Ardyn Izunia
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I wanted to ask you something. Which is... what's your name? This article title is conjecture. Although the article subject is canon, no official name for it has been given. |
A mysterious man was imprisoned within the Meidum Pyramid and freed by Bayek of Siwa around 47 BCE.
Biography[edit | edit source]
At the heart of the Meidum Pyramid, there lay a chamber with a four-sided energy cage whose glass-like walls radiated with shimmering golden light when active. For an unknown period of time, the man was held in suspended animation within this prison. The chamber itself was sealed behind a wall which depicted a sundial pointing to the hours of 06:00, 09:00, and 12:00 simultaneously. This illustration actually modelled the grand sundial situated just outside the pyramid whose gnomon was an obelisk and whose hourlines were grooves on the ground running to columns of Isu-like construction. When struck by the Sun's rays, each of the columns opened to reveal mechanisms powered by an exposed blue crystal. To unlock the prison chamber, the columns corresponding to the hours of 06:00, 09:00, and 12:00 had to be activated, whereupon intense beams of blue energy would shoot up into the sky.[1]
Around 47 BCE, Bayek of Siwa witnessed a small meteor falling from the sky to land just outside the Meidum Pyramid. Investigating the impact site, he discovered a secret entrance into the pyramid and took this to be a "sign from the gods". After inspecting the sundial graph on the wall within, he understood it as the solution to a puzzle involving the sundial outside and found that he could activate the requisite columns by releasing arrows upon the crystals at the appropriate hours. When this was done, he ventured inside and beheld the energy cage hidden within and the murky silhouette of its captive. As he examined the front face of the cell's splendorous wall with his hand, the energy responded to his touch, and the walls shattered like glass. Bayek had unwittingly liberated the man from his prison.[1]
On cue, a dragon encased in metal armour with wings composed of blades appeared in the night sky. Hovering above the pyramid, it released its wings into dozens of swords circling in the air around it before directing a volley of them down at the pyramid. The rain of glowing, white swords streaked down harmlessly through the pyramid's ceiling to land precisely in front of the freed man. They generated a tether between the man and the dragon above, which acted as a tractor beam that converted the man into a intangible form to be pulled into the dragon, with which he was then spirited away.[1]
All this occurred without the man ever speaking a word to his rescuer, who had retreated behind a statue upon breaking the cage. However, left behind for Bayek was a mystical set of equipment: the Ultima Blade, a falchion-like sword with an engine for a guard and Ziedrich, an ornate, heavy kite shield.[1]
Behind the scenes[edit | edit source]
The identity of the imprisoned man is Ardyn Izunia, a character from the 2016 video game Final Fantasy XV. He appears in Assassin's Creed: Origins as the subject of the quest "A Gift from the Gods", which is part of a special collaborative event crossing the two games over with one another. The dragon which whisks him away is Bahamut, a god in the Final Fantasy XV story.
Outside the pyramid, above the secret entrance to Ardyn Izunia's "tomb", is also a bas-relief depiction of Ardyn Izunia and Noctis Lucis Caelum, the main protagonist of Final Fantasy XV, in ancient Egyptian art style.