The Lake Albano Vault, also referred to as Albano's Emissary, is one of the Catholic Church's most secretive repositories for their collection of artefacts.
History[]
Early History[]
The area around what would later become the Lake Albano vault was originally a Roman-built outlet called an emissary used to control the water level of the nearby Lake Albano. After the Catholic Church took over the area around Castel Gandolfo and Lake Albano, they constructed a vault within the ruins, where they would keep some of the most precious of their artefacts hidden from the outside world. To maintain some secrecy, the vault was referred to by the few who knew of its existence as Albano's Emissary, in reference to the nearby lake and the ruins of the old emissary.
Treasures added to the vault over the millennia included a nail from Jesus Christ's crucifixion and the sarcophagus of the Pharaoh Khufu after it was stolen from within the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Over the years, some of the elderly priests who knew of the vault and its location at Castel Gandolfo would whisper about it in their delirious final moments.
In December 2016, Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster announced to the Church that he was coming to Rome to claim the Vatican globe and any notes they had on the location of the Orphean bell. Though the Pope agreed to be ready to present them upon his arrival, he had his subordinates hold some of their notes back in order to keep some leverage to ensure Sphinx kept his promises to them, sending them to the vault at Lake Albano. These included two ancient scrolls; the first was a scroll that had been written by the Roman Emperor Domitian about his attempt to torture several Vestels into revealing the location of the waking bell, while the second scroll contained a hint that the location of the Orphean bell was inscribed upon the crown worn by the royal banker of the Four Kingdoms, Priam.
During Zoe Kissane-West and Sister Agnes's search of the dead Pope's office, they found a letter the Pope had written noting that the notes of the Orphean bell had been moved to Albano's Emissary, but neither knew what that meant. When Brother Bertie de Montreuil later saw the note, he suspected he knew the meaning of Albano's Emissary and sought to follow up the lead with Iolanthe Compton-Jones and Nobody.
The One Impossible Labyrinth[]
Having pieced together that the Albano's Emissary mentioned in the note Zoe uncovered in the Pope's office with the ancient Roman ruin at Lake Albano and the whispers of dying priests he had known, Bertie led his group to Castel Gandolfo and Lake Albano, with the trio beginning a search of the ruins of the ancient emissary. After locating the vault's door a short distance into the tunnel and finding it ajar due to a priest who had been affected by the Siren bell that Sphinx had rung over Rome having left it open. As they began their search, Iolanthe noted the crucifixion nail and Khufu's coffin among the artefacts, as Bertie himself found the scrolls regarding the Orphean bell.
After reading them and determining that they could follow the clue about the inscription on Priam's crown, a Knights of the Golden Eight, his squires and a dozen bronzemen arrived at the vault, forcing the trio to hide within Khufu's sarcophagus. Using a video chat to allow the Salzburg-based Chloe Carnarvon to examine the vault, the Knight soon took the scrolls to bring to Chloe, leaving the vault with the rest of his procession. Once they were gone, Bertie, Iolanthe and Nobody emerged from the sarcophagus and set off to try to get to the vault of Troy first.
Notable Contents[]
- Crucifixion Nail: One of the nails used to crucify Jesus Christ, contained within a glass display case with a plate One was a reading in Latin "Clavus ex Crucifixionem Christus", which translated is "Nail from the crucifixion of the Christ".
- Khufu's Coffin: The sarcophagus containing the body of the ancient Egyptian Pharoah Khufu, which was secretly spirited out of its resting place within the Great Pyramid, which in the outside world resulted in it becoming one of archaeology's greatest missing treasures.
- Ancient Scrolls: A pair of scrolls written in Latin regarding the Orphean bell, kept on an open reading desk in the vault. One was a record written by Emperor Domitian about his torture and execution of the Vestels in an attempt to learn the bell's location. The other is a note revealing that the bell could be found inscribed on the crown of Priam.
Trivia[]
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