The Town Inn
The small quaint yet homey looking town, they entered was decently populated, as far as Desmond could tell on first look. He could count around fifty or so rooftops off one glance around the place and with the Eagle vision around two hundred people, give or take. Ace informed him the town was called Nibelheim, making Desmond raise an eyebrow at the old world sounding name, but he did not comment on it. It sounded like the town was influenced by Nordic culture. The two of them were greeted by the inn keeper who seemed a tad bit grumpy to Ace, but they got a room for the night and dinner that consisted of rabbit stew and bread with a jug of water. Desmond paid the man extra for the trouble which kept the man from grumbling too much.
Ace hummed around his bread, "You know, it is a little peculiar to be able to taste things now. I never had the need to eat or drink before. I always used to be curious but did not want to show myself."
Desmond hummed in agreement, "Enjoy the dinner then. I agree it is a little weird to see you eat. First time for everything, I guess."
His ancestors were good at campfire food and sometimes in a way, during the synchronization, he sometimes could even smell the spicy dishes and delicacies of old Masyaf. The smell of baking of the bakeries in the early mornings at Florentine village and the tangy smell of campfire roasts in wild America. Sadly, he did not have the time to enjoy them. They were in a time crunch and had to hurry along.
Desmond placed his empty utensils by the bedside table for the cleaner to pick up later, "So, tomorrow we ask around about my Uncle and his family. Also, you need to explain what you said earlier about messing around in this world."
Ace looked up from his empty tray and kept it aside, "It'll take a bit to explain everything, and I can tell you are exhausted. I never thought I would feel sleepy of all things either."
Desmond shrugged, "Explain what you can now. Save the rest for later, I guess. We got time right?"
Ace nodded, "Very well then. Sit back and relax. This will be like telling a fairy tale. It all started when I was first stolen from my creators. I was barely awake back then. I don't think my creators meant to make me sentient, to be completely honest with you. For me to become sentient and gain the ability to think, is what I guess humans would call a lucky chance or lucky development or lucky accident. By sheer dumb luck, I gained the ability to think and reason for myself and by chance at the same time the first man and woman to go against my creators stole me from them."
Desmond snorted, "Instead of a chance accident, you are a lucky accidental development. You just woke up and right after that, you escaped from being turned into an inanimate object once again. I may not have known the creators for long but I doubt they would have wanted one of their creations becoming sentient and questioning them and their morals."
Ace beamed, "Thank you, Desmond."
Desmond, "Don't thank me. It would have been really bad if you had remained as an inanimate item. I would be dead right now, with a capital D."
Ace snorted, "I heard Ezio once say 'Luck is just as important in life as skills.', and who cares what the crazies think."
Desmond lifted his glass of water, "Hear! Hear!"
Ace leaned back against the bed and stretched himself, "Anyway, I spent most of my beginning years being carried from one place to another. I remember the first solar flare but barely. Most of my time was spent going through the haphazard amount of knowledge that they thought would be a great 'idea' to dump inside me. So I spent my sweet time going through them putting them in order or at least tried to do so. But it was all for naught."
Desmond looked at him curiously at that, if he had tried to schedule and set things in order would it not have been easier to find the items, "What happened?"
Ace scowled darkly, "Humans turned out to be the most annoying creatures on the planet, is what happened."
Desmond sweat dropped, "I'm here to listen, buddy."
Ace hissed loudly in annoyance reminding Desmond of a puffed up kitten although he didn't say it out loud, "Everytime, every single time, I managed to get everything in a semblance of order, some arrogant brat always, always tries to pry me open for information and all my hard work, all of it gets wasted. Do you have any idea how long it takes to organize that blasted amount of information that they gave me? Years! Years I tell you. But the moment I manage to sort them, from nowhere comes a ignorant arrogant brat that ruins everything, while trying to pry my previous body open. And honestly, they have the nerve to wonder why they can't figure anything out at all. Numbskulls the whole lot of them."
Desmond end up laughing, "I see. I see. If they only knew."
Ace sulked, "It's not funny!"
Desmond raised his hands up, "I am sorry, but I am not laughing at you, promise. Just imagine how their expressions would be if they knew this."
Ace's mouth couldn't help but twitch at that thought, "Heh ~ You have a point."
Desmond counted it a win before changing for now, "So I guess, I'm right in guessing you have been all over the world, our world that is. Any place that you specifically enjoyed being in."
Ace got a thoughtful look, "Hmm... I enjoyed the sea and I enjoyed the Asian countries for a while, before being taken from there."
Desmond, "What did you not enjoy?"
Ace grumbled, "Getting my hard work destroyed."
Desmond snorted, "Yeah, that can piss anyone off. When did you start messing with this world?"
Ace hummed, "I first noticed this world around thirty five thousand years ago, right after the solar flare. In the beginning, I did not pay much attention to this world as it was a new world, a baby world, that had just started to grow as a civilization. It was only a few 1000 years after that I noticed this world had humans alongside it's other peculiar creatures and monsters. I wondered if I could introduce assassins to this world too and how would they be compared to the ones on planet Earth."
Desmond was fascinated, "So how were they comparatively speaking?"
Ace gave him a look, "Bluntly speaking, they ended up as normal people. They didn't know they had assassin's blood and therefore they did not know how to activate the eye. Those who activated it were called Cetra by the others."
Desmond, " Cetra? What an interesting term."
Ace, "That's what the locals here called the people who could use gifts and abilities normal people could not. Though another thing that separated the Cetra from normal people was their awareness and empathy to the world around them."
Desmond, "So if we say we are Cetra and show the proof we can easily blend in, right?"
Ace, "Normally but two thousand years ago from now which is thirty two thousand years after I notice this planet, the Cetra were attacked by a virus alien like being."
Desmond, "Like Venom?"
Ace, "Hard to say, it could take any form they wanted so maybe? Who knows? But because of it the Cetra numbers have gone down. If there are any left, they are probably inactive ones living as normal people."
Desmond, "I see. At least they live right?"
Ace nodded, "Right. Anyway back to the topic of the assassins I introduced here. They well most of them had led a very civilian life. They fought with monsters and collected the items but outside that... Well! They rarely activated their abilities."
Desmond rubbed his neck contemplating the info dump, "That's a good thing though, isn't it? They were living their own lives here."
Ace, "I guess so, if that virus thing had not happened there would have been a thriving community no doubt. I wonder if they managed to create anti virus against it. We should get those shots, just in case."
Desmond, "We can snoop around. I am sure we can find something. I am just glad they speak English here too, those some words and accents are odd. We will need to research the languages that are available on this planet."
Ace looked outside at the towns clock seeing it was past midnight, "Perhaps. It is late! You need rest and so do I. We can continue this later as well."
Desmond laid back on his bed, "Yeah, I'm beat. And tomorrow hopefully, we can find my family, correction our family in this world. Still can't believe you are my half brother here though."
Ace looked away hiding his pink tinted cheeks from view. Desmond just chuckled and turned over to get some well deserved rest. The beds were decent in the inn although the keeper was a grumpy bear. Desmond half wondered what the next day would bring for them.
Desmond thought before giving into oblivion, 'Best thing about this world is the fact there are no Templars. If there were no doubt Assassins would have awakened.'
Somewhere far away in the metropolis City, a Cetra who was dying after sending her daughter away felt a shift in the life stream. Something had changed somewhere, she did not know if it was a good thing or bad thing. But one thing she knew, her daughter's fate had changed from it's original one. Her eyes filled with tears of relief at that knowledge, her daughter would live. It was more then enough and then she let go and knew no more.
"There she is!"
"Quickly secure her."
"Be gentle, or it will be us the mad scientist will strap to the examination table and use as future experiments."
"Roger that."