- "First is Thule, plunging to fathomless depths."
- —A description from the tablet of the Altar of the Cosmos
Thule 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 Thule - along with its counterparts Ra and Atlas - was built by the to serve as a focal location in their fourth trial, the Trial of the Cities. Thule was built within the middle of a high cliff-side in what would later become Iceland, and designed in the shape of a funnel with a deep pit leading down to the city's vault.
After the construction of Thule 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 Thule's gem was a sword.
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 Thule's Great Avenue while the Silver Guardians were stationed at the cupola leading to the ladder to the vault. Thule was established to be the first city in the trial to be activated. However, the Ancients also linked the city's altar with Ra and Atlas, so that upon activating Thule's defences, the guardians at the other cities would also activate, therefore making it so that whoever initiated the trial at Thule required companions at the other Cities.
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 Thule 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 Thule maintained their watch from the weathered watchtower feature outside of the city.
Over the millennia, even as Thule, Ra and Atlas remained hidden from the greater human population, through various myths they became infamous, although of the three, Thule was the least well known. The city became known as Ultima Thule in some stories, and was mentioned by several scholars such as Plato, Geminus and Virgil.
During her reign, Queen Elizabeth I assigned Sir Francis Drake the secret mission of seeking out Thule and the other Cities. Drake succeeded in confirming the location of Thule, and left a note containing the coordinates of the Three Cities on his person as he was buried at sea.
During the formation of the Nazi party, several of its members came to believe that Thule was the birthplace of the Aryan race, and a faction known as the Thule-Gesellschaft (the Thule Society) emerged as a result.
By the early 21st century, the location of Thule was known to few other than its present Trismagi guardian, Sir Bjorn, 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 Thule 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 obtain the Immortal Weapons. After claiming the Helmet and tasking Sunil Malik with finding the long-lost Mace, Orlando made a brief stop at the Hall of Royal Records before setting out for Thule with Cardinal Ricardo Mendoza and Chloe Carnarvon.
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 all of the Cities. 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.
Orlando soon made his arrival at Thule, and after being greeted by Bjorn, he and his entourage made their way the antechamber where the diamond altar the trial was initiated at awaited. Unaware of the mistake he was making, Orlando prematurely initiated the trial by implanting the Sword in the altar and opening Thule's Great Avenue. After Mendoza guided their way through the booby-trapped triple archways, the group arrived at Thule's entrance. After noting the glow of the gem from Thule's vault, Orlando left Mendoza and his Swiss Guards to empower the Sword and departed.
However, shortly after Orlando's departure, the Bronze Guardians emerged from their silver coffins, and began slowly marching along the main road that led to the cupola bridge. Upon hearing the calls of the Guardians in the Word of Thoth, the uninformed Cardinal Mendoza and his men hastened their way down to the cupola, where they found themselves opposed by the Silver Guardians that barred their way to the vault. Mendoza would spend the next few days sending his men to try and get past the Silver Guardians, however nothing they did had any effect on the automatons, and they were trapped before the bridge with the Bronze Guardians continuing their march behind them.
After Jack's team retrieved the locations of the Cities from Sir Francis Drake's coffin, Stretch and Pooh Bear headed to Thule to check on the progress of Orlando's men. After the confused Bjorn let them pass, the pair entered Thule and observed the situation. With no way past the Bronze Guardians, Stretch and Pooh Bear instead made their way down to the bridge by crossing over the rooftops and then traversing the underside of the bridge to bypass the Guardians to catch up to Mendoza's group.
Having been informed by Jack that the Weapons were the key to getting past the Silver Guardians, Stretch took the Sword from Mendoza and engaged the Guardians, with Pooh Bear defending him as Stretch brought down the first three automatons. After the Israeli was injured, Pooh Bear took the Sword and finished off the final Silver Guardian before taking it down to the vault, where the Arabian claimed the blue gem from the vault's diamond altar. However, upon returning to the bridge, Pooh Bear was forced to hand the Sword over to Mendoza when the Cardinal threatened Stretch's life, and, with the trial at Thule completed, the Bronze Guardians stood aside to let Mendoza and his remaining men pass 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 Thule to study them. Though it became a popular tourist destination as a result, Thule 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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