Trial of the Mountains

Trial of the Mountains
AKA	The Second Trial
Event Type	Fall Undertaking
Date	23rd December 2016 - 26th December 2016
Outcome	Completed
Appearances
Occurred In	The Two Lost Mountains

"Five iron mountains. Five bladed keys. Five doors, forever locked.
But mark you, only those who survive the Fall,
May enter the supreme labyrinth
And look upon the face of the Omega."

—From the Mystery regarding the Trial of the Mountains

The Trial of the Mountains is a trial set for humankind by the Super-Ancient Beings, wherein one must endure the task known as the Fall in order to prove their worthiness to enter and navigate the Supreme Labyrinth.

History

Early History

At a currently unknown point in Earth's history, a race of Super-Ancient Beings devised a series of tasks and trials for any sentient species that arose to undertake in order to confirm they were worthy enough to survive the Omega Event. The fifth of these tasks came to be known as the Trial of the Mountains.

For the Trial, the Ancients constructed five temple shrines beneath what would become known as the five Iron Mountains, designed so that they were suspended over a deep shaft and could be intentionally dropped. Whomever was on top of the Falling Temple would need to release it during a period when the mountain's moon shaft was in alignment with a pedestal on the moon. They would then need to touch their hand to an altar as the temple passed a ring of metal in the shaft, and then race to an altar at the bottom of the temple and touch their hand to it before the temple passed a second metal ring. Doing so successfully would arrest the temple's fall down the shaft, while failure would result in the temple crashing into the bottom of the shaft. For whoever touched their hand to the first altar would be branded with a W shape, and once they reached the bottom altar a V shape would be branded upon them.

To whomever undertook the Trial of the Mountains and received this "burning key", they would qualify for entrance into the Supreme Labyrinth; these claimants could open any of the five gates leading into the labyrinth, and would need to navigate the labyrinth to reach the throne at its center and trigger a quantum pulse to prevent the universe's end.

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.

Though the Four Kingdoms vowed to maintain the necessary knowledge for the Trial, they knew most of the relevant information for the Trial of the Cities and the Trial of the Mountains would be revealed to the King of Kings who received the Mysteries upon completing the diverting of the Hydra galaxy. The Kings whose Champions won the three previous Great Games of the Hydra each received the Mysteries; the last, Zeus, made some notes regarding the Trials on a papyrus in the Word of Thoth, including the Trial of the Mountains. Soon, Zeus undertook the Trial of the Mountains himself, completing the Fall and earning his way into the Supreme Labyrinth.

In 37 AD, when the "bronze" globe containing the locations of the five iron mountains and the three secret cities, along with the obelisk it was mounted on, was ordered by the Roman emperor Caligula to be relocated from the Siwa Oasis to Rome, the horrified priests of the Cult of Amon-Ra decided to deface it to keep its knowledge from the mad emperor. Because the metal the globe was made out of was strong, the priests were only able to file off the locations of two of the iron mountains before they were caught. As a result, only three of the mountains' identities were known to only a few members of the Four Kingdoms and their closest advisors.

During the fourth Great Games of the Hydra that precluded the completion of the Third Trial, Cardinal Ricardo Mendoza explained to Jack West Jr how the Ancients' trials were set to test life on Earth, and noted the importance of the Three Cities to the future trials. When the Games concluded with the upheaval to the Four Kingdoms, as Jack 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.

The Three Secret Cities

As preparations for the Trial of the Cities were underway, Hades showed Jack and his team the Zeus papyrus regarding the final two trials, however they chose to focus on the portion regarding the Trial of the Cities.

While holding Lily West captive, Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster noted that while there were some who believed that the Altar of the Cosmos (aka the Rock of Gibraltar) was one of the five iron mountains of the Trial of the Mountains, that was not in fact the case.

As the sacrificial ceremony to finish the Trial of the Cities was about to be undertaken, the Order of the Omega vanished from their lodgings and took their belongings and artifacts with them; upon seeing the news report about the disappearance, Alby Calvin suspected that they had gone to prepare for the Trial of the Mountains.

The Two Lost Mountains

After Sphinx successfully completed the Trial of the Cities, Mendoza reported that the first iron mountain would be ready for the Trismagi's arrival when the alignment event with the moon's pedestal began a few weeks later, which would thus also serve as the beginning of the Trial of the Mountains.

Once Sphinx and his forces acquired the Siren bells from Moscow, he sent Mendoza and Dion DeSaxe ahead to the first mountain to finish the preparations before his arrival. At the same time, Jack and his team began preparations to head to the first mountain in the hopes of stopping Sphinx and performing the Fall, as well as sending a team to Rome to look for any clues to the locations of the other iron mountains should need to undertake the Trial of the Mountains elsewhere.

As Jack, Iolanthe Compton-Jones and Brother Bertie de Montreuil watched, Sphinx arrived at Mont Saint-Michel and declared to his forces that that he would undertake the Fall by himself. Sphinx then took his place atop the Falling Temple, and once the lunar alignment began, the Trismagi initiated the Trial of the Mountains as the Temple dropped into the shaft. Upon completing his race from the upper altar to the lowest level, Sphinx received the burning key to allow him entrance into the Supreme Labyrinth. Once the Falling Temple was raised back to the surface, Mendoza suggested to Sphinx that they let Dion do a Fall as well in case any of their adversaries also managed to gain entry into the Labyrinth so that the young king could back him up. Agreeing, Sphinx prepared to head to the ancient maze, but as he departed and his forces began their assault on Jack's group, Jack destroyed one of the winching chains holding the Falling Temple up. As the Temple fell and crashed into the shaft, Dion and Jaeger Eins opted to head to the second mountain so that Dion could undertake the Trial of the Mountains there instead.

Meanwhile, High Brother Ezekiel of the Order of the Omega arrived at the third iron mountain and successfully completed his undertaking the Trial of the Mountains there. Soon after, Sphinx sent a nuclear missile to strike Potala Palace, destroying it and the third mountain in an attempt to keep any rivals from being able to undertake the Trial and challenge him, unaware of Ezekiel's success.

Later, at the second mountain within Aiguille du Midi, while waiting for a clearing pod to drill through the blockages in the moon shaft, Dion and Eins's forces came under attack from a group of Omega monks and Romanian soldiers led by Brother Esrael so as to have multiple parties able to gain entrance to the Labyrinth. Having also learned of the second mountain's location, Jack, Easton and their "palemen" made their way into the Hall of the Falling Temple in the hope of also undertaking a Fall. Unfortunately, as the clearing pod cleared the moon shaft in time for the mountain to come into alignment with the moon pedestal, Dion began the Fall by releasing the Temple into the shaft. Accompanied by Eins, Dion raced down to the lower altar, where the young royal successfully completed the Trial and received the burning key.

Not wanting one of their enemies to do a Fall, Dion and Eins had their remaining Super Stallion destroy the Temple with a missile and ordered Jaeger Vier in Aiguille du Midi's observatory use a lunar rover to cover the lunar altar with a thermal foil sheet and then destroy the uplink as a means to prevent anyone else from undertaking the Trial of the Mountains. As they prepared to leave, General Garthon Rastor, having also come to perform a Fall, arrived, announcing that they could not be allies since his goal in undertaking the Trial of the Mountains was to earn passage into the Supreme Labyrinth and from there keep anyone from reaching the ultimate throne in order to let the Omega Event occur. After forcing Brother Esrael to confess that Ezekiel had also been successful in the Trial, Rastor then proceeded to execute the Omega monks and Romanian soldier before calling out Jack, who along with Easton managed to escape.

With the first three iron mountains and their Falling Temples were destroyed, both Rastor and Jack's team determined that their only chance to complete the Trial of the Mountains and earn a burning key lay in finding one of the two lost mountains.

Having somehow learned where the fourth mountain was, Rastor and his troops headed to Jerusalem, taking advantage of the sleep-struck city caused by Sphinx's use of a Siren bell in order to reach the Temple Mount and begin tearing open the Dome of the Rock to expose the iron mountain within. As this happened, Rastor also had operatives go to the Zapadny Cosmodrome to create an uplink to the lunar rover so that they could expose the moon pedestal. Once the time for the mountain's alignment with the moon arrived and the altar cleared, Rastor successfully performed the Fall, and soon had the Falling Temple sent crashing into the shaft and the pedestal re-covered to prevent Jack from copying him upon his arrival.

Fortunately, Alby was able to discover the location of the fifth mountain beneath the Great Sphinx of Giza and reported his find to Jack, who along with Zoe and Lily began heading to Cairo with the intention of undertaking the Fall together. However, Omega monks led by Brother Eli also discovered the location of the fifth mountain and arrived first, and began waiting for their comrades to take control of the Lucifer telescope so that they could control a lunar rover to remove the foil covering the pedestal. As Jack's group approached the fifth mountain, a nuclear missile fired by Sphinx's people destroyed the observatory, and though Alby and Rufus managed to get an uplink working from the Zapadny Cosmodrome to expose the pedestal, a squadron of bronzemen sent by Sphinx's people began assaulting the launch station to try to keep them from successfully maintaining the uplink.

Once the alignment began, Eli hurried to take advantage and begin the Fall, but was followed by Jack, Zoe and Lily into the Hall of the Falling Temple. As Alby struggled to keep the rover's controls steady and fend off the bronzemen, Eli tried to initiate the Fall before the Wests could land on the Falling Temple, but was too late and they began undertaking the Fall together. As they raced to the altar on the Temple's lowest level, Zoe and Lily got their hands on the pedestal and Jack knocked the Omega monk into the shaft before joining his wife and daughter at the lower altar. After the Temple had passed through the second annulus and the Wests each received the burning key for successfully performing the Fall, Jack, Lily and Zoe began heading to the Supreme Labyrinth, the Trial of the Mountains now well-and-truly over.

Burning Key Earners

• Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster (earned at the First Iron Mountain)
• Ezekiel (earned at the Third Iron Mountain)
• Dion DeSaxe (earned at the Second Iron Mountain)
• Garthon Rastor (earned at the Fourth Iron Mountain)
• Jack West Jr (earned at the Fifth Iron Mountain)
• Lily West (earned at the Fifth Iron Mountain)
• Zoe Kissane-West (earned at the Fifth Iron Mountain)

Trivia

• Although the Trial of the Mountains is referred to as the Second Trial throughout The Three Secret Cities and The Two Lost Mountains, it is the fifth task in the Super-Ancients' Age of Trials.
• There seems to be no set order to the Iron Mountains that needs to be followed, as the Order of the Omega undertook the Fall at the Third Iron Mountain before Dion's attempt at the Second, suggesting that the moon only needed to be in alignment with the Iron Mountain at any given time in the period before the Omega Event for anyone to be able to undertake the Fall.
• Unlike the previous trials of the Super-Ancients, the Trial of the Mountains punishes only those who fail it instead of the whole of the world.
  • This may be in part due to the Trial of the Mountains serving as the prelude to the final task of navigating the Supreme Labyrinth to prevent the Omega Event.
• Also unlike the previous trials, the Trial of the Mountains is unique in that it can be undertaken as multiple times (at any of the five iron mountains) by any challengers to the primary claimant, even though it is expected that the trial be done once.