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

The Worst Tour

Major amounts of anxiety incoming.

After our meeting with the little dwarf, Ben led me deeper into the fields of mars. We had left Hannibal behind because Bronk needed his help. Something about measuring the door size or something. As we moved farther and farther away from New Rome, the scars on the battlefield seemed too get worse. Massive holes that were a couple of feet deep. The grass had spots that were dark brown, reminding me of dried blood. In the distance, I could see a forest with dense amounts of fog curly around the trees. The hills that surrounded the valley were hard too see because of said fog.

I dug my hand into my pocket, trying to summon Jason's coin, but it wouldn't appear. I cursed silently, Jason was probably holding it in his hand right now. "Where are you taking me?"

Ben didn't look back at me. "Don't worry, nothing is going to happen to you. I put that on my life."

That did little to reassure me, but I continued too follow him anyways. When we reached the outskirts of the forest, Ben got on his knees. The trees seemed to be bent in a way that we couldn't enter, almost like a gate. He looked at me and gestures for me too do the same. I reluctantly did so, but my hands were sweating profusely. The sensation I was getting from this area was familiar. That tingling feeling I would get when the ghost of my past would haunt me. Ben began too speak in Latin. He spoke silently, as if praying. I picked up a few words he had said. He said something about respect and honor to the dead.

Now my anxiety was through the roof.

When Ben was finished, he stood up. As if on cue the trees straightened up and a cleared path laced with fog. Before we entered, Ben laid out the rules.

"Do not touch a single thing unless authorized too do so. If you do, that will mean a year of cleaning out the basilisks under our bridges. If you damage anything, you'll be permanently banished from New Rome unless proven otherwise. If you purposely damage any grave, that could come at the cost of your life. Do you understand?"

I nodded, staring consouisly at the entrance. "Yep."

"When speaking with John, just keep it too yes or no answers if you can. John respect strength, so try your best to not get intimidated by him. Though I get the sense that won't be an issue for you." Ben gave me a dry smile.

I didn't react to him, my eyes focused ahead of me. Ben smiled even wider. "See just like that, your already getting the hang of it."

I had too hide a grin. "Ben, your more annoying then I thought you would be."

Ben patted my shoulder. "That's what most people think before they get to know me. C'mon."

We walked silently through the eerie path. I kept digging my hands into my pockets, hoping Jason's coin would return. Ben seemed too notice this and tried too reassure me.

"John is not going too do anything to you."

I nodded. "He better not. That's not really what I'm worried about though."

Ben looked around the forest surrounding us. "Yeah, this place gives me the creeps too sometimes. But you get used to if after while."

I realized how sad that last sentence was once we finally reached our destination. The path we followed open up into what I could best describe as a graveyard. The graveyard went as far as I could see, which couldn't have been possible since this forest did not look that big from the outside. Some serious amounts of magic was going on around here, that's for sure.

As we got closer to the graves, I could see this wasn't no ordinary graveyard. Each grave was marked a different way. Some were standard headstones. Others were trees with the names of the fallen engraved on. Each grave seemed to have its own personality that best respresented that person. Photos, flowers and candles marked the most recent graves. I could see people standing over the graves of the fallen, still grieving the lost of their loved ones.