"We should get going," Desmond said in Arabic then decided to switch to Old French to be able to talk to the two people new to time traveling. "We need to figure out when we are to figure out what to do next."

"What to do next? Aren't we just going to go back?" Maria asked, getting to her feet.

"No, we have a mission. Finding these," he explained as best he could in Old French and held up the Apple in demonstration. He then headed for the stairs that led out of the sanctuary. He could hear the others following behind him.

"How many are there?" she asked, tone lacking the slight disbelief she'd used before when discussing them.

They had explained the bare bones of how the Pieces of Eden functioned during their preparation to collect the last one, in addition to what she learned from the little they worked out from Imbert's notes, but she hadn't ever seemed to buy into their explanations. The time travel had clearly gotten her to start believing in the Pieces of Eden's capacity to do everything they claimed it could.

"There are fifty. They are not all Apples. Some are lost or destroyed, but I know one other one is."

"Where is it?" she asked.

"In Rome," he answered then smiled. "It's the papal staff."

"Really?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered then opened the hidden door from the sanctuary to Mario's study. "Welcome to the Villa Auditore. I need to see Altar's codex."

"The one Ezio spoke of before?" Altar asked in Arabic rather than Old French.

"Yes, the pages were separated between your time and his. I can probably figure out when we are if I take a look at it," he said in Arabic, moving to the wall where Ezio and his uncle pinned up the pages of the codex. There weren't many there. "This could be a problem."

"What could?" Connor asked, moving to stand beside him.

"Ezio collected pages of Altar's Codex over a number of years so I can roughly tell when we are by them. The first one he found had Altar's changes to the hidden blade, and it's not here. That means Ezio's 17 or younger, doesn't know about the Assassins and Templars, and he's almost completely untrained."

"Why would we be sent so far back in his life?" Altar asked.

"No idea, more time to check for Pieces of Eden? We've still skipped forward about 300 years to 1477 or earlier even though Ezio will be 20 or so years younger than when we last saw him. We didn't really spend all that long in 1191. We could also use this as an opportunity to try and change things when it comes to Columbus going to the Americas in about a decade. I don't know that we could get someone to make vaccines, but think of the difference just inoculation against smallpox or measles would make when first contact is made."

"You think we could do that?" Connor asked, wonder in his voice. Desmond knew he learned about inoculation due to Washington's insistence on it during the smallpox outbreak during the U.S. War of Independence.

"We can certainly try," Desmond said. "I mean, I do know the basics of how both inoculation and vaccination works. I just don't know how to make them."

"We need a doctor," Connor said with a nod.

"No, probably not. They're on the humoralist system of medicine which means they don't actually know anything. I think it would be difficult to convince one to help us with this."

"If not a doctor, who?"

"I don't know. I think modern inoculation came from Turkey. Maybe we find a Turkish doctor."

"Is this me?" Maria asked, interrupting their conversation. She pointed at the page of the codex that had the portrait Altar had drawn of her on it.

Desmond looked over to Altar to see if he wanted to explain it just to find him glaring at Desmond.

"Yes," Desmond offered her cautiously in Old French.

"Why is it here? It doesn't match with any of the others."

Desmond looked back to Altar, and Altar put his hand over his face, most likely hating the older version of himself that had included the portrait. Actually, the Altar that had made this codex was one that had lived through this to make it back to his own time, and he'd still included the portrait in the codex. "Maybe you should explain it?" Desmond tried in Arabic.

"Explain what?" Altar hissed. "I haven't done anything. All we have is your word on it."

"It's your codex, and everyone calls it that. You can check that it's your handwriting. Unless we leave immediately, which I doubt we will, she's going to figure out that in the future you wrote it and included her in it."

Between the statue and now the codex, Desmond had never seen Altar so thoroughly embarrassed.

"What is it?" Maria asked sharply, crossing her arms.

"I'm going to tell her the truth then," he warned him before switching to Old French, "All of these pages are from Altar's codex which he wrote later in life. That is why they are all here."

"Why would he put a portrait of me in a codex?" she asked Desmond, seeming to figure out that Altar either didn't want to or couldn't answer her.

"Don't," Altar warned, still in Arabic.

"I do not know for sure, but you did marry and have children together," he said then braced. He really wished he had a better command of Old French so he could break the news a little better than this.

Maria stared at him in shocked silence.

"Why would you say it like that?" Altar asked in Arabic.

"I'm just stating the facts, that's the best I can do in that language," Desmond said to him in Arabic, holding his hands up. "Maybe we should go to Florence and see if we can rescue Ezio's family from a Templar conspiracy. Why not take the opportunity since we're early relative to his lifetime?"

Maria completely ignored him, not that she could understand him anyways, to point at the portrait and angrily ask Altar, "Is that what this is? A portrait of me as your wife?"

"I don't know. I didn't make it," Altar said defensively.

Maria then jabbed her finger towards Altar's face. "I will never marry you."

"Fine," Altar said, leaning back from her finger.

"So long as you do not die and have two children together, it's fine," Desmond said in Old French then switched to English. "I really don't want to have to 'Back to the Future' this."

"What does that mean?" Altar asked in English.

"Absolutely not," Maria insisted to both of them. "I'm not marrying anyone, and I'm definitely not having anyone's children."

"You can talk about this on your own," Desmond said in Old French, making a gesture to encompass the both of them. Seeing one conception was more than enough, thank you very much.

"It's not happening," she snarled at Altar.

"That's fine," Altar said, taking another step away from her.

"I disagree, but let's go find Ezio first," Desmond said in English to Connor, making his way out of the study.

"Why are they upset?" Connor asked, following him out.

"They're working out family planning," he answered, looking behind him to see that Maria continued to snap at Altar rather than following them. There was a reason he'd kept it from the both of them while they were in 1191, but he figured it would be worse if Maria worked it out on her own with the Codex around and Altar already in the know.

"Is now the time for that?"

"I just think they need to establish where they're at now that they've been informed they get together in the future," he explained. "Well, technically in the past from now, but, like, their personal futures."

Desmond pushed the front door to the villa open to see Mario, Ezio, Claudia, and Maria Auditore, standing in front of the villa. He froze, feeling like he was experiencing an animus bleed even though he knew he wasn't. This was real, but he hadn't expected to look and feel like this.

"Hey!" Mario shouted at them in Italian, noticing them immediately, "How did you get in there?"

"Safety and peace, brother," Desmond said in Italian, trying for what had worked on Malik. He quickly looked over Ezio and his family again, actually taking them in this time. Ezio definitely looked 17, and Claudia even younger at 15. Maria Auditore still had her injuries from when she had resisted the arrest of her husband and sons. Ezio and Claudia were both carrying large bags stuffed to the brim. It had to be just after the Auditore family had fled Florence due to Ezio publicly killing Uberto Alberti.

"I do not recognize you, brother," Mario said with a sarcastic tone put on 'brother,' and advanced carefully on them with his hand straying for his sword. His harshness and suspicion felt out of place against Ezio's warm memories of the man.

"We've traveled here from Masyaf," Desmond said, holding up his hand in such a way to reveal the hidden blade.

Mario narrowed his eyes, studying him and his blade more closely. "Perhaps I spoke too soon. You seem familiar."

Desmond got the feeling that came from his familial resemblance to Altar and that his statue in the sanctuary was surprisingly accurate for the time it was made.

"Who are they, Uncle?" Ezio asked, eying them suspiciously.

"Allies, I believe," Mario said to his nephew, though he didn't sound totally sold on the idea. He turned back to Desmond, "What are you here for?"

"In short, to collect Pieces of Eden to keep them out of the hands of Templars," he answered, choosing his words carefully. He remembered Mario knowing something about Pieces of Eden without ever having seen one at this point. "The full explanation is much more complicated, but we harbor no ill will towards you or your family. We are Assassins, and our goals are the same."

Mario considered him for a few moments more, glancing at his blade again. "We have not heard from other Assassin guilds in a number of years and received no word of your arrival."

"Our trip was sudden and unexpected, but we intend to take advantage of it."

"Very well," Mario said though he didn't seem totally satisfied with the explanation. "You may as well introduce yourselves."

Desmond then felt relieved that Altar and Maria had not joined them for this part. "I'm Desmond Miles and this is Connor. I'm the only one in our group that speaks Italian though others speak Latin."

"Your group?" Mario asked.

"Yes, we have two more of our group who are still inside, but before I introduce them, I should explain more about how we arrived here," he said, then held up the wrapped Apple. "We came not from the Masyaf of today, but of the Masyaf of the year 1191. An Apple of Eden transported us through time to land here. I'm telling you this so that you'll believe me when I say that our other two companions are Altar Ibn-La'Ahad and Maria Thorpe."

"What is this nonsense?" Mario demanded, anger seeping back into his tone.

Then from behind Desmond, Altar asked in Arabic, "What is going on? Who is this man?"

Desmond stepped out of the way so the two men would be able to see each other then answered Altar. "This is Mario Auditore, Ezio's uncle."

Mario stared at Altar and Maria like he didn't want to believe what he was seeing. He then looked over his shoulder then back to their group. "I want a full explanation," he warned them gravely before turning back to his family, "Nephew, help your mother and sister get settled while I speak to our guests."

"Alright," Ezio agreed weakly, plainly curious about them.

Desmond would prefer to have Ezio join them, but Mario was in charge here, now. Ezio didn't know anything yet.

Mario ushered their group back into the study while Ezio guided his mother and sister upstairs. Mario shut the door behind them. "I believe you must be an Assassin if you wield a hidden blade and know of the Pieces of Eden, but I'm not sure that I believe the rest of your story."

Desmond sighed and said, "It is pretty unbelievable, but it is the truth. Do you want proof of some kind or would you prefer that I tell you the full story first?"

"Proof, please," Mario answered, staring him down.

"These aren't from 1191, but it's something to prove that traveling through time is real as you cannot find these anywhere in the world now," he says, pulling out his pistol and then his cell phone. He turned it on to show him it wasn't just a brick.

"What is it?" Mario asked.

"Communication and information storage device," he said, pulling it back towards himself so he can unlock it. He's so surprised by what he sees on screen, he switches back to English, "And it's charging."

"Charging?" Connor asked. "Didn't you say that had something to do with how the animus worked?"

"Yeah, surprised you remembered that honestly," Desmond said as he looked over his phone. "The animus and my phone both require electricity which is what lightning is, but my phone uses just an itty bitty amount compared to a lightning bolt. Vidic said that all of our modern technology came from what Templars had discovered from Precursor artifacts. I thought he was spouting bullshit because it didn't line up, but I guess some part of it must be true."

"What didn't line up?" he asked.

"You are off topic," Mario interrupted in Italian. "You are meant to be proving that you have traveled through time."

"Sorry," Desmond said, holding out his phone with the wrong date on its screen. "Check the date."

Mario took the phone. He observed it for a few moments, turning it over in his hand. Then he looked back up to Desmond. "What is it?"

"Information storage device," Desmond repeated, holding his hand out again. "I can show you."

Mario returned his phone. Desmond unlocked it and opened up his library app. It was filled with PDFs Shaun had made for him on historical events and people. He had to scroll past all the 18th century America stuff to reach Monteriggioni. Mario wouldn't know modern English, but he could see the picture embedded in the profile. He showed him the phone again.

Mario stared at it, taking it much more cautiously this time. "How? How is this possible?"

"It's future technology. It's difficult to explain in this language," he said. "Do you believe me now?"

Mario considered him for a moment. "Yes, tell me about your mission."

Desmond turned to Altar and switched to Old French. "Do you want to explain everything to Maria while I do this?"

Maria looked to Altar with interest and expectation. Altar sighed. "Fine."

Hopefully that would help them get past the whole family planning situation. Desmond turned back to Mario and reverted to Italian. "This will take some time. Ask your questions as they come up."

Connor sighed and found a nice part of the wall to lean against, and Desmond was very briefly jealous he didn't have to deal with this. He put away his phone and pistol and the Apple before he began giving Mario the spiel he had once given an older Ezio. Unlike the others, he didn't ask very many questions.

"Do you understand everything? Do you believe me? You haven't asked many questions," Desmond said. He could hear Maria and Altar talking in Old French but he's trying not to pay attention to them and get distracted.

"I don't need to worry about the details," Mario said waving a hand. "Your story aligns with what I've heard of the Pieces of Eden. I believe many of the causes we support beyond fighting the Templars are from the instructions you claimed to give them in Masyaf. I believe you are Assassins. You may stay here if you wish, but I am uncertain how much I will be able to help you. According to your story, you should already know that we currently have little in the way of resources or contacts with other Assassin guilds. I cannot give you much support aside from housing you here."

"It's plenty," Desmond assured him. "Thank you."

"What do you intend to do first?" he asked.

Desmond shrugged. "See what has changed due to our visit to Masyaf. We only removed one additional Apple from play so neither Templars or Juno could use it, but as you said, we left instructions. It will be easier to compare what has happened due to our efforts compared the to history that I remember now that I have better access to my own information."

"Good, it will give me time to train Ezio and time to plan," he said.

Desmond gave him a considering look.

"What?" Mario asked.

"I know it is not my place to counsel you as an Assassin or as an uncle, but you might want to consider your approach on how you tell Ezio and Claudia about the Assassins and their father's work now that we're here," he said. "I can't say for certain with Claudia, but Ezio did not believe you for some time, and you inducted both of them long after they had begun working for the Order. It may not have been intentional on your part, but Claudia's training was delayed and stymied. She had to go to extra lengths to prove herself to you and to Ezio. You wasted her time and talents. We don't have time for mistakes like that, now."

Mario studied him for a moment. "I will take your words into consideration."

Desmond nodded, figuring he wouldn't get the older man to budge. Besides, if it came to it, he could go behind Mario's back and to speak with them both and to train Claudia. He was pretty sure Maria would help once he told her.

"I need to see to my family," Mario said. "I will return to discuss things further."

Desmond turned to focus in on Altar and Maria's conversation just to find that Altar must have finished the explanation because they seemed to be discussing how the Assassin Order worked. Desmond let them be for the moment to check in on Connor.

"How's it hangin'?" Desmond asked him in English.

Connor gave him a flat look for the slang and said, "Will I need to learn Italian now that we're here?"

Desmond considered it. "Well, Italian during the Renaissance is basically just a bunch of dialects in a trench coat, and we definitely won't be staying in the Florence area where they speak the Florentine dialect. But a lot of the people we, well that Ezio had met, don't speak Latin, and Ezio was able to communicate with them despite the dialect difference. So maybe you should learn the Florentine dialect even if it doesn't help you with the other ones."

Connor frowned. "I don't like this always having to play catch up with the languages."

"Don't worry, pretty sure Altar and Maria will need to learn it, too," Desmond said.

"Are you talking about us?" Maria asked, interrupting before Connor could respond. She didn't sound too suspicious at least.

"Yes," Desmond said in Old French. "You need to learn Italian."

"Do we have time for that?" Altar asked, also using Old French. "Now that you know when we are, what comes next?"

Desmond considered which language he should use because they no longer had one language in common among them. He went for English to tell the Assassins first, "Ezio spent this coming year training as an Assassin without him really believing in Assassins and Templars. I told Mario to explain things to him differently, but anyways, I don't remember much from Ezio of what happens in terms of politics and major events until the Templar attack on the brothers Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici in 1478 a little over a year from now. The Medici are the most important family in Florence at this time. They're not Assassins, but they are our allies. Ezio interrupted the attack originally, and he saved Lorenzo but not Giuliano. We have time. I think we should start with seeing what our time travel has changed, and now that I have my phone I can see what other major historical events could come up."

He repeated himself in Old French to Maria.

"So we have time to learn Italian and anything else we might need to learn," Connor added in English once Desmond had finished speaking.

"Will Mario Auditore let us stay or have what we need?" Altar asked, keeping to English.

Desmond then remembered Mario had spoken with him in Italian and Altar had been busy talking with Maria at the time. "Mario said we can stay. I don't know if he has any books or records on history though."

"We can ask," Connor said. "Where is he now?"

"Helping his family, not sure when he will come back, but he said he would."

Footsteps sounded from the foyer. Maria, Connor, and Altar all turned to Desmond. He huffed but went to the office door to see if it was Mario returning anyways because he was the only one that spoke Italian. He opened the door and found Ezio crossing the foyer, though he stopped once he spotted Desmond.

Ezio had changed out of his father's Assassin's uniform and he looked so much younger than he had just been in Masyaf. The cut on his lip wasn't even healed yet. His suspicion came across very clearly on his face. Desmond cleared his throat wondering what to say to a young Ezio who had just been through so much. Desmond could remember what it had all felt like for him, but that was such a long time ago with all the years he'd lived through Ezio, the years with Connor, and even the weeks now living his own life.

"You are friends of my uncle?" Ezio asked.

"No, but we work together," he said, hoping that would be enough to keep him out of trouble with Mario. "Do you know when he will return?"

"No," he responded, not moving or saying anything more. Desmond remembered Mario sending Ezio out to run errands in the town which in hindsight had been to try to get Ezio attached to the place and the people to stay. There hadn't been strangers in the villa originally though.

"We mean your family no harm," Desmond assured him. They were his own family after all, just a few more generations between them.

As he'd expected, Ezio didn't look convinced. Actually, now he looked more suspicious.

"Nephew," Mario said, appearing at the top of the stairs. "Are you bothering my guests?"

"Not at all," Ezio said.

"Do not worry yourself over them," he said, putting on an air of joviality for his nephew to calm the tension as he descended the stairs. "We have much to get done. They'll have no chance to even leave the study."

"Fine," Ezio agreed grudgingly and finally moving towards the door.

"I would say forgive him, but I'm sure you understand," Mario said coming across the foyer to join them in the study. "You said you were interested in history, yes?"

"Yes," Desmond said.

Mario nodded to the others in greeting as he moves to his shelves. "I will give you what I can. My brother had more of the tomes that were on our Order's history in particular, but it is unsafe for us to return to Florence at this time. You will have to make do with what I have on hand."

He pulled out book after book, setting them on the desk. It grew to be a rather large stack of various tomes. "This is what I have," he said when he put the last book down. "This should cover the last few centuries."

"Thank you," Desmond said.

"How are we going to do this?" Connor asked, pulling the first book off the stack. He opened it up. "This isn't in English or any other language I learned to read."

"It's in Latin, right?" Desmond asked matching his English, picking up a book for himself. He opened it up to see Latin on the first page. The script was fancy handwritten stuff. That had been survivable in Arabic where his only familiarity with the language was through Altar who had never seen anything but handwritten script. Seeing the Latin alphabet in fancy handwritten script where there was likely no standardized spelling when Desmond was used to the typed Latin alphabet from word processors with built in spell check and the biggest gripe he had with font was comic sans was a very big difference. "This is a goddamn nightmare."

"What's wrong?" Altar asked.

"Connor doesn't know Latin, and I'm going to have a hell of a time with this handwritten stuff," Desmond said, flipping through a few pages. The only nice thing that could be said was that the text was large. He knew some people with naturally tiny handwriting, and he would have completely given up if the book had been written with font that small.

"You have read before," Altar said.

"Yeah, in Arabic which you're used to," he said as he pulled out his phone again. "You want to know what I'm used to for English? This."

He unlocks his phone back to the page on Monteriggioni he'd opened earlier. He scrolled down to fill the screen with text. He held it out to Altar. He squinted at the phone screen then after a moment said, "I see your point."

"You and Maria can read it, right?" he asked, switching to Old French. "You can start with the books? I can work on my phone. And we can learn Italian."

Altar nodded then turned to Maria. She shrugged. "Fine. It's not like I can back out now, and we need to know what's going on."

"Good," Desmond said, relieved.

"Is everything alright?" Mario asked in Italian.

"Yes," Desmond assured him. "Can we use your study for our research? Or should we move somewhere else?"

"I will need the study. If you go down the hall, you may make use of the workshop," Mario told him, gesturing to the back passageway.

"Do you have any paper and something to write with?"

"Here," Mario said, opening a drawer in the desk. He pulled out a few pages of paper as well as a quill and an ink bottle.

"Thank you again. If you need any help training Ezio or Claudia, we'd be happy to help," Desmond offered as a return for his help and hospitality.

"I will consider it," he said, and Desmond nodded wondered if that was polite for no.

"We're going down the hall with the books," Desmond said in English as he picked up the paper, ink, and quill. He set them on top of the books and grabbed the top couple books to carry with the rest. "Mario needs the study."

"Alright," Connor said, picking up a few more of the books. Altar and Maria pick up the rest between them, and they all follow Desmond down the back hall to the work shop.

"I'll take the desk since I'm the one that's going to be writing," Desmond said, walking over to it right away.

"Are we really not going to sleep?" Maria asked.

Desmond paused, looking up from the pile he'd set down on the desk. All the commotion with the time traveling had made him forget the exhaustion of staying up all night finding the Apple and then fighting and chasing a knight down after that. They'd arrived at around the same time of day in Monteriggioni as they had left Masyaf, early morning. By this point, they'd likely spent around sixteen hours awake.

"We could sleep," Desmond responded in Old French. That had been the plan initially. Find the Apple then find someplace safe to sleep then fix their sleep schedules. Monteriggioni in 1477 was very safe from Templars in 1191 Cyprus. Sleep did sound a lot better than writing out a time line of major events from his phone using a damn quill. "I need to ask where."

Maria gave him an unimpressed look at gestured towards the hallway they'd just come down. Desmond rolled his eyes but went back to the study. He found Mario looking over papers on his desk. He cleared his throat and Mario looked up.

"We arrived here at a similar hour to the one we had just left, but we spent the entire night retrieving the Apple that brought us here. Our group would prefer to rest before we begin our work."

"You're familiar with the rooms in the villa, aren't you?" he asked.

Desmond nodded, "Yes."

"Good," he said and quickly gave each member a bedroom to use as guests. Maria would be placed beside Claudia and Maria Auditore. Altar, Connor, and Desmond all received rooms in the other wing alongside Mario's master bedroom.

"Thank you," he said again.

"I will see if I can scrounge up clothes for you to borrow tomorrow or perhaps the day after. You will not blend in wearing clothes like that. It will take longer to have you in proper Assassin's uniforms if you wish to wear them. Many do not these days," he said.

"Thank you," he said again, especially given how much more expensive clothes were in this time. True, they had received clothes from the Order before in Masyaf, but it felt different receiving them from a single person rather than an Order. "I suspect at least Altar will want a proper uniform."

"Yes, it would be very strange for such a person to be out of uniform," he commented.

Desmond got the feeling that he meant it because Altar was such a large feature in Assassin history, and not because Altar basically lived in uniform and would feel weird not wearing it. Still, he nodded and headed back to the group.

"I've got rooms for us," Desmond said, once in English then again in Old French. They really needed to work on having a language in common. "We can sleep and get to work tomorrow. Mario will try to find clothes for us."

"Good," Maria said. "I am ready to sleep."

Connor and Altar didn't disagree.

Desmond led them on a little tour of the villa on the way to their rooms. He dropped Maria off at her room first then continued to the other hall. Desmond had been given the room closest to Mario, probably because he spoke Italian and perhaps because Mario found him the most trustworthy. Connor had the far room, and Altar the one between them.

Desmond quickly found himself alone in his new bedroom. He couldn't recall it ever being occupied from his time as Ezio. He couldn't shake the feeling of how weird it was to be back in Monteriggioni when he never expected to see it again as he undressed to sleep. Still, once his head hit the pillow he was out immediately.


As you might be able to tell from this chapter, this will not be following ACII very closely so you don't need to worry about finding it boring and nothing changing from the game. I will also not be paying attention to where the Pieces of Eden are canonically aside from the papal staff because that seems very tedious for little reward. And yes, I do hate that Ubisoft gave the same name to two different characters, and I'm really wondering if I should do go for a nickname.

So for medical history, I don't want to say that no historical medicine/medical practices worked ever and they were all outright bad or harmful. That's objectively untrue when instead of immediately making fun of things people did historically you considered what they had available to them before industrialization. It's not like modern medicine gets everything right all the time either or doesn't have it's own drawbacks, and it's not like we've totally gotten rid of pseudo-scientific medical practices either. That said, the humoralist system of medicine is actually a bad medical frame work, there were plenty of harmful medical practices that were created from it, and germ theory is the scientifically proven and accepted theory.

Inoculation did reach the west via Turkey in the 18th century which is what I have Desmond remembering, but it is generally accepted as having first appeared in China in the 10th century. Smallpox was the most devastating disease to effect indigenous populations, but measles is ranked second which I think is not as commonly known. The other thing to remember about measles is that it wipes out your immune system including your immune system's memory so you might officially die of another disease but you only had that disease because you had measles. Desmond won't know about the immunity amnesia because that's like a 2019 discovery, but he knows about measles. I couldn't find out if measles ever had inoculation the same way smallpox did, only that people tried it, but the measles vaccine is a live but weakened virus so it theoretically should be possible to inoculate against it. Lastly, I do know that Desmond was born after smallpox was eradicated and they stopped giving people the smallpox vaccine, don't worry.

I'm not sure if I need to say this, but just to be clear, in a time before effective birth control like modern condoms or oral contraceptive pills, not getting married is the birth control. Women were also way more likely to die in childbirth. Maria, someone who has run off to war to avoid this fate, would not be happy to hear about this because she has every reason to assume that Altar somehow managed to force her into it. This isn't an embarrassed feelings/offended at romance thing, this is a life or death and free will thing. I have issues with how the games handled Maria and Altar ok. Desmond doesn't get it because he's from a time and place of birth control and marrying for love not as an economical or political arrangement.

I did change the villa's layout to make it make sense. There's no way Maria Auditore has the only bedroom in the entire place in real life so instead of empty wasted space above the study there's rooms and same for the other side. I also had Ezio and Claudia carrying things with them because I think you'd try to carry what you could running from home. Italian is not like English and French where it has old middle and modern versions, but it was just a bunch of dialects like Old French. The printing press has been invented and as far as I can tell there are some in Italy by 1470, but the Auditore are a wealthy family, they're going to have books from before the printing press and also be able to afford handwritten books.

Now I just need to work out how exactly they've changed history for the next chapter. Hope you enjoyed this one!