Gateway to the Lost City

The interior of the vault

The Gateway to the Lost City was an Isu vault located beneath the Greek island of Thera. It served as a gateway to the underwater city of Atlantis.

The entrance leading to the vault lay among the Minoan Ruins on the island. It was these ruins that had at first drawn the attention of the philosopher Pythagoras.

History

Classical Greece

In the mid-5th century BCE, after managing to find his way into the vault, Pythagoras spent the next few decades researching the Gateway, including its connection to the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus he had in his possession. By the time of the Peloponnesian War, he had figured out a way to seal the Gateway and prevent the secrets of Atlantis from being misused by others, in particular the Cult of Kosmos. After meeting his daughter, the misthios Kassandra, he tasked her to secure the four relics required to seal the vault.

Upon doing so, the vault projected a holographic map of the Earth and played a series of recorded messages from the Isu Aletheia, who spoke about the history of her race and Project Olympos, in which the Atlantis artifacts had originally been used. Aletheia also addressed Pythagoras directly, asking him to relinquish the Staff, and acknowledged that someone in the distant future was experiencing Kassandra's memories through the Animus.

Kassandra and Pythagoras inside the vault

As Kassandra and Pythagoras were both left puzzled by the nature of these messages, the latter initially refused to relinquish the Staff, intending to continue his research to understand the origins of humanity. After some convincing from Kassandra, however, he relented and passed the Staff down to his daughter. This resulted in Pythagoras' death and Kassandra being granted biological immortality. The misthios subsequently used the Staff to seal Atlantis for good and left the vault.

Kassandra later returned to the Gateway on the instructions of Aletheia, whose consciousness was preserved inside the Staff, in order to access the Great Seal to Atlantis, a separate chamber which was connected to the vault.

Modern times

In 2018, the Assassin Layla Hassan discovered the Gateway's location after reliving Kassandra's memories in the Animus, and subsequently accessed the vault by swimming through the underwater caverns. Inside, she met Kassandra, still alive thanks to the Staff of Hermes in her possession. Claiming that Layla was the "Heir of Memories" destined to restore the balance between order and chaos, Kassandra relinquished the Staff to her after warning Layla about the dangers of the Pieces of Eden and telling her to destroy them all.

After Kassandra passed away, Layla continued to explore her memories in the Animus to find a way to access the Great Seal, where she could commence her training with Aletheia to master the Staff's powers and learn more about her role as the Heir.

Gallery

Concept artSymbolsOther

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  Concept art by Hugo Puzzuoli
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  Concept art
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  Concept art of the Gateway's guardian statues

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  The Sphinx's carved symbol
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  The Cyclops' carved symbol
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  The Minotaur's carved symbol
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  The Writhing Dread's carved symbol
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  The Sphinx's symbol
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  The Cyclops' symbol
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  The Minotaur's symbol
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  The Writhing Dread's symbol

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  Hologram of the Earth
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  Atlantis, as seen from the Gateway
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  Layla standing before the Gateway
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  One of the guardian statues found inside the Gateway
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  The Gateway, as seen in Blade of Shao Jun

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (first appearance)
  • The Lost Tales of Greece
  • The Fate of Atlantis
• Assassin's Creed: Blade of Shao Jun (appears in flashback(s))