For the cost of another four healing potions and a few handfuls of silver coins, Adin was able to recruit half a dozen strong young men from the village, and Kar’gandin was able to borrow a few good dwarves from his cousin. It took more to arm and armor the farmers than it did to hire them, but the dwarves at least came well-equipped with heavy crossbows and battleaxes. 

Lucas had considered making potions of strength and toughness for everyone, but he’d been a little short on some ingredients. So, he decided against it. After all, they were going to outnumber their opponents more than two to one, and they had the element of surprise on top of that. They didn’t need an even bigger trump card for this, though he conceded that they might for future operations. 

Instead, he just brought a few more healing potions with him than usual. He hoped they wouldn’t need them, but it would be cheaper than paying out the death benefits they’d agreed on to any widows and orphans.

Those efforts were enough to almost triple the size of their meager little band, bringing it to 11, not counting the two younger boys who were just there to drive the wagons. It took a few days to recruit and equip the newcomers, but that was fine with everyone except for Adin. He was the only one fiending for a fix. 

It only took two days of asking around about the bounty to find the decrepit old farmhouse a few miles north of town, just inside the Greenwood. Adventurers were happy to share that bit of news with Kar’gandin for the price of a few drinks while he bullshited them about some grand plan of his.

He told them a story about how he was looking to recruit hunters to import fresh goblin corpses from the dark warrens beneath the Amaranthine Range to the north. He figured that he could empty out whole tribes of greenskins in an afternoon, and then bring back the corpses on ice to turn a tidy profit rather than hunting through the nearly depleted Greenwood like everyone else. They bought it too, hook, line, and sinker. 

Why shouldn’t they, though. It was a great plan, and probably what they’d have to do once all this was done since the Blind would almost certainly keep poaching supply this close to the city. 

A couple nights of surveillance later, they had their answer. The place was a shack with perhaps three or four people inside at any given point on a long abandoned farmstead that had long since been taken over by weeds. Corpses were slaughtered and hung from trees not far from the building before being disposed of via an ever present bonfire. After that, bile came in, and sometimes barrels went out. 

At this point, they didn’t know if those barrels contained Midnight or simply bile, but either way, they were worth taking. In the end, they opted to time their assault a few hours before the next expected shipment, and the group arrived after moonrise, just before ten. leaving their horses, drivers, and a pair of guards a few hundred yards from the drug lab. 

After that, they advanced on foot, quietly through the underbrush. Well, as quietly though the underbrush as nine armored men could be, at least. Lucas smelled the place long before they saw it. 

Finding the bonfire of corpses was easy enough, and once that was spotted, Hura’gh had no trouble sneaking up on the man who was tending the fire despite his size. He quickly ripped out the beggar’s throat before adding the man’s body to the pyre. 

Lucas watched the man struggle briefly as he burned before he stilled forever more,  

That surprised Lucas, and though he’d never had to fight a full-blooded orc in this world, watching his comrade in action reminded him that he never wanted to if he could help it. Humans were dangerous enough for him.  

That left three, probably. Maybe four people left, depending on how many were inside the actual farmhouse. The guard outside the front door of the ramshackle farmstead didn’t see them coming, and when his chest was pierced twice with two powerful bolts, his death wasn’t quite so quiet. Each of them bit loudly into the wood of the wall the watchman was leaning against, which was more than enough to alert anyone inside. 

He had enough time to call out an alarm, too, though, with a punctured lung that was already partway deflated, it was more of a death rattle. By the time two men were already advancing on him with swords held high, the only thing that was holding the watchman up were the bolts that pinned him to the wall. He didn’t even have the strength left to raise his spear before he was struck down by multiple blows.

The men that Adin had gathered obviously didn’t have a lot of combat experience, but what they did have was heart. They seemed eager to impress, too. 

Getting paid a week's wages for a night's work almost certainly meant that they wanted to be called back for more in the future. Lucas understood that as he stood there with his knives out, waiting to see what surprise awaited them next. 

He’d hoped someone would charge out of the building to investigate, only to get cut down, but instead, he heard shouts of alarm followed by the sound of whoever was inside barring the door. That would make things slightly more difficult but not difficult enough to become a problem. 

The dwarves quickly dropped their heavy crossbows and drew their axes to hack down the door. Hurrah was faster, though. He just walked to the part of the wall that looked to be in the worst shape and then started tearing dry rotted boards off of it one at a time. In less than a minute, there were two different entrances into the structure: the shattered door and a gaping hole in the wall. 

Lucas charged in just behind Hura’gh and regretted it almost immediately. The place was foul. There was no alchemy being done here, just butchery for profit. The reagents were scattered around mixed with the scents of poison and decay. 

Goblin Bile: Poison 9, strength 3, endurance -1, violent diarrhea

Fire salts: Poison 2, endurance 1, intelligence -2, makes mixtures more volatile

The Beggar closest to them held a shortsword and feinted twice at Hura’gh while he shouted, “The Blind are not to be messed with! When our reinforcements arrive, we’ll—”

He never finished the sentence. When he thrust his blade at the intruders for the third time, Hura’gh reached past it, grabbed the man by his hand, and then used that grip to smash him against the wall several times before tossing him to the ground and crushing his rib cage with a single deliberate stomp. Lucas heard bones crack with each blow and doubted very much that the man would survive without healing magic that was well beyond anyone here. 

One of the dwarves bellowed in pain as the other man with a weapon got a piece of him, but even before he’d finished yelling, his partner chopped right through the man’s near leg, drowning out everything else with a terrible scream. 

Lucas tuned that out for the sake of his sanity as he moved forward toward the last man that was still standing. That was when he realized that he recognized the man. Garren. 

For a moment, Lucas couldn’t help but remember the last time he saw this asshole, and that was when they’d beat the secret for making Blue out of him. He hadn’t given them the real recipe, of course. He’d just made up whatever he could to play for time. After that, they’d beat him to unconsciousness and kicked his insensible body until they’d broken several ribs in a quiet alley not far from the market. 

“Come on, man,” he’d whispered, “Tell us the last step, and I won't have to take your fingers before I take your life.”

The man was a snake, and Lucas would certainly be dead now if those assholes had searched him for the backup healing potion he’d consumed as soon as he’d woken up. Even so, he’d crawled into someone’s basement and waited to die for two more days before he was strong enough to stagger to a well in a safer part of town and drink. 

“Lucas,” the man gasped as his face went white as a sheet, “You’re alive, but how… I… I—”

“Because you didn’t finish the job, asshole!” Lucas shot back as he advanced on the man. 

“Listen, we can talk this through,” Garren said as Lucas stabbed the dagger he’d had in his left hand and grabbed him by the collar. “This is your recipe, right? We couldn’t make Blue without you, but Dusk… Midnight… well, we’re making kings hand over fist. I can cut you in. I can talk to the boss. Ten percent, no questions asked. We can—”

Lucas slammed him against the wooden wall, hearing the whole thing creak from the force as he glared at the man with dead eyes. “Why in the fuck would I want my name near any of this?” he asked. “This isn’t alchemy. There’s no skill here. It’s fucking garbage, just like the people that make it.”

Lucas didn’t say that to be hurtful, either, it was obvious in the little pop-up alerts that let up the room all around him. Even after they’d beaten his secrets out of him, they had no idea what they were doing. 

Poisonous Potion of Midnight: Euphoria 5, poison 4, 30% chance to pass out for 1 to 4 hours, addictive

Poisonous Potion of Dusk: Euphoria 7, poison 5, -2 intelligence, addictive

Alchemical Mixture: Poison 5, strength 2, endurance -1

There’s not even any damn alcohol in here to refine the bile, Lucas realized, looking around the room for the missing step. He saw some espever vine sap, but it was from the wrong kind of tree, and so it was more purple than the aqua color one needed to make blue. No wonder they’re making trash. 

Violet Esper Vine Sap (processed): Agility 4, poison 2, intelligence -2, unable to sleep for the duration of the effect, 10% chance to hear voices

“You’re killing people? You know that?” Lucas said sternly. “Getting people hooked is one thing, but you might as well be feeding them drain cleaner.”

Garren looked at him in confusion about the strange term, but as soon as his eyes flicked to Lucas’s knife, he said, “Who cares. Silver is silver, and there’s always more customers. It’s not like you give a shit about life either.” 

That was enough to make Lucas pause, but only for a moment. He wasn’t a murderer. He’d stolen, he’d betrayed, he’d made and sold drugs, and done a thousand other terrible things. Murder was about the only line he hadn’t crossed in his life, but it wasn’t like his hands were clean just because he hadn’t pulled the trigger. Every man that had died tonight, and every man that had died in their escape from the castle, those bodies were on him, and he was going to have to find a way to square that. 

Not tonight though. Tonight was about doing what needed to be done, and more importantly, revenge. Ignoring his misgivings, Lucas dragged his knife across the other man's throat in a motion so fast that Garren’s eyes showed disbelief more than pain. Some part of Lucas died there, along with his victim, as the man started to down in his own blood. 

He was surprised to find that there was no joy or thrill in the moment as he let go of the Beggar’s collar, and he slid down the wall to the ground. It was a moment of brutal clarity, but before Lucas could examine it any further, people were cheering their easy win. 

That worked for Lucas. He started barking orders about what to take while he surveyed the damage on his side. No dead, and only one man wounded was pretty much perfect, he thought with a nod. That was almost enough to wipe away the sick feeling from what he’d done, too. Almost.