Chapter 6: The Auditore Sanctuary
For Mario, a guy who'd spent years scrapping it out, tangling with the Pazzi was old news. Both sides had wins and losses, but it rarely hit hard enough to break either one. Nabbing five cannons this time was a fluke—the Pazzi hadn't counted on Monteriggioni suddenly sprouting a sharpshooter. Caught off guard, they got hammered.
To Mario, though, those shiny war prizes weren't worth as much as Lu Xiao himself. With the Templars breathing down their necks, the Brotherhood was desperate for fresh talent with potential. The siege had proven Lu Xiao wasn't just some trainee anymore—he'd held his own, taken out a key target, and shifted the fight.
Lu Xiao had laid out his "goal" way back at their first meeting—master some skills, then head back to his far-off homeland in the East to avenge his family, supposedly butchered by Templars. Mario didn't know it was all a made-up tale. To keep Lu Xiao around, he figured it was time to pull out the big guns—literally and figuratively. The old warrior had a knack for reading people, and Lu Xiao's steady grit had earned him a deeper look into the Brotherhood's secrets. Mario wasn't about to let a potential asset slip away—not with the Templars gaining ground.
In the Auditore manor's study, Mario shooed out the servants and locked the door tight. He yanked a black cloth off the wall, revealing a smooth wooden board plastered with scattered pages. The room was dim, lit only by a flickering oil lamp on the desk, casting long shadows over the cluttered shelves.
"Those pages…" Lu Xiao's eyes flickered. He had a hunch what Mario was about to show off. His gamer instincts kicked in, piecing together fragments of 'Assassin's Creed' lore—this wasn't just some random display; it was a jackpot.
The pages on the board were a mixed bag—some just text, others scribbled with weird diagrams.
"These are the legacy the Italian Brotherhood's been chasing," Mario said, voice heavy. "Handwritten notes from the great Assassin mentor, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad. Word is, they're packed with knowledge about the Pieces of Eden." He tapped the board with a scarred finger, tracing the edge of a yellowed page scrawled with cryptic symbols.
"Back in the 12th and 13th centuries, the Brotherhood was big in the Middle East—Masyaf Castle was the hot spot. They held off the Templar Crusaders plenty, but then the Mongols steamrolled in. Altaïr's notes ended up with Genghis Khan's grandson, Kublai. Took Marco Polo some serious smooth-talking to snag them back." Mario's tone carried a mix of awe and frustration, his gaze lingering on the pages.
"After that, the notes and Altaïr's other stuff bounced around between Assassins. Eventually, they landed with my great-grandfather, Domenico Auditore. Problem was, the Templars caught wind of it too. Sent a ton of goons to steal Altaïr's legacy." He clenched his fist, the memory stoking an old fire.
"To keep it out of their hands, Domenico split the notes up, hiding them across Italy. Then he built a sanctuary under the manor to stash another big piece of Altaïr's haul." Mario's voice dropped as he turned to the bookshelf lining the wall.
As he talked, Mario tugged a book from a wall shelf. With a faint click of gears, the shelf slid aside, exposing a hidden passage. "Follow me." He grabbed a flint from the desk, striking it against a torch mounted on the wall. The flame sputtered to life, casting a warm glow down the narrow tunnel. Lu Xiao followed, the air growing cooler and damp as they descended, the manor's warmth fading behind them.
He lit the wall torches one by one with a flint, guiding them down a winding slope into a wide underground hall. Seven slick stone statues loomed inside. The centerpiece was blocked off by metal bars, guarding a sleek black leather armor set studded with silver. The hall was vast, its ceiling lost in shadow.
Mario spread his arms, grinning at Lu Xiao's wide-eyed stare. "These statues are the big shots who made the Brotherhood proud—legends." His voice echoed off the walls, filling the space with a reverence Lu Xiao hadn't heard from him before.
"Left to right: Qulan Gal, Darius, Wei Yu, Altaïr, Amunet, Iltani, and Leonius. My great-grandfather rigged each one with a token. Collect all six, and the bars will open and let you grab Altaïr's armor, made in his later years." He stepped closer to the bars, the torchlight glinting off the armor's silver studs. It hung on a wooden frame, its leather polished to a dark sheen, looking both deadly and elegant.
He tapped the bars lightly. "Tried busting this open every way I could back in the day. No clue what Domenico used—swords, axes, nothing scratches it." Mario chuckled, a wry edge to it, like a kid recalling a failed prank. The bars gleamed, unmarred by any mark.
"Giovanni and I spent years hunting those tokens around Italy when we were young. Came up empty. Now we're stuck with Brotherhood work—no time to chase 'em anymore." His shoulders sagged slightly, the weight of years and duty pressing down. Lu Xiao caught the flicker of regret in his good eye—Mario loved a fight, but this was one he'd never finished.
"Maybe you can finish what we couldn't. Track down all of Altaïr's notes, snag the six tokens, and pull that armor out. They say Altaïr cooked it up using Piece of Eden tricks—damn near sword-proof and light as hell. Perfect for an Assassin who moves fast."
Lu Xiao scanned the statues, left to right. Altaïr was a no-brainer—Assassin's Creed's first game was all him. His deep dive into the Apple of Eden left a goldmine for later Assassins. Most of the others were strangers—even Wei Yu, clearly Chinese, didn't ring any bells. But Darius and Amunet? Those names perked him up. His gamer brain kicked into overdrive.
Darius popped up in 'Assassin's Creed: Odyssey'. First guy to use a hidden blade—caught Persian Emperor Xerxes I off guard and took him out. That little wrist-knife got passed down, turning into the Brotherhood's signature gear. His kid later hooked up with the demigod Kassandra. Generations down the line, that bloodline spat out another legend carved here—Amunet.
Amunet started as Aya, co-founder of the Hidden Ones, the Brotherhood's early form, alongside her husband Bayek.
"Demigod, huh…" Lu Xiao's mind wandered to Kassandra. He pictured her from 'Odyssey'—long braid, scarred armor, that Staff of Hermes keeping her ageless. A chill ran through him at the thought of her out there, somewhere, watching this very moment unfold.
Kassandra—granddaughter of Sparta's badass King Leonidas—had one of those Pieces of Eden keeping her ticking. Still alive even now, watching history roll by from the sidelines, all the way into Assassin's Creed's modern day. Her gig as a message-bearer meant she couldn't meddle, just observe. Lu Xiao wondered what she'd make of him—a nobody from another world, stumbling into her legacy.
"Demigod" wasn't literal—just humans with a thick dose of Isu blood. The Isu were Earth's first big civilization—called 'Precursors' or 'Those Who Came Before' by later folks, gods by some. They had Triple-helix DNA, not like humans which had Double-Helix. They had longer lives and tougher bodies.
Humans had five senses; the Isu had six. They called the extra one "knowledge." To humans, it'd be a souped-up gut feeling—sixth sense stuff.
Eagle Vision, like Lu Xiao's Clairvoyance mimicked, was one slice of that pie. He flexed his vision on instinct, the statues snapping into sharper focus—every chisel mark, every crack in the stone vivid as if lit by daylight.
Only high-Isu-blood types could fully wield Pieces of Eden, tapping their real juice. Mario broke free of the Shroud's pull not because his will was iron, but because the Auditores carried Isu blood too—enough to shrug off the side effects. Lu Xiao remembered Mario's tale of that cursed relic, the way it whispered to men's minds.
Lu Xiao, a soul from another world, didn't have a drop of that juice. Which made his Eden-hunting mission trickier.
'Altaïr's armor—I need it ASAP.' He stared at the black leather, its silver studs winking in the torchlight. In a world of blades and chaos, that gear could keep him alive—maybe even tilt the odds.
In this era of swords and steel, that near-invincible, feather-light gear would be a game-changer. If he remembered right, the six tokens to unlock it were stashed in Assassin tombs scattered across Italy. His next stop, Florence, just happened to have two of them. He'd played 'Assassin's Creed II' enough to recall the tombs.
Florence was his ticket in, and the timing couldn't be better.