasing the damage she can do with each swing.

Well that is incredibly cool and she is really excited abwaaaaaait a second. 

"Um," says Theriel. "This is gonna sound like a really stupid question, bear with me, I got concussed yesterday, can you remind me who the King is." 

Varian Wrynn, of course.

"Of course," she echoes distantly.

On the bright side, this means she probably has multiple years to get her bearings before N'Zoth is all up in her business. On the less bright side, she now kind of feels like if she doesn't figure out how to save Theramore it'll be her fault.

Right. Well. She won't be saving anybody with two silver pieces and one spell, no matter how funny a joke she could make about paladins, hammers, and nails. 

What other seals does she get, and is it straightforward to swap between them? 

It'll be some time yet before she's ready to learn more seals. However, she can learn how to unleash the stored energy of a seal into a Judgment.

Judgment is Theriel's very favorite thing. This will probably be obvious from how, the instant she has the cycle of storing energy and releasing it again down, she spends a solid forty-five minutes jumping up and down excitedly and practicing it on training dummies. 

Commendable enthusiasm, but she's also definitely going to run herself into mana exhaustion. This will cause both her Judgment to fail and the "glow" of the seal to wink out.

Whoops. 

The novel sensation of being out of a resource she wasn't previously conscious of having is interesting for about five seconds, but after that it's just kind of unpleasant. 

How quickly does it recover? 

Fairly slowly, but faster if she sits down to have a drink.

Theriel is extremely unthrilled about this but she supposes it is a valuable lesson. 

After she's recovered, if there's no other new things, she's going to spend the rest of the afternoon practicing at a much more sedate pace, trying to etch a sustainable rhythm into her muscle memory.

She can figure that out. It's probably more slowly paced than she'd like, featuring quite a lot of just hitting the dummy without any extra fancy stuff.

Yeah, that is not nearly as exciting. She'd be having a much harder time focusing on this if there were much in the way of tempting, easy alternatives. 

As it is, though, "mostly pell work but with the occasional burst of Light" can at least occupy her hands while she contemplates what on Earth Azeroth she is going to do. The game-present-day she was ready to deal with, sort of, she knows what all is going on there, but her knowledge of the plot of classic World of Warcraft is approximately "Varian may or may not be missing and also there are desert bugs?" and this seems unlikely to do anyone much good. She might have to go to Ahn'Qiraj anyway to obtain real-life reputation points? So that ... literally anybody will listen to her about various impending dooms? But then first she definitely needs to get way better at adventuring, she got concussed by a kobold yesterday. 

Man, she's not even sure she knows what order all the impending dooms go in. There are so many. 

Eventually, sometime in the evening, she gets irretrievably bored of fighting a stationary object, runs laps around Goldshire until she's tired of that too, and collapses disgruntled and slightly sore back in an armchair in the inn. "I'm bored," she complains to Farley. 

"That's a shame, lass," he says, idly polishing a glass. "Have you considered going on an adventure?"

Can she ... can she just do that? 

Well, come to think of it, she doesn't have a job that's expecting her to show up in the morning, does she, or a mortgage to pay or a house that'll fall apart if left unattended, or even any objects to keep track of other than what she's wearing and carrying in her backpack. Nothing is actually stopping her from just going out and doing stuff without having been assigned a Quest(TM) first. 

... actually, she did get assigned a Quest(TM), didn't she. The alchemist gave her one at lunch. She just didn't write it down and promptly forgot. 

"Fabulous plan," she tells Farley brightly, and gets right back up again. 

Does the general store sell, by chance, tiny notebooks? She doesn't need anything fancy like an inscriptionist would need, just, like, the basic ability to pin things down before they disappear into the void possibly never to be seen again. 

It does! They cost 2s50c.

Gosh dang it. 

Welp. Time to go find out if it's possible with new and improved combat skills to remove the wax from a kobold without killing it. 

It's probably going to be dark by the time she gets to a place that is reasonably likely to contain at least one kobold. But maybe their candles will make them easier to find.

Here's hoping! 

In the event that she is able to locate a kobold in this manner...

... what if, perhaps, she walks up to it, looming out of the dark and all, and informs it that she is the Thing From The Void here to eat it, but she will let it go if it hands over its candle as tribute? That's why they have those, right? 

It shrieks "YOU NO TAKE CANDLE" at the top of its lungs and starts flailing wildly.

Things she could almost certainly have predicted: this.

Alas. 

What if she says please very nicely she is going to have to hit it over the head with a hammer probably. 

Probably!

And she might also have to hit over the head with a hammer the additional two kobolds the commotion has attracted. Assuming they don't hit her over the head with a mining pick first.

Ack, a counter-ambush. 

Well, she did practice this! Seal of Command, swing hammer, sidestep and carry same motion into new swing on next kobold, keep spinning between targets to keep them all at comfortable two-handed melee range until appropriate time, Judgment, rinse and repeat. It's in some ways remarkably like fighting teenagers pretending to be goblins, only with, somehow, more shrieking. 

Very angry teenagers.

Dealing with living creatures who sincerely want to kill her is harder than fighting target dummies or practice spars. She begins to find herself overwhelmed.

Theriel is regretting her overconfidence immensely now, which is not an unfamiliar feeling but it is usually from a vantage point of "haha whoops time to respawn," not so much "wait shit this is real life." 

Aaaaaaa where are her defensive cooldowns and healing spells, paladins are supposed to have those, survivability is the whole dang - 

- yeah, she's running away. 

A wise decision.

Fortunately, she can run faster than a kobold. They eventually lose track of her in the dark.

Hoooooraaaay. (Ow.) 

Okay, that was not a super successful adventure.

She will eat, sleep, and in the morning try something slightly more responsible, such as applying her fledgling Mining skill to the task of obtaining shiny rocks from the ground which can be turned via capitalism into a quest log. Then maybe she will feel prepared to go deliver her letter to Marshal Dughan and find out if it inspires him to give her another Quest. Diane had the right idea, she thinks, what with the using tailoring to be better prepared for things.

... where does she sleep, she should know this one, she lives here. 

Her parents' house is over there. Their characteristic affable uninterested absent-mindedness means she wouldn't have to answer any questions. Or she could get a bed at the inn. She's an adult, after all.

Ah yes that's right she has bonus parents. 

She wants to save up her meager handful of coins and has no exciting parent-related trauma, so home to their house it is. 

What with all the exercise and the total absence of a cell phone screen, she's out like a light shortly after the adrenaline rush dies down and back up bright and early. 

Everyone else is up pretty much with the sun as well. Artificial or magical lights exist at all, but not so much outside of the capitals, even in relatively prosperous settlements like Goldshire.

Lovely. 

Time to attempt mining for copper ore! Badly, probably, but practice makes adequate and not having any money is fairly inconvenient when you need to eat and sleep. 

Once she finds a deposit, the mining isn't all that bad. She's has plenty of upper body strength. More problematic is dealing with the wolves and aggressive boars, who consider her to be a snack of opportunity and an obstacle to be battered down, respectively.

She is torn between "whyyyyy, I just wanted shiny rocks" and "well, at least wild animals are a fairly morally unambiguous source of live-fire practice." 

She learned her lesson from the previous day, though; she does her best to keep an eye out for hazards in advance of getting anywhere near them and fight them one at a time. Presumably they do not actually behave like video game creatures with an aggro radius but she can probably still avoid being swarmed if she's very careful? 

Curiously, the wild animals tend to roam singularly, rather than in packs. As long as she doesn't go heedlessly charging through the woods, she can keep it to one opponent at a time.

How strangely convenient of them. Maybe there's interesting evolutionary reasons!

She will definitely not go heedlessly charging through the woods, tempting though it is. If she spends all day instead being nice and sedate and careful - this somewhat strains her capacity for patience, but she does not want to die today - does anything else disturb her plan to gather up as much copper ore as she can and go sell it to Andrew Krighton the armorsmith? 

No, she has successfully identified and dealt with the dangers.

She'll be able to get more money if she wants to spend additional time smelting the ore into bars.

She was half-expecting that thing where ore is worth more money because smelting is worth skill points, but of course in the absence of a player economy this is not so. She's all for it; she'll smelt her copper ore into copper bars, indulge in a few minutes of delightedly petting the smooth shiny results once they've cooled, and then sell them. 

Then she can get enough money to buy her quest journal, and perhaps a few small items besides.

Hooray! 

She would like ... any amount of armor, ideally. Can she afford a mail shirt or does she need to settle for gloves? 

She can afford a mail shirt! Just barely, though.

She'll take it. Holding out for loot drops is for people who don't die in real life if they get unlucky, and also it seems perhaps unlikely that she'll randomly get armor off a bear or something, that doesn't actually make sense. Okay, to-do list: 

1. Kobold candles for Pestle. (Consider learning some alchemy: is two-prof limit real?)

2. Talk to Dughan/deliver commendation letter 

3. Get a less terrible hammer

4. Go to Stormwind (how to talk to Varian?)(is BC soon??) 

5. how do: blessings??? 

Writing things down helps, and so does the comforting weight of armor (distributed appropriately away from just her shoulders by that nice belt she got from the Abbey, of course; she has met the back pain that comes from wearing chainmail wrong). Time to go see the Goldshire Marshal and deliver him the letter from his compatriot in Northshire. 

Quite impressive.

If she's looking for more work, he's received reports that other mines in the area could also be infested with kobolds. He'd like her to scout through and report back. And she might bring that other girl who had a similar letter-

"Hi Theri!" Diane waves.

"Hi Diane!" says Theri brightly, crossing out item #2 in her to-do list and writing in 6. Scout other mine(s). 

"Are you gonna go look for kobolds?"

"Yeah, I'm all for it! We can collect candlewax while we're at it, neither of us is stealthy enough to scout without getting attacked if there are kobolds in - " she should know this one, she lives here, heck, why are the names of things so hard to hold onto - "in Jasperlode. Carefully, though, I unwisely went blindly kobold-hunting in the dark day before yesterday and got swarmed and it was not a great time." 

"I've been practicing my frostbolts."

"Oooh, frostbolts. That seems highly relevant to this application." 

Then they can head out on the road! Going, uh, ..... long pause to squint at the shadows and mentally plod through the process it's past noon so the sun is in the west so the shadows point east ...... that way. 

Wait, Azeroth does use the compass directions the same way Earth does, right, where if somebody says 'east' that in fact means 'in the direction of the sunrise'? 

Diane doesn't object to their course, so probably!

Before they get all the way out of town, a shady figure leans out from behind a building.

"Psst! Hey, you two!"

Oh dear. She is 0% qualified for cloak and dagger anything. Whenever she tries to participate in non-tabletop games less straightforward than "go to this spot and hit someone" she mysteriously fails some basic interaction and gets ignored. 

Nevertheless: "Hi, how can I help you?" she says automatically. 

"Name's Remy. You're going after kobolds, right? Well, if you find any gold dust on any of them, I'll pay fair coin for it."

Okay, that seems in fact exactly that straightforward. Cool. "Yeah, sure." As she writes down 7. gold dust for Remy (kobolds), she wonders, "What does one do with gold dust, anyway, it's no good for building stuff. Cool art projects I guess?" They are ... probably not using it for cutting-edge chemistry experiments? Although who knows, with legit alchemists around. 

Remy squints in suspicion. "I'm just a middleman here. Questions ain't always conducive to good health."

"Sure, sure," she shrugs, "no offense meant, none of my business, just curious. Fetch gold dust, receive money, no questions." Nod.

She contemplates adding a disclaimer about how the generic right to personal privacy does not prevent it becoming Paladin Business if there is murder involved, but decides against, on the grounds that it would honestly be super weird to be committing murders with gold dust. It's not even poisonous. 

"Right then. Find me when you have something. I'll be around." He slinks back into the shadows.

"That was weird," Theri remarks to Diane once they've successfully left town. "I mean, I don't mind doing it, we're going that way anyway, but what could somebody possibly need Remy to fence art supplies for that they can't just stick a bounty notice on the board themselves, evil illuminated scrolls? Evil ... gold leaf pastries? Maybe the pastries aren't evil but they're just really embarrassed about their hobby??"  

"Maybe they just don't want to get taxed?"

Oh right, taxes are not remotely a new technology even though in the future they're mostly done electronically. "Ah, yeah, that makes more sense than evil pastries." 

It's a ways along the path before they need to turn off into the woods to head toward the mine. With any luck she'll eventually stop expecting to find a cell phone in her pocket that can tell her her precise location on a map via GPS. 

Is the landmark where she is supposed to turn north really visually obvious or is she going to walk right past it? 

The Tower of Azora is fairly unmissable, yes.

Good, good. (The weird thing about not recognizing the name is that she's not actually sure if she's just incredibly unobservant or it got Cataclysmed.) 

Northward they go! 

They encounter a few roaming boars and wolves once they cut off the main road. One of the boars coughs up a couple coins in its death rattle.

"Huh," says Theri, examining a coin with interest once she's wiped them clean(ish) on the grass and tossed half of them to Diane. "I guess it ate somebody recently. That's sort of vaguely horrifying." She has the vague sense that if she was video gaming right now she would be 'looting' meat off the animals for cooking, but she is really not at this time feeling up to trying to gut and skin and carve a recently-live animal and also then she would have to put ... raw meat ... in her backpack ...

Is the Jasperlode Mine, as the Marshal suspected, full of kobolds? 

There are more kobolds on the outside of the mine than on the inside. On the inside of the mine there are mostly giant spiders instead.

(Giant is perhaps the wrong term. In comparison to normal spiders, these are more on a Titanic scale.)

Well that is a whole entire barrel of yikes.  

"You know," says Theri partway through this incredibly stressful activity, vibrating slightly with anxiety and really appreciating the periodic enforced breaks inherent in having a mage around, "if you had asked me yesterday if I was particularly uncomfortable with spiders, I'd've been like 'nah, spiders are our friends, they eat mosquitoes and stuff', but it turns out that giant spiders is an option and I am not here for that." 

"I dunno," Diane says thoughtfully. "It's a lot harder for them to sneak up on you when they're the size of a sheep. And the crunching sound when you break them is kind of nice."

"You make a compelling point," she admits. "I suppose spider horribleness is not linear with size. Still, though. The teeth and the eyes and," shudder. 

Diane laughs. "I read somewhere that you can make, like, a jelly spread out of giant spider eyes. Good on toast."

"What an incredibly neat and yet horrifying concept." Theri nudges a dead spider's face very dubiously with her boot. "I mean I know big spiders aren't usually venomous or poisonous, but..." 

Is it spiders all the way down? 

Yes, yes it is.

At the very bottom of the mine is the biggest mama spider, as wide as two horses and surrounded by desiccated web-wrapped husks.

Oh boy, webs. Good thing she has BLESSING OF FREEDOM lol jk she is like level five and gets nothing. 

Hammer? Hammer. 

Mama spider spits webs at her attackers but Diane can mostly burn these off before they land.

Even spiders of this size are still vulnerable to hammers, it turns out.

Theriel is definitely beginning to appreciate the merits of the satisfying crunching noise of spider exoskeleton. 

Respawn is not a real thing and the giant mama spider is not going to suddenly re-exist directly on her face if she takes her time searching the cave without the advantage of only being able to interact with interesting objects, right? 

The spider obligingly stays dead. The corpse doesn't even despawn.

Awesome. 

Are any of these desiccated husks recently enough captured that they might still be dying - a sometimes interruptible process! - or are they all very extremely corpses? 

They are all very extremely corpses.

Mostly kobolds, some wolfs, deer, even a small bear, and a couple humans. One of them has another badge from the Stonemason's Guild.

Interesting. She'll grab the badge and update her notebook: 

(...)

6. Scout other mine(s) Report back to Dughan

7. gold dust for Remy (kobolds)

Jasperlode full of giant spiders, incl. very large one (killed kobolds, wildlife, ?Defias?). 

8. get some kind of gloves ASAP!

Useful info is great but corpse dust and spiderwebs are a bad texture and she is now going to be twitchy and unhappy until she can shove her hands into the stream or something. 

Anything else of interest before they leave the mine and see about fighting some of those outdoor kobolds? 

No, that pretty much covers it.

Excellent. Then they will go fight kobolds until they have a reasonable quantity of candle wax, gold dust, and perhaps, if she can find one wielding a mining shovel, a two-handed weapon slightly better than her battered wooden hammer. 

She can find such a thing. The metal head is in reasonably condition, but the haft needs replacing.

Hrm. Solving this by cutting down a tree definitely requires more tools than she has but it shouldn't be impossible to find a nice solid stick and the right fastening hardware back in town? 

It's a little strange in concept having to just sort of decide when they have enough wax and dust, having not been told a quantity, but in practice she supposes they are probably arriving at sensibly sized item stacks by the fact that one can only fit so many miscellaneous loot objects, quest items, parts of shovels, etcetera in an actual physical volume-limited backpack. 

Back to Goldshire! 

Back to town!

Remy is still lurking on the outskirts, if she wants to get rid of the contraband(?) before talking with law enforcement.

Oh, good. Her backup plan if he wasn't immediately findable was just going to be to go about her other business and vaguely expect him to turn up at some point. 

She will turn over the possibly contraband and refrain from asking pointed questions about tax evasion; all things considered, the people of this local area do not really appear to be getting their money's worth for their taxes. 

They get some money in exchange, and a tip about murlocs attacking travelers on the eastern road.

"Pleasure doing business with you," she tells Remy cheerily, and only makes it about ten steps from him before she is unable to resist the urge to add, "gosh, murlocs! I bet they are also needlessly adorable." 

This is probably an inappropriate amount of enthusiasm, as it was with the kobolds, but here we are. 

"Aren't they, like, slimy?"

"They are teeny and shouty and hilarious. And the little ones are tadpoles!" Pause. "But also probably yes and I should appreciate their cuteness only from a reasonable distance." 

"Reasonable as defined by one hammer?"

Giggle. "Exactly. Precisely one hammer-length plus," she stretches an arm out as if to measure it, "like two and a half feet." 

Diane nods. "Mhm, mhm. I think I'll stick to thirty yards."

Nod nod. "Admittedly better for not getting stuff on you! Speaking of which, I desperately need to wash my hands." 

... The inn probably does not have running water, does it. She'll be happy to wash a few dishes if that gets her access to soap? 

There's a pump around the back. No one will mind if she uses it a bit.

Oh, fabulous. She will scrub all of the aaaaaaaa off her hands, in that case, and then return to the main room, where she will exchange candle wax for additional money and sit down at a table to start up a transaction ledger and quietly mourn Excel. 

"What are you doing?" Diane asks curiously.

"Budgeting chart!" She shows Diane her nascent three-column chart ("thing," "amount," "total", currently containing such entries as "Milly wine rescue, +1s" and "notebook, -2s40c", with the "total" column not yet filled) and explains, "I'm going to add 'em up and compare against how much money I actually have to make sure I didn't forget anything. It's mostly for reassuring myself that I'm keeping on top of things. Although also in theory then in like five years if I am diligent about tracking I can draw graphs and those are neat." 

"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.

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. 

Thomas would greatly appreciate that. They went north, towards the lake.

Northward, then, keeping their eyes peeled for fishy perils. 

Everything seems pretty much normal. Apart from the bear. Which had slightly fishy breath but in other ways was not especially piscine.

Once they get to the lakeshore, however, there are several murlocs huts. And murlocs! Murrglblgrlblr!

Gosh they make the cute noise and everything.

She's not enthusiastic about just barging into their home and murdering them without a good reason, her understanding being that they are at least sometimes people, so ... keeping a non-hostile distance at first ... are there any signs of Rolf and Malakai? 

Not so much.

Concerning. Can she derive any useful or interesting sociological facts by observation? For example, what do they seem like they're... doing, by default, are they farming kelp or playing catch or sharpening spears or .... ? 

Just... wandering around aimlessly, looks like.

Well that's very weird. 

Can they try taking a circuit around the lake? It's not that huge a lake and if the murlocs are what got the missing guards there should be signs of struggle or something she would think. 

There seems to be some sort of activity at the memorial island in the lake's center.

On the other side of the murloc encampment, there's what looks like a half-chewed body.

Oh. Oh no. Yeah the murlocs definitely got them. 

Obviously at this point the next step in the quest is probably to kill the murlocs, but the guy's already dead so that wouldn't actually help him and this kind of seems like dubious murder hobo behavior given that they aren't going to just respawn for the next baby adventurer to come by and grind them for XP. The kobolds had invaded human territory and were therefore arguably fair game but the murlocs ... live here. They have houses. 

"I feel like all of my options here are ethically questionable," she complains to Diane. "I don't want to just slaughter a whole town of tiny fish people because they killed one guy, that seems disproportionate, but also they killed at least one guy and we can't just... not... do anything?" 

"We could try getting to the body, to start with? See how that goes?"

And then at least they could bury him or something, if he's got family they'll probably appreciate that more than him getting eaten. "Yeah," nod, "that's a good idea." 

She's kind of expecting it won't be possible to avoid getting swarmed at all but they can at least aim for small swarms? 

They can hold it to two if they try hard and believe in the power of frost nova.

Blurglrmurglr!

Crowd control spells are fascinating to behold, and also incredibly useful. 

"Blurglrmrgl to you too," she says to one, somewhat absent-mindedly, and then immediately feels kind of bad because that's a Talking To Dogs script. 

"Murglr!" It tries to stab her with a crude spear.

Rude. 

On the bright side, one feature of 'upgrading' to a shovel is that it vaguely resembles a polearm, i.e. now that it is repaired it has a haft that can be used to deflect incoming stab slightly more effectively than a hammer and with less loss of followthrough. Nothing on a shield - she really needs to get a shield, come to think of it - but, you know, she works with what she's got. 

When they get to the body, it is definitely partially-eaten.

There's a badge which says "Footman Malakai Stone" on it.

Ick. Poor Malakai. It seems silly to drag the half-eaten corpse back to the guardhouse to needlessly horrify all his friends, but 'we just left him there to rot and/or get eaten' also seems like it would perhaps upset people. 

...... well, she does have this shovel right here. How about they drag the corpse (ick, augh, she is so glad she has gloves now) out of the lake and bury him, sans badge? 

That seems like the... respectful? thing to do.

Digging an entire grave turns out to take an obnoxiously long time. Gosh darned three-dimensional volumes. 

Once she's done, though, she wants to know what's up at Heroes' Vigil. Was that people over there? 

It looks like people.

"I think... they're doing magic over there. We should be careful."

"Oh dear. Okay, good to know." 

She will investigate ... very sneakily? ... as sneakily as a person in armor can be, anyway, which admittedly isn't very. She is pretty much just going to try to stay out of earshot. 

The wizards are wearing red bandannas.

Ah-huh. 

Time to report back, because somebody is definitely gonna want to know about that. 

"More of those scarves, huh?"

"Yeah, that's kinda concerning." 

"Must be a pretty big gang. And if they have wizards, too... That's a lot of firepower for outlaws."

"It kind of implies they'd have to be recruiting, right? I mean I guess building stuff probably involves magic but a bunch of disgruntled stonemasons probably doesn't spontaneously mutate into a bunch of wizards?" 

"Yeah, wizards aren't usually just lying around on the side of the road for anyone to pick up. Unless you're living in the high elf lands. Or blood elf or whatever they're calling themselves. They're like all wizards is the point."

"Right? Except for fuckin' Liadrin," wait, shit, why does she even have this opinion? when does Liadrin even start doing anything?? whatever, she's already halfway through this sentence, "who instead is the worst paladin." 

"Uh, if you say so."

"...yes." 

Time to very awkwardly give condolences to the guard post about the deaths of their missing people! 

Guard Thomas takes the news mostly in stride. At least he can finish his report now.

If they're looking for something else to do, he's had several requests from the Eastvale Logging Camp that he's too short-handed to deal with. And then maybe on their way back they can pick up his report for the Marshal.

Eugh, more spiders - no, wait, that was the logging camp in Tiragarde Sound. 

Does Diane think their less formal report to the Marshal regarding 'Defias have wizards: please advise' can wait? It does seem like it would be nice and efficient to go solve whatever problems the loggers are having and then go deliver Thomas's report at the same time. 

Yeah, that sounds good. She doesn't think they were doing anything too worrisome, magic-wise. As far as she could tell.

Okay, great. To the Eastvale Logging Camp! 

The camp is in the very shadow of the Redridge Mountains, and is home to a couple sawmills as well housing for the various workers and overseers. One of the overseers seems to be having some kind of argument with herself near a half-loaded wagon.

People who talk to themselves are often easily startled. Theri makes an effort to walk more loudly as she approaches so as not to alarm her before offering a cheery "hi, Thomas sent us to help!" 

"What- oh, adventurers. Well, if you're looking to help, I need someone to gather up the wood out there or this shipment is never going to get out of here on time." She gestures vaguely to the north. "The laborers chopped it all, but the murlocs and the bears drove them off before they could bring it back."

So they just, what, ran off and left piles of chopped wood behind? 

... No, yeah, on further reflection this makes sense, lumber is heavy and awkward to transport, especially if you have to do it without heavy machinery and while being attacked by bears.  

Not to worry, madam, the Adventurers(TM) are on it! 

Great. If they can gather up eight stacks, that should be enough.

Theri is not totally done with the novelty of being able to casually lift heavy objects and will have a great deal of fun gathering large stacks of wood with intermittent pauses to fight wildlife. With any luck, Diane, who is probably less enthusiastic about it, will not even actually have to carry anything, if she is on the ball about making things all frosty and slow when they try to get in the way. 

Diane is so on the ball about frosting things up. She should be a pâtissière in a circus.

Diane is the best. In that case they will collect lots of wood and reduce the angry wildlife population and return to the overseer very pleased with themselves! 

The overseer thanks them for their help, and gives them some money.

Hooray. 

Time to swing back by the guard post to pick up Thomas's report and go talk to the Marshal. This whole Defias business does not seem to be over. 

The Marshal agrees this is indeed concerning. In light of this new information, he's going to make the killing or capture of one James Clark much higher priority. There's a flyer on the board over there with information, if they're interested.

She's increasingly thinking the right way to get an audience with the King might just be to run this questline all the way through the Deadmines, so, "sure, we'll take a look," and hey, is there anything else on the notice board? In games of course they always contain approximately one (1) level-appropriate quest but it's actually a whole board, right? 

In addition to the Wanted: James Clark, there's also a standing request from William Pestle for kobold candles, a flyer about the Darkmoon Faire, and a request for an exterminator at the Maclure Vineyard.

OH MAN THE DARKMOON FAIRE SHE WANTS FIRE WINGS IMMEDIATEL ahem that is an unwise use of time even if achievement rewards are somehow a real thing. She will write down the other things and confine herself to aspirationally doodling flaming wings in the margins. Unfortunately, since Clark was apparently last seen at the logging camp it won't be convenient to visit the vineyard on the way but if his defeat is straightforward and doesn't immediately spawn an emergency maybe they can do that next.

Does Diane have any ideas for dealing with a lot of mages all at once, if it turns out that's where their mark is? Theriel is not sure if line-of-sight shenanigans actually work in real life and she does not have a death knight handy to barrel in with an antimagic shield and murder everything while cackling. 

Uh, try to avoid having to do that? She can maybe counterspell one at a time if she recognizes what they're casting.

Right, okay, caution is as usual the word of the day. 

Someday she will be a grown-up paladin who can dive into piles of enemies with reckless abandon and - oh, that's right, she has a to-do list item reading 'get a dang shield' for a reason. 

Back to Eastvale!

Questioning of the locals produces leads on James Clark's whereabouts that point south, rather than north, somewhere in the vicinity of the Brackwell pumpkin patch.

Oh, good, she can worry about the mages later. 

Are the Brackwells doing okay? None of them have been stabbed or kidnapped or anything, right? 

Well, they're not out working the patch.

The front door to the farmhouse is standing open, though.

That is ... mildly concerning. Time to investigate, weapon at the ready in case of Ambush. 

James Clark is waiting inside the house!

"You'll never take me alive, coppers!" he shouts, and attacks.

Rude.

Well, at least he was easy to find. 

HAMMER TIME. 

And frostbolts!

Mr. Clark was perhaps prepared for regular militia, but not their magic and magic-enhanced might. He dies.

Eeeheehe yes they are not regular militia, they are slightly advanced militia! And Theri is very pleased about it. 

Time to further investigate the farm, she wants to make sure the Brackwells are okay or failing that figure out what happened to them. 

Below is the process and schedule of Defias gold collection from the mines of Elwynn to our headquarters in Westfall.

Collection Schedule:

Sunday: 12:30pm
Wednesday: 12:30pm

By each specified day, gold gained from the Elwynn mines will be gathered at the Brackwell pumpkin patch. The agent in charge of these gatherings, "The Collector," will be known by the engraved ring he possesses. A ring I gave him.

A party from Defias headquarters will contact the Collector, after which he will transfer the gathered gold.

Be sure this process is performed without fail and with utmost discretion. The Collector is responsible for the transfer of gold, but ultimately it is the responsibility of each member of the Defias Brotherhood to ensure that his role is acted out with attention and discipline.

Remember, my brothers, we were once proud craftsmen. We'll perform our current duties with the same precision we used in our past trade.

-EVC

G. has missed the last two pickups. Must have a talk with him. May need reminding of our cause.

Okay, if they left in a hurry and took stuff with them that means they're not dead, that's good news. It also means they were probably scared off by, rather than participating in, this GIANT CONSPIRACY that Diane seems to have identified, goodness. She does not remember this questline having this many steps, maybe that is because in real life a quest is half a day instead of like five minutes.

What day is it, she wonders, and does she have the brain-to-mouth filter sufficient not to say something that sounds as though she knows things she shouldn't like "Man, you'd think if Van Cleef was such a proud craftsman he would at least have built himself a cool villain castle or something," haha nope, failed with flying colors. 

"Uh. Who's Van Cleef?"

Awkward cough. "Er." She points at the letter signature. "That guy?" 

She squints at the letter again.

"Ee vee cee... I guess that could be Van Cleef."

"The 'E' is 'Edwin' I think. He's the guildmaster of the stonemasons. Or uh. I guess he was and now he's the head of the Defias?" 

"Huh."

"We should probably tell someone."

Nod nod nod. "Definitely." 

So back to Goldshire?

 Yeah, even if the right solution to this is to come back to the exact same spot and ambush whoever comes looking for Clark they should probably check in with the Marshal first. To Goldshire! 

The Marshal is concerned about this development! Regardless of Theriel's suspicions, if these bandits are indeed so organized as to have effectively taken over all the mines in Goldshire, it seems like they're going to need to ask for reinforcements.

The Marshal would like the two of them to take this note as evidence and present their concerns to the court at Stormwind.