T w e n t y S i d e d

So I didn’t post last week, and I’d like to apologize for that. I was in and out of the doctor’s office, trying not to get sick. I’m prone to pneumonia, which tried really hard to get me, so I mostly spent the week finding out what it’s possible to expel from your nose and sleeping. Eugh.

Anyway, let’s get into it.

Ezio heads back to Florentine, Firenze, whatever you might call it. His old home city. He goes to see Leonardo da Vinci. I don’t know if you guys pay attention to the dates as they cross the screen every once in a while, but it’s been two years, and I’m heavily judging Ezio and Mario for this. It took two years to learn to fight better, kill one guy, and then head back to Florentine? Maybe I don’t understand the geography of Italy, or how fast horses are, but that seems like a long time.

Regardless, here we are. Ezio brought a codex page for Leonardo to translate, as he did before with the assassin’s blade. It turned out to be a manual for different assassination techniques and a blueprint of a double bladed assassin’s blade. Ezio goes to practice, and then asks Leonardo a question; Ezio needs to find Francesco de’ Pazzi, the father of Petruccio, our last assassination. With a hushed whisper, Leonardo sends Ezio to see La Volpe, The Fox.

We head to the market, where apparently the thieves dwell. Immediately, someone steals our coin purse and runs off.

I take issue with that. Like, this is a market place, there are going to be thieves, sure. What I don’t understand is why the unarmed thief trusted that the mark he was tricking into following him to La Volpe would not kill him as soon as he caught up. Ezio tackles him, but logistically, this man has just stolen money off of an obviously heavily armed and armored man. Feels like a poor decision.

Anyway, yeah, the thief was leading Ezio to La Volpe on purpose, a man that apparently knows all that happens in the city. La Volpe casually admits to being called a murderer, and we all just skate by that, I guess? Then he tells us how to get into a secret underground catacomb to spy on a meeting that Francesco is involved in under a church.

We run through some old tunnels, fight some guards, chase some guards, all of that, until we come to a grate in the wall, through which we can see a group of people. We learn some of their names here, but most importantly, we learn they are planning to attack the Medici family. Piles of weapons laden the table between them. Among the men, the names that stand out are Bernardo, Francesco, and Jacopo.  There are more men there, along with a familiar Spaniard and mention that the pope supports them.  We find one of the keys to the vault with Altair’s outfit in it here, but I won’t get into that until we open the vault.

La Volpe figures out that Francesco and the others plan to assassinate the Medici family, basically the royal family of Florence, at high mass the next day.

The next morning, Ezio sneaks into the church crowd, eager to stop this all before it starts. He…fails. Spectacularly, actually.

Lorenzo Medici is the main target, but Guliano, his brother, is with him. Francesco, Jacopo, and Bernardo, along with a few others, all pop out of nowhere, brutally murder Guliano, and Francesco screams at him to die. When Lorenzo turns to help his brother, on of the priests next to him stabs him in the back. I understand that all of the dates of death are accurate in the game, but I would have liked at least a chance to aid Guliano. As Guliano falls and all the men turn on Lorenzo, we are released from the truly brutal cut scene so we can help.

Ezio is then tasked with wiping out 12 guards and one asshole named Francesco who is way too into murdering people in public. Lorenzo Medici lives, but he is injured. Francesco escapes, and Ezio is forced to let him, as Lorenzo needs delivered home, to safety. Thus begins an escort mission where everyone is trying to kill the guy you are with, a fan favorite in video game culture, that never goes wrong or gets frustrating, ever.

When we arrive, some of Lorenzo’s guard tell us that Francesco has a force of men gathered around the back of the estate. Obviously we go back there, chase Francesco off a roof, and stab him to death. So far, the confession white space where we assassinate people is free of most confession. Where the first game had these long, drawn out confessions, this new white space is mostly just where Ezio tells them to rest in piece.

Anyway, Ezio strips Francesco down to his undies and hangs him by the neck from the building by the gallows. This is where there is a little cut scene where we find out that Jacopo is Francesco’s father, and Petruccio’s grandfather. He’s also our next target, so we are wiping out a family, I guess.

Charlie Jubilee He/she/they