"We always knew goblins were curious tinkerers, but none of us ever thought they would take so swimmingly to the field of alchemy, and produce so many horrifying concoctions. To this day I still curse whoever it was that first allowed a goblin to step into an alchemy lab!" - Corth Lensmar, head of the Alchemist's Guild, circa 427 VA.

Aideen rushed as fast as her legs could take her, and reached the accident site in a mere minute. She quickly went to work on the two bodies - they were so horribly burnt she thought their survival was a marvel in itself - and was surprised to see some familiar faces once she had restored them.

"Illyana? Molin? What happened here?" she asked the now restored duo. Both of them were Unliving, Illyana being the rat-therian girl she had helped rescue from Elmaiya a century ago, while Molin was a goblin who had come with two other members of her clan, her brother and a distant cousin, when they also turned Unliving.

"We were just working in the lab, testing things out," said Illyana with a squeak of dismay. "Next thing we know, *Boom*, fire everywhere. After that I couldn't really tell. My eyes and ears and nose were all burnt off."

"Must've been Colin," said Molin with an annoyed snarl. Colin was her younger brother, who was also unliving. "That brat never learned his lessons, I swear! This is the third time already!"

"Third time?" Aideen asked to Illyana with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, we built the lab here where nobody's around so it wouldn't hurt anyone if something like this happened," said the timid girl with a blush. "The first time it happened ten years ago it wrecked the house across the street, and both our neighbors too! Luckily we're all unliving there though, so nobody died."

"I'm starting to get the idea now," said Aideen as she massaged her head. "What I don't get is why you're here with them? I thought you were still studying with old Mallard?"

"Miss Molin's developed potions that could help with my treatments, so I've worked together with her often of late," explained the therian girl while nervously fiddling with her tail. "Her brother's research on the other hand… can at times be a bit… explosive."

"That brat Colin discovered some really volatile substance by accident during that first accident," said Molin, the female goblin with her arms crossed over her chest. "He's been working on finding uses for it since. The second accident happened when he messed up storing it. I don't even know what he did today to blow it up this bad."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"He's here as well?" Aideen asked as she scanned the surroundings, having spotted no sign of anyone else when she arrived earlier.

"Prolly got his ass vaporized in that explosion. It was way bigger than usual," said Molin nonchalantly. "You want to ask him about the mess I take it?"

"If possible," said Aideen with a nod. "Help me look for some leftover bits of him?"

"Sure I guess," said Molin with an exasperated sigh. "I swear, that brother of mine's gonna be the death of me again!"

The three of them searched the area for any sign of Molin's brother. Aideen noticed that nobody in the vicinity had seemed that surprised by the explosion, and chalked it up to this not being the first time it happened.

It took them maybe half an hour of combing through the burnt wreckage before Illyana found a small chunk of badly burnt bone which Molin then sniffed and declared to be her brother's.

Aideen quickly went to work, and before too long, a goblin's body - very similar to Molin in appearance other than gender - was regenerated with that piece of bone as its base, and the reformed goblin awoke with a loud gasp.

Only to immediately be laid down again by a solid fist to the face.

"You bloody nitwit! What in the name of all that is dead and rotten were you cooking up in that lab of yours!?" yelled Molin as she beat up her brother some more. Aideen let the goblin woman vent some more on her brother as she watched by the side. "That shit even roasted us good! Don't drag us into your messes, you birdbrained cretin!"

"They do that often?" Aideen asked Illyana while she offered the therian girl a water bag of ale to wash her throat with. The two goblin siblings were busy with each other, one whaling the other with blows, which the other tried to counter with some frantic flailing.

"About once a week or so? Maybe twice a week sometimes. Colin's a bit of a goof, even if he got some talent in alchemy," replied the therian woman. Aideen had not been particularly close to the goblin siblings, who had joined the community only a few decades ago, when she had other worries on her mind. "Definitely not the first time Colin messed up the lab, though most of his fuckups don't blow everything sky high like this one did."

"So, Colin, care to tell us what you did to cause… well… all this?" asked Aideen as she sat down on a bench that had miraculously survived only with some scorching and looked at the prone goblin from above.

"Oh. Greetings, Young Lady. I was just tryin' to improve the formula for my dragonfire brew. Didn't expect it to react that explosively in the making! Honest!" said the goblin. Looking at their still youthful faces, Aideen thought that the siblings must have died young, probably not even in their twenties yet, not that she was one to speak in that regard. "It just went Foom at the last combination for some reason."

"That's because you keep fucking around with the bloody thing like you got a deathwish, you dolt!" yelled Molin with another slap to the back of Colin's head. "The first sort you made was bad enough, but you're trying to make it even worse!?"

"Dragonfire brew?" Aideen asked with some curiosity.

"Some new alchemical brew Colin came up with. Very volatile, instantly reacts explosively when it comes into contact with anything other than air or specially treated glass," explained Illyana with an exasperated tone of voice. "The first time he brewed it a vial full blew the house up. He had experimented with drops since then… and this still happens."

"Oh."