Prologue
It was the Assassin's first time here in the city of Acre in several months. He had spent most of his time in Maysaf, taking control of the Assassin's Order after he had eliminated his treacherous Grand Master Al Mualim but now he was back. Not much had seemed to change in the city but then again there was more to it than his eye could see physically; he no longer saw the Templars as the guards who constantly gave chase to him the moment they saw him jumping from rooftop to rooftop. To him, they represented the greater enemy, tools for their agenda, extensions of their will to dominate, control and keep the citizens ignorant while they prosper. Ever since he had murdered Al Mualim, he had come to question many truths. His mission became more personal.
The annoying beggars who crowded the streets of Acre and constantly harassed him for a spare coin to lend them were still there though he had a lot more restraint. Had it not been for the fact that he was a strict adherent to the Assassin's Creed, had he been the same person he was back at Solomon's temple, he might've considered murdering them.
Strangely enough, he was not here in the city of Acre to assassinate someone, a first for someone who spent the previous couple of months drenching his blade on the blood of his Templar enemies. Out of the ten Templars he murdered in the Holy Land, he recalled murdering three within Acre's walls. The names of these three aforementioned individuals were Garnier de Naplouse, William of Montferrat, and Sibrand. Garnier was a corrupt surgeon and the tenth Grand Master of the Knights Hospitalier who enjoyed removing himself from the world around him, spending his time experimenting on his patients. William of Montferrat was the tyrannical regent of Acre who vigorously withheld food rations from the people in preparation for the utopian "New World" the Templars planned to create once the Pieces of Eden were gathered. Sibrand was the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights who out of his own paranoia and fear of being killed had his troops occupy Acre's port and kill anyone suspected of being an Assassin, most of whom were innocent scholars. Each of these three individuals he single-handily murdered on his own and had he the chance to do it all over again, he would do it without hesitation.
He had instead came here on assignment from Malik, his good friend and second in command of the Assassins. As the Assassins were reorganizing themselves after the murder of Al Mualim and his own ascension to Grand Master, there were rumors flying around that the Templars were planning a retreat to Cyprus. This of course interested the likes of he and Malik who immediately sought out to contact the rafiq that headed the local Bureau in Acre by sending a messenger pigeon. Many weeks later, they had gathered enough information from the local rafiq to consider an assignment to the city. He grabbed a horse and headed for Acre, planning to capture one of these Templars and see what he or she knew.
Out of all the Templars that were in Acre, he remembered one: Maria Thorpe.
...advancing to a more recent memory...
