Jason and Reyna: The Praetor's of New Rome - Truth

FINALLY.... a picture of New Rome.

"Nice job Jason." I dropped the soaked paper towel in the garbage can.

You think someone with deep traumatic experiences would do whatever they can to help themselves get over such experiences. Right? Nope, I guess not. They like to drag that around until their near collapse. Even if someone is trying so very hard to help them, they do everything they can to NOT take your help. They pick up their baggage and go collapse somewhere else. Like the bathroom.

I stomped out of the room. I was so aggravated at Reyna that I needed to cool myself down. Why were people so complicated? I miss fighting with wolves over some left overs.

I took the stairs down to the main lobby. I hated how the elavator made me feel when I went down. The feeling was similar to trying to get the stupid winds to keep me afloat for just a few seconds. But NO, they rather let me fall and fight a bunch of snakes to the death.

I reached out to open the door at the bottom of the steps and noticed sparks of lightning coming from my fingers. I focused on my hands to shut it off, but the sparks continued to go off. "Stop it!" I yelled.

Tendrils of electricity sparked from my hands. Striking the lights above the door. My anger turned to fear and I clamped my hands together. The lightning sparked for a few more seconds, then stopped. I quickly opened the door and tried to put as much distance as I could from the staircase. I would rather deal with a few stubborn winds then feel that sensation again.

I walked through the main lobby, which was the epicenter of the hotel. Every direction led to a different section of the building. The pool area, movie room, diner and much more. This place was close to paradise. I walked up to the receptionist desk where Johnny sat.

Johnny is a big guy. He could have been in his late twenties or early thirtes. He was eating a whole box of pizza by himself and chugging a two liter soda. He wore his blue uniform that was held together by only two buttons. His manager clip was hanging side ways. He was bald and had light green eyes. Johnny had helped us get a room free of charge. Apparently, at one point he was a pretty important solider in the Roman army that had retired. I had a hard time believing that story. I had a even harder time believing there was a Roman army.

Johnny saw me coming and the first thing he did was close his box of pizza. "What do YOU want?I already gave you the room, what else do you want?"

I held my hands up. "Are you still mad at me? I'm sorry for calling you fat, I didn't know that was a rude thing to say. Besides I didn't come here for your pizza."

Johnny raised an eyebrow and held his pizza close to his chest. "What are you here for then?"

I leaned forward on his desk. "I want to know more about New Rome and Camp Jupiter."

Johnny relaxed and placed his box of pizza on his desk. He looked around the lobby, as if checking for potential threats. He grabbed a slice of pizza and got up, which made the chair he was sitting on squeak painfully loud. "Your lucky I was about to go on lunch break. Follow me, kid."

Johnny lumbered towards a door not to far from his desk. He punch in a long code on a keypad near the door. The keypad flashed purple and he opened the door; a staircase led to a dark room below. Johnny struggled to get down the stairs, so our disent took longer then it should have. When we got to the bottom, he clapped his hand and the lights turned on.

"Whoa."

The room was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The interior was nothing like the hotel above. The walls seemed to be made from white stone, held up by circular stone pillars. The room was lit by torches. A statue of a man wearing a purple toga stood in the middle. The statue wore winged sandals and a winged hat. His arm was extended outward and he held a stick that had wings sprouting on either side. Two snakes wrapped around the stick and faced each other. The walls were decoorated with medals and portraits of many different people. Tables were lined with armor, weapons and other more gruesome items.