The Fifth Iron Mountain is one of the temple shrines built by a race of Super-Ancient Beings for use in the Trial of the Mountains.
History[]
Early History[]
At a currently unknown point in Earth's history, a race of Super-Ancient Beings constructed the fifth of their Iron Mountains within a small hill of granite in what would later become Giza, Egypt. Here, anyone who could complete the Fall as part of the Trial of the Mountains would receive a "burning key" that would qualify for entrance into the Supreme Labyrinth.
After the Super-Ancients were gone, the Four Legendary Kingdoms learned about the tasks left behind by the Super-Ancient Beings, among them the Trial of the Mountains, with the locations of all five iron mountains, and the three Secret Cities, kept on a bronze-like globe.
Over the eons since its construction, the granite hill over the fifth mountain was completely buried by tons of wind-swept sand. At some time prior to Khufu's rule, the Great Sphinx of Giza was built at the top of the fifth mountain, with a hidden shaft in the statue's head leading directly into the mountain's Hall of the Falling Temple. This mountain's location was known to Khufu himself, but was apparently not widely shared among the members of the Four Kingdoms and their closest advisors.
In 37 AD, the mad Roman emperor Caligula ordered that the "bronze" globe, along with the obelisk it was mounted on, be relocated from the Siwa Oasis to Rome. The priests of the Cult of Amon-Ra were outraged and decided to deface the globe to keep its knowledge from the mad emperor, but were only able to file off the locations of two of the iron mountains before they were caught. As a result, the locations of both the fourth and fifth mountains were lost. For the next couple of millennia, missions to determine the exact locations of the iron mountains, particularly the two lost mountains, were undertaken by various parties.
During 1798, Napoléon Bonaparte led an expedition to Giza, and was among those who uncovered the Great Sphinx. Though Napoléon and his men nearly uncovered the fifth iron mountain by discovering the shaft located in the Sphinx's head, they found it clogged with solidified sand and did not attempt to penetrate any deeper.
In 2007, an Egyptian Civil Engineering also almost discovered the fifth mountain, as they struck granite and their ground penetrating radar revealed that a conical mass of granite lay beneath the Giza plateau. However, they did not realise the significance of what they had found, and simply typed up a report on the granite.
The Two Lost Mountains[]
In the final days before the Omega Event was due to occur, Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster, Dion DeSaxe and High Brother Ezekiel each undertook the Fall in order to gain passage into the Supreme Labyrinth, and in the course of the conflicts to secure their chances of success in the maze, the first three iron mountains and their Falling Temples were destroyed, leaving the only chance for others to earn a burning key lay in finding one of the two lost mountains.
Late on December 25th, Alby Calvin looked back over the edict Khufu had left in the Great Pyramid regarding the Supreme Labyrinth, and looked up mountains near Giza, with his search turning up the Civil Engineering report of 2007. After reading it and seeing a picture depicting the mass being beneath the Sphinx, Alby began to realise that the fifth mountain was in Cairo, and turning back to the Denon sketch of the Sphinx from the Napoleon expedition and seeing the shaft in the statue's head confirmed his suspicions. Alby reported his find to Jack West Jr, who along with Zoe and Lily began heading to Cairo with the intention of undertaking the Fall at the fifth mountain together.
Meanwhile, members of the Order of the Omega also discovered the location of the fifth iron mountain and a group led by Brother Eli arrived in Cairo first, and waited at the Sphinx while their comrades took control of the Lucifer telescope at the Catholic Church's observatory in Arizona, so that they could control a lunar rover to remove the thermal foil covering the pedestal on the moon to let them undertake the Fall once the it came into alignment with the mountain.
As Jack's group approached the fifth mountain, and though a nuclear missile fired by Sphinx's people destroyed the observatory and killed the monks inside, Alby and Rufus managed to get an uplink working from the Zapadny Cosmodrome in Libya to expose the pedestal. As the alignment began, the confused Eli hurried to take advantage and begin the Fall, but as he headed down the shaft in the Sphinx's head, his men were taken down by Jack, Zoe and Lily, who followed the Omega monk into the Hall of the Falling Temple.
When he saw his adversaries, Eli tried to initiate the Fall before they could land on the Falling Temple, but was too late and they began the Fall together, and started racing to the altar on the Temple's lowest level. As they reached the bottom level, Zoe and Lily got their hands on the pedestal while Jack quickly fought Eli and knocked the Omega monk into the shaft before joining his wife and daughter at the lower altar. Once the Temple had passed the second annulus and the Wests each received the burning key for successfully performing the Fall, Jack, Lily and Zoe made their way out of the fifth mountain and began heading to the Supreme Labyrinth.
The One Impossible Labyrinth[]
Later, after the Omega Event was successfully averted, Jack and his family determined that they needed to ensure that the tools and shrines for the trials, including the fifth iron mountain, were not lost again since they would be needed for when the trials and Omega Event next occurred in the future.
Attributes[]
Purpose[]
Like the other four mountains, the fifth iron mountain contains a massive underground Temple-Shrine that is a center-piece of the Trial of the Mountains, where claimants to the ultimate throne in the Supreme Labyrinth can prove their worth by performing a Fall during an alignment event with the moon.
Description[]
The Falling Temple of the fifth mountain is 16 stories tall and eight wide, and constructed in a top-like diamond shape, built perfectly balanced so as to not tip during the Fall and cause damage to itself against the shaft. This Falling Temple is also positioned directly above a 3.8 kilometers-deep shaft.
Trivia[]
- In The Three Secret Cities, Sphinx implied that his obsession with his namesake had given him knowledge relevant to his plans for later use; though it isn't confirmed in The Two Lost Mountains, he may have uncovered the truth about it being set atop the fifth mountain.
- However, if Sphinx was aware of this, then one could question why he did not destroy the Great Sphinx and the fifth mountain to prevent his adversaries from getting a chance to compete against him in the Supreme Labyrinth, as he had with the third mountain.