The Starry Maiden

Bouts and Blunders

How long before this becomes a betrayal on my part?

The question that has been buzzing around in my mind all night long returns to the forefront of my thoughts.

"Come on! We've got something to show you." Aquilo practically drags me to the stairs that lead to the basement.

At first all it is, is a regular cellar. Shelves that probably once held jars of preserved foods and racks that likely held wine with how close we are to Greece here. Then we turn into a smaller room and he smiles before simply pressing a specific brick near the edge of the wall about six inches away from the floor. Then the whole wall clicks and pops forward.

"Before we got these buildings the entrances were small crawl tunnels into a central area. The Assassins carefully excavated out the middle area some more and put in more hidden entrances. So even if Abstergo gets to one or two of the buildings, they'll still have to find out where the entrances are to this space." We walk a little further to where there is an Animus set up and a few other desks around with computers and wires everywhere, "Since we're under a whole bunch of buildings we can make it so the power draw to the block doesn't seem strange for how many buildings are on top of this space."

"Yeah, as long as we don't have absolutely everything, always powered on Mr. Forgetful." A woman pops up from behind the Animus and pats it, "It's too bad you're not interested in taking a ride in her. I just updated the software, and she should run like new."

"This is Rebecca Crane, and her accomplice is around here somewhere." Aquilo says looking around a stack of computer equipment.

"If anything, she's the accomplice." A male voice comes from behind the stack of computer equipment, "Now if you don't mind, some of us are actually working on figuring out the site."

"That's Shaun, he's nice once you get to know him." Rebecca jokes as she goes to the computer hooked up to the Animus.

"No, I am not." The voice says again from behind the computers. Aquilo just smiles wickedly, knowing that he is the one who incited this.

"Anyway, Lio. Emmett and I got you all set up... Emmett thought of a good sequence to show our new friend here. Nothing too exciting and you've already done it before so there shouldn't be any kind of desync issues. Now get settled." She points to the Animus chair.

"And we set up a bigger monitor over here..." Emmett says as he comes from behind a shelf and beckons me over. We walk over to where are just behind Rebecca's computer where she is controlling the Animus.

"Don't feel like you have to say yes to going in after this, I know some people just really aren't cut out for using the Animus. But it's good to finally meet you, Astraea, I hear a lot about you from all your siblings." Rebecca holds her hand out to me and I shake it.

"I bet you do... I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that the first time I heard of you was on the trip here." I reply to her comment.

"You got that right, but at the same time... I wouldn't have minded being talked about at little bit I suppose." She rubs her chin in thought for a moment until Lio calls from the other side.

"All set over here."

"Awesome, dropping you in then... Three, two, one..." Then Rebecca presses a button, and a feed appears on the screen, which boasts the back view of a very distinctive man in an unending abstract landscape. I narrow my eyes, noting that the outfit he is wearing looks familiar. "Alright, looking good... We're starting you when he gets off the boat." Getting off the boat?

Then the world of memories comes to life on the screen and we are taken to the docks of Galata in the early 1600s. I would recognize that scenery anywhere. We aren't seeing from a first-person perspective, but rather as what is going on around. The view comes around to show an aged Ezio reading a book.