and so their tiny , despised guild had never aspired to the powerful status of the guilds of , say , the thieves or the beggars or the assassins , but devoted itself instead to the aid of widows and families of those alchemists who had taken an overly relaxed attitude to potassium cyanide , for example , or had distilled some interesting fungi , drunk the result , and then stepped off the roof to play with the fairies .