Endless: An Autobiography of an Immortal

Chapter 17 - Rome

Now, I should clarify what I mean by failing. It wasn't that I got distracted by a beautiful woman again. I was still far too heartbroken over Hatshepsut. My intentions this time around was to lead a quiet life to focus on my studies. The reason I needed to do this was because I had recently finished researching biology for half a millennia (I'll tell you why later) and just like before I would only be able to learn so much about a specific topic before hitting a wall. I needed fresh perspectives in order to look at things differently and be able to learn more. Things people said or did or even how they themselves researched or investigated certain topics helped me learn more about various subjects. Chemicals, metals, biology. I had experimented with each of them for lifetimes but hit a wall in my research each time. While I was knowledgeable about many topics and was soaking up information as fast as I could figure them out I was still only a person with one mind. You could say I had a one track mind in that I only studied and researched things in a specific way. It took a long time to figure out how to think like others did and one way I had to do that was to be around others and observe their thinking processes.

Inventions and talk about the future was most prevalent around a civilization's founding. This is why I went to Rome at this time, it was founded only 25 years before I showed up. As I was walking the area trying to find a good place to set up my base of operations, a band of men saw me approach and began fleeing. I didn't know what happened until I came across the dead bodies of several armed men as well as the beaten body of a young man. He was barely alive and his breathing was shallow. I saw knife wounds and blood streaming across the street. There was not enough time to save him. I held him in my arms trying to comfort him in his last moments. I asked his name, he said Numa Pompilius of Sabine. He asked me to tell his father that he loved him and apologize for falling prey to robbers. Failure was going to bring shame on the family name. I was impressed with his concern for his family even during his death. After he told me his father's name and what he was supposed to do, he died. I gave them all a modest burial, but expected to come back later to show his father and allow him to rebury as he saw fit. But first, I wanted to complete his mission out of respect.

Omni was able to create some coins that matched the local currency and I set off to find the man whom Numa was supposed to meet. When I approached the house I was immediately turned away without a glance as apparently only Numa was allowed to complete the transaction. I tried to explain the situation but they wouldn't hear me out. An idea was churning in my head, albeit a very bad one in hindsight. Thinking back at what Numa looked like, I approached the best mirror I could find and shaped my face to match his features. I practiced speaking like how I heard Numa speak, even tweaking my vocal cords a bit to make it sound authentic. When I was happy with the results I walked right back and was welcomed as Numa. Once I met the man in charge, however, he seemed taken aback that I was alive and well. Then I looked at his entourage, realizing they were the very ones that robbed and killed the real Numa. They told me some person just told them I was dead and I passed it off as imbeciles trying to interfere with my mission, giving them all a glance. I completed the agreement posthaste and set out to Sabine as that was apparently where Numa, errr...I lived. I didn't break the agreement as it wasn't mine to break. However, every time I needed currency making the trip up to Sabine, I'd have Omni steal it from that lowlife.

When I arrived close to Sabine the realization of what I just got myself into hit me. This was the first time I had taken the persona of someone already established and I was hoping for a quiet existence in order to continue my studies. The people started greeting me in the streets and paying respect to me, which was a sign that I didn't choose a nobody. Then when I had found the city center, servants came up to help me, which was a bad sign for trying to just blend in. They led me to "my father" and he knew right away something was off by the way I spoke. I tried to pass it off as tiredness from the journey but he knew his son far better than that. After several more failed attempts to invade his suspicion I thought it best to just come clean. Mostly. I said I found his son beaten, robbed, and almost dying who happened to look very much like what I look like. I also told him who did it. He was greatly saddened and needed time alone. When he came back I was expecting him to send me away or even have me arrested, instead he asked me to continue playing the role of his son. Apparently Numa was his only remaining son and without someone to continue the family line there was nothing for him in this world, so he adopted me as his own. He also wanted to make sure no one found the truth so he trained me on how to act. There had to be more to the story, but at the time I was not going to question it. I had a good setup here to be able to work on my studies. Or so I thought.

I had to quickly get acquainted with everyone I should have already known without being caught. This is where my perfect memory came in handy and Numa's father was able to fill in lots of details with everyone too. Of course when the King of Sabine came later that month I found out the real reason why my so-called father was quick to agree to this lie. I was supposed to marry the King's daughter! Or rather, Numa was, but since I was impersonating him, now I was. The King spared no expense and we had a ceremony that was the grandest I had ever experienced up to that moment. My new wife, Tatia, had only met Numa a few times in passing so she had no idea of the swap. She also wasn't entirely happy with the arranged marriage, but knew that she had to play the role of a supportive daughter of a king as was customary back then. Being so self-absorbed I doubt she would have noticed if I changed my face back other than the fact that she thought Numa was attractive. Indeed the problem was that she was a narcissistic egomaniac being that she was a Princess. Spoiled from birth, she expected the same treatment after marriage. The difference between Hatshepsut and Tatia was night and day. This was not only going to be hard for me, but it would have been hard for Numa himself too. However, as I was told by his father, Numa had lived a humble and simple life, free from the luxury he could easily afford. That actually sounded a lot like me. It was going to take a lot of effort to make this work with a new wife that was the complete opposite.

When she moved into the house she brought with her all her worthless possessions she thought she needed. Furniture and paintings were placed throughout the once bare house to the point that it felt cluttered. I was mostly able to get used to this new life if it weren't for her entitled attitude. She wanted to be waited on hand and foot, not only by the servants, but by me when she wanted action between the sheets. I tried to slowly get her to improve her personality but the progress was far from easy. Besides, without a reason to change she had no motivation to do so. That changed when her father died. He was also an arrogant person who didn't know when to back down when he was wrong. After he betrayed a neighboring city-state and cheated them out of their agreement they assassinated him in retaliation. Rome took control of Sabine, who was now kingless, and ruled the area. While Rome treated us fairly, the impact on Tatia was just what I needed to convince her to change her ways. She knew her father was in the wrong and was killed because of it, so I tried to reason with her.