I was a regular guy, I had a wife and a kid, a stable job and a place to live. Life wasn’t always easy, but life was good. It was enjoyable. I honestly thought it would last a lot longer than it did, but sometimes that’s just how things go. My only regret is that I died from my injuries and won’t get to see my son grow up. His favourite car fell on the road and with the reckless speed and disregard for safety of a toddler, he also went out into the road. Right in front of a speeding box truck. It was a forty zone, and this asshole was probably going sixty and not paying attention to the road. My wife reacted, but I reacted faster, jumping out into the road and shoving him back. The poor little guy tripped over the curb right into his mother and that was the last thing I saw before the scenery around me suddenly seemed to rapidly accelerate and then disappear as my head hit the pavement.

Then I woke up, very suddenly in a standing position in what I could only describe as a grandmas cabin if the grandma also loved medieval larping. Pictures and knickknacks coated shelfs and cabinets from ceiling to floor all around a rather cramped room. Some of the stuff seemed to get dangerously close to the fireplace in the corner of the room, but the owner clearly didn’t seem to mind. I felt a ticklish sensation in the back of my head and gave myself a little shake to clear the feeling. It didn’t work. I stretched, still looking at the room. There were a lot of pictures of what I assumed was the owner of the cabin with various family members, sometimes clad in armour sometimes a more dressed down peasant type of look with loose cotton shirts and pants tied at the waist with rope.

The person I assumed to be the owner of the cabin had curly white hair, large spectacles, big opal earrings, and a pearl necklace. her face was wrinkled, but very kindly looking, if a little stern, with slightly pursed lips, even when smiling. She was slightly hunched over in most of the photos but seemed to stand a bit straighter wearing armour. She didn’t look to be very tall, somewhere just under five and a half feet but I couldn’t be sure. What I was sure of was that she seemed to be a fan of weapons approximately the same size as her, many photos showing her holding a claymore or a battleaxe or some other large weapon with ease. This further cemented the idea that she was some sort of role-player, those had to have been foam weapons. I felt the tingling sensation in the back of my head and tried to crack my neck. It didn’t work so I reached up and went to try to crack my neck manually, by twisting my head a bit.

The sensation grew much stronger as I reached up and felt the back of my head. I didn’t have curly hair, I actually preferred to shave my head since my hairline decided to recede in my early twenties. The sensation receded slightly and almost felt relieved as I started to feel my head, I didn’t think about that because the immediate concern was my current appearance. I moved my hands over my face and the sides of my head with my eyes closed. My face was wrinkled, I had on large bottlecap spectacles, and I had on some big dangly earrings. I opened my eyes and looked at my hands. They were wrinkled and much smaller than mine were supposed to be, with a couple gaudy looking rings. It was almost like I was…. The sensation seemed to be laughing at me as I rushed from the room into a small hallway also lined with pictures of the old woman and various people. An elderly gentleman heavily featured in a lot of these pictures, and it was clear even in his old age that he was a dashingly handsome man. Near the end of the hall were some doorways, I swung the first one open to see exactly what you’d expect the old woman’s bedroom to look like. Incredibly crowded and full of things with frills and doilies. There was also an urn set up central to the large dresser that seemed to take up an entire wall. Behind the urn were large mirrors that sat atop the dresser.

I went into the room focused on the mirror and on myself as I got closer to it. I was very much the old lady in the pictures just a very shocked version of her that also didn’t seem to be hunched. The sensation in my head grew overwhelming and suddenly I could hear a voice in my head shouting at me in a very stern old lady voice.

[“-ONG MAN, IF YOU SO MUCH AS KNOCK A HAIR OUT OF PLACE AROUND BOB, I SWEAR TO EVERY DEITY THAT’S LISTENING I’LL-”]

I ducked out of surprise, swinging around to see where the shouting was coming from but didn’t see anyone, thinking something along the lines of ohfuckohfuckohfuck, when the voice stopped shouting because it started laughing.

[“foolish boy,” the voice chuckled, “I’m in here with you, or more accurately, you’re in here with me.”]

I hesitantly stood up while glancing around. I turned back to look at the mirror, seeing only the old lady staring back at me.

[“My name isn’t old lady,” she chided softly, “just as I’m sure your name isn’t boy or young man. Introductions are important and we got off on the wrong foot a little bit, what with you ignoring me until I had to shout at you, and me not even introducing myself. It was weird to wake up in my body but not in control.”]

I glanced around again to be sure there wasn’t another old lady in the room with me and then said out loud in the same voice I heard in my head “Well, I’m Jake, nice to uh… meet you I guess?”

[She chuckled softly, “nice to meet you Jake, I wish it were under better circumstances. I am Lady Agatha Goldjay, although everyone just calls me Aggy, or if its a formal event, Lady Aggy. You can do the same since I suppose you’ll be here a while.”

I let that sink in for a moment. Lady implied noble, and she said I’d be here for a while. What exactly did that mean? What about my son? My wife? Then my last moments came back to me. I could feel Aggy wincing at my pain, as well as a wave of sorrow and empathy. I could feel the understanding, that she’d lost her closest family too. I was overcome with emotion, suddenly bawling, slouching down against the bed onto a very soft plush carpet. She was in a similar state, only internally so I bawled for both of us. She stopped crying first, seeming to sniffle a little bit.

[“Your wife and boy aren’t dead,” she said in an incredibly comforting voice, “they’re just not here in this world with you. I’m sorry for watching that very personal memory but in here there isn’t much privacy, and I thought you’d take some comfort in knowing that you saved the boy from the fate that befell you. He will go on to grow up.”]

I found myself actually calming down. It wasn’t just the words, those alone never would’ve been able to stem the flood of tears and emotions I had just felt, but the gentle sensation of understanding and genuine caring. It didn’t make the feelings go away but it relieved the immediate overwhelming pressure of those emotions. I took a deep breath and tried to center myself, which immediately made all of the feelings well up again. Aggy once again applied the soothing sensation, almost like a gentle comforting pressure on my very soul. It was like a hug from grandma I suddenly realized with another smaller wave of emotion. I lost my grandma long ago, but it still hurt. I felt the sensation getting stronger almost a little smothering, just like a hug from grandma.

[“Since I lost my husband, my children and even my grandchildren, I’ve treated everyone as my grandchild, because everyone deserves love, and you never know when it’ll be the last time you talk to them.” She said emotionally, “I’m not going to treat you any differently especially not when I can feel you crying all the way down to your soul, and the love you have for your own grandmother reminds me of my grandchildren and makes me want to protect you all the more.”]

I tried again to center myself and was more successful this time. I pulled myself up off of the plush carpet and onto the very soft bed. The blanket on top looked woolen but was also very soft and plush and I seemed to sink right into it. I laid there like that for a few moments before standing back up. I thought about what Aggy had just said, and then tried to immediately unthink.

[“it was a war,” she said sadly, answering the thought I was wishing I didn’t have, “my son and his wife were powerful adventurers and went to fight when necromancer rose. My grandchildren joined the fight not long after. I myself was involved in the fight but unfortunately, I couldn’t be there to protect them. My son was a prodigy, set to be one of the greatest of all time. Then his wife was struck down defending a town while he was taking the fight to them. The necromancer personally took that village and killed everyone in it, raising them to fight against my son. He was emotionally devasted but physically powerful enough to defeat all the newly made undead, including his wife. He wasn’t the same after that and threw himself into the battle with such fervor that it was believed he would single handedly win the war. His youngest two continued fighting in the war, but after the loss of their mother couldn’t put themselves into it like their father and their older brother, they took to defending towns and helping with survivors. They died when a powerful ally of the necromancer, a wizard, dropped a meteor on a refugee camp.” Her voice hitched for a moment here, but then she continued on calmly, almost monotonously, “both my son and grandson rushed in to fight the wizard. My grandson was closer and got there first, immediately flying into a frenzy and battering the much more powerful wizard. The wizard was almost dead when my son arrived, and so was my grandbaby. Then the necromancer showed up and finished them both off, turning them into a foul amalgamation. My son destroyed the amalgamation but was in turn killed by the necromancer.”]

That was a lot of information to process, so I started to slowly walk out of the room while processing it. As soon as I was out of the room however, I looked at the pictures of the man again and then back to the urn.

[“My husband was involved as well.” She said, her voice strained. “I showed up to kill my son, who’d been raised as a powerful undead. After killing him through no small effort, I hunted down the necromancer, and I brutally killed him. Or I thought I did. His head went missing afterwards.”]

I was staring at one of the pictures of the handsome old gentleman when I saw a flash of memory, of his face gaunt and almost skeleton like, his eye sockets filled with a black and purple flame, of a sword cleaving through his shoulder and his once broad chest, through his hip, a fine spray of black blood coming from the wound and trying to close the hole back up. Then I swung the massive sword again, horizontally this time, severing his head and sending it flying. I raised my hand, and a powerful flame incinerated his body, barely leaving ash which started to blow away before being sucked into a bottle that looked like a smaller version of the urn.

I gasped and turned away from the wall shaking slightly, I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath. I felt Aggy seeming to shudder in a convoluted mass of emotions, I tried to send her comfort as well but didn’t know how. I felt her lash out slightly and suddenly I had migraine levels of pain blinding me. I sunk to my knees. The pain subsided as quickly as it came but it still left me shaken. Aggy was also clearly shaken, and I could feel it in her voice.

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[“I… I’m terribly sorry I didn’t mean to…” she did the equivalent of a deep breath and sigh, “I know I’m the one who said that this wasn’t really a private place, but I thought I could keep some things pushed down a little bit deeper. I didn’t mean for you to experience that.”]

Which part? I thought back at her, the mental lashing or watching you kill a guy that looked like your husband?

[“That was my husband,” she said flatly, and then more softly “I didn’t mean for you to experience either.”]

I got up to my feet and brushed nonexistent dust from the cotton pants I was wearing. The place was cluttered but immaculately clean, so no dust stuck to me at all from my multiple visits to the floor. Thinking about dust was just a distraction from everything that I’d just learned and experienced in a very short period of time. I decided I’d head outside and so I did not realizing until I was outside that I had no problem navigating the cluttered house which had several more connecting hallways and rooms and looked far smaller from the outside than it actually was.

[“I’m passively giving you some of my knowledge,” Aggy explained, her voice no longer strained but back to nice grandma voice, “I’ve been doing so since the start, I think I had to give you knowledge of language first before I could actually communicate with you, it’s not necessarily understanding, but I think it worked because you already understand the concept of language.”]

That explained a bit about that sensation I was feeling before I could hear Aggy, it was probably just the passive knowledge leaking into me. I wondered if that’s why I felt so calm and have been able to calm down so rapidly considering everything.

[“Probably something along those lines,” Aggy said cheerfully, “although this is an unexpected turn of events to be honest with you.”]

What do you mean an unexpected turn of events? I thought at her while I examined my surroundings. It seemed to be a pleasant little wooded area with a large clearing for Aggy’s cabin with gardens scattered about growing various flowers, fruits and vegetables. There didn’t seem to be much organization amongst them, but there did seem to be a small army of autonomous ceramic garden gnomes taking care of everything from watering to weeding. I watched them for a few moments while waiting for Aggy to explain it.

[“Those are garden golems, not gnomes,” she said in a chiding voice, “gnomes really dislike when these are made in their likeness or referred to as garden gnomes."]

I was slightly surprised when I heard that, but the surprise quickly faded as Aggy flooded my with a handful of memories and knowledge of gnomes. They were one of the more common “high” species like humans and elves, referred to as such because they consider themselves more civilized and above the “low” species like goblins, orcs, and trolls. I could feel Aggy’s sentiments heavily with this knowledge, knowing she considered some of the “low” species to be some of the best people she knew, as well as her anger that the dwarves, one of the most recent additions to the “high” species would hold such species sentiments towards the “low” species.

Other than the obvious superiority complex, I thought at Aggy, what made the quote unquote low species so low? Also, you avoided my question.

[“the low species are the ones that don’t have a high resistance to corruption essentially. They’re the ones that most easily get enslaved and manipulated into being feral little minions for evil overlords,” she explained instead of imparting the knowledge, “dwarves only really managed to build a resistance in the past two centuries.”]

Her explanation better helped me to understand the information I was given, and to better understand a bit of the social nuance. So, it is just a superiority complex then with a bit of historical prejudice assuming there have been a few evil overlords.

[“there have been,” she confirmed, then seemed to sigh. “Which comes to the question that I avoided. The turn of events.”]

I waited expectantly as I watch one of the little garden golems capture a caterpillar that had just started taking a bite out of a leaf and transporting it away from the garden to a bushy area near the edge of the clearing where it wouldn’t harm any of the gardens but still had plenty of vegetation to munch on. The golem went back to the garden and repeated the process, finding another bug looking to take a bite out of what looked almost like a tomato plant with purple tomatoes.

[“to my understanding they basically are purple tomatoes,” she said, then sighed again. “So, the thing with necromancers is that you have to destroy the entirety of their body to kill them, otherwise the more powerful ones have the potential to come back as a lich.”]

My thoughts flashed to the head being severed and flying off while the body was being incinerated. I felt Aggy’s affirmation.

[“my husband’s head was never recovered after that battle. I was unable to find it so I scorched the landscape but couldn’t be one hundred percent sure until recently whether or not I got it,” her voice took on a sad note, “I didn’t and now he’s back. He apparently had an apprentice who was able to assist in his resurrection”]

That is quite the turn of events, I thought, but it doesn’t sound entirely unexpected if you weren’t positive about it.

[“that’s right,” I could feel an almost sad smile from her, “I was more or less prepared for him to come back. I was actually just performing a spirit ritual to rejuvenate my body to go fight him one last time and finish it once and for all. Its difficult to fight with arthritis and a bad back. It was difficult to stand up straight and I couldn’t maintain the best grip on my sword or axe for that matter. So, the plan was to pull a youthful spirit, one with some fresh vitality to juice myself up a bit before I went to go fight him.”]

You were just going to eat a soul!? I could feel the alarm in my thoughts.

[“Not quite,” she half chuckled at me, “usually the ritual pulls plant spirits and occasionally animal spirits. They essentially become part of your spirit until you die, so its not often you get a sapient spirit. That’s something that happens in familiar rituals. I clearly did something horribly wrong though, not only did I get a sapient spirit, but I also somehow put it control of my body and relegated myself to a passenger. I’m guessing it had to do with how recently you died.”]

So, uhm, I paused still trying to get my thoughts straight, does that mean I’m supposed to be here to help you fight the lich? And I can’t go home?

[“you’re in the driver seat Jake,” she sighed more deeply with a bit of frustration in her voice, “I’m going to help you, but I don’t know what specifically to do. We should probably find wizard proficient in ritual magic and summoning to see if there’s anything we can do for you, but I have no idea how easily we’ll be able to find one. Powerful wizards tend to be reclusive. I know some people but we’re going to be stuck together for a long while.”]

Oh, was all I could think back. Then my thoughts racing as I considered all this information. I died, now I’m in the body of a badass magical grandma, with hopes being that maybe a wizard somewhere has the knowledge to help our situation, and there’s a lich running around somewhere out there that the badass grandma whose body I inhabit wants to kill. Maybe I’m actually just in a coma and the truck didn’t kill me.

[“it definitely did,” Aggy said sadly, “and that about sums up our situation. Why don’t we go for a nice walk in the woods so you can process this better?”]

I looked around at the forest around me, incredibly scenic and picturesque in the midday light. It looked like it would be calming, and I could smell an almost familiar pine-like smell. so, I took her advice ad started to wander into the forest. I made it probably no more than twenty steps in when I heard a high pitched scream coming from somewhere ahead of me, it sounded like terrified child. Then I heard a second scream join the first one. I sprinted hard through the forest toward the source of the sound. I could feel Aggy eagerly urging me on without saying anything. I could sense she would’ve done the exact same thing if she was in control. I burst through some brush and found the source of the screaming.

A tall filthy man in ragged leather armour with a rusty sword was menacing three small children. Two of the children were backed up against the tree huddled together it looked to be a boy with his arms around a younger girl. one of them stood in front of the other two with its arms held out at its sides as if to protect the other children. All three of the children were a pale green colour that immediately reminded me of a moss or lichen, with cute little button noses and long ears tapered to a point, and hair various shades of brown. They had round faces with mouths that seemed slightly to wide by human standards. They were adorable little creatures. The one in front had shaggy dark chestnut coloured hair. He seemed to be the oldest of the trio and by human standards looked to be about five. The other two looked to be slightly younger, the boy also had shaggy hair slightly lighter than the first one, and the girl looked to be the smallest, with long reddish black hair.

The boy in front was wearing a vest with a shirt underneath. Purplish blood slowly flowed from jagged tear that ran through his vest and shirt across his small torso. He panting through gritted teeth, and one of his eyes was puffed up and black, but he stood his ground and glared at the man in front of him.

“You won’t,” a ragged cough in his high pitched voice, “touch them.”

The man laughed and stepped toward the boy raising his rusty sword that I just noticed had a bit of the purple blood on it. Something inside snapped, and it wasn’t just Aggy. I suddenly felt rage boiling over, and along with it power. I very suddenly found myself beside the man. I grabbed his wrist as he started to swing the sword and wrenched his arm back. His arm came off with a wet tearing sound as he flew across the ground slamming into the trunk of a large tree. I looked at the arm briefly and felt nothing but disgust for the person it belonged to. I tossed it towards the man and then turned to the children.

“it’ll be alright kiddos, I’m gonna go take care of the bad man quickly then we’ll have you patched up and playing again in a jiffy.” It was slightly disorienting hearing Aggy’s voice whenever I spoke, but probably more comforting than my voice would’ve been in the situation.

The man was coughing up blood and trying to push himself up with one arm. I went to take a step and was suddenly beside him again. He looked up at me and spat blood at me.

“Stupid old cun-” the heavy black boot I didn’t realize I was wearing splattered his head across the tree trunk. I turned back to the children. The one in front was no longer holding his arms up to defend himself, but instead was staring at me with a mixture of shock, fear, and awe. I walked towards them, not going so fast that I suddenly appeared beside them, just a regular walking speed. I wasn’t even sure how I went so far so fast in the first place but I’m sure it something to do with the amount of strength Aggy possessed. I mean, I ripped that guys arm off and threw him twenty feet away just trying to stop him, and then splattered his head with a kick. Going twenty feet fast doesn’t seem like it would be a stretch.

[“I was getting prepared to fight one of the strongest beings in the world when I summoned you,” Aggy told me, “And I wasn’t going in thinking I was going to lose.”]

Shouldn’t I feel more guilty? I asked internally as I got close to the kids.

[“he’d have probably done worse to these children,” she said completely remorse free and with conviction, “they’ve probably seen worse in their short lives, goblins don’t have it easy anywhere.”]

The young goblins watched me warily. None of them moved to run or defend themselves, although after that display I don’t think I would’ve either.

“So, are you gonna make us your slaves now?” the front goblin asked.

“I wasn’t planning on it, are you doing okay?” I asked pointing at his chest.

He looked down at his chest for a few moments, wobbling slightly. Then he looked back up at me.

“No.” he said firmly, and then collapsed.

I was easily able to step forward and catch the little guy before he hit the ground. I scooped him into a princess carry then approached the other two.

[“we need to get him back to my cabin, I can teach you a ritual to heal him since I don’t think ill be able to teach you proper magic in this short of a time.” Aggy said hurriedly, “you can subconsciously access my mana, so you’ll be able to do a ritual, but I don’t know what kind of damage this kid has internally so we gotta go.”]

“Hey guys,” I said to them gently, “we need to take him to my cabin so we can fix him up, can you guys follow me?”

[“Not much time, you should carry them instead,” Aggy instructed, “just scoop them up and do a quick run.”]

As they nodded to me, I adjusted the injured boy, so he was tucked securely into the crook of my left arm and scooped the other two up with my right arm, then I ran towards the cabin