During the day I read the book about Alena or played cards with Otho. At dusk we docked at different Free Folk towns. It became dangerous sailing at night due to the thick fog that smothered everything. I got fed up with sleeping on the ship, so I usually found a tavern in the towns we docked at and rented a room. I didn’t get much sleep though, as I was always afraid of oversleeping, making everyone wait. That would be quite embarrassing.

Tiberius and Julia conversed with each other for most of days. From what I could hear, Julia advocated for Vetulonia’s neutral stand in the upcoming war. Tiberius disagreed, arguing war would come to us whether we liked it or not. Who was in the right, I do not dare to say. I was becoming aware that, in the not so distant future, I’d be holding a sword and a shield in my hands. Vetulonia’s standing army, two legions, ten thousand people, were not enough to wage war on this scale. There was going to be a general mobilization of the population.

On our fourth day we reached the outer borders of the Forbidden Forest. To me it appeared as an ordinary forest. I wondered of all the secrets it contained, this mystic area, the supposed hub of the Ancient's civilization. Of the five expeditions Vetulonia had sent to explore this enormous area, only one returned. They talked of giant pyramid-like structures buried beneath vegetation and earth. Of marvelous stone statues. Artifacts that were so foreign to us we could only guess their purpose. But their report was non-coherent and didn’t make much sense.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The forest on the horizon made me think of the passing nature of this world. The Ancients, who had once been people like us, were now an empty tale, a myth. All their efforts, everyday struggles, passions, misery, affections... All was gone as if they’d never existed. They waged such a terrifying war that in the end it destroyed them and the world they had built. All those deaths, misery and despair, and none of us, beyond academic curiosity, cared. It reaffirmed my belief that seeking glory, wealth and dominance is vanity at its poorest. It leads to nothing good.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Atia, standing behind my back.

“I’m thinking that in the upcoming war we must restrain ourselves from passions. Every violent action, every massacre we will have to commit, must be a calculated, logical act. When the opportunity presents itself, we ought to be kind, merciful and affectionate. If we fail to do so, darkness will engulf us. Our lives will become horror and our anguish will be in vane because nothing will remain after us.”