I looked down at the young goblin, now laying on a table in a nearly empty room I hadn’t seen in the cabin before. His skin had gone from a pale green to a clammy light grey, and his breathing was now coming out in ragged gasps. His dark purple blood had stained the torn remains of his shirt and vest in the short amount of time it took for me to get back to the cabin. I was genuinely in awe of the kid, standing up for the other two in this condition. It very well could cost him his life.

[“Not if we have anything to do about it,” came Aggy’s firm, reassuring voice, “I’m going to put some ritual knowledge in your head right now so that you can do a quick basic healing ritual. You won’t understand how it works, but you don’t need to understand it to use it.”]

I felt a strong tingling sensation quickly swirling around my head, it was very different this time, almost foreign, but I understood the basic concept of a ritual so when the shapes, incantations, and requirements suddenly flooded into my head I wasn’t too overwhelmed.

[“Quickly, there’s a salt pouch just under that table, grab it and start a circle on the floor,” Aggy instructed, “then work from the knowledge I just gave you. I’ll make sure you don’t mess it up.”]

I briefly looked at the other two goblins standing nearby. They were also pale, not from wounds but from fear and shock, they looked terrified staring silently at the young goblin that defended them. I grabbed a pouch from under the table, knowing which one it was because Aggy included that information, and quickly drew out a circle on the floor. Then I did as instructed and followed the knowledge given to me, trying to quickly draw out the lines and shapes that made up the complex diagram.

[“This is a relatively simple diagram, and luckily your crude shapes and uneven lines shouldn’t affect the potency too badly,” Aggy said, “especially with my mana behind it.”]

I finished drawing what was apparently a relatively simple drawing and then moved the injured child into the circle. I crouched down beside it then I followed what were like book instructions line for line in my head, raising my hands above the circle and saying an incantation. It wasn’t the chant I was expecting.

“Be healed,” I said in Aggy’s firm but grandmotherly voice.

Then I felt the ritual circle activate. It pulled something directly from my body and into the wound on the young goblin’s chest.

[“That’s mana you’re feeling,” Aggy explained, “also, I notice you keep thinking things like ‘my body’, just remember its only on loan. Its still my body.”]

That was fair. I actually fell into that habit really quickly, because without a mirror it felt very comfortable to be in this body. Seeing my reflection was startling though because I didn’t expect a sweet old lady. I brought my focus back to what I was doing, and to the gentle trickling sensation of mana.

The ritual circle had started to light up shortly after I felt it tug at Aggy’s mana and I watched as the wound seemed to stitch itself together with a faint golden glow. The boy’s breathing settled down and quickly started coming at a steady even pace. His skin also regained its pale green colouration. He looked like he was sleeping, other than the ragged clothing. The light from the circle quickly dimmed and blinked out and as soon as it did the other two kids rushed forward.

“Is brother going to be alright?” the little boy asked, his squeaky voice shaky. I could see the resemblance, and I’d almost bet the little girl was their younger sister.

Almost as if on cue the boy on the floor suddenly jumped up and looked around wildly before seeing the other two behind them. He immediately lunged at them and swept them into a hug, then turned back to stare at me with frightened eyes.

“Where are we?” he asked, his voice barely betraying the fear so clearly there.

“Aggy’s… uh, my cabin,” I said, “I brought you here after taking care of that guy threatening you. Are you okay? Could you tell me what happened?”

“Well, who are you?” he asked, “why do you care?”

[“you’re Aggy, and because you love everyone like your own grandchildren. Young’uns like them shouldn’t have to suffer such horrors,” she said with utmost sincerity.]

“I’m Aggy, and I love everyone like my own grandchildren,” I told them in the softest yet most reassuring voice I could muster, “and no child should ever have to suffer anything like what happened today.”

“You didn’t love the guy threatening us like your own grandchild,” the boy said almost accusingly, “and we’re not children we’re goblins.”

“He was threatening my grandchildren,” I said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, “he might’ve killed you. It was unforgivable.”

I felt Aggy’s approval, but she didn’t interject or offer any guidance, so I continued. “You look like children to me, goblin or not, you don’t look very old at all.”

He frowned at me for a moment then said, “I’m six years old, that’s plenty old for a goblin.”

[“Goblins tend to not live very long compared to other races because of how they’re treated, even by the so-called low species,” Aggy explained, “most are considered adults by around fourteen years old, and that’s also considered mid-life amongst a lot of the goblin tribes, not because of short life spans but because they get killed before they reach a natural end. Children is also a term almost exclusively reserved for use by the higher species.”]

I felt a flash of anger but pushed it down for the moment. “Children are children, and when you’re as old as I am, the likes of you certainly seem like children to me.” I gave them a wide smile, “now do you little ones have names you’d like me to call you?”

The kids looked at each other uncertainly for a moment, then the girl spoke up and a voice that reminded me of a mouse squeaking happily, it trembled a bit, but she managed to say “I’m Sap.”

“I’m Twigolin,” said the boy with the squeaky voice, then looked at brother, “but everyone calls me Twiggy.”

“I’m Barkly,” said the now uninjured boy, “these are my little siblings and I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt them.”

He stared at me defiantly as if daring me to say otherwise. After seeing the state that Barkly was in after trying to protect his siblings, I’m sure it would have been a different situation if he’d been a bit older and stronger. I had no doubt he’d do anything to keep them safe.

“I believe you Barkly,” I told him softly, “I saw how you protected your siblings, that kind of thing takes bravery and resolve. Why was that man chasing you?”

Barkly looked proud until he heard the question then all three children seemed to shrink a bit. They all suddenly seemed a lot more interested in the floor than talking to me and I could sense the fear and tension coming off of them.

It was Twiggy that answered the question, “They raided our den, he said he was going to take us slaves and do stuff to us, Bark made us run away but he caught up, then Bark tried to defend us, and then you turned up.”

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Immediately after the last word left his mouth, he took a deep breath and went back to staring at the floor. I could feel the anger rising up in me again followed by two thoughts, the first being this just happened and the second being their den must be close by.

[“No,” Aggy said sternly, then more softly “I know how you feel but its already too late. They must be from the nearby forest tribe, they were one of the more peaceful tribes. They wouldn’t survive a raid. If that man was already chasing children, all the adults are already dead or captured and most likely being carted off already.”]

But that means I can still save some of them, doesn’t it? I thought angrily, can’t I free the captives, protect them? Can’t I HELP?

[“if I thought for a second that there were any survivors, anything we could do,” she said with grief and sadness permeating her voice, “ANYTHING Jake, we’d have run there as fast as we could and put a stop to the mindless slaughter. Its highly unlikely they captured any of them, I said that to try to make us both feel better”]

Can we go look? I asked, with every intention of going anyway.

[“of course,” she said sadly, “just be prepared for what we’ll see when we get there. It won’t be pretty.”]

The children didn’t notice my momentary internal struggle because they were all too busy staring at the floor. Which was a good thing, they had enough turmoil, the didn’t need to think I was going senile as well. Then Barkly looked up at me with grim resolve on his face.

“Can you take us back to our den?” he asked in a quiet voice, “I know everyone’s probably dead, but we need to see. We need to know.”

[“You wouldn’t be protecting them by keeping them away,” Aggy said softly, “look at the boy, look into his eyes. They’ll go without us and probably put themselves in more danger.”]

I stared at the boy for a moment, his eyes showed a scary amount of determination. Aggy was right, he’d go whether I was with him or not. I nodded my head to him and stood up, then slowly led the children from the cabin, back towards the area where I had run into them initially. They were silent the whole time, Twiggy and Sap staring at the ground, while only Barkly looked up. When we approached the area, Barkly took the lead and started to lead us away from the cabin and the crime scene where I’d left a raider smeared across the trunk of a tree. It didn’t take us too long before we found what remained of their “den”. It wasn’t good.

Their “den” as they called it was more like a small village, with small clusters of huts and work areas around a central square, surrounded by a timber wall with a gate. Most of this I had to gather from what Aggy could remember of it, because its current state was little more than a wreckage of soot and ash, with a few sturdier pieces of structure and debris sticking out of still smoking piles. Next to nothing remained of what had once been the wall around the den, with only a few less burnt stumps marking out where the walls had once been.

Looking a bit closer, I could also see what was left of the bodies of various goblins. Very few of them weren’t dismembered, and the ones that weren’t had things like gaping holes through their chests. Aggy was almost certainly right that there weren’t any survivors. It almost seemed a miracle the kids got out considering the amount of destruction.

[“With the amount of luck it took them it essentially was a miracle,” she said sadly, “magical fire decimates almost completely, and its widely used in raids against the lower species indigenous to forests and grasslands. That sicko wanting to hurt the kids probably kept them from being burnt alive, but I don’t know that what he had planned was any better of a fate.”]

I felt overwhelmed by emotions and felt the tears as they started to slowly crawl down Aggy’s wrinkly cheeks. These kids lost everything, and I couldn’t even imagine the horrors they had witnessed. The sadness and anger mixed horribly, and I could feel a dark rage welling up inside, I wanted to kill those that would do such horrible things. Smear them the same way I smeared that first raider. I felt a spike of Aggy’s own anger.

[“You need to calm down and help the children process their grief,” Aggy commanded, “there will be time for anger and rage later but that’s not what these children need right now.”]

The children stared at the wreckage looking heartbroken as what was left of their home smoldered away. The younger two cried and held each other when they took it all in, Barkly walking away from them, closer to the debris. his face was going through similar emotions to what I was now trying to tuck away, and I could see what Aggy meant. I went to him, crouched down, and pulled the small goblin into my arms and gave him a small squeeze. His breathing started to hitch, and he slowly reached his arms around me before breaking down.

“it’s all goooooooooooooone…” he wailed in anguish, causing the other two to start crying harder.

I lifted him up and took him the few steps back to his younger siblings and scooped them into my arms as well. They all started bawling as they all tried to wrap their arms around me, their small bodies heaving and shaking with the force of the sobs. I stood up holding them and I don’t think they even noticed as I started to carry them away. I carried them back to the cabin, and by the time we’d arrived they’d all cried themselves to sleep.

Aggy directed me to a guestroom with a large plush bed. This room wasn’t decorated in very many frills, instead being simple and clean with basic furniture and covers in different shades of brown. I deposited the children onto the bed and made my way out of the room, finding my way into a parlour with a particularly comfortable looking wooden rocking chair with a large plush cushion near another fireplace.

I sat down in the rocking chair and wasn’t disappointed, the plush cushion on its hard wooden seat seemed to absorb me, and the stiff back of the chair was doing wonders for my back, which didn’t hurt, but did feel like it hadn’t been stretched properly in a while.

[“Like I said I was looking to do a little bit of rejuvenation okay?” Aggy defended, “its hard to stretch your back when you have undefinable back problems or old age or a bit of both.”]

So, what are we going to do about the people that raided the goblins? I thought to Aggy, my anger bubbling up to the surface again, we have to avenge these kids.

[“no, we don’t, and not a damn thing,” Aggy said sternly some of her anger now pointed at me, “avenging these kids wont feed them, clothe them, teach them, or help them at all outside satisfying a need for revenge. You want to help these kids, then help take care of them and show them a path forward. Remember that if we don’t get separated, then things are going to get a lot worse for these kids. A lich is an undead abomination far worse than a necromancer and far more powerful. We aren’t on a strict timeline because he’s not back in power yet but as soon as he is we have a problem. We can’t waste time chasing petty revenge.”]

Yet we can waste time playing grandma to some poor kids we found? I regretted the thought almost as quickly as I had it. I know its not a waste of time to help take care of some traumatised children.

[“if I couldn’t feel your emotions, I’d be very angry right now,” Aggy told me, “Raising children right is never a waste of time, I’m glad you understood that before I had to take some corrective action.”]

I spoke out of anger that I wasn’t able to do anything, I replied, you know as well as I do, I was going to put the kids first. Speaking of which, what if they want to leave? What if they don’t want to learn from us? They’re just children I don’t know if I could just let them go.

[ “that’s a good question but I genuinely don’t think they’ll want to leave,” Aggy answered, “if they do, they aren’t our captives, so we let them go. We can try to watch them and keep them safe, but we do have other important matters to get to sooner rather than later.”]

You don’t sound very rushed about separating us or fighting the lich, I pointed out, I’m not opposed to giving these kids a good life but what about the important matters?

[“I’m kind of enjoying not being in control and just watching everything happen,” she chuckled, “It’s kind of freeing. It’s a very new experience for me. Also, we could probably use the joy of raising children to cheer us up and give us some happiness before the dark times ahead. Like I told you before, I’m confident of defeating the lich.” Her tone darkened, “It won’t be without loss however and the more prepared you can all be the better.”]

I considered this for a few moments and then my mind suddenly went back to earlier that day, when you say prepared, do you mean like when I…? I couldn’t complete the thought, but she knew.

[“well I’m not necessarily going to teach you how to rip peoples arms off or crush their heads with a simple kick, but yes,” her tone was light, almost teasing, then once again got darker, “you’ll need to know how to defend yourself and those children whilst they’re under our care. I’ll teach you but once you’re in your own body you’ll have to re-learn a lot of it and adapt to your abilities.”]

My much earlier picture of a sweet little granny that enjoyed doing a little bit of live action roleplaying while dressed up like some sort of a knight was shattered by the reality of the situation, her attitude even more so. Being told that you have to learn to kill people in the same tone as being told you need to eat your vegetables to grow big and strong in the voice of a sweet old granny was disorienting to say in the least. I had a worrying thought along the lines of, what if I’m stuck like this forever in the body of a grandmother with a grandmotherly voice always in the back of my head…

[“oh, it wouldn’t be forever dearie,” she said, sweet as apple pie, “the lich will surely kill us if you’re in control, and then we won’t have much to worry about at all.”]