Day 5, and as I may have mentioned previously, much of my time is spent in upkeep of my weighty empire of assassins. Maybe I should just let it slide (let the Templars recapture areas and cities) and just get a move on with the storyline. I've only managed to grab one more Masayaf key, and haven't even gone back to HQ to relive the memory of Altair that it opened up for me.
I did, however, finally conquer the last Templar controlled area in Constantinople. It remained for so long because every so often I'd go into the area, look around for the Templar Captain, get identified in return by some guards, and the Captain would bolt, rendering the area uncapturable for "a day" of gametime. I must have repeated that series of events five or six times now. This time, I just ran in, place a tripwire-triggered death-bomb in front of the house that the Captain runs to, and then arrow stormed the entire area. I got the pester-some message "Warning: Ezio did not kill civilians" and for once I did not feel chastised. Yes, game, Ezio DID kill civilians. When he was at the tail end of his patience, he killed who-so-ever was in the area to get that lousy coward Captain.
So, that side quest is rounded out and finished, just need to wrap up the associated master assassin side mission, and all the areas will be mine and locked from takeover. I'm not sure if that means I'll never have a chance to play the Den Defense mini-game again - there must be a way, because some achievements depend on it, but at the same time, I certainly don't want to risk losing this loathesome area to the Templars. If I never get a chance at that achievement, so be it. Better locked than to risk dealing with that nonsense again.
I've also gathered enough Animus Fragments to unlock several "Desmond's Journey" missions. I gave one of them a go, but it made me incredibly ill almost immediately. It was similar to Mirror's Edge's "too close up first person view", only quicker to reach the "headache and vomit" threshold. I tried to get Xian to play them, but he can't stomach it either, so those might go unplayed.
