New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Before Galtion could bust open the next door, it pulled open on its own. Out of the doorway came running Jaxx, who was looking worried.

On the opposite side of the hallway, another door opened, where Jeanne d'Arc came rushing out.

"What is happening?!" she asked, looking frantically around.

"I don't know more than this place is on fire! Help me get people out before it collapses!" Galtion replied.

Jaxx nodded his head once, dashing down the hall. But Jeanne shook her head.

"I'll head outside! If anyone needs healing, I'll be more useful there!"

Galtion looked at her back as she darted to the staircase. He could hardly argue with her logic.

He headed to the next room toward the stairs, taking one side of the hall, while Jaxx took the other, and they made brisk progress.

In the other direction, Violette was already almost at the end of the hall. Most of the doors here had opened, with their occupants rushing out while crying and screaming in fear.

But one door remained shut.

At the end of the hall, the last door on the left, where Astaroth and Phoenix were sleeping.

Reaching the door, Violette noticed a smear of crimson red on the door handle. Her heart skipped a beat.

She violently burst the door inward, finding the room completely ablaze. There was one body on the ground, face down, which Violette hurriedly flipped over onto its back. She didn't recognize the man and frowned.

'What is he doing in their room? And where are they?'

The man's face was stuck in a rictus of pain and fear, with his throat slit. Whatever had happened here, Violette had no time to investigate.

Astaroth and Phoenix's room was the one where the fire was blazing the strongest, and it made her worry even more.

'What in the nine hells is happening here?' she wondered, searching the room from the safety of her water bubble.

She found no trace of her friends and eventually had to leave, as the beams over her head whined and threatened to buckle.

When she got back in the hallway, she made her way toward the stairs, still shooting water everywhere around herself, attempting to contain a bit of the fire. All the rooms were empty, Jaxx and Galtion carrying the last of their unconscious teammates outside.

As the three of them rushed out, the ground level on fire as well, if somewhat less affected, they darted out the door. Seeing a few of her allies up and about, she ran to them.

Meat-Shield still looked frazzled, as he had just connected, finding himself outside a burning building, on the ground, not where he remembered disconnecting.

Peaceful Grove was helping Jeanne with healing the few Natives that had burn marks on them, with some weak nature magic. She also had a look of confusion in her eyes as she healed the people, wondering what had caused this.

It was a strange experience, to wake up lying down in the gravel, when you remembered going to sleep on a bed, with a roof over your head. Especially when said roof was now burning up in a massive inferno.

Violette tallied the allies she could see. Almost everyone was accounted for, with Twinxie and Food Goblin still unconscious on the ground, where Jaxx and Galtion had just dropped them, while SharpTusk was barely waking up, sitting on the street.

Counting herself, though, she came up two short.

Astaroth and Phoenix.

"Has anyone seen Astaroth and Phoenix?!" she asked in panic.

Jaxx turned to her before looking around. But his search was fruitless.

Galtion looked at her.

"You were the one that went toward their rooms. Weren't they in there?" he asked, confused.

"No. Their room was empty, aside from the body of a Native, with his throat slit."

As she said that, she immediately regretted it. The Natives surrounding them suddenly started looking at the Abnormals with murderous looks or fear-filled glances.

She could see they took her words as confirmation that they had done this, even if they had no proof.

"It's them! Their friends set the inn on fire! She just admitted it!" a man screamed, pointing at Violette accusingly.

Violette raised both hands in front of herself, trying to reason with him.

"Mister. I swear our friends are not to blame for this. We woke up in the blaze, just like you. We even saved some of you."

The man was having none of it.

"That means nothing!" he shrieked.

"That just means your friends tried killing you, as well!" another chimed in.

The situation was quickly turning bad, as some Natives were picking up stones and sticks from the ground.

But one of them stepped between the separating groups.

"Who are you to judge if they are the culprits?! You are no lawman! Stand down!" the old lady chided.

This was the proprietor of the inn. She was unconvinced this was the work of the foreigners.

She had always considered herself to have a good eye for judging people, and this motley group gave her nothing but good vibes, aside from their obvious wariness.

"Step aside, you old crone! You should be pissed at them as much as us, if not more! This is your inn that they burned down!"

But the old woman shook her head, raising her arms in a T pose.

"We do not judge a situation with a lawman around here, and you know this! You'll have to step over me!"

Her words caused a few of the angered Natives to falter. This old woman had a reputation as being someone you didn't want to mess with.

Never in the fifty years that she had opened her inn had anyone dared try to harm her. Especially so in the last twenty, after the war.

But some men looked even more angered at her act of defending the foreigners.

One lifted the stick in his hands, ready to strike her down. But when he tried swinging, the stick remained unmoving.

Turning his head, he saw an armoured man holding it in one hand, giving him a death glare.

"Haven't enough people been harmed tonight? Stand down, or be struck down."

As he said that, a group of twenty guards rushed in from the side streets, rounding up everyone with their hands on their weapons. These were the city guards, coming to investigate what was happening.