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Description
November 2, 12985 BCE; Siberia

Arktalaki had a hard time seeing through the snow. She'd never liked these blizzards, and it was especially bad now that she had a tribe of people relying on her to get them through. She stared into the foggy abyss around her, hoping that it would clear up by sunrise. They had managed to get their tents up for the night, so they'd at least be safe from the elements for a few hours. Arktalaki sighed. They'd be safe, but she wouldn't. She had her arrows and spears at the ready, along with a ragtag squadron of hunters at her side. The tribe needed food. The supplies they had were already running low after weeks of travelling. And here, out in the bitter icy tundra, the only real food source had a brutal reputation.

She could already hear the herds trumpeting over the horizon. She gulped. Her father never trained her for this. Even the Mentor had only really taught her how to go up against things like elk and tigers, and even the occasional bear that she may or may not have been responsible for its aggressively angry attitude in the first place due to it being rudely awoken from its nap.

But mammoths… mammoths were a different story. Mammoths were the most dangerous prey of them all. They were big, they were smart, they were fast, and they had numbers. You had to coordinate your attack perfectly. One wrong move could get you and your whole team killed. There was never really a prime target. Every member of the herd had its issues. The middle aged adults were always a no go. They were the healthiest and strongest, and the most aggressive when attacked. The young calves were inexperienced and often The easiest to approach and kill, but their mothers were always nearby to defend them. The old members of the herd were the slowest and most likely to be left behind by the rest of the herd, but their meat was often the least healthy. It was all a big game of chance, and Arktalaki’s team would be gambling with their lives.

She took a deep breath, and gave her hunters the signal to head out. They all advanced towards the foreboding trumpeting that rang from the distance, keeping low to the ground and shuffling as slowly and quietly as they could.

Soon enough, they saw the herd. The massive beasts were marching on through the bitter snow like it was nothing, making the ground shake with every step they took. Arktalaki signaled to her hunters to fan out around the edge of the valley and slowly move in. They had to do this just right. The tundra only had a few hills and shrubs to serve as their cover, and they would have to make do with it. She wished she had Iwakuk at her side. That wolf would be able to calm her so much more than she could on her own. But this mission was far too risky, far too dangerous. Arktalaki refused to risk losing her oldest friend.

Arktalaki took a spear from her sheath and gripped it tight as she scurried down into the valley. She made sure to stay behind the mammoths’ lines of sight, or at least as much as she could be. The closer she got, the harder the ground shook beneath her, the more her heart pounded against her chest. She did her best to steady her breathing and calm her nerves. She scurried up a hill and scanned the area for any mammoths that seemed to have strayed a bit from the herd. She used her Eagle Vision, and it proved extremely helpful. Through the blizzard, she saw a massive shape outlined in gold. The mammoth was slower than the rest, and the grey of its fur told her it was an older member of the herd. It seemed to have a slight limp too, meaning it had been wounded. It would make a prime target for the first strike.

She skittered over to a better vantage point, and readied her spear. She closed one eye to aim as she held her arm back, tensing up her muscles to put some power into her throw. She grit her teeth, steadied her aim, pulled her arm back, and threw.

The spear went whistling through the snow until it hit something solid. The mammoth made one final trumpet of pain before suddenly falling over to the ground. Arktalaki’s jaw dropped. She had managed to hit it between the eyes. An instant kill. She couldn't believe her luck. The other mammoths were suddenly stirred by the death cry of their companion, but they weren't able to clearly see what happened through the fog and snow. They took their time turning to investigate, giving Arktalaki and her hunters time to move in and harvest a fair bit.

But as Arktalaki dug her blade into the dead mammoth’s flesh, she suddenly got a bad feeling in the pit of her gut. Something didn't feel right, something off in the air. She dreaded that feeling, and she soon got the first sign that she was right to dread.

An arrow came smacking down into the ice beside her, just barely missing her head. She gasped and looked in the direction it came from. Her eyes widened in fear as she managed to spot a hoard of armored warriors come running out of the blizzard, screaming and shouting as they hurled their spears and launched their arrows at the mammoth herd.

And all hell immediately broke loose.

The mammoths went into an aggressive panic when these invaders showed up, and started fighting back. They charged left and right and swatted at any poor soul who got in the way. Arktalaki was forced to sprint away, back up to a hill alongside her own hunters.

“Where did they come from?” one of her friends asked.

“I don't know…” she responded. “But they can't mean anything good…”

She recognized the armor the invaders wore. It was Templar armor. She felt her fists clench in rage. Of course…

She noticed a woman at the center of the whole ordeal, barking orders at her men and their wolves to bring the mammoths down no matter what sacrifices they had to make. She had the most elaborate armor out of all of them. Arktalaki gasped again. She recognized that woman. She was one of the Templars that stood beside Tanaguq as they slaughtered her family.

Arktalaki knew she had to go down and do something. And so she did.

Despite the protests of her hunter friends, she dashed down the hill towards the chaos. She grabbed her bow and some arrows, and added to the insanity.

She dipped and dodged, doing her best to avoid flying spears and arrows and the trunks of mammoths. She let off a few arrows of her own, and was glad to hear the shout of pain coming from her enemies as they were impaled.

The ground started rumbling even more, and Arktalaki looked just in time to see one of the massive animals charging right in her direction, head down and tusks barred. She gasped and rolled out of the way as fast as she could. The animal missed her only by a smidge, and her momentum caused her to go tumbling down a hill.

She ended up smacking right into someone, and she wasn't too thrilled when she caught the first glimpse of Templar armor on the person.

And she was even less thrilled to see that the other person was the Templar leader. The older woman snarled and kicked her off of her. Arktalaki went tumbling into the snow again.

“You!” the Templar shouted over the roar of the chaos. “They told me all about you, Assassin. They told me how you intend to claim our prize before we do. Well I will not allow it! You will die here, and your Brotherhood along with it!”

Arktalaki stumbled to her feet and drew her wrist daggers. She breathed heavily and glared. “The Apple is not for the Templars to have!” she declared.

“It doesn't matter what you think,” the other woman said. “We're well on our way to the Land Beyond the Sun already.”

“What?”

“Has it not clicked in your head yet? Why do you think we continue to move eastward? The Land Beyond the Sun is where the Apple rests.”

Arktalaki’s throat went dry. The old legends that her mother told her were true. Something did lie over the horizon, and her enemies were after it. It seemed she would be continuing her tribe's journey afterall… though not the way she thought she would.

“I will hunt you all down, to the edge of the Earth if I have to,” Arktalaki told the Templar.

The older woman laughed. “No you won't. You won't make it out of this alive. Now you'll see what I, the great huntress Tulaagix, can do.”

The Templar lunged. She fought with a spear. Arktalaki blocked the blows with her blade. Tulaagix was quick and strong, but her bigger weapon lowered her agility. Arktalaki was able to dip and dodge and leap out of the way, much to the Templars’ irritation.

“Stand still!” she demanded.

“Oh what? The great huntress Tulaagix can't handle one lone Assassin?” Arktalaki mocked.

“Silence!”

Their weapons swung about, and they kicked up snow as they went. Suddenly, the ground began to shake harder and harder. Arktalaki turned just in time to see another mammoth come charging out of the blizzard. Tulaagix saw it too, but Arktalaki was quicker to act. She grabbed the Templar by the collar and yanked her to the ground. Then she rolled out of the way and slid down a hill. She turned around, just in time to see the Templar shout in terror as the mammoth plowed forward and batted her into the air with its trunk like an old ragdoll. Tulaagix came crashing down with a gruesome thud next to Arktalaki. She moaned in pain and tried to move, but couldn't from her broken bones. Arktalaki took her chance. She ran up, grabbed her wrist dagger, and thrust it downwards, putting the Templar out of her misery.

And time began to slow.

Reality collapsed, once again being replaced by the raw void of the Animus. Ava watched her ancestor stand from the dying Templar as she listened to her last words.

“Do you honestly think you deserve the Apple more than we do, Assassin?” Tulaagix asked with glossed eyes.

“No one deserves the Apple. I've seen what it can do, and I know that no human alive is worthy of such a power.”

The Templar chuckled. “Such a noble view, child. I wish I had the outlook to share the same opinion…”

And with that, the Templar went limp as death embraced her. Arktalaki closed her eyes and crossed her arm over her chest. “May death allow you to see the bigger picture from above,” she said. “Let your soul walk free.”

Once the respective ritual was done, Arktalaki reached into the Templar’s furs and pulled out the object she was hoping to find: another memory disk. She smiled and stuffed it into her robes, and then she turned from the body as Ava's mind evaporated and the world of the past returned to her view. Arktalaki wasted no time sprinting back towards her hunters. “We have to go!” she told them. “It's too dangerous to stay in this mess! Grab the mammoth we took down and bring it back to camp. If we're lucky, it'll be enough to sustain us until the next hunt.”

The hunters nodded, and they ran to gather up the massive corpse, wrapping ropes and tarps all around it so that they could drag it away out of the valley. Arktalaki stood in the back, keeping guard. The rest of the herd had finished off the Templar horde, and they seemed to be moving in the opposite direction, much to Arktalaki’s relief. She sighed. This whole endeavor was a mess, but at least they were lucky enough to make it out alive.

------------

“So, the Templars intend to find the Land Beyond the Sun,” the Mentor said in contemplation. Arktalaki nodded.

“I guess we have no choice but to follow,” the Mentor said.

“I never imagined I'd actually find myself making this journey…” Arktalaki said. “Sure, I talked about the story all the time with my mother, but still…”

“I suppose all prophecies must come to be eventually.”

“Perhaps… Still though, where is the great chief? The one that the legend said would lead us to the promised land? I doubt we'll be able to make it without them.”

The Mentor simply looked at her and smiled a cheeky smile.

“What?” Arktalaki asked. The Mentor kept smiling. She chuckled and stood up.

“I'm sure it'll click eventually, my friend,” was all she said before heading to the door. “Get some rest for the night. We must move again soon.”

The Mentor left the tent, and Arktalaki was left there alone again. She sighed. She had gotten herself mixed up in more than she ever thought she could have.

She reached into her robes, and she pulled out the memory disk. She stared into its patterns, heard its hum grow louder and louder. She watched the light start to engulf her vision. She knew what was going to happen now, and this time she was able to brace herself. She hoped that Eve would give her more insight to the role she played in all this.

The light consumed her vision, blanketing the whole world in an endless white. The sounds of the winds outside were quickly faded out, replaced by a new kind of hum, a mechanical one. The faint outline of a glowing city came into view, and the full image quickly followed.

She walked along the shining streets, making sure to keep her hood up to keep her face concealed. She hated moving through big Isu cities like this. It was such a dangerous thing to do. But she didn't have much choice.

She had to meet up with her contact as soon as possible.

Description
November 2, 12985 BCE; Siberia

Arktalaki had a hard time seeing through the snow. She'd never liked these blizzards, and it was especially bad now that she had a tribe of people relying on her to get them through. She stared into the foggy abyss around her, hoping that it would clear up by sunrise. They had managed to get their tents up for the night, so they'd at least be safe from the elements for a few hours. Arktalaki sighed. They'd be safe, but she wouldn't. She had her arrows and spears at the ready, along with a ragtag squadron of hunters at her side. The tribe needed food. The supplies they had were already running low after weeks of travelling. And here, out in the bitter icy tundra, the only real food source had a brutal reputation.

She could already hear the herds trumpeting over the horizon. She gulped. Her father never trained her for this. Even the Mentor had only really taught her how to go up against things like elk and tigers, and even the occasional bear that she may or may not have been responsible for its aggressively angry attitude in the first place due to it being rudely awoken from its nap.

But mammoths… mammoths were a different story. Mammoths were the most dangerous prey of them all. They were big, they were smart, they were fast, and they had numbers. You had to coordinate your attack perfectly. One wrong move could get you and your whole team killed. There was never really a prime target. Every member of the herd had its issues. The middle aged adults were always a no go. They were the healthiest and strongest, and the most aggressive when attacked. The young calves were inexperienced and often The easiest to approach and kill, but their mothers were always nearby to defend them. The old members of the herd were the slowest and most likely to be left behind by the rest of the herd, but their meat was often the least healthy. It was all a big game of chance, and Arktalaki’s team would be gambling with their lives.

She took a deep breath, and gave her hunters the signal to head out. They all advanced towards the foreboding trumpeting that rang from the distance, keeping low to the ground and shuffling as slowly and quietly as they could.

Soon enough, they saw the herd. The massive beasts were marching on through the bitter snow like it was nothing, making the ground shake with every step they took. Arktalaki signaled to her hunters to fan out around the edge of the valley and slowly move in. They had to do this just right. The tundra only had a few hills and shrubs to serve as their cover, and they would have to make do with it. She wished she had Iwakuk at her side. That wolf would be able to calm her so much more than she could on her own. But this mission was far too risky, far too dangerous. Arktalaki refused to risk losing her oldest friend.

Arktalaki took a spear from her sheath and gripped it tight as she scurried down into the valley. She made sure to stay behind the mammoths’ lines of sight, or at least as much as she could be. The closer she got, the harder the ground shook beneath her, the more her heart pounded against her chest. She did her best to steady her breathing and calm her nerves. She scurried up a hill and scanned the area for any mammoths that seemed to have strayed a bit from the herd. She used her Eagle Vision, and it proved extremely helpful. Through the blizzard, she saw a massive shape outlined in gold. The mammoth was slower than the rest, and the grey of its fur told her it was an older member of the herd. It seemed to have a slight limp too, meaning it had been wounded. It would make a prime target for the first strike.

She skittered over to a better vantage point, and readied her spear. She closed one eye to aim as she held her arm back, tensing up her muscles to put some power into her throw. She grit her teeth, steadied her aim, pulled her arm back, and threw.

The spear went whistling through the snow until it hit something solid. The mammoth made one final trumpet of pain before suddenly falling over to the ground. Arktalaki’s jaw dropped. She had managed to hit it between the eyes. An instant kill. She couldn't believe her luck. The other mammoths were suddenly stirred by the death cry of their companion, but they weren't able to clearly see what happened through the fog and snow. They took their time turning to investigate, giving Arktalaki and her hunters time to move in and harvest a fair bit.

But as Arktalaki dug her blade into the dead mammoth’s flesh, she suddenly got a bad feeling in the pit of her gut. Something didn't feel right, something off in the air. She dreaded that feeling, and she soon got the first sign that she was right to dread.

An arrow came smacking down into the ice beside her, just barely missing her head. She gasped and looked in the direction it came from. Her eyes widened in fear as she managed to spot a hoard of armored warriors come running out of the blizzard, screaming and shouting as they hurled their spears and launched their arrows at the mammoth herd.

And all hell immediately broke loose.

The mammoths went into an aggressive panic when these invaders showed up, and started fighting back. They charged left and right and swatted at any poor soul who got in the way. Arktalaki was forced to sprint away, back up to a hill alongside her own hunters.

“Where did they come from?” one of her friends asked.

“I don't know…” she responded. “But they can't mean anything good…”

She recognized the armor the invaders wore. It was Templar armor. She felt her fists clench in rage. Of course…

She noticed a woman at the center of the whole ordeal, barking orders at her men and their wolves to bring the mammoths down no matter what sacrifices they had to make. She had the most elaborate armor out of all of them. Arktalaki gasped again. She recognized that woman. She was one of the Templars that stood beside Tanaguq as they slaughtered her family.

Arktalaki knew she had to go down and do something. And so she did.

Despite the protests of her hunter friends, she dashed down the hill towards the chaos. She grabbed her bow and some arrows, and added to the insanity.

She dipped and dodged, doing her best to avoid flying spears and arrows and the trunks of mammoths. She let off a few arrows of her own, and was glad to hear the shout of pain coming from her enemies as they were impaled.

The ground started rumbling even more, and Arktalaki looked just in time to see one of the massive animals charging right in her direction, head down and tusks barred. She gasped and rolled out of the way as fast as she could. The animal missed her only by a smidge, and her momentum caused her to go tumbling down a hill.

She ended up smacking right into someone, and she wasn't too thrilled when she caught the first glimpse of Templar armor on the person.

And she was even less thrilled to see that the other person was the Templar leader. The older woman snarled and kicked her off of her. Arktalaki went tumbling into the snow again.

“You!” the Templar shouted over the roar of the chaos. “They told me all about you, Assassin. They told me how you intend to claim our prize before we do. Well I will not allow it! You will die here, and your Brotherhood along with it!”

Arktalaki stumbled to her feet and drew her wrist daggers. She breathed heavily and glared. “The Apple is not for the Templars to have!” she declared.

“It doesn't matter what you think,” the other woman said. “We're well on our way to the Land Beyond the Sun already.”

“What?”

“Has it not clicked in your head yet? Why do you think we continue to move eastward? The Land Beyond the Sun is where the Apple rests.”

Arktalaki’s throat went dry. The old legends that her mother told her were true. Something did lie over the horizon, and her enemies were after it. It seemed she would be continuing her tribe's journey afterall… though not the way she thought she would.

“I will hunt you all down, to the edge of the Earth if I have to,” Arktalaki told the Templar.

The older woman laughed. “No you won't. You won't make it out of this alive. Now you'll see what I, the great huntress Tulaagix, can do.”

The Templar lunged. She fought with a spear. Arktalaki blocked the blows with her blade. Tulaagix was quick and strong, but her bigger weapon lowered her agility. Arktalaki was able to dip and dodge and leap out of the way, much to the Templars’ irritation.

“Stand still!” she demanded.

“Oh what? The great huntress Tulaagix can't handle one lone Assassin?” Arktalaki mocked.

“Silence!”

Their weapons swung about, and they kicked up snow as they went. Suddenly, the ground began to shake harder and harder. Arktalaki turned just in time to see another mammoth come charging out of the blizzard. Tulaagix saw it too, but Arktalaki was quicker to act. She grabbed the Templar by the collar and yanked her to the ground. Then she rolled out of the way and slid down a hill. She turned around, just in time to see the Templar shout in terror as the mammoth plowed forward and batted her into the air with its trunk like an old ragdoll. Tulaagix came crashing down with a gruesome thud next to Arktalaki. She moaned in pain and tried to move, but couldn't from her broken bones. Arktalaki took her chance. She ran up, grabbed her wrist dagger, and thrust it downwards, putting the Templar out of her misery.

And time began to slow.

Reality collapsed, once again being replaced by the raw void of the Animus. Ava watched her ancestor stand from the dying Templar as she listened to her last words.

“Do you honestly think you deserve the Apple more than we do, Assassin?” Tulaagix asked with glossed eyes.

“No one deserves the Apple. I've seen what it can do, and I know that no human alive is worthy of such a power.”

The Templar chuckled. “Such a noble view, child. I wish I had the outlook to share the same opinion…”

And with that, the Templar went limp as death embraced her. Arktalaki closed her eyes and crossed her arm over her chest. “May death allow you to see the bigger picture from above,” she said. “Let your soul walk free.”

Once the respective ritual was done, Arktalaki reached into the Templar’s furs and pulled out the object she was hoping to find: another memory disk. She smiled and stuffed it into her robes, and then she turned from the body as Ava's mind evaporated and the world of the past returned to her view. Arktalaki wasted no time sprinting back towards her hunters. “We have to go!” she told them. “It's too dangerous to stay in this mess! Grab the mammoth we took down and bring it back to camp. If we're lucky, it'll be enough to sustain us until the next hunt.”

The hunters nodded, and they ran to gather up the massive corpse, wrapping ropes and tarps all around it so that they could drag it away out of the valley. Arktalaki stood in the back, keeping guard. The rest of the herd had finished off the Templar horde, and they seemed to be moving in the opposite direction, much to Arktalaki’s relief. She sighed. This whole endeavor was a mess, but at least they were lucky enough to make it out alive.

------------

“So, the Templars intend to find the Land Beyond the Sun,” the Mentor said in contemplation. Arktalaki nodded.

“I guess we have no choice but to follow,” the Mentor said.

“I never imagined I'd actually find myself making this journey…” Arktalaki said. “Sure, I talked about the story all the time with my mother, but still…”

“I suppose all prophecies must come to be eventually.”

“Perhaps… Still though, where is the great chief? The one that the legend said would lead us to the promised land? I doubt we'll be able to make it without them.”

The Mentor simply looked at her and smiled a cheeky smile.

“What?” Arktalaki asked. The Mentor kept smiling. She chuckled and stood up.

“I'm sure it'll click eventually, my friend,” was all she said before heading to the door. “Get some rest for the night. We must move again soon.”

The Mentor left the tent, and Arktalaki was left there alone again. She sighed. She had gotten herself mixed up in more than she ever thought she could have.

She reached into her robes, and she pulled out the memory disk. She stared into its patterns, heard its hum grow louder and louder. She watched the light start to engulf her vision. She knew what was going to happen now, and this time she was able to brace herself. She hoped that Eve would give her more insight to the role she played in all this.

The light consumed her vision, blanketing the whole world in an endless white. The sounds of the winds outside were quickly faded out, replaced by a new kind of hum, a mechanical one. The faint outline of a glowing city came into view, and the full image quickly followed.

She walked along the shining streets, making sure to keep her hood up to keep her face concealed. She hated moving through big Isu cities like this. It was such a dangerous thing to do. But she didn't have much choice.

She had to meet up with her contact as soon as possible.