As Elara listens to the gravel crunch under the hooves of her pony(she left her warhorse back at the capitol) she reflects on the day so far. After saying goodbye to little Millie she managed to retrieve the pony and slip out of the city without too much hassle. Of course there was still the usual, people shouting there thanks, asking her to sign pretty much anything they had on hand and one or two who declared they would name there first born child after her. But all things considered she managed to escape without a fuss.
She had been riding for a few hours now and was loving life. The wind tangled her hair and she occasionally passed other travellers who nodded a greeting. Best of all no one recognised her, and why would they? She doubted most people actually knew what any of the Royal Knights looked like as few ever saw them outside the capitol. And I also look pretty different outside my uniform she thought.
She even stopped at a roadside vendor to buy a greasy meat pie that no one in the citadel, even the the common people would even touch. As Elara bit into it she grimaced as the flavour filled her mouth, it actually tasted...bad. She devoured the whole thing and even bought another basking in the feeling of disgust as she ate them, it was brilliant.
Elara planned on visiting her home town at some point but it was a nine day ride from the capitol and she didn't want to waste a day. Luckily a traveller could shave the nine day journey just seven if said traveller was foolhardy enough to take the road through the Murkwoods instead of around there perimeter. Elara not only planned on travelling through the Murkwoods but she even was looking forward to it, while fighting the various monsters that dwelt there wouldn't provide much sport as they are all below level 30 she had a different plan.
Elara had first had this idea two months back when she had been fighting or more accurately massacring a tribe of great orcs. The pocket knife she had been using had snapped leaving her without a weapon. As the great orcs beared down on her she briefly for a moment experienced what any other lower level knight would have being unarmed in this scenario - she felt vulnerable, exposed and powerless. Obviously it didn't last long as instead of saying a last prayer or running for her life like any reasonable knight would do in this scenario Elara just stood there, they were only level 60 beasts and even if she was unarmed they didn't really pose a threat.
She had never really considered this before but while knights and adventurers normally fought beasts to prevent the monsters from harming them or others most monsters actually couldn't harm her anymore. After finishing the last 8 orcs with her bare hands Elara had been determined to test this theory out.
Only two weeks after the orc incident she set out into a goblin encampment to see what happened. She went alone, unarmed and unarmored. Sure enough even when the sentry goblin shot her in the neck with a crossbow the bolt just shattered, her resistance stat was just too high for them to seriously harm her, and even if they managed my regeneration perk would heal faster than they could attack she thought.
As she walked deeper into the goblins camp she was certain her hypothesis was true, she was basically invulnerable to low level beasts and could just do whatever she wanted. However something she had foolishly not been prepared for was that as she sat down at the campfire in the middle of the goblins camp and they surrounded her none of them were attacking.
Huh this is strange, I wonder why they aren't attacking I look just like a helpless unarmed girl She thought. Goblins are renowned for taking any chance they get to murder or ...rape. As the thought finished Elara realised what was going.
The nearest goblin, a wiry thing with yellowed tusks, reached out and tugged the laces of her borrowed peasant blouse. She didn't slap his hand away (because why would she? a level 12 pest couldn't actually hurt her), his beady eyes lit up with greedy certainty.
Another one grabbed her wrist, testing. She let her arm go limp. A third shoved her shoulder, and she allowed herself to stumble back onto the dirt, heart suddenly hammering in a way no dragon or orc had managed in years.
Oh.
The first one was on her in a heartbeat, clawed fingers ripping cloth, hot stinking breath on her neck. More hands, too many hands, pinning her thighs, yanking her skirt up to her waist. She felt the night air on bare skin and something inside her chest cracked open like sunrise.
This was it. This was the feeling.
She could have ended it in half a second, one flex of her fingers and every bone in the circle would have powdered, but she didn't. She arched instead, a tiny, helpless-sounding whimper slipping out that wasn't entirely fake. The goblins snarled in triumph, mistaking surrender for weakness, and the first one forced her legs apart.
The pain was sharp, brief, and utterlyily irrelevant; her body barely registered it as damage and disappointingly one of her healing perks muffled most of the pain. What floored her was the rush: the suffocating weight on her chest, the absolute knowledge that, for these next few minutes, she wasn't the strongest thing in the clearing. She was prey. She was meat.
And gods help her, she came harder than she had in her entire life, biting her own wrist to muffle the cry so they wouldn't realise something was wrong.
Later that day when she walked out of the now entirely headless goblin encampment she had discovered two things. Firstly basic beasts couldn't harm her at all. Secondly playing with them was the most fun she had experienced since hitting level 90.
The sight of the junction in the road and the tavern that was adjacent to it snapped her back to reality. With her observation skill she could make out a tavern called "The Last Wish" in the middle of the junction where the two roads split, one winding around the outside of the Murkwoods, the other plowing straight though into the dark and intimidating forest.