It was raining. I hate the rain. I was inside cozy with a fire, relishings its flames, Its warmth. I stood dangerously close to it.  I hated the rain because it put out fires. That wouldn't do.

I wake up again in my bed, just another day… I dress, make breakfast, burning myself in the process. I snag my pocket lighter out the door; It has always been with me, my father gave it to me on the day of his death. He had carried it everyday for years. It’s a feat of alchemy, it uses a special fluid and striker system with a self replenishing fuel source. The wonders of magic and alchemy.

I close the door to my run-down house. Working as an alchemist for some low quality potion making corporation doesn't pay well, believe it or not. I live within walking distance of the potion shop, I get there everyday, put in over-time, barely get paid. Burn myself and go home to the squalor. I get there, it's dingy and my other coworkers are already there. I'm late, again. I don't care much.

It seems however much I try I don't get very far. I wasted an awful load of money studying alchemy only to have my combustible fluid recipe stolen by my professor. He grabbed the paper. Patented it, and stole my life. Now I work with chemical burns and smoke for a living. 

I enter the door. The shop is unnamed, it just has a wooden sign hanging outside with some potions on it. I throw my thick leather apron over my tunic and walk past my coworkers. They greet me. I barely hear them as I stumble past them to the lab. If you can even call it that, it's more of a kitchen. There are no experiments here. Just some dangerous cooking.

I stop at my station and get out my chemicals, don my goggles. I pour, mix, diffuse, boil, crush, extract, and burn myself all in the perfect order. My hands are a mess, not that I care much. I lost most feeling in them a long time ago. They’re more of chemical stains at this point. I can't maneuver them as well anymore. They spill dangerous things on themselves and only feel a slight tingle when I should be crying out in pain. 

Things so simple as alchemy can't hurt me, at least not in ways I'll feel. I trudge through the day, making health potions, potions of strength, all low quality and crude. We are the low end of the spectrum. My coworkers gave up trying to talk to me a long time ago, I'm glad. I don't really talk to people. I don't really do anything anymore. I just try to hang on to life. I try to get enough money to pay rent and afford food. I try to hang on to this life for some reason. I do it so I can continue to do something that used to bring me joy I guess, even though doing it solidifies the helplessness in my mind. I'm okay with it though, my life ended here, why be upset about it?

I fish my hours, except the shop. One of the new employees is staring at my hands. They look horrid. I stare back. He notices and backs up, looking worried. The way back home is written into my hand like scar tissue. I make it back and start a fire. It's cold in the slums during winter. I put my pot over the fire, heating up last night's left-overs. I had some for breakfast so there's barely anything swimming around in the pot. 

I eat and then lay on the floor next to the fire. I do this every night. I have for thousands of days. Years. Forever it feels. I usually think about what I'm going to do to get out of this place. Usually the answer comes back as I'm already dead, life just hasn't caught up yet tonight I think of my fathers lighter, and after all why not? I have been sitting and doing nothing with my life for the past five years. Destroying my hands. Barely living. I have the choice of living, or dying here slowly. I decide. I'll have to wait. I know what I need, and It’s raining.

Tomorrow morning I won't go to work. I don't eat either. I pull all my stuff onto my bed. All the worthless junk I still hold onto. My fathers pictures, my mother’s sword. I take her bow, that's special. A family heirloom. I then spend the rest of the day stoking a good fire in my fireplace. I go and leave for the potion store, making sure to go well after closing time.

I reach the front window. I smash it. No alarm enchantments, no security. No one in these parts would even know what to do with the chemicals they would find here if they robbed the place, I do. 

I ransack it of anything I might need. I take all that I want. gold in the stores, a set of goggles and a leather apron. I trash the place, piling chemical store cabinets in the center of the room. I take out my fathers pocket lighter.

I walk away from the smell of burning hair and sulfur. I made it back to my home and put my heavy cloak over my apron. I haven't worn it in years. It was my fathers as well. He used to be a fire prevention mage. One of my experiments didn't go so well… he tried to fight it… couldn't stop it. The cloak smells of ash and kerosene.

I tear old clothes and pull together some makeshift items. With the vials and other items I pilfered from the shop I have enough to make some rudimentary explosives. They're crude. Not my best work. I sling mothers bow over my back with my arrows at my side, and my fire-bombs in my apron i walk out the door. I pull a pin. I throw. It rolls. No more past. Fire.

I walk past the shop on my stroke. I'm not sure where I'm going. As I see the place and feel the fire on my face, have the light dance in my eyes, taste the reactions in the air I release a few tears of joy.

As I'm walking, a plan forms in my mind. I would need to break into somewhere… do some things… sounds… pretty good actually. As I'm walking I feel a feeling starting inside me. It's not unlike kindling fire. Feeling it sputter and waver but still steadily grow. It's the feeling of happiness again. Thinking of doing these things I would have never done before makes me happy. I start humming, realizing I've started three fires tonight.

I wander, thinking of how to accomplish my goals. I decide that I'm going to need a place to stay tonight, I can't freeze myself. I settle on just sleeping in the place that I break into. Keep it simple. I make my way across the city, passing sleepy homes and humble business. It's all closed for the night. I found what I'm looking for. The first store from the potion chain I work at. It was the original, wildly popular so they kept making more.

I walk up to the window. There would most certainly be security charms. That's fine. There would also be guards and security alarms. The usual. I walked up to the window, and examined it. I spotted the faintly etched runes in the glass, I traced them until I found the one I was looking for. The alarm rune. I straightened my quiver on my hip, grabbed a fire bomb in my other hand, and punched the window.

    The glass shatters under my fist, the rune disabled when I broke it. I aimed well. There were no magical alarms blaring, I knew that all the guards would have a piece of metal in their pockets that would be vibrating. They know something is happening but don't know exactly what. They will be running around, asking if the wards are malfunctioning and generally wondering why the alarm isn't going off.

    I grab a vial off my belt, tossing it at the door. I walk forward casually, with my hood over my face. I turn around throwing an identical bottle at the window. I pop the pin on the fire bomb in my hand, and the pools of chemicals go up in bright green flames. No exect for them. 

I see a person running down to check what's going on. I duck behind the potions counter before they see me. They see the fire and start shouting something at the other security guards. I'm behind a desk, there's a gold bin so I assume it's where people would pay. I spotted a few bottles of colorful liquid underneath the counter. I grab one and read its label in the low green light.

Some sort of healing potion, I snag it as the security guard rounds into full view.

They came out of a side door, I assume some sort of display room or storage area. The kitchen would be back farther. I walk up deftly behind him, he hasn't noticed me over the sound of the crackling fire. I unstring my bow from my shoulders. I rear back, and swing. Bows aren't meant for this but mine was particularly strong. My mom made it well. The guard slumped to the ground, I grab his club and his short sword. I would need the club for incapacitating the other guards.

I rifle through his pockets, looking for the piece of metal that was vibrating. Part of the wards. I pull out a slender piece of metal, vibrating and I scan it for a rune. I locate the one I need, I press it. That should have shut off the other guard's alarm. I go back behind the counter, grabbing potions and other cheap remedies along the way. I toss them over my shoulder, only grabbing the ones I need. The fire behind me grows, and changes colors. 

I hear a voice behind me “hey! What are you doing! You're not allowed to be in’ ere” I turn around to see two security guards. I walk forward calmly. “Don't worry yourselves! You don't need to panic! I wont add your body to the fire if you don't put up a fight!” I meant it as a joke, but they didn't seem too eager to joke. They both rushed forward, I drew my cudgel and tried to bring it down on one of their heads, they were faster. They dodge out of the way of my swing and bring their club into my ribs. I scream at them and grab the other by the neck, I bring my cudgel into his forehead while he's trying not to suffocate. He's down. The other seems much better trained, as I swing with my cudgel again they block with their sword and bring their club into my knee. I fall to the ground, they quickly grab me from behind. I slam my head backwards, catching them in the stomach. In their shock I kick out their feet and rise. 

I garb a fire bomb and pull the pin. “Catch!” the fire bomb slams into their face, persuambley breaking their nose, before falling to the ground. A split second later the fire envelopes me. Bliss. The warm tingly feeling all around my body, the complete lack of vision. The sting of chemicals on the raw skin, the bones, the tongue. I feel a thud on my back, I assume I've just been thrown across the room. I feel like it too. Meaning I feel great! 

I hop up to my feet and try to shake the stairs out of my vision. I look around for the security guard among the damage I've caused. I locate his body underneath some wood scraps and shards. I shake him off, lift him by his neck and toss him into the fire.

I look for a door. I see two, one behind the counter I ransacked and another that the first security guard came through. I assume that the store room is the side door. I walk forward, stalking through puddles of fire, treading over the three bodies that lie among it. My legs burn, partially from the fact that I'm on fire, and from the fact that the security guard that hit me wasn't going easy.

I stalk through the door. A terrible image. My hood over my head. Smelling of blood and chemicals. I draw my bow and loose two arrows in quick succession. The two guards in the room fall. This seems to just be a way to access their special displays and all that. I just light an arrow on fire and shoot it down the hall. I stalk back behind the counter, I try the door but it's locked. 

I shake the doorknob vigorously. Maybe… if i smash it hard enough i can break it? Before I can start hitting things a voice comes from the other room. “Stop! If you do not surrender right now we will have to take you in with forceful measures!”

I shake the doorknob vigorously. Maybe… if I smash it hard enough I can break it? Before I can start hitting things a voice comes from the other room. “Stop! If you do not surrender right now we will have to take you in with forceful measures!”

“Sounds like a party!” I shout back. “Open the door, I'm semi-harmless!” “drop your weapons! Now! Slide them under the door!” They shout back. I look down to see a large crack in the door below. Larger than any other kind of door I'd seen. It seemed sort of eaten away, like acid had eaten through it. “Did I drop something? I don't remember picking up any acids..” “What are you talking about?! If you don't drop your weapons this instant we will be forced to come and take you by forceful measures!”

“I'm not much concerned by that, but you seem pretty sure of yourself. So let's get this over with.” I drop four potion bottles on the floor, instantly a small black fire leaps into existence. I roll two grenades under the door. Before shouting “HAVE FUN!” a second later a heated woosh by my shins is accompanied by screams. For a second. 

I start pushing at the door. It takes a second but caves in. boiling heat folds over me from the room. The whole thing is burning bright and fun colors. I smell chemicals, ash, and burning hair wafting through the room. The shredded corpses of the security guards stand at my feet. Burning. I Shrug and make my way through the room. 

This would have been a storage room for all the stuff they cook the potions with. It’s unfortunate that I had to blast the room. But there was no way I would be able to take five guards in hand to hand combat. Anyway, the kitchen should be through here.

I shake open the door to reveal a mostly fire-free kitchen. I make my way through it quickly. I garb all the vials, and components i need to get some proper fire-bombs going. I splash a vial of gasoline into a healing potion I cooked up, under the theory that I was going to get much more fire resistant… or the opposite. Improvised alchemy is always a mystery.

I down the potion as I continue through the room, I find a better apron, an on-the-go potion maker and some loose gold. I snag all of it as I spill the chemicals I don't need on the floor. I feel a tingling in my lower legs, apparently wading through a pool of chemicals isn't good for you.  I see a back door and on my way out I light a match. 

“Oops!”

    I exit leaving the fires behind me. The sun is rising on the horizon as I walk away from the scene behind me. I turn around at the end of the shopping square that used to hold the shop. The rainbow colors and smells have spread, and a few nearby buildings have become inflamed. I spot a security guard running, I drop my hood. He turns around, seeing me. He starts running faster.

    I continue walking, it's an hour or two later as I finally make it out of town. I definitely received a few strange looks as I am covered in blood… I get far enough out of town that I'm surrounded by woods and animals. I make a small camp on the side of the road, a small campfire. I start cooking up the fun. Napalm. I wrap it in flash paper… put that in a vial.. Put that vial in a bigger one ready to explode.

I pull out my lighter, staring into the flame. I put my finger over the flame. It snap it closed, making a flash bomb. Magnesium… some napalm for effect… maybe some barium for show… I cooked up a simple healing potion as well, that guard hit me pretty hard in the leg, still feeling it. After making a few different kinds of bombs, i add some acetone to my flash bang. The drowsiness, confusion, slurred speech, and loss of coordination should make it even more debilitating. 

I obviously have to carve a few chilling runes on it, to keep it cool. Has a low flashpoint. Although it going off in my pouch would be fun it would be a waste.