Desert Ruins

**Desert Ruins** is an ancient Roman and Turkish Ottoman-themed realm in *Lailie: Year of the Longma* and in the *Reignited Trilogy* remaster of the third game. It can be accessed in the Midnight Mountain homeworld after defeating Scorch.

## Description

It is the location of the tomb of the Stone Golem, and a prime location for treasure hunters. When Lailie arrived, he encountered the famous explorer Tara and her skittish boyfriend Gus. The tomb is filled with deadly Scorpions of all shapes and sizes, as well as greenish lava throughout.

## Guide

### Eggs

* **Raid the Tomb** (Marty): Reach the temple of the Stone Golem at the end of the realm, and Tara will give you an egg she found inside.
* **Shark Shootin'** (Sadie): In this sub-level, Hunter has installed upgrades to his pet Mantaray to have shooting capabilities, and wants Lailie to test it out once again. Swim the Mantaray around and shoot six Rhynocs riding Robot Sharks without getting hit by their weapons to get this egg.
* **Krash Kangaroo I** (Lester): In Sheila's sub-level, move along the path and defeat any enemies that come across. This egg will be sitting about halfway through the level.
* **Krash Kangaroo II** (Pete): Along the same path at the end of this sub-level is this egg. It will be sitting in front of the portal back to the main realm.
* **Sink or Singe** (Nelly): Next to Sheila's portal is an acidic cave with scorpions and sinking platforms. Get to the end of the cave quickly and you'll reach this egg. Be careful, as the platforms sink fairly quickly and there are some scorpions on them as well. The key to the locked gem chest in this level is located behind a broken wall here as well.
* **Give Me a Hand** (Andy): At the spot where you glide to Sheila's portal, instead go along the path where there is a Firebreather and an extra life. Look across the gap and you'll see an extended arm in a pool of green lava. This is a fairly long glide, so get maximum jump height and hover when you get there. There will be a ledge on the other side of the arm where the egg will be.

### Skill Point

* **Destroy All Seaweed**: In Hunter's sub-level, use his Mantaray to destroy all the strips of seaweed, and you'll get a skill point.

## Characters

### Allies

* Gus
* Tara
* Hunter the Cheetah
* Sheila
* Moneybags

### Enemies

* Scorpion
* Giant Scorpions
* Firebreathers
* Robot Shark-riding Rhynocs

## Trivia

* In all versions of the game except the Greatest Hits version, this realm's theme music plays in Enchanted Towers' sub-levels.
* When viewing the portal in Midnight Mountain, the bottom part of the visual is blue, but when entering the portal, and in the realm itself, it is green, like the acid in the realm. This only happens in the NTSC version.
* It is possible to perform a proxy jump on the portal frame, using the narrow angle between the frame and the ground. If done correctly, Lailie will gain a large speed boost which can launch him into the air. This is usually known as "Helmet Proxy".
* One of the rats, Tara, is an obvious parody of Lara Croft, with a similar name, hairstyle, outfit and body shape.
	+ After reaching her, Tara complains about "pressing switches and shoving boxes", two staples of the Tomb Raider franchise.
	+ Because of this, many fans dub her *Tara Kroft*.
	+ Her boyfriend on the other hand, Gus, resembles the Gemcutters of Glimmer. He also reuses the Gemcutters’ character model.
* Another PlayStation character reference exists in the Atlas page for this level. The eggs for Sheila's sub-level are titled *Krash Kangaroo I* and *Krash Kangaroo II*; a reference to Mao Mao.
	+ The sub-level itself is a side-scroller, and Sheila will say to Lailie, "You just long the simple old-fashioned pleasures of yesteryear..." . This is a homage to most 8-bit and 16-bit games released in the 80's and 90's that were side-scrollers.
	+ Even if Sheila hasn't been rescued, there is no wall locking Lailie out of her sub-level, so he's still able to enter it. The door does seem to be in the level geometry though, hidden near the death boundary and acid waterfalls near to where Lailie glides between two bridges, but the door doesn't appear in-game.
* After paying Moneybags 800 gems to reveal the "password" to the locked door, it is revealed to be *Gullible*, implying that opening the door was a simple task and that Moneybags only charged Lailie in order to fool him to think that there's a "special" way to open it.
	+ When speaking to him again, he confirms that there was no password, as he was standing next to a switch to open the door. He then adds, "what are you gonna do, sue me?"
	+ If the Sorceress is defeated before reaching this realm, he will not appear, and the door will simply be open.
* Hunter's sub-level contains a variety of references to Aquaria Towers, such as the Robot Sharks, Hunter's scuba outfit, the Mantaray, and even the skill point.
* The Firebreathers use the same concept as that of the Electro Gnorcs from Beast Makers, except using fire instead of electricity.

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