Deciding to make the most of the scenery, Astaria pulls the waterskin out of her inventory and enjoyed the cool liquid as she drank. Feeling the slight pangs of hunger now her dry mouth is satiated, she opens her inventory and her eyes are unconsciously drawn towards the slice of cake. Noticing this, she sits for a moment in contemplation, thinking about the slight discrepancy in her behavior.
'Is it possible that my tastes have slightly changed since I'm a girl now? I guess I will have to try the cake to find out. In the past I liked the cake I had from the Cats Paw Bakery, but it was a bit too sweet.'
Ending with that thought, Astaria brings the slice of cake out of her inventory. Packaged in a pure white cloth, Astaria places it on her lap, slowly unwrapping it to find a perfect slice of red velvet cake, its pleasant and sweet aroma hitting her nose.
Relishing in the enjoyably sweet smell, Astaria finally breaks off a bit of cake and brings it to her lips.
"Mmmm! Oh my god, it really does taste better!"
With the sudden realisation of what she just exclaimed; Astaria covers her mouth.
"Did I really just shout that out…!? That was so girly! I hope I don't keep doing this…"
After voicing her concerns, Astaria's attention moves straight back to the cake on her lap. Slowly savoring the taste, she tries to control herself as she finishes eating.
Now feeling a little more comfortable in her body after so much moving, Astoria decides that now was the right time to adjust the pain reduction settings. Since she didn't want to feel the full impact of faceplanting into the ground while adapting to the difference in height and weight distribution, she had left it at the default of 75%.
While things will hurt far more, Increasing the pain sensitivity allows a player complete immersion into the world. It allows for players to be able to perceive the world around them more accurately, as well as removing the slightly disorienting feeling that occasionally appears, like when receiving a heavy blow that reverberates through your body while you only feel a slight tingle while your arms movements are slower.
Opening up the settings menu, Astoria quickly scrolls through until she finds the Pain reduction settings and sets it to 0%. Feeling the slight change as everything feels clearer, she smiles enjoying the scenery which now feels more vivid.
After her short break, Astaria's hunger returns to 0% and her Fatigue lowers to 28%, and she continues her trip to the main road.
---------
After covering the last stretch to the main road, Astaria can now easily recognise where she is. The main road, still a dirt track, was relatively quiet for now. The road crosses directly in front of her passing through the plains and going straight through the forest. Looking south where the goblins are, she can see one merchant carriage making its way from Alennos Pass having safely made it past.
Having figured out the direction she needs to go; Astaria starts jogging south. After a short time, she finally crosses paths with the carriage as one of the adventurers guarding the carriage seeing her and calling out.
"Excuse me, beautiful miss, please wait a second."
Hearing this, Astaria stops jogging and turns towards the young man who is walking up to her.
"How can I help you?" Astaria asks with a slight tilt of her head, on guard in case the adventurer has ill intentions.
"I saw you were traveling south alone and had to warn you about the dangers on the road ahead."
Seeing the young man's response, she smiles becoming less tense.
"Are you referring to the goblins? I have heard and was on my way to hunt some of them down. I appreciate the warning, however. It was most kind of you."
"It was nothing!" He responds with a laugh and a slight blush.
Pausing for a second in a brief moment of thought, Astoria decides to make a request.
"You might see some others like me on your travels, so might I ask you to offer them the same kindness? They mostly lack experience and won't fare so well if unprepared."
Seeing her smile and hearing her words, the young man bashfully looks away.
"I most certainly can, so you can rest easy. But are you sure about going in yourself? Your gear looks… old, and I can see that your sword needs sharpening."
Hearing the young man's concern, Astaria chuckles.
"Don't worry, I'm an experienced mage, so this sword will mainly be used if one of them gets too close."
Thumping her chest with her fist to show her confidence, she smiles awkwardly after realising she had just thumped her breast making it jiggle around.
"Anyway, I should get going, I would prefer to be done before night falls."
Nodding in understanding and with a blush even fiercer than before, the young man bids her farewell and jogs to catch up with the carriage.
Seeing the young adventurer leaving, Astaria lets out a deep sigh once again realising that her change will take a lot of getting used to. Once again picking up her pace, she makes it to the area of the forest where the goblins attack passing travelers.
In the past, this area became a hotspot for new players since there were a large number of goblin spawns and that goblin's tended to group together. Due to the goblin's constant presence in the forest and their use of wooden spears, the area has been named Woodspike Forest by the NPC's.
Thinking back to the days she had spent here when she first started playing Caelus Online, as well as when she had helped level her friends, she makes her way towards one of the smaller camps towards the edge of the goblin's territory.
Walking between the trees, Astaria can begin to hear the high-pitched voices of goblins ahead along with the slight glow of a campfire illuminating the shadows cast by the tall coniferous trees.
Hearing the gibberish sounding language, Astaria can already feel the headache coming as she starts to grind xp by killing goblins to the backtrack of weird noises and ear-splitting screams.
Sighing, she makes her way closer to the first camp. Reaching out her left hand, she summons her staff with a slight shimmer as the space distorts while drawing the sword with her right hand.
In Caelus online, there were a number of magic based classes that have the ability to stow their weapons away in a separate space, like the sorcerer and the druid. This made moving around much easier and was a massive boon when fighting being able to freely swap weapons.
Getting a good look now there were fewer tree trunks blocking her vision, she can see the expected group of 5 goblins. Each goblin was lv 3 with 150 HP each. Starting the fight, Astaria casts lightning on the goblin closest to her.
The casting time is 1 second and it has a cool-down of 10. Seeing their companion get hit with magic from above and fall to the floor stunned, the other 4 goblins start screeching as they look around to try and find their assailant.
Seeing her mana go down by 30, Astaria positions herself to start channeling a fireball that appears at the end of her staff. It is around the size of a basketball and after 2 seconds she launches it towards the goblins who had started running towards her after seeing the glow of the spell.
Seeing her mana dropping by 27 and the damage it causes to the goblins health bar, Astaria smiles, happy now that she can now completely dominate the fight.
With one goblin still stunned on the floor and another one staggering from the fireball, Astaria launches a mana arrow toward the goblin charging at her from the right, aiming to slow him down and chip off some of his health.
Seeing the goblins who were now 15 meters away, Astaria launches 3 more mana arrows into the same goblin.
With the goblin now delayed a short distance behind the other two now in front of her, Astaria enters into a melee fight.
The first goblin, armed with a club like primitive the barbarian it is, swings at Astaria only to be blocked by a sweep of Astaria's staff, knocking the goblin off balance. Stepping to the side, Astaria dodges a thrust from the wooden spear of the second goblin. With the tip of her staff pointed down at the ground and the rest of the shaft nicely out of the way behind her back, Astaria steps towards the stunned goblin and swings her sword at its neck.
Clicking her tongue at the fact her swing was off as she is still adjusting to her new body, she doubles down on the now heavily injured goblin, bringing her sword back and thrusting it into the goblin's mouth as it screamed.
"Shut. Up." She snarls.