The Temple Mount is a hill in the Old City of Jerusalem, which for thousands of years has been venerated as a holy site in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam alike, and also contains the Fourth Iron Mountain.
Fictional History[]
Early History[]
A long time ago, a race of super-ancient beings built the fourth of the iron mountains for their Trial of the Mountains within what would later become a hill called the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel (the exact geological status of the area at the time is unclear).
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, and through the use of a bronze-like globe, discovered on the relative location of the fourth mountain.
At a point after the 11th century BC, when the Old City of Jerusalem was founded, the fourth mountain was discovered at the top of the Temple Mount by the city's inhabitants. Worshipping the iron mountain as a holy place, they constructed a shrine around the Hall of the Falling Temple, called the Dome of the Rock, to hide it from the outside world.
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, which to their knowledge had never been found, were lost to the members of the Four Kingdoms and their closest advisors.
During the next few millennia, the Temple Mount, and the Dome of the Rock, became one of the most contested religious sites in the world between Judaism, Islam and Christianity. The Jewish faith believed that the Temple Mount was the original site of Solomon's Temple and dared not to step atop their sacred site, while the Muslim faith believed that the Dome of the Rock was where the prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven. For years, the Dome was torn down and rebuilt over the millennia as the two religions clashed over the Temple Mount, though the iron mountain within remained hidden.
Meanwhile, missions to determine the sites of the iron mountains, particularly the two lost mountains, were undertaken by various parties. The ley line known as the Sword of St Michael, a straight line of churches dedicated to he archangel Michael that stretched across Europe, was discovered by Laurent of the Levant to reveal the location of the fourth mountain at the point of the metaphorical blade's handle. During Francis Xavier's journey into Asia in the 16th century to confirm the location of the third mountain, he and the Jesuit Ignatius uncovered Laurent's clue and deduced that the site of the fourth mountain was in western Europe, due to their mistaken belief that the ley line pointed down instead of up, distracting them from the true location at the Temple Mount.
Towards the present day, the Temple Mount came under the authority of the Muslim faith.
The Two Lost Mountains[]
In the final days before the Omega Event was due to occur, Sphinx, 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.
Shortly after Sphinx entered the Labyrinth, his forces used a Siren bell in Jerusalem, along with many of the world's major cities, sending the citizens into a coma-like state, including several located around the Temple Mount.
Having somehow learned where the fourth mountain was located, General Garthon Rastor and his troops headed to Jerusalem, where they took advantage of the city's sleep-struck state in order to reach the Temple Mount. Once there, they used Rastor's V-88 Condor to blast open the Dome of the Rock to expose the iron mountain within before having excavation vehicles brought onto the Mount to clear the debris around the Falling Temple.
At the same time that this begun, having read Xavier's journal in the Vatican Secret Archives, Lynda Fadel reported to Jack West Jr's team what she had learned about the clues to the fourth mountain's locations. As they looked over a map with the ley line of the sword of St Michael imposed over it, Jack figured out the way this metaphorical blade should point, figuring out that the fourth mountain was potentially at the Temple Mount. But as Rufus pointed out, news coverage showed Rastor's forces already in the Israeli city.
As the time for the Temple Mount and fourth mountain's alignment with the moon pedestal arrived, Rastor had operatives at the Zapadny Cosmodrome in Libya expose the moon pedestal needed to activate the mountain, and then successfully performed the Fall himself.
Using his Gull Wings to glide down, Jack landed on the Temple Mount with only a few minutes left before the lunar alignment with Jerusalem ended, only for Rastor's people to re-cover the moon pedestal. Suspicious of the absence of Rastor and his men, Jack discovered his mother had been crucified to the bottom of the Temple Mount's Falling Temple. After Mae implored her son leave her, and Rastor remotely set off explosives to destroy the beams holding up the Falling Temple, sending it plummeting into the shaft. After it crashed into the stone base at the bottom, killing Mae instantly, the distraught Jack stumbled away from the Temple Mount in a daze.
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 fourth iron mountain beneath the Temple Mount to study them. Though it became a popular tourist destination as a result, the Temple Mount's iron mountain 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 Fourth Iron Mountain[]
The Fourth of the five Iron Mountains of the fifth trial, which is located within the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount. This was one of the two lost mountains whose exact location was lost to those in the Four Legendary Kingdoms and their closest advisors.
The Fall at the Fourth Iron Mountain was performed by General Garthon Rastor, and the Falling Temple was soon destroyed by Rastor so that Jack West Jr couldn't do a follow-up Fall.
The Dome of the Rock[]
An Islamic shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, which was built atop the iron mountain's Hall of the Falling Temple to hide it from the outside world. Over the millennia as the Jewish and Muslim faiths fought over the Mount, the Dome of the Rock was repeatedly damaged and repaired, and by the present day the Dome was properly restored with a gold-plated roof.
During Rastor's attempts to get at the fourth iron mountain beneath, he had his V-88 Condor fire a barrage of missiles at the Dome, completely destroying it in order to expose the Falling Temple within.
Trivia[]
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