Founder's Orb

The Founder's Orb is a relic from the Kingdom of Khura'in unearthed during an excavation in 2020 and subsequently kept in Tehm'pul Temple. It is said to grant immense spiritual power to whoever solves its riddle.

Unearthing and theft
The Founder's Orb was unearthed during an excavation sometime in 2020. Hidden inside its treasure box, it was kept in the treasure room of Tehm'pul Temple for the next eight years, being removed only once a year to be carried to Ga'ran Palace for the New Year's Rite. To scare away potential thieves, rumors were spread that, if anyone who was not of royal blood looked directly at the orb inside the box, they would be blinded. The only key to the box, called the Mitamah Key, was kept in the possession of whoever currently held the position of head monk at the temple. Ahlbi Ur'gaid, a young monk-in-training, would often sneak into the treasure room to look at the treasure box, but was too scared to try to look at the orb itself.

As the legends said that the orb would grant spiritual power upon whoever solved its riddle – and spiritual power was an absolute requirement for a would-be monarch – the queen's husband and Minister of Justice, Inga Karkhuul Khura'in, set in motion a plan to obtain the orb in order to overthrow his own wife and become king of Khura'in. Inga had the current head monk, Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin, steal the orb for him, leaving behind the empty treasure box to keep the theft a secret. Inga was unable to solve the orb's riddle on his own, however, so he used the politician Paul Atishon as an intermediary to have the orb sent to Dr. Archie Buff, a foreign archaelogist residing in Kurain Village near Los Angeles, to be studied.

The first clue

 * Main article: The Foreign Turnabout

Some time later, a guard at Tehm'pul Temple named Paht Rohl, seeking money to support his family, decided to steal the orb and sell it on the black market. Upon picking up the box, however, Rohl realized from its weight that it was already empty and confronted Ur'gaid, whom he suspected of being the thief. Witnessing this, Andistan'dhin killed Rohl to silence him and framed Ur'gaid for both the murder and theft.

It was during Ur'gaid's subsequent trial for the murder that the secret of how to open the orb's treasure box was made public. Phoenix Wright, a foreign defense attorney who was representing Ur'gaid, deduced that a clue to the box's opening mechanism was hidden in the second verse of the Song of Ceremony: "When the butterfly embraces the mitamah, the favor of the orb is bestowed." Placing the Mitamah Key in the butterfly engravement on the back of the box, Wright succeded in opening it, showing that the Psyche-Lock-shaped lock in front was a decoy. While the orb was already gone, this clue allowed Wright to prove Ur'gaid innocent of both crimes and have Andistan'dhin arrested.

The second clue

 * Main article: Turnabout Revolution

Meanwhile, the Khura'inese rebel group known as the Defiant Dragons sought to prevent the orb from falling into the wrong hands and was negotiating possession of it with Archie, who had already signed a transfer agreement saying he would give the orb to them. In an attempt to prevent the Defiant Dragons from obtaining the relic, Atishon tried to deceive Archie by telling him that the rebel group was dangerous. This, as well as the fact that Archie found out about the theft from news reports, caused him to refuse to hand the orb over to either Atishon or the rebels, having an argument with the Defiant Dragons member Datz Are'bal when he came to Archie's study to retrieve it. That night, Archie managed to solve the second part of the orb's riddle, which was hinted at in the Song of Ceremony's third verse: "Offer thy prayers as fervent as fire. Only then shall the Holy Mother return." By heating the orb with fire, Archie managed to reveal the face of Khura'in's founder, the Holy Mother, hidden within. To keep the orb safe, he took it to Mt. Mitama near Kurain Village and hid it deep inside the caves in the mountain. Upon returning home, Archie was murdered by Atishon in a desperate attempt by the latter to take the relic for himself, but Atishon was unable to find it.

The next day, the leader of the Defiant Dragons, Dhurke Sahdmadhi, arrived in the United States to secure possession of the orb. With the help of his foster son, the defense attorney Apollo Justice, Sahdmadhi investigated Archie's study and figured out where the doctor had hidden the orb. Sahdmadhi and Justice retrieved the orb from the Mt. Mitama caves, but Atishon, having changed his plan, invented a story about how the relic they were carrying was actually a crystal belonging to his family. The case was brought to trial, with Justice representing Sahdmadhi and the Defiant Dragons. Based on testimony from Archie's daughter Armie, Justice figured out how the doctor had solved the riddle, and, heating the orb with a lighter, he melted the wax inside, revealing the Holy Mother's face. Justice realized that, in order to gain the spiritual power mentioned in the legend, one had to channel the Holy Mother with the aid of a spirit medium. To do this, the Holy Mother's face and true name needed to be known, but depicting her face was taboo in Khura'inism, which was why solving the riddle of the orb was necessary to channel her. There was still one piece of the puzzle missing, however, as only the queen of Khura'in, Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in, knew the founder's true name. Following this revelation, Justice and Sahdmadhi traveled to Khura'in with the orb.