A few hours after Tim’s rather enthusiastic presentation, Bert and nearly the entire gang arrived at Tim’s lair, each carrying multiple suspicious barrels in small carts. Doing their very best to ignore the swarms of rats, they unloaded their packages with audible groans of exertion and turned to their new boss.

“Well boss, this should cover everything you mentioned,” Bert rumbled out in his baritone of a voice. “We even managed to find a barrel of piss for ya, and before you ask, no one batted an eye. Nothing like a good ol’ high visibility vest to speed things along,” Bert said with a tired smile. Tim took a step backwards and surveyed the goods.

“Excellent. Now you two,” He pointed towards the gnome brothers, “put the glassware there. I’ll need you both and Bert back in the morning. The rest of you, back to your hideout and do whatever you minions normally do. Get some rest, you’ve earned it.”

Bert nodded, surveying the gnome brothers, idly watching his fellow ‘minions’ run before they could get drafted into any dangerous tasks. Soon after, the gnome brothers silently joined him, greeting the dwarf with brisk nods. Further inside the room, he could see Tim getting ready for whatever alchemical insanity he was about to brew up. He had no idea what the mad half-elf was going to make but judging from the excitedly swirling hordes of rats milling around his feet, the muffled giggles, and the busy clinking of glassware, it certainly was not going to be healthy for whoever Tim wanted to use it on. Bert bit back a grimace. He didn’t really want to stick around and didn’t really want to come back in the morning either. With his luck, it was going to be the heroes.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

“Alright, Philbert, are you ready?” Tim whispered towards his pocket, hardly able to keep back shivers of excitement at the prospect of testing his forbidden knowledge. Though Philbert would never show excitement he squeaked in affirmation; the two had a mutual interest in destruction.

Tim set to work on the first of his three new products: gunpowder, as the milling hordes of rats swarmed toward the bag of charcoal. Well, I suppose this won’t be anything super special, but if it even manages to get me half the destructive power promised by the books about the heroes’ original world, I’ll be happy. Tim let out a soft giggle at the thought and grabbed the charcoal to start the grinding process. Really, it was a lot simpler than he first imagined. All he needed to do was grind up a bunch of charcoal, which he could get the rats to help with, make sure the saltpeter was ground finely enough, and then mix it all together with sulfur. As long as he made sure that the ratios were right, roughly three fourths saltpeter, thirteen percent charcoal, and twelve percent sulfur, it should work just fine.

You typically think of rats as chewing through things, piercing and cutting. The idea of using the rats for this was a bit impulsive, but Tim glanced around and let out a pleased smile. They were certainly making short work of the charcoal. From his pocket a small paw tapped out, breaking his train of thought with a flash of excitement. The signal that things were ready to start mixing. Tim wrestled one of the now-empty barrels near the table and began to move individual containers of the three ingredients closer to him. Okay Tim, easy does it, He thought as he started to measure out the ratios. Just think of it as cooking a meal. One fuckup on the ratios, and it won’t be as tasty. Easy does it... Tim emptied the first container of sulfur into the barrel, checking once again that it met his measurements and praying that his math was correct. Soon after that the powdered charcoal and fine grains of saltpeter were added. Tim cracked his neck and let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Well, just around 39 of these barrels left, right? Damn this is going to take a long time.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Quite some time later, Tim and his rat helpers finally finished the last barrel. Tim looked at the clock on the wall of the breakroom. Huh. Nearly midnight. I did lose track of time in all the mixing, but I reckon we spent almost a full day on this. He shook his head in exasperation. Well, I guess even with as many little helping hands as I have, these things still take time to get done. I need to rest too though, Tim thought, then collapsed on the franken-couch.

He woke up to a strained cough. “Ah! Hello!” Tim said and got up, running a hand through his hair. The haphazard combing effort did not do any good – it was still flattened on one side and straight up on the other. “Excellent, just move that last barrel out into the hallway with the others, and we can start mixing the white phosphorus and the sarin. After that,” Tim grinned, “we need to do a bit of testing.” The gnome brothers who stood before him pointedly ignored their boss’s grandstanding, and carefully grabbed the last barrel of gunpowder, moving towards the door without a single word.

After the gnome brothers left, Tim once again turned back towards the small table he had been using for alchemy. “Right,” he said to Bert. “Now for the white phosphorus. It really is a shame that we can’t finish it today, but there’s not much we can do about that with the urine having to sit for a week. Well, we can at least mix the charcoal and the cinnamon together.” Tim grabbed the extra charcoal the rats had ground up and pulled the cinnamon closer to him, making sure not to inhale the spice as it passed under his nose. It’s just too damn expensive to be losing even a bit of it. Tim set to mixing it and was soon greeted with unimpressive piles of the charcoal and cinnamon mixture, which he immediately began to store in some empty glass tubes for later. Bert was out hauling barrels when Tim finally stood up. His kneecaps popped and protested. Alright, maybe I really do need a break. Besides, I still need to think of a way to make that sarin gas. According to the books, it has just as good of a chance of killing me in the process of creating it as it does of killing its intended targets.

Tim thought of something. “Philbert, speaking of killing, how did that plan of the rat king’s go?”

A voice without even a single hint of emotion issued out of Tim’s shirt pocket in response. “Well, my dear Tim. It has been done, done. Two men have joined the cause.”

Tim’s eyebrows rose at that statement. “Really? How did you guys manage that?”

The rat produced a strangled sound that Tim could only interpret as a laugh. “You shall see, see. If you keep moving as you have, soon you shall meet them.”

“Thanks, Philbert. That was truly an enlightening answer to my question.” Tim shook his head. “Anyways, since you’re being an unhelpful little rat, I guess all I can do now is test a barrel of this shit,” Tim said as he nodded his head towards the nearest barrel of his newly created gunpowder.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

An hour later and still very early in the morning, Tim and Bert found themselves staring down a very familiar mansion.

“Now Philbert,” Tim whispered towards his pocket, “Are you sure, are you absolutely fucking sure that your rat friends saw that Kevin was sleeping? You know this is the third time we’ve attacked his mansion, right? It’s a bit hard to believe that he wouldn’t be looking out for us.”

From Tim’s pocket a tail waved in acknowledgement. “Yes, yes. The lesser ones saw that one having drinks with the cleric hero and smelling strongly of alcohol a few hours after she left.”

Tim absentmindedly stroked his chin in thought. Well, a drunk hero is a tempting target, and from what I’ve heard from the rats and the newspapers Bert brought me, his lungs are probably still damaged to some extent. Tim’s eyes flashed as he made up his mind. “Bert, follow me and bring the two barrels. When I give the word, light the fuses and toss them through the those windows,” Tim said as he pointed towards what he assumed were the windows of the master bedroom.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Standing to the side of the clearly insane half-elf, Bert gulped and nervously followed Tim as close to the windows as they dared.

Fucking shit. I do this, and we get a hero on our ass. I don’t do this, and I probably get eaten alive like Wavey was.

A gesture from Tim snapped Bert out of his panicked thoughts, and he struck the first match, bringing it close to the fuses. Well Bert ol’ boy, time to test our luck again, he thought as he hefted the two barrels, waiting until the fuses had almost burned to the wood of the barrels and then throwing them towards the windows with all the strength he could muster.

The glass from the windows shattered, leaving silence in its wake. Tim’s mouth began to open in confusion, immediately shutting as Bert grabbed his boss and a screaming wall of sound and force rushed out of the windows, reducing the walls to splinters and nearly muffling a bellowing roar of surprise.

Nearly.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

For a brief moment Tim’s eyes filled with red and orange as the explosive blast he had unleashed filled his vision. Faintly, on the edge of his consciousness, he could feel the muscled arm of Bert yanking him back from the concussive force, towards the other side of the road. However, he soon frowned as the faint sound of someone who seemed to be roaring in anger and surprise registered in his ears.

“Well fuck,” Tim gasped out as he and Bert recovered their footing, “that really worked.”

Bert growled and spun Tim around. “Admire it later, boss, we gotta move!”

Tim briefly opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it just as fast as a focused bolt of flame came roaring out of the mansion behind him, slamming into a nearby house so heavily that the wood burst into a blazing inferno on impact.

Tim turned towards Bert with an uncharacteristically serious expression, and nodded, choosing to ignore the strange flash of grey that appeared in his peripheral vision.

“Yup, let’s get the fuck out of here,” Tim said as he and Bert took off towards the slums in the mutual agreement that it would be easier to lose a pissed-off hero there. They ran, picking up speed faster and faster with every incoherent scream of rage that followed them, not daring to look back or to pay attention to the colossal footsteps that were clearly following them.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Kevin was not having a good day. Not only did that stuck-up whore of a cleric bother him with shit he didn’t care about, but now his house, his beloved mansion, had been attacked by some fucker for the third time in two months.

“YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!” Kevin screamed after the fleeing figures he had seen toss a fucking bomb through his bedroom window, flinging another bolt of hissing flame towards the shorter of the two and hissing in sheer rage as it missed again. Kevin sucked in his breath. FUCK what Elena said about not killing civies and all that bullshit. These stupid fuckers are in the way. He flexed his muscles and felt the mana swirling inside of his stocky frame. One, two. In, out, Kevin thought as he fought to regulate his breathing against his rage. The air around him began to crackle and fill with the stench of ozone. The few civilians unfortunate enough to still be near the hero fell to the ground and started spasming as the electricity gathering around Kevin began arcing, snapping to the ground, buildings, people. Almost there…

One of the civilians on the ground burst into flames. Fucking distracting. Kevin stepped forward a bit past the corpse. With an explosively thunderous clap, Kevin directed the lightning he had gathered down through his very bones and shot straight down the street towards his panicking targets. The hero got closer by the second, his magic allowing him to eat up the distance faster than any ordinary man could dare to imagine. He sneered at the dwarf, who had glanced behind himself at the odd sounds. The dwarf’s eyes widened in terror as he grabbed at the other figure. Kevin burst out loud laughing midstride at the guy’s hairdo. Shittiest hair I’ve ever seen! And a halfie. Kevin thought with slight surprise. Rare. I wonder if that’s the same fucker that bitch is looking for.

Kevin shrugged his meaty shoulders and grinned. Ah, who cares. I’ll just merc ‘em both, he thought as he finally came within melee range. “Your hair sucks ass!” He shouted, as his meaty fists swung towards the frantically ducking pair.

Then, a slight hint of surprise colored Kevin’s face as a horrible grinding noise stopped his fists short.

“What the fu-“ Kevin sputtered out as a sword, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, flung itself between him and his prey.

“Alright,” Kevin growled, swinging his head back and forth, “who’s the arrogant piece of shit who thinks he can fuck with me.”

His eyes widened as the interloper jumped from the roof of a nearby building to reclaim his sword.

“Well shit. Elena was right about one of you lizard fucks being around here,” Kevin muttered as his gray-skinned adversary wordlessly picked up his slightly bent sword from where it had embedded itself in the ground.