One Bad Apple was a virtual representation of one of Bayek's genetic memories, relived by Layla Hassan through the Portable Animus HR-8.
Description[]
The healer Praxilla asks Bayek to help her investigate disturbing reports coming from Asklepieion in Balagrae. Are Flavius and the Oracle's Relic involved?
Dialogue[]
Bayek arrived in Balagrae and walked through the streets heading to Theramenes' Clinic.
- Woman 1: If Diocles was my lover, I would chain him to the bed before I let him leave me for Cyrene.
- Woman 2: Have you seen the proconsul? The most comely man in Cyrene, nay, the world!
- Woman 1: That is because you think of nothing but men. Praxilla has her own life here with her clinic.
Bayek entered the clinic and saw Praxilla sitting on a bench, talking to an elderly woman.
- Praxilla: Bayek! I heard what happened in Cyrene.
Bayek walked up and talked to Praxilla.
- Bayek: How is our brave widow?
- Praxilla: Good, as you can see.
- Bayek: Small victories and joys like these. We take them where we can.
- Praxilla: Bayek, Flavius was here. But that is not the worst of it. Mothers and wives of the Temple are sick and wailing in the streets. Their pleas to see their loved ones unanswered.
- Bayek: Since Flavius came? It cannot be coincidence.
- Praxilla: No. Can you speak to my friend Crios? He is a water bearer at the temple. My task is the priestess Melitta. She is overzealous, but I cannot believe she would prey on the sick and dying.
- Bayek: Be wary. I will return here when I've spoken to Crios.
Bayek headed for the Asklepieion and found a woman at the bottom of its stairs, proclaiming her love for Flavius to a small crowd.
- Woman 3: Listen! Listen! The Lion cast his gaze upon me and I was with child!
Have you seen the proconsul? The most comely man in Cyrene, nay, the world!
Flavius! Flavius! We must all sing his name!
I left my husband for Flavius. If only he would look my way.
I would die today if I could get to see the great Flavius' eyes again.
You must stop and hear me! I will wither without the great Flavius' love.
I would kill my family for a night with the Lion.
What am I saying? Help me please, my love for Flavius threatens to consume me.
None can satisfy me, not you, or you, none but the proconsul of Cyrene! - Bayek: That poor woman, Flavius has taken her from her husband, her child.
Bayek reached the Asklepieion, and found it guarded. Upon making his way into the main hall, he found a group of votives and offerings on the floor.
- Bayek: They believe that if they give Asclepius these votives, he will heal them.
Bayek reached the second floor and saw Crios standing on a table, staring at the wall.
- Bayek: Crios? What has Flavius done to you?
- Crios: (Incoherent Mumbling)
Crios fell and Bayek caught him, laying him on the floor, holding him still as Crios convulsed.
- Bayek: Wake up! Where is Flavius? Where is he?!
Crios reared up and grabbed at Bayek.
- Crios: Fly away home, crow!
Bayek startled up, letting Crios fall, the man convulsing again before falling still.
- Bayek: Another life spat on by that Roman shit-eater.
- Crios: Whispers... whispers...
- Bayek: What's that?
- Crios: Melitta, the viper of the staff...
- Bayek: The priestess?
- Crios: No, no my lord Flavius, please...
Bayek carried Crios out of the temple and brought him to Praxilla's clinic.
- Bayek: Praxilla! Praxilla!
- Woman 4: Stop your screeching, the sick need their rest.
- Bayek: Praxilla!
Bayek laid Crios down.
- Woman 4: Alright, alright, just keep your voice down. She left to speak to the priestess.
- Crios: No! The priestess... a snake in the apple... she has them, she keeps them hidden... lies in whispers... secrets... shrouded. Her shrine of whispers.
- Woman 4: Is this poor witless thing your doing?
- Bayek: Did Praxilla tell you where she was going?
- Woman 4: The mountains... but...
- Bayek: Look to this man, he needs help. I will find this Shrine of Whispers.
Bayek made his way to the mountains north of Balagrae. After some searching, he found a group of soldiers guarding an entrance to a cave. He eliminated the soldiers and entered the cave.
- Bayek: A secret in the mountains. I pray Praxilla and the others are alright.
Within the mountain, he found the natural cave giving way to a manmade shrine, and saw Praxilla tied up in front of a statue of the Greek goddess Hekate, with Melitta and her soldiers in the area.
- Melitta: You should be grateful, you serve Rome now. And the work will be over soon. We must know its secrets, don't you see, Praxilla? It is simply progress. A marriage of science and magic.
- Praxilla: You are nothing but Flavius' pawn.
- Melitta: How unimaginative you are. But why would you understand the will of Gods? This sacred object, it's a thing of wonder and terror.
Bayek attacked Melitta and her guards.
- Melitta: Call off your rabid dog, Praxilla! Killing me does nothing. Semper Flavium.
- Praxilla: You must stop Melitta, Bayek.
Bayek slew Melitta.
- Praxilla: She was a healer, she makes me ashamed.
Bayek freed Praxilla.
- Praxilla: The priestess, she was torturing these people.
Together, they opened the cages and freed the prisoners, who promptly fled. Bayek examined the statue Praxilla tied up in front of.
Hekate the Hidden One
On the opposite end of the room were two scroll shelves and a set of desks. Bayek approached them and read a scroll on the left-most desk.
On the effects of the Orb of Siwa
- It seems that each man behaves as to the desires of his temperament and the limits of his imagination. I told Kleitos that he was a chicken and he should peck the ground by my feet, instead he believed he could fly and jumped headlong from the temple stairs. The relic does not make you a mindless automaton; instead, it plants within you such a powerful illusion, that you cannot be dissuaded from the truth of it. In the right hands, this is is an artifact of unimaginable potency.
Bayek moved on to the center desk.
To my most trusted ally
- Melitta,
You have been one of my most trusted advisors and so I entrust to the most valuable reward. You are my sole confident of my plans for the future of Rome. The Eternal City will be great again, but Caesar, enamored of that Egyptian viper, has grown weak. He cannot lead us and so the Order of the Ancients will see how I prove my worth to them. I will bring this pathetic backwater to its knees. They will understand what it means to be in the presence of a god. And you will be at my side when they do.
Flavius Metellus
Bayek found another scroll.
On the Oracle Prophesies
- We have received the following prophesies from the Oracle of Apollo, our priests are still working on accurate interpretations. You will hear from me when they have anything we can act upon.
A new peace will come. Seek out the triumvirate. The healer, the architect, the judge.
The healer's staff is not what it seems. The viper, uncoiled, lies in whispers.
Bayek found a small table piled with scrolls behind a column, close to another shelf.
Egypt Military Presence
- Flavius, first you must know that there are Egyptian spies operating in the region. It is from them that most of our intelligence has been extracted. Caesar's lover, Cleopatra, has ambitions to make herself Queen of Rome. I would not be surprised if she sailes down the Tiber in a barge of solid gold! As you witnissed in the Battle of the Nile, her soldiers are mainly composed of hoplites and spearmen, with mounted scouts, heavy cavalry, and the hetairoi, her mounted bodyguard.
General Agrippa
Bayek saw a scroll that had fallen from the shelf.
Investigation into the Medjay Bayek
- Melitta, we have spoken of my concerns regarding Bayek of Siwa, a medjay from the shit and sand of Egypt. He has a personal vendetta against us and so far has resisted all attempts to be reasoned with. His mind is strong. But, he can be broken. If you come across him, I suggest he would make an excellent candidate for our investigations into the power of the artifact.
Do what you will, you have my full authority.
Flavius Metellus
Going up the stairs, Bayek discovered and read another scroll on the ground.
My gracious thanks
- Melitta, thank you again for your gracious hospitality. But I really don't know how you live amongst the peasants in Balagrae. it seems to me a provincial town full of peasants and hayseeds. It does not even have a proper Roman baths! The wine was decent I suppose, but I attribute that to your excellent taste. Perhaps next time Flavius calls together his council of Kyrenaika, we can meet at my villa for our comissatio? You must try my cook's milk-fed snails!
Your humble servant, Leander
Bayek escorted Praxilla out of the shrine.
- Praxilla: I would burn this place to ashes if I could. There is terrible evil here, Bayek. I am terrified for the fate of my Cyrenaica.
- Bayek: Melitta was mad.
- Praxilla: That relic, the one Flavius used at the farm. He used it here.
- Bayek: When I found Crios, I knew. I could feel it clawing, digging in my mind.
- Praxilla: That is what it does, insidious like a parasite. Control men's minds and make us slaves.
- Bayek: Our fates are our own, Praxilla, we will always fight for that.
They reached the outside, following the freed men.
- Bayek: Melitta could not be saved.
- Praxilla: After what she did? I would have slit her throat myself. Thank you, for me, for Balagrae, it is more than I would have asked.
- Bayek: And that is why I give it freely, while freedom still means something.
- Praxilla: Don't you ever get sick of saying so many good byes?
- Bayek: Part of me, yes. But it is part of the journey and on it I find those who give me hope. Your land will not die, Praxilla. You are its healer, its protector, its Medjay.
- Praxilla: Now is our time to emerge from the madness, Bayek of Siwa.
Outcome[]
Bayek found Crios and brought him back to the clinic. He then sought out the Shrine of Whispers, where he assassinated Melitta and freed Praxilla and the other prisoners.