Asser was a virtual representation of one of Eivor Varinsdottir's genetic memories, relived by Layla Hassan in 2020 through the Portable Animus HR-8.5.
Description[]
A man searches for a sign from God.
Dialogue[]
Eivor entered a small church and saw a man peering over a paper on a lectern illuminated by the light from the window above. Another priest chided him.
- Asser: Send me a sign, O Lord. Illuminate my true path. For you are the shepherd and I am the lamb who follows your lamp.
Your meaning is unclear, God of Gods. Please, there must be some other purpose for my life!
You are the light of the world. So do these rays mean something? - Priest: You have not left the church in days. The stench offends even God's nose.
- Asser: I have been looking at his scripture for hours. God is giving me a sign. If only I could see it... see his light.
- Priest: A sign? God in Heaven. Give him a sign. Set him on his true path. Far away from me.
- Asser: Yes! Illuminate me, O Lord. Illuminate me!
Eivor speaking to Asser on his concerns
The priest took his leave, and Eivor approached Asser.
- Eivor: What troubles you?
- Asser: God will speak to me, I know it. He will show me my true path.
- Eivor: God's light will show him his path? Maybe I can illuminate the lecterns somehow to cease his prattling.
Eivor read the paper Asser was reading.
Pious Text
- If you make God the utmost delight and pleasure of your life, He will provide for you what you desire most.
Eivor read the papers on two other lecterns further along the wall while Asser repeated his various prayers to God.
Priest's Writings
- My God, whom I praise, do not remain silent, for people who are wicked and deceitful have opened their mouths against me; they have spoken against me with their lying tongues.
Calming Psalm
- Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I have sworn and confirmed that I will keep Your rightful judgements...
Eivor blocking the windows with the shelves
Eivor then went outside the church and climbed up the scaffolding to the windows above, where two of the windows were blocked. She first blocked the window over the lectern Asser was reading.
- Asser: Lord, your light falters! Please do not forsake me. Is the tenebrous pall of darkness my fate?
Eivor unblocked the middle window. Asser excitedly moved over to the next lectern, only this one was empty.
- Asser: Another ray! Is that the sign? An empty lectern? Do you mock the hollow rattle of my soul, Lord?
- Eivor may have returned to speak with Asser.
- Asser: Leave me be, I am deep in contemplation.
I must follow His beacon.
- Asser: Leave me be, I am deep in contemplation.
Eivor then unblocked the last window.
- Asser: Wait! This is it. It must be.
- Eivor: That should do it. His God has spoken to him at last, with my divine intervention.
She continued to hear him from outside.
- Asser: Psalm 119? Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.
- Asser: His words? Does He mean... that I should become... a writer?
- Asser: And then? Of course... the unfolding of your words gives light and understanding to the simple.
Eivor re-entered the church.
- Asser: My path is clear. I must throw off the shackles of brotherhood. I will dedicate my life to glorifying God, through another. My account must be one of the utmost grace, exhaustive, immortalizing the great acts of the prodigal Aelfred. Thank you, Lord, I will write a blessed manuscript praising Aelfred and his great works.
Asser ran out of the church.
- Eivor: So, I have set him on a path to glorify Aelfred? That pompous Saxon? I hope his writing reeks as much as he does.
Eivor speaking to Asser in his study
Sometime later, Eivor found Asser within the Witan Hall in his study and spoke to him.
- Eivor: Asser, is it? How is your writing faring?
- Asser: Who are you? An admirer? Can it be true, that so soon upon my path, God has sent me adulation? I have only just begun to walk in Aelfred's footsteps. But please read my scribbles. Enlighten yourself about our great king.
Asser gave Eivor an annotated manuscript.
- Eivor: Thank you, I am sure it will be... informative.
Eivor read the manuscript.
Annotated Manuscript
- In the 849th year of our Lord's incarnation, Aelfred, King of the Anglo-Saxons, burst forth from the loins of his mother (too much?) at the royal vill of Wantage, in Berkshire. Wantage receives its name from Berroc Wood, because of the box trees (will people find this interesting?) His mother was named Osburh, an extremely devout woman, noble in mind, noble also by birth. (Needs a better start? on a dark and stormy night, a woman screamed?).
Eivor poured over Asser's writings scattered across the hall.
- Eivor: Asser should have stayed a monk.
Not a patch on our sagas. Where is the drama? The heroic brushes with death?
Let us hope Aelfred's life becomes more interesting than this.
Outcome[]
Through some meddling, Eivor inadvertently convinced Asser to write a biography on Alfred.
Behind the scenes[]
Although there are two other papers Eivor can consult which hint at two different options for Asser, they are positioned such that only the one citing Psalm 119 can be illuminated for him. There is therefore only one outcome for this sidequest.
Asser's three floating lines in reaction to the illumination of Psalm 119 has a tendency to bug, such that they fail to play. When they do play, they are repeated perpetually in random order until the player triggers the completion of the quest. The quest's completion, signalled by Asser's closing line "My path is clear..." triggers upon re-entering the church or climbing onto its rooftops.
Upon completion, Asser will run directly to his new study in Wittan Hall. The player can speak with him here at any time to receive his annotated manuscript. His notes for Alfred's biography allude to the opening line in Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel Paul Clifford, which reads:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.