Tammy tossed and turned in her new bed. The other Warlords guilds had generously helped rebuild the ruined fortress after Panda's funeral, but she couldn't shake the feeling that most of them suspected something.
What could she do? Leon would protect her if anyone accused her of starting the fire, but it was looking pretty bad for her. She had been the one who discovered it first, she had failed to "rescue" Panda from the remains of her room, and she was the only true pyromancer main in Ashes of Eden anyway. She gave up on sleeping and headed back out the the Warlords arenas for some stress relief. Maybe she could practice burning someone without spreading the fire around.
Leon was already there when she arrived in the lobby. She caught his eye and waved to him, but he seemed preoccupied. Tammy figured it was just because of Panda, but something still didn't feel right to her. It was uncomfortable and uncomfortable things needed to be burned.
"This fucking sucks," Leon muttered. He and Delta were writing copy-pasted generic thank-you notes to the other guilds while Skarlet built another upstairs room for SheerPrecision to share with Tammy.
"How did Panda handle this?" Delta wrote on a spare card and held it up. He rarely spoke but he had become even more withdrawn since Panda's death.
"Hell if I know." Skarlet threw the remaining blocks into the fireplace and pushed two beds into the corners of the room. "Looks fine to me. Are you done yet Leon?"
"Yeah." Leon signed the last note and dumped them all in a pile for her. "Sign them and seal the envelopes. I'll get Tammy to deliver them."
She scribbled a quick signature on each card and tucked them into the labeled envelopes. "Rez, Zephyr, Veterans, Oops, Divine Knights, Kalibur, nothing for Deadly Shadow?"
Leon just looked at her. "They didn't do shit."
"You know how butthurt Serena gets. Thank her for existing or something, I don't know."
"I'd rather she didn't," Leon muttered but he wrote it anyway.
"Thanks. I'll leave them outside Tammy's room." Skarlet gathered up the notes and opened the door to Leon's room, but nearly walked into Tammy standing right outside. "Oh, you're right here... Okay."
"What were you doing in there?" Tammy asked suspiciously.
"Um... writing thank-you notes to the other guilds? Normal officer stuff? Leon wants them delivered today." Skarlet shoved the bundle at her, put off by Tammy's attitude. "Get moving. I heard the Oops fortress relocated to the other side of the world. See you in two days." She shut the door in Tammy's face, ignoring her glare.
"Your girlfriend is starting to piss me off," she told Leon.
"You could have handled that better," he snapped.
"No, YOU could have handled that better. I'm done dealing with her."
Leon looked annoyed but Skarlet cut him off before he could protest.
"She's jealous as fuck and she'll stalk you to the ends of the earth to make sure no other girl even looks at you for longer than 20 seconds." She tossed a carpet over the bare stone floor of the new room and sealed up the wall. "Hell, she probably thought something was going on just because I was in the same room with you."
Leon rolled his eyes. "You still could have been nicer."
"Whatever." Skarlet went back to her room. Delta waved a sign at her as she left but she didn't see. She dropped her writing pens back into her desk drawer, then laid down and closed her eyes. She missed Panda. Skarlet had refused to cry at the funeral, not wanting to show weakness in front of the other guilds who had come to pay their respects, but now the tears threatened to fall.
There was a little shuffling noise at her door and a note slipped underneath. It was Delta's sign from earlier. "Kara is asking for you downstairs."
Shit. "Tell her I'll be there in a moment," Skarlet called. She picked up her aquamancer weapon and pulled her mage hood over her messy hair, then hurried downstairs.
Kara and Loco were sitting by the fireplace. "I heard about Panda," Kara said. "I couldn't make it to the funeral. How are you guys holding up?"
"We're managing," said Skarlet. "Hi Loco."
"Hi." He was staring very intently at a spot on the blank stone wall. Skarlet waited for him to say something else but he didn't. Even at the best of times, there wasn't much going on behind his eyes, but Loco had been even more spaced out than usual since Panda's funeral.
"We need to talk," said Kara. "Is Tammy around?"
"No, I had her deliver thank-yous to the other guilds. She won't be back for a day or two. Why?"
"You need pyro practice. We're going outside."
"Kara, neither of us even play pyro-"
"Not up for discussion."
There was a strange look on Kara's face and Skarlet decided not to argue. She let Kara drag her out to the training field while Loco continued to stare blankly at the wall.
"Is he okay?" Skarlet asked when they were out of earshot.
"Is he ever okay?" Kara shrugged. "You know how he gets."
"I really don't," Skarlet said, but Kara didn't hear her.
"What do you know about Pyromancer fireballs?"
"Um... What?"
Kara rolled her eyes. "I know you were pyro trash at one point. Are you seriously telling me you've never tried to burn anything other than a player?"
"What? Well sometimes I burn old papers to get rid of them but nothing more than that."
"What have you noticed about it?"
Skarlet tried to remember. "Uh, it's clean. Fast. No smoke, no ash, it's pretty handy."
"Exactly. Pyro spell fires don't generate smoke unless it's something containing liquid, like a person. It sucks oxygen out of the air very slowly, but burns incredibly hot. You'll feel heat ages before you see flames. And there's never smoke when it burns dry wood or any other kind of dry fuel."
"Kara what are you getting at here?"
"Tammy told you Panda died of smoke inhalation. She lied."
"No, I knew she suffocated when I saw her..." A painful lump formed in Skarlet's throat as she remembered carrying Panda's body out of the ruins. She had looked so fragile, cold and pale and still, curled into a ball on her bed.
Kara reached out and squeezed her shoulder. "I'm truly sorry for your loss."
"It's... It's okay." Skarlet cleared her throat and blinked away tears again. "Look, I still don't understand what you're trying to say."
"I spoke to Leon about what happened earlier. He said a lot, but nothing about smelling smoke."
"Leon's still a little scrambled Kara. He could barely remember his own name after Tammy got him out."
"So tell me what you remember. As much as you can." Kara crossed her arms and looked expectant.
Skarlet pushed aside the painful memories and tried to sift through what had happened. "It was hot in the hall. Upstairs floor collapsed. I was on the lower floor with the guild members... Tammy told me to run."
"You should have smelled smoke from a normal fire when the upper floor went down."
Skarlet suddenly felt cold, even though the field was in direct sunlight. "Are you saying Tammy started the fire?"
"I'm saying a pyromancer started it. Panda suffocated because she couldn't feel the oxygen getting consumed in the air. Leon passed out and would have died too if Tammy hadn't gotten him out. This shit burns slow, Skarlet. If there was time to get Leon, there was time to get Panda. Why wasn't she saved?"
"But why would Tammy do something like that?"
Kara looked exasperated. "Why do girls kill other girls? Jealousy."
"Of Panda and Leon? They were like siblings to each other."
"I didn't say I had all the goddamn answers. Skarlet, all I'm saying is that this wasn't an accident and you should probably be sleeping with one eye open since I'm pretty sure either you or Sheer didn't burn the fortress and kill your own guild master. Let's not have this happen again."
Skarlet rubbed her arms, trying to get rid of the sudden chill. "I'll keep an eye out. Thanks Kara."
"No problem. Okay we should actually do some target practice... I'll set up the moving targets over here."
Kara walked away and Skarlet looked around to make sure they were alone. There was a flash of white in the window- a shaman's skull mask.
Loco. How long had he been there, listening? Unnerved, Skarlet gripped her void twig and followed Kara away.
