- "Seconds comes Ra, the great golden city."
- —A description from the tablet of the Altar of the Cosmos
Ra is one of three ancient cities which are crucial components in the Trial of the Cities.
History[]
Early History[]
At an unknown time in Earth's history, when the Super-Ancient Beings began creating a series of trials for a later race of sentient people, the Secret City of Ra - along with its counterparts Thule and Atlas - was built by the to serve as a focal location in their fourth trial, the Trial of the Cities. Ra was constructed almost entirely out of gold within what would later become Venezuela, and designed in the shape of a squat pyramid with a deep chasm between the city and its vault.
After the construction of Ra was finished, a mysterious blue gem was set deep with the city's vault, which would need to be collected and added to one of the three Immortal Weapons in order to empower them for the trial's final ceremony; the matching weapon for Ra's gem was a helmet.
To make the Trial of the Cities more of a challenge, the Super-Ancients also created sets of bronze and silver guardians to act as obstacles. The Bronze Guardians were left to rest in silver coffins set along Ra's Great Avenue while the Silver Guardians were stationed at the cupola leading to the bridge to the vault. While Ra was established to be the second city in the trial to be activated, the Ancients also linked Thule's altar with its counterparts', so that upon activating Thule's defences, the guardians at Ra and Atlas would also activate, therefore making it so that whoever initiated the trial at Thule required companions at the other Cities.
In the years between the Super-Ancients' departure from the world and the rise of humanity, the jungles around Ra slowly encroached on the ancient gold city, leaving it tangled in vines and weeds and breaking down some of the city's supports. This, however, would inadvertently help to disguise the otherwise lustrous city from the outside world.
Eventually, the Super-Ancients would pass on some of their knowledge to the group of humans that would become known as the Four Legendary Kingdoms; among the things they shared was the location of Ra and its role in the fourth trial. The Four Kingdoms assigned three men to watch over each City, who would come to be called the Trismagi. The Trismagi of Ra maintained their watch from outside of the city, and later established a cabin designated as a National Parks Institute outpost to deter outsiders from approaching.
Over the millennia, even as Ra, Thule and Atlas remained hidden from the greater human population, through various myths they became infamous. Ra was eventually inadvertently known to the world as the mythical El-Dorado thanks to its discovery by the native South Americans, who were later forced to reveal the knowledge of the city's existence to the gold-loving Spanish conquistadors. Several parties of conquistadors set out to find and pillage this golden city, but none ever succeeded in doing so.
During her reign, Queen Elizabeth I assigned Sir Francis Drake the secret mission of seeking out Ra and the other Cities. Drake succeeded in confirming the location of Ra last, and left a note containing the coordinates of the Three Cities on his person as he was buried at sea.
By the early 21st century, the location of Ra was known to few other than its present Trismagi guardian, Sir Inigo Defenestra, and a handful of people within the Four Kingdoms.
The Four Legendary Kingdoms[]
When the Great Games of the Hydra concluded with an upheaval to the Four Kingdoms as Jack West Jr prevented King Orlando Compton-Jones from receiving the Mysteries, King Anthony "Hades" DeSaxe noted that meant that all of the ancient knowledge regarding the remaining trials would have to be re-found from the vaults of Ra and the other cities.
The Three Secret Cities[]
A few days after the conclusion of the Third Trial, the mission to begin the Trial of the Cities began as Orlando set out to obtain the Immortal Weapons, soon claiming the Helmet that Ra was paired with.
However, Jack and Lily West managed to view a full rubbing copy of the tablet of the Altar of the Cosmos, discovering that activating the defences at Thule would activate the defences of Ra and Atlas as well. As Orlando was unaware of this and in a hurry to complete the trial, Jack's team set about trying to locate all of the Cities so that they could help to ensure the Trial of the Cities wasn't failed.
Unaware of the mistake he was making, upon his arrival at Thule, Orlando prematurely initiated the trial, unwittingly calling the Bronze Guardians in Ra's Great Avenue to emerge from their silver coffins, and began slowly marching along the main road that led to the cupola bridge.
When Chloe Carnarvon and her team of Brazilian special forces troops, tasked by Orlando with empowering the Helmet, arrived at Ra, they encountered the Bronze Guardians, but managed to get past them to the cupola bridge. However, they soon found themselves caught between the Bronze Guardians as they slowly marched up to the cupola and the Silver Guardians that barred their way to the vault.
After Jack's team retrieved the locations of the Cities from Sir Francis Drake's coffin, Iolanthe Compton-Jones, Nobody and Mae Merriweather headed to Ra to check on the progress of Orlando's people. After Inigo Defenestra let them pass, Mae helped her allies navigate the Great Avenue's triple archways before they made their way into the city. As they observed the situation Chloe's team was in, Iolanthe and Nobody were informed by Jack that the Weapons were the key to getting past the Silver Guardians.
Using the vines around the city to reach the cupola, Iolanthe took the Helmet from Chloe, and after briefly passing it to Nobody to help him get past the Bronze Guardians, the British royal donned it, which allowed her to move past the Silver Guardians unnoticed. Iolanthe proceeded on to Ra's vault, where she claimed the blue gem from the vault's diamond altar. However, upon returning to the bridge, Iolanthe was forced to hand the Helmet over to Chloe as her former assistant revealed a video displaying Lily's life in peril. With the trial at Ra completed, Chloe and her retinue left the infamous golden city with the Weapon.
The One Impossible Labyrinth[]
After the Omega Event was averted, the world learned of the ancient trials, leading archaeologists and historians to head to the ancient sites such as the secret city of Ra to study them. Though it became a popular tourist destination as a result, Ra was recognised by the world being as crucial and in need of preservation so that it could be used for future runs of the trials and Omega Events.
Features[]
The Great Avenue[]
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Cupola and Bridge[]
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Vault[]
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Trivia[]
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