Shroud of Eden 2

I wanted to ask you something. Which is... what's your name? This article title is conjecture. Although the article subject is canon, no official name for it has been given.

"It seems that the Piece of Eden that Miss Thorne is seeking is a Shroud of Eden, which the Assassins recovered at some point before they left London. Where that Shroud is, or why Miss Thorne seeks it, are still a mystery."

―Evie Frye on the Shroud of Eden, 1868.

Shroud of Eden #2 was a Piece of Eden created by the Isu which was capable of healing its wielder of even the most grievous of injuries. It was the second known Shroud of Eden in existence and was likely designed after the original Shroud, which was created in the year 1923 of the Isu Era by Consus as a medical field kit to treat casualties of the War of Unification.

Owners

• Isu (? – ?)
• Edward Kenway (c. 1720s/1730s)
• Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (c. 1847)
• Crawford Starrick (1868)
• Jacob Frye (1868)
• Violet da Costa (2015)
• Álvaro Gramática (2015 – 2018)

History

Georgian and Victorian eras

"I hope you never find the Shroud, you have no idea what it truly can do."

―Lucy Thorne to Evie Frye, 1868.

This Shroud was discovered by the British Assassin Edward Kenway during his travels after 1722. He subsequently claimed possession of the artifact and secreted it to a hidden location within the Tower of London. Edward then left clues to the Shroud's location inside his journal, should later Assassins ever need to find it.

Over a century later, Queen Victoria's husband, the Prince Consort Albert, found the Shroud around 1847 and had it moved to a specially-built crypt beneath Buckingham Palace. By 1868, both the Assassins and Templars were looking for the artifact.

Starrick wearing the Shroud

Ultimately, the Shroud was found and worn by the British Templars' Grand Master Crawford Starrick during a confrontation with the Assassins Evie Frye, Jacob Frye, and Henry Green. Though physically augmented by the artifact and effectively immune to damage, Starrick was eventually killed when the Assassins managed to remove the Shroud from around his neck. The Shroud was then returned by Jacob to its resting place within the Buckingham Palace vault.

Modern times

"To use the traitor Consus' own masterwork against his own... Ha! This will suffice."

―Juno, 2018.

The Shroud remained untouched in the vault until 2015, when an Assassin cell comprised of Shaun Hastings, Rebecca Crane, and Galina Voronina, with support from Bishop and a Helix Initiate, managed to locate it through the Initiate's reliving of the Frye twins' genetic memories. Independently, a Templar team comprising Isabelle Ardant, Juhani Otso Berg, and Violet da Costa also identified the Shroud's location and engaged the Assassins to retrieve it.

Violet delivering the Shroud to Gramática

Amidst the fighting, Violet recovered the Shroud and subsequently brought it to Dr. Álvaro Gramática for use in the Phoenix Project, Abstergo Industries' latest attempt to completely sequence an Isu genome. Secretly, however, Violet was a member of the Instruments of the First Will and sought to use the Shroud to develop a suitable body for Juno's consciousness to inhabit.

After researching the Shroud at his secret laboratory in Australia for nearly three years, Gramática found a way to recreate an Isu body, but was promptly surrounded by the Instruments, who forced the scientist to make a new body for Juno. By unstitching the Shroud and using its strands to join together the somatic cells extracted from Elijah, a young Sage whose genetic code contained a high concentration of Isu DNA, the body's growth was accelerated and the experiment was a success.

As her new body was maturing, Juno was contacted by Consus, who claimed that Charlotte de la Cruz would ruin her plans for world domination. Although Juno was successfully reborn in the physical world, the Australia facility was soon after attacked by an Assassin team comprising Charlotte, Galina Voronina, Kiyoshi Takakura, and Arend Schut-Cunningham, aided by Juhani Otso Berg, who killed Juno and most of the Instruments. In the final stretch of the confrontation, Berg detonated an explosive to destroy the facility and eliminate any remaining Instruments. This presumably destroyed what was left of the Shroud, alongside any other Pieces of Eden inside the laboratory.

Powers and capabilities

Evie: "The Shroud will not protect you!"

Starrick: "You're wrong! The people of this city, my people, shall supply its energy!"

—Evie Frye and Crawford Starrik discussing the Shroud's power, 1868.

Starrick using the Shroud to overpower the Frye twins

Like the original Shroud of Eden, this Shroud was capable of healing wounds of varying severity, mending injuries such as normally fatal stab wounds. When worn by Crawford Starrick, the Shroud not only gave him enhanced healing abilities, which repaired any injury almost instantaneously, but also augmented his strength by absorbing the vital force of someone. For example, he could easily stop Jacob Frye by "exploiting" him with the power of the Shroud or overpower the Frye twins and Henry Green when engaged. This augmented strength was lost, however, after being physically separated from the Shroud.

The Shroud was also able to construct an entirely new Isu body from nothing more than somatic cells containing Precursor DNA. To accelerate the process, the Shroud could be unstitched and its strands used to connect the individual cells. Doing so caused the newly-formed embryo to become an adult in under 24 hours.

A consequence of this process was the body being imbued with some of the Shroud's powers and granting it the ability to manipulate and project energy. This was demonstrated by Juno gaining telekinetic powers following her resurrection; strangely, however, Juno did not appear to absorb any of the Shroud's healing properties, as she was easily killed with a single stab to the throat from Charlotte's Hidden Blade.

Gallery

• 
  The Shroud healing Starrick's injuries
• 
  Jacob placing the Shroud back in its cache

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed: Uprising