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Saving Azeroth (By Stealing the Black Dragon Princess) - 4
🕑 Added 2025-10-12 09:06:05 +0000 UTCChapter 4: Fertilizer Alchemy
The alchemical materials shop in Booty Bay was squeezed into the end of the dock district's most chaotic alley. Its crooked sign displayed faded paint reading "Goldfinger Brothers Alchemy Workshop," with a crudely painted cauldron bubbling green beside it—looking like a goblin's drunken masterpiece.
When Deren pushed open the door, the hinges shrieked in protest. A wave of heat mixed with sulfur, rotting vegetation, and a suspiciously sweet-sickly odor hit him like a physical blow, constricting his throat. He instinctively covered his nose, his elbow knocking into a string of dried lizard tails hanging by the doorframe. The shriveled things swung and rattled like macabre wind chimes.
"Careful! Those are Zangarmarsh specialties—one tail costs more than you make in a month!" came a shrill voice from behind the counter.
Deren squinted into the gloom. In the dim lamplight, he finally made out the speaker—a goblin even rounder than the guide Rizsik, wearing a filthy coat that might once have been white. The goblin stood on tiptoe, arranging a row of eyeballs floating in purple liquid on a high shelf. The eyeballs rotated slowly with the liquid's movement, pupils seemingly still watching.
Onyxia—now "Selina Morningstar"—stood half a step behind Deren, her staff tapping the ground once in clear disgust. Her high elf illusion seemed completely out of place in such squalor, even her silver hair appearing to have acquired a layer of grime from the air itself.
"Welcome to Goldfinger Brothers!" The goblin jumped down from his stool, gold teeth flashing. "I am Grozzle Goldfinger, Booty Bay's most professional, most affordable, most—"
"Most talkative alchemical supplier?" Deren interrupted, pulling a crumpled parchment from his pocket. "I need these items. Today."
Grozzle snatched the list, beady eyes scanning rapidly. "Sulfur, saltpeter, purified water, glassware... Hmm? And animal hair?" He looked up with a cunning smile. "Customer, what are you making? Love potion? Cursed doll? Or—"
"Fertilizer," Deren said flatly.
"Fertilizer?!" The goblin's pitch rose an octave. "Using saltpeter for fertilizer? Do you think I am some Westfall dirt farmer?"
Deren sighed, pulling a gold coin from his purse and flipping it deftly between his fingertips. "Does a goblin have issues with gold?"
The coin's gleam reflected in the goblin's pupils. His eyeballs tracked the rotation twice, then he suddenly lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Actually... if you need some special goods, like—" He bent down furtively, pulling a small iron box from under the counter. "Fresh blue dragon scale powder from the Hinterlands? Or..." He licked his lips. "Last month I acquired some felhound spinal fluid..."
"Unnecessary." Onyxia's voice cut through the shop like a blade, her staff thumping the ground. The sound was not loud, yet the oil lamp's flame shuddered violently.
Grozzle's ears instantly drooped. He laughed nervously, quickly shoving the box back. "Just kidding! We run a legitimate business!" Though he muttered under his breath while turning, "High elves are so difficult to please..."
For the next half hour, Deren followed the goblin through crowded shelves. Grozzle moved like an agile rat, now diving into corners piled with bottles and jars, now climbing precarious ladders, his mouth running constantly:
"Sulfur here—Northrend volcanic specialty! Saltpeter? Ha! Your luck is excellent—just got a fresh shipment from Tanaris yesterday... Purified water? Of course! Goblin distillation technology, ninety-nine percent purity! What? Want it purer? Customer, are you drinking this or experimenting with it?"
Deren ignored his chatter, focusing on inspecting each material. He pinched saltpeter between his fingers, examining the crystalline structure. He held sulfur chunks to the light, checking for impurities. Finally, he had Onyxia verify the purified water with a simple detection spell. She nodded curtly—it passed.
"You are truly demanding customers." Grozzle complained, rubbing his numb fingers. "But considering this lady—" He stole a glance at the Dalaran insignia at the high elf's collar. "I will give you ten percent off!"
When all materials were finally packed, Deren's sleeves were covered in unknown powders, while Onyxia's boot tips had unfortunately stepped in a puddle of viscous green liquid emitting a rotten fish stench.
"Pleasure doing business!" Grozzle grinned as he handed over the bill. "That will be forty-two gold and seven silver—I will waive the change!"
Onyxia's eyebrow twitched dangerously. Deren quickly pressed down on her hand gripping the staff and paid himself.
When Deren and Onyxia returned to the stone house with their packages, the sky had turned deep purple.
Onyxia threw the sack of sulfur heavily on the ground. Dust puffed up in clouds, choking Deren into coughing fits. She looked down at the indelible green stain on her boot, her dragon eyes contracting dangerously beneath the illusion.
"This garbage—" she snarled through gritted teeth, kicking the saltpeter bag, "can do what exactly?"
Deren wiped sweat from his forehead and grinned. "Make fertilizer."
The air instantly froze.
"Fertilizer?" Onyxia's voice emerged terrifyingly soft, each syllable squeezed from between her teeth.
"Yes, the substance that makes crops grow better—"
"I know what fertilizer is!" The Black Dragon Princess's roar shook dust from the ceiling, her illusion barely holding as black scales flickered through her silver hair. "You had me—daughter of Deathwing!—hauling these filthy materials like a common laborer, just to farm?!"
Deren quickly raised both hands. "Wait! Patience! That is just the surface explanation!" He lowered his voice. "Think about it. If we made a big fuss buying explosive materials, would the goblins not be suspicious? But buying fertilizer ingredients is perfectly reasonable. No one suspects, including other dragons."
Onyxia's dragon breath churned in her chest, but reason barely suppressed her fury. She grabbed a beaker rack, shattering a wooden support with an audible crack. "Your results had better be worth my enduring this humiliation."
What followed bordered on the absurd.
The six-foot-tall "high elf" floated in midair with a dark expression, refusing to touch the floor again. She used shadow magic to arrange test tubes with unnecessarily violent gestures. Deren crouched on the ground assembling glass tubes like building blocks, occasionally startled by crucibles Onyxia deliberately "accidentally" dropped near his head.
"Turn left fifteen degrees." Deren pointed at the condenser pipe. "No, back a little—stop! Right there—"
Crack! The tube suddenly bent at a right angle from an invisible force.
"You did that on purpose!"
Onyxia elegantly smoothed her silver hair. "My hand slipped."
When the apparatus was finally assembled, the entire workbench looked like it had survived a goblin bomb test—crooked supports held twisted glassware*;* tube joints were sealed with suspicious green adhesive from Grozzle's "complimentary sample,"; and the beaker meant to hold purified water had several dragon scales floating in it that Onyxia had "accidentally" dropped in.
Deren gazed at this disaster and suddenly laughed. "You know what? This is better than I expected."
"Oh?" Onyxia raised an eyebrow. "Did you anticipate an explosion?"
"No." Deren gently tapped the critical sulfur combustion chamber. "Precisely because it looks this broken, even if someone spies on us, they will never guess what it can actually produce."
Inside the stone house, acrid sulfur smoke saturated the air. Deren covered his nose and mouth with a wet cloth, eyes red and swollen, tears streaming uncontrollably.
"Cough—cough!" He bent over, retreating miserably to the corner. "This is... more choking... than I imagined..."
But Onyxia stood before the experimental table with a pleased expression. Her slender fingers flicked lightly, shadow magic enveloping the sulfur chunks to suspend them midair. Then, with a soft hiss, a strand of black-red dragon flame leaped from her fingertip, precisely scorching the sulfur.
The sulfur rapidly melted and burned. Concentrated sulfur dioxide gas rolled out, gurgling through glass tubes into a flask of purified water. The liquid gradually turned pale yellow, while overflowing fumes were casually directed out the window with a wave of her hand—like taming an obedient serpent.
"Mortals are so fragile," she hummed lightly, even leisurely humming an ancient draconic melody—low and rhythmic, as if celebrating a small act of controlled destruction.
Deren wiped his streaming eyes with a bitter smile. "Princess, are you enjoying this a bit too much?"
Onyxia glanced at him sideways, her dragon eyes flickering in the firelight. "Sulfur suits dragons perfectly."
Deren laughed helplessly despite his discomfort.
As the last trace of sulfur burned away, the liquid in the flask presented clear sulfurous acid solution. Onyxia snapped her fingers with satisfaction. Residual smoke instantly compressed into a small sphere, annihilating in her palm with a soft pop.
"Done." She shook her hand clean. "What is next? Burn more things? Or blow something up?" Her tone carried genuine anticipation.
Deren rubbed his aching eyes, feeling both helpless and amused. "Next... we need to use this to synthesize sulfuric acid."
"More corrosive liquid?" Onyxia raised an eyebrow. "You mortals love wasting time on tedious processes."
"Useful, very useful." Deren pointed to the sack of saltpeter piled in the corner. "Once we have sulfuric acid, we can react it with saltpeter to create nitric acid—then, we can make a real surprise."
Onyxia stared at him for two seconds, then suddenly laughed softly. "You mad fool... I am starting to enjoy your plan."
Deren grinned despite the tear stains on his face. "So... another batch?"
The Black Dragon Princess's fingertips blazed with renewed flame. "This time, I am burning double the amount."
Just as Onyxia enthusiastically burned the second batch of sulfur—
"Cough—cough—cough!"
Violent coughing erupted from midair. A bronze-colored rift tore through the room's atmosphere. Chromie's small head burst from the temporal fissure, her golden pigtails frazzled by acid fumes, tears streaming down her face.
"What in Azeroth—cough—are you two doing?!" She shrieked while wiping tears, her hourglass staff waving wildly. "This smell is unbearable!"
Deren and Onyxia simultaneously froze.
Onyxia's dragon flame extinguished with a soft puff. She narrowed her eyes, her tone dangerous. "Bronze dragon, did you follow us?"
"I followed you?!" Chromie jumped from the temporal rift in fury, her small boots landing on the experimental table with a thud, nearly knocking over the sulfuric acid bottle. "You two caused this mess, yet blame me! I detected timeline anomalies and came to investigate, only to find you burning sulfur here. It makes no sense—why would just burning sulfur cause timeline shifts?"
Deren guiltily touched his nose. "Is it that serious?"
"Serious?!" Chromie shrieked. "It makes no sense! Just burning sulfur—why has the timeline changed so significantly?"
Onyxia crossed her arms and sneered. "So? Will you stop us?"
Chromie choked, her momentum instantly deflating. She stole a glance at the dragon flame still flickering around Onyxia's fingertips, then at Deren's face radiating false innocence, finally deflating with slumped shoulders. "Fine, do whatever you want. Just pretend I was never here! Cough—cough!"
