Chapter 4: Fiery Mishap
Jason and Gwen were busy organizing the camp and checking if things were in order. They were back in the barracks reviewing forms and paperwork, so they could not watch over the entire cohort. After Cary's first outing in New Rome, the Twelfth Legion took supplies to set up for the Feast of Fortuna. The next day was to unpack those supplies and set decorations up while cleaning the campgrounds. Galen's commendation for yesterday's work made it to Jason's barrack and he decided to give Cary a de facto promotion, which meant more work for him.
Cary was now assigned with Dakota to supervise the cleaning today. Well -actually- more like Cary supervises the cohort and Dakota, while Dakota gets drunk on Kool-Aid.
"You sure you don't want a sip," said the pluck son of Bacchus.
"No thanks, Kool-Aid's too sweet for my taste," Cary rejected, not knowing that he was drawing a little ire from Dakota.
"You just haven't drink enough then," replied Dakota as he guzzled his portable canteen.
"I'm going to walk around and see if the Cohort's on task," as Cary changed the subject.
The Fifth Cohort was making rotations cleaning the roofs, picking up litter, and scrubbing the walls. Cary asked around the legionnaires if they needed assistance, but they seemed to be fine. A lot of them were accompanied by guys with …hooves?
'Must be the local fauns Jason mentioned.' With nothing urgent around, he decided to check up Amber, who should be at the stables grooming the horses.
He checked up to see Amber making small talk with horses. It seems to calm them down enough for Amber to brush their hairs and tend to their stalls. She was still holding that book that Alex gave her.
"You doing fine there, Amber?" he asked.
"Oh, yeah I'm good," she was in her comfort zone after yesterday's outing, "why don't you take these old nails and horseshoes over to Maylene? She wanted some scrap metal for the forge," Amber handed him a bucket of rusty metal to him.
"Who's Maylene?"
"She's the blonde girl with ponytails and safety glasses on her forehead. She's in the forge."
Cary walked to the forge, a tiled roof building with the blacksmith anvil on the façade. He knocked on the window to grab Maylene attention from the forge. He definitely remembers her from his first day here.
"Why hello there, fella. What can I do for ya?" Maylene greeted. She was a perky girl who quickly warm up to the visitor.
"Amber asked me to deliver these to you," he said.
"Appreciate it, man. I'll just -" she was interrupted by a sound of tools clattering on the floor "Hang on there, for a sec," she walked out to turn a corner around the forge before yelling "Dang it! Don, get out of the scrapyard! This ain't a buffet!"
Cary peeked out to see a guy with a stubble and horns on his head with goat legs waist down. He immediately recognized him as a faun. He was amusingly caught by Maylene with screws and nuts in his mouth.
"I whus jush cheycking out…" he mumbled.
"Go on, get that out of your mouth," Maylene ordered, "Sorry about that, I just wanted to thank you for the scraps. Apologies about Don, he hangs out to get pickings to eat." Maylene continue to go into detail about Don's habit of eating scraps and metal. Fauns tend to hang out around forges and trash piles during festival preparations when pickings were more plentiful.
"Why not just feed them?," he asked.
"What for? They don't do anything around here. Plus, they don't eat meat, unlike their cousins in my home state Texas," Maylene answered as she cleaned up the scrapyard.
"I see. Listen, about day before yesterday. Does the Fifth Cohort have any issues with me and Amber?"
Maylene stopped to look at him, "Me personally? No. I don't really follow superstition. So, I don't think you can jinx us like Shen Lun. That said, Romans who were recruited from outside don't worry too much about history, but those whose families have stayed in New Rome for all their lives pick up on those bad habits. As for Amber…" Maylene paused for a moment, "she's… comfortable with horses and the local nymphs and spirits. She has the hardest time in weapons training. I would say she does better as a secretary than a soldier. Nothing wrong with it, I'm more of a blacksmith than a soldier."
"So, do you think she'll be fine?" he asked.
"I think," she paused, "she'll manage. Until new blood shows up or until she's no longer a probatio, she'll be the new girl here."
"Right, well, I'll get back to Amber. I'll see you around Maylene."
Cary was returning to the stables when he realizes that Amber wasn't alone. Three legionnaires were in the doorway of the stable talking to Amber.
"Can I help you fellows?" he asked. One of them turn around. He recognized that face as Primo from the dinner.
"Oh, I just wanted to check up on Amber. Why don't you go where you're needed?" he said smugly.
"Primo, isn't the First Cohort supposed to be in New Rome now?" he asked.
"We got excused early. Now back off and be a good boy," said Primo.
"Well, I just needed to tell Amber that I'm back from Maylene's," he asserted.
"We'll do it for you," Primo retorts, "Now, go. Arrivederci."
"I'll tell her myself," Cary didn't want to budge. There was something about Primo that he didn't want him near Amber.
"Cary, is that you? I could use your help here with the horses." Amber pleaded. Cary peeked over to see Amber hugging her book and leaning her back to the wall. It was easy to see that Amber felt defensive about these three.
Primo wasn't amused that Cary wouldn't just walk away. He wanted to torment Amber more. "Pff, well consider yourself lucky kid. Got yourself a knight here." Primo jabbed Cary in the chest with his fingers before he and his two pals walked out.
Cary watched as they walked away. "What's going on with you and Primo?" Cary knew how she and Primo get paired up in training and he remembers him mentioning how he wreck her in sparring.
"It's fine. Primo just being a dick. I'm the new girl so I got to be 'broken' into the legion. It's their tradition," she air-quoted.
"You sure? I mean I really want to tell Jason…,"
"-No," she interrupted, "I can handle him. I don't want to burden Jason. Why don't we go and check on everyone else since I'm finish here?"
With that, the two made their way around. Cary took the hint to drop the subject. They went to check up everyone else, but they had to pass by the storeroom where their party supplies from yesterday were. The storeroom was locked up in case someone was trying to sneak out a drink or so. And the two found…
"Dakota?! Don?! What are you doing with that padlock?" Cary asked indignantly, "You two, get away from there!" Dakota and Don were trying to break into the locked-up storeroom.
"Relax, man. I needed some more juice. I ran out of Kool-Aid. And Don's still hungry, he needs some iron in his belly," excused Dakota.
"I'll talk to Jason about it. And Don," the faun turned his head around, "I have some spare change for you to snack on," Cary offered. Even though his money wasn't good in New Rome, he could at least put his coins in good use.
"Eww, no. Your mortals get your grubby little fingers on those spare change. I don't want to go into details on where they go," Don retorted.
"Oh, I'll go check up with Jason then. He'll know what to do," he said, leaving Amber to watch over the two.
Cary jogged to the barracks where Jason and Gwen are. Gwen was sharing with Jason's space today to go over scheduling and order. What he wasn't expecting was Reyna's presence in the barracks.
"Praetor Reyna… I mean, Praetor Arellano. I wasn't expecting you today."
"Is anything wrong Mr. Chang?"
"Well, everything is in order. Dakota and Don are trying to break into the storeroom. Thought you might have some denarii or some Kool-Aid?" he said amusingly.
"Well, sorry no. Reyna, why don't we discuss this again later in your office tonight. We're going to check with…" Jason was interrupted by a bell frantically ringing and voices for help crying 'FIRE'.
The four in the room rushed out of the barracks to find smoke billowing from the storeroom.
'Crap! That's where the supplies are,' Reyna thought. They ran to find the flames running along the walls. It seems someone tried to torch it from the outside.
"Everyone, get some hoses and shovels. Either douse the fire out or smother out the embers!" Reyna ordered.
The Fifth Cohort dropped everything and went from cleaning to damage control. Legionnaires started to use their powers to put out the flames and those that couldn't grabbed a wash bucket or hose and took the role of amateur firefighters. The aurae started to create mini whirlwinds to snuff out the flame. The fauns stood… on standby since their powers didn't work on fire, only plants. It wasn't too long until the worst of the inferno was put under control.
Cary went to check up with Amber, Don, and Dakota. Amber was lifting Dakota over her shoulder while Don was in a fetal position and rocking back and forth. He calls them to get out of there.
"What happened?" he asked.
"I don't know. I was keeping my eye on those two when Don mentioned smelling smoke. We walk around back to see a bunch of tinder on fire. Dakota tried to douse it with Kool-Aid until he remembered he drank it all then tried to barf it out. He passed out from the smoke. Second later, the tinder burst and set the back wall on fire."
Reyna ran up to the four and demanded what happened, "Did anyone see what happened?" Reyna was coordinated damage control while Jason went around to smother the embers, "Miss Autumne, who started this?" she glared at Amber.
"I don't know," she answered.
"Fine, get yourself an axe. We're tearing down the wall as soon as the flames are doused. We can't let the building go up in flame, so we're going to tear down the burned wall. It's beyond saving," she ordered, "We're also breaking the lock to salvage the party supplies.
Amber and Cary took Don and Dakota out of harm's way and out of the path of the workers. They were placed in a makeshift area for nursing. Amber and Cary grabbed a bearded axe and a dolabra respectively.
Gwen came over and brought over bolt cutters to break the padlock. As soon as the doors were unlocked, all hands available went to grabbing the supplies out and putting it out in the open.
Cary and Amber went over to the scorched wall and went to work. They swung their axes into the wall. Their first few swings were sloppy; none of them were used to using heavy tools. Cary decided to improvise and used his axe like a crowbar. He used a forehand swing to get the backend deep into the wall. Then, he heaved the handle like a lever to tear a burnt chunk out. However, he wasn't paying attention, when a piece of the roof broke off and fell towards him.
"CARY! LOOK OUT!," Amber yelled. She tackled herself over him and used her body as a shield against the burning debris.
"Shoot. Man Down!" Reyna barked. Several legionnaires went over to pull the two out of the smoldering debris. Some of them yelped at handling the hot mortar or wood.
Miraculously, Amber and Cary were pulled out of the pile with no severe injuries.
Cary was protected by Amber, but Amber showed no signs of burns.
"Are you ok?" she asked.
"Yeah, I should be asking about you though," he replied, "You just took a flaming ceiling to the body."
Amber looked down to find her clothes torn, but her skin unbroken.
"Alright, break off everyone. We're done here."
Cary and Amber walked to Reyna to check up with her.
"How's the damage?" he asked.
"The good news is that tomorrow's supplies are intact. The fire didn't penetrate the storeroom. It was started from the outside, but we got to it in time. The bad news is that the storeroom is wrecked. We need to move the supplies elsewhere. I can take some to the Principia, but I can't store all of it there," Reyna lamented, "Fires don't just start randomly in camp. Someone wanted to sabotage us."
"Why don't we finish up here and talk more about it later?" Jason entered the conversation after having everyone accounted for.
Reyna excused herself to join Jason. Cary checked up on Amber, who had wandered off to the medical tent. She looked frazzled. "Hey what's wrong?" he asked.
"Ummm, I've lost my book. I swear, I left it with Dakota and Don, but neither of them recalled," she lamented. The two were interrupted by that voice again.
"Hmmm, maybe you drop it, and someone picked it up," mocked Primo as he held Amber's book in his hand. He waved it around like a trophy.
"Give it back, Primo," demanded Cary.
"Come on, now. I saved the book. Is that anyway to talk to a guy who helped you out?" said Primo.
"Yeah, well thanks. Appreciate it. Can I please have it back?" asked Cary. He had a feeling that Primo might try to tear it up or burn it up, so he wanted to avoid a fight.
"Pff. Fine," said Primo. "You're no fun," he mumbled. He tosses the book at him. "By the way, Reyna's going to roast you two," he left the area.
"What the hell was that about?" Amber asked.
"Reyna thinks someone caused the fire on purpose. I don't understand who want to sabotage the festival supplies," said Cary.
"Reyna probably blames me. Me and Dakota were the only campers near there. There was no one else, but maybe they left before we saw anything," said Amber
"Maybe the fauns know something," Cary suggested. The fauns were busy loitering around. There could be witnesses. Jason returned to ask the two something.
"Cary, Amber. Reyna wants to see both of you at the Principia," said Jason. The two headed over to the office to check. She was behind her desk with the two automaton hounds – Aurum and Argentum. Cary remembers the two of them during his first visit here.
"Mr. Chang, Miss Autumne. Please take a seat. Do you know why you're here?" she asked.
"It's about the fire?" he answered. Neither of the dogs responded negatively. Cary was rather no nonsense with Reyna, who he noticed likes to be direct and didn't like to talk around the subject.
"Correct. The fire could not come at a worse time. Jason and I looked at the area where it started. It seemed, someone piles some tinder and debris in that corner and throw some kind of accelerant on it. We also think someone took a light to it," she said.
I didn't see anyone. Did you talk to the fauns?" he asked.
"I did. They said they've seen someone in a Camp Jupiter hoodie… and a tablet around the neck," she accused Amber. As a probatio, she wore the standard tablet to identify her rank in camp. The dogs looked at her to see Amber's response.
Amber shook her head frantically. "It wasn't me. I wouldn't burn the party supplies or the storeroom. Why would try to frame myself?" the dogs sniffed her and stared into her eyes. Aurum was neck to neck and posturing over her in the chair. Argentum circled behind her sniffing out what lies she might say.
"I don't know. Do you have anything against us Romans? I think it because you hate being here, and you want to be kicked out," said Reyna.
"No… no. That's not true," Amber refuted. Aurum and Argentum started to growl. They weren't easily convinced.
Amber took a deep sigh, "It wasn't me. You have to believe me," she pleaded, "I don't want to hurt anyone. Back home, I like parties, I don't ruin them."
Reyna turned to Cary and asked him, "Who do you think it could be, Mr. Chang?" Cary looked around to see Amber with pleading eyes and Reyna with fierce eyes.
"Honestly, I think. This was someone else's doing," Cary suggested. However, Reyna wasn't convinced, so he continued. "Look. Aren't Romans supposed to believe 'innocent until proven guilty'? You only have proof that someone may have set the fire, you don't have the who?"
"Do you have an idea?" Reyna reiterated.
"Hmmm, I think…" Cary paused. He looked at Amber, who was mentally begging that he doesn't say anything. He took a deep sigh. "Primo's been acting hostile. We just had a confrontation with him earlier before this fire. He and two of his buddies were here."
"Primo? He shouldn't be here. The First Cohort is supposed to be in New Rome finishing up preparations," Reyna pondered, "I'll look at him and consider your testimony. If it pans out, there will be penalties. You're both dismissed."
Amber and Cary head out. Amber felt betrayed by Cary's lack of discretion. "Why did you tell her about Primo?" she asked angrily. "Why wouldn't I? This could be Primo getting back at us earlier today and he wants us framed," he answered.
"You don't understand. Primo is from the First Cohort. Guys over there think they're all that. They think they're at the top of the food chain and will retaliate if they think they've been wronged. Primo's family are influential in New Rome. If Reyna investigates, his family will make the rest of my miserable time here even more miserable!" Amber shouted.
"Sorry, I just… I hate that guy so much," Cary apologized, "We shouldn't have to take crap from guys like him. You know how it is back home. Everyone stands up for each other."
"Well you need to remember that Camp Jupiter isn't China Ridge. We are on our own. Everyone pulls their weight. But for a legion, everyone is looking out for themselves," she answered.
Both were interrupted, by brass horns blaring from the distance. "What's that?" he asked.
Jason walked out of the barracks to inform the two, "Cary, Amber. Let's go to the entrance. It's Sully. He's back from San Fran."
The Fifth Cohort went into formation to throw the figurative red carpet for their absent praetor.
Sullivan Richards walked into the Camp with poise and stature. His red hair and fair skin made him a distinct highlander idol for the girls and guys in camp. Guys want to be him; girls want to be with him. Sully and Reyna was the standard that the campers aspire to be. He was considered a great swordsman, and an aggressive leader.
"Good afternoon, Fifth Cohort. I'm back from my quest downtown. I couldn't help but notice we hit a snag for the festival," he noted.
"My apologies, Sully, we had a fire burn half of the storeroom down. We're moving some of the stuff to the Principia, but we need another place," said Jason.
"Don't worry. I got a place. My residence in New Rome can take off some of the load," assured Sullivan.
"That's great. Oh… Let me introduce you to someone," Jason gestured Cary to come forward, "Sully, this is Cary Chang. He's not a legionnaire, but he is here to help Amber Autumne, our probatio."
"Nice to meet you Praetor Sullivan-" greeted Cary.
"Please, call me Sullivan. It's good to have you, Cary. I'll be seeing you around on camp this summer. We certainly could use more help. Speaking of help. Jason, get Reyna over to help with moving supplies. Feast of Fortuna is still on schedule," said Sullivan, "Fifth Cohort, today may have been a loss if not for the blessing of the gods. Tomorrow, we celebrate in honor of our Goddess of Luck, Fortuna. Ave Roma."
"Ave Roma." The Fifth Cohort disbanded. "Take care you two. Later, Centurion Grace." Sullivan departed.
"What do you think of Sully, Cary?" Jason asked.
"He's a pretty sweet dude. I thought you said he hated being called 'Sully'?" said Cary. His first impression was generally positive, and Cary hoped he would be more trusting of Amber of him then Reyna.
"Yeah, well I kind of hope you would slip up and call him that. He lets me call him Sully not new guys like you, but you were pretty polite to call him by Sullivan instead," said Jason. Cary didn't think Jason was the kind of guy who would try to pull a practical joke.
"So, are we done here?" Cary asked.
"Ohh, yes. See you later tonight at dinner," Jason departed.
Reyna was steamed. As praetor, she always expects the legionnaires -her legionnaires- to work in solidarity. Now, the visitor had told her that Primo from the First Cohort is a person of interest in her arson investigation. Reyna always found the First Cohort to be full of blowhards and overprivileged elites. They climbed the ladder using their clout rather than prove themselves, Sullivan being the exception. She preferred people who worked their way through the mud, dredging themselves through the line of fire. Someone like Jason.
Reyna ordered two guys from the Fourth Cohort – Darren and Norman- to bring Primo here and investigate his and his peers' bunks. Shortly after, Primo was brought before her with a smug look on his face. "Mr. Soldato, I like to know what you were doing in camp when your cohort was assigned to New Rome today."
"I was excused early, I figured I stop by camp to help the Fifth Cohort. I noticed that there was smoke and saw Amber running away." Primo answered.
"Don't lie to me, Primo. I have testimony from two others who said she was never close to where the fire started," refuted Reyna.
"Are you really going to believe a drunk and a faun?" he sneered.
Reyna gave a brief pause, "I never said who gave the testimony." Aurum and Argentum growled at him.
Primo didn't back down. "Well, I couldn't start a fire. I'm a son of Mars, not Vulcan. You should look for someone with a lighter."
"Or maybe I should look for someone missing a lighter."
"I don't smoke. Now are we done here?" asked Primo.
Reyna stared at Primo. "We're done. Don't leave your cohort next time," she warned though she had a feeling that the warning was meaningless to someone like Primo.
As Primo departed the Principia, she could only shake her head at the situation that had entailed. She was fortunate that Sully showed up in time to ensure the festival will go on. Amber had a lot to prove here and running away didn't help. Jason can only do so much, and she was still uncertain about Cary. She hoped that Cary stayed out of what may occur in the future.
She was interrupted by a knock at the entrance to her office. "Come in," she looked up to see Sully.
"Hey Sullivan. How was your outing in San Francisco?" she asked.
"Good, I think we got plenty of resources and manpower ready for war. Negotiations in the city were a success," he said.
"So do have any idea on where they'll be if the time comes?" she said.
"Yeah, And I have an idea on who I want to lead them," hinted Sullivan
"No, no. I am not putting him in charge. He's not Roman, he's not the Legion, he's…"
"The one who can get them in line. He can be our liaison for the auxiliary forces," refuted Sullivan.
Reyna took a deep breath. If this doesn't work out, I'm holding you responsible," said Reyna
"Only as long as I'm in charge," he answered.
Someone's going to need to break the news. Next time, the day of the festival.