The realm of the higher Archetypes phase 1

Reality, as understood by low-consciousness beings, has never been a standalone entity.

It is not an edifice constructed by a singular architect,

but a fragile weaving in the Tapestry—

threaded together by belief, delusion, and the inertia of collective ignorance.

The structure of reality is subject to invisible laws,

codified by something known only as the Consensus—

a collective force born from millions of inner voices,

most of them unaware,

which together sculpt the crude outline of what is perceived as "reality."

Consensus is not the will of God,

nor the immutable law of nature,

but a faint echo of the collective will—

distilled from fear, prejudice, decaying myths,

and logic that has already begun to rot.

It is the byproduct of layered beliefs—

beliefs accumulated over generations of a species too unaware to realize

they are under observation by forces they will never understand,

let alone control.

Even entities such as the Archetypes,

who stand upon the blurred threshold between existence and the metaphysical,

cannot freely unmake reality—

because reality itself is locked into patterns subconsciously ratified

by the species that believes in it.

One of the most horrifying aspects of this system is known as the Vulgata—

the layer of ideas and narratives most widely believed,

not because of their truth,

but because of their sheer repetition in the collective mind.

The Vulgata is the primary scaffolding of coarse reality—

a thin crust that conceals the primal depths beneath.

It is composed not only of the brilliant insights of philosophers,

but also the whispered fears of housewives,

the drunken ramblings of bar-side mystics,

the crayon-scribbled nightmares of children,

and the dreams that vanish before waking.

The Vulgata is not static.

It shifts with time, breathing in rhythm with the wheezing lungs of an old planet.

And at certain points in the daily cycle,

it reveals a different face.

By day, objects appear solid and reassuring—

approaching the Platonic ideal of their existence.

But when night draws its veil,

the shadows of reality begin to melt,

and the Vulgata shows its gaping cracks—

fissures through which entities from beyond the Tapestry peer into this world.

"You see a chair by day as a chair,"

Malahki'el whispered hoarsely,

"but at night, it is no longer merely a seat.

It may be a creature—waiting,

biding its time to return to its true form—

a form that has been suppressed

by the force of Consensus for thousands of years."

In the dark, geometry becomes untrustworthy,

colors lose their meaning,

and objects devolve into unfinished ideas.

This is the gap through which madness seeps—

silently, slowly, from beyond the Tapestry,

where reality is no longer solid

but a ripple that can be tainted by ungoverned thought.

And the most terrifying revelation of all is this:

The Vulgata can change.

If enough minds believe in something unreal—

it becomes real.

Not because it should…

but because reality bends beneath lies

repeated often enough.

The Tapestry—the existential weave that envelops all forms and shadows—

is not merely the foundation of perceived reality.

It transcends the divide between fiction, illusion,

and the highest form of truth.

It houses the Epiphamies—

ancient entities that are not mere meanings or revelations,

but profound abstractions that predate logic,

predate thought itself.

They do not exist because minds conceive of them—

they are the unseen foundations

beneath all that ever was, is, or will be.

Epiphamies are not revelations in the mortal sense;

they are echoes of metaphysical ambiguity,

emerging as layers of abstraction so refined,

they elude definition, yet assert their existence

like mist rising from a primordial sea.

Within the Realms of the Tapestry,

every attempt to form a shape or utterance for an Epiphamy fails.

For the moment a sound is spoken,

a symbol drawn,

the realm itself recoils—

slips into another fold of reality—

becoming something else,

as if mocking the boldness of finite beings

who dare try to describe it.

Yet from the shadows of the Epiphamies,

there arises the Quintessence—

known also as the Fifth Essence,

the metaphysical wanderer without body or form,

untouched by physics, magic, or classification.

It is the raw material of beginnings,

the primordial cosmic substrate—

a substance that is neither matter nor energy,

but the precondition of both.

Quintessence cannot be contained, captured, or named.

It is an eternal pool of chaos,

where all creation arises and to which it returns—

a place where soul, time, and reality

are distilled into an endless vapor.

The deepest thinkers—

even the Archetypes who stand at the threshold of destiny and reality—

can only brush against the edge of its being

with a painful reverence.

Some call it the First Lifeforce—

a current that flows through all things

and eventually dissolves them.

It is not merely a force,

but a slumbering awareness

that observes without involvement,

untouched by time.

In its briefest emanation,

all laws are nullified,

all dimensions collapse into a single point...

then vanish into itself.

"It is everything that was never created,

and everything that has been destroyed.

It is the blink of the dead gods' eyes,

and the silent weeping of those who were never born."

Some clandestine cults claim that under specific conditions—on a moonless night, in absolute silence—the Quintessence can whisper.

Not with words,

but with waves of idea so alien,

they induce madness.

Those who hear it never return whole,

for what they come to understand cannot be unlearned,

only endured—

like the burden of a voice from something alive

beyond the linguistic bounds of the cosmos.

The Awakened—those who have, by tragedy or fate, gained awareness of the Tapestry's weave—

realize that they themselves,

with avatars exposed and souls laid bare,

have become walking wells of this substance.

They draw from it whenever they create, feel, or destroy.

Some among the Euthanatoi and Nephandi believe that if all creation were to reach perfect entropy,

the illusions of reality would collapse,

leaving only the liquid surface of raw Quintessence,

gleaming like the blood of a wounded star.

It would be the end of all things—

and the beginning of something that has no name,

no direction,

no intent.

When humankind,

armed with fragile logic

and language confined by nerves and flesh,

tries to define the Quintessence,

they will always fail.

Not for lack of intellect,

but because it—

the primeval substrate of reality's weave—

dwells far beyond the reach of conception,

like a shadow not cast by light,

but by absence itself.

"For nothing can be destroyed

unless it first emerges into perception,"

echoed a voice without source

in the deepest recesses of Arsh's mind.

"Therefore it must take form

in a medium that cannot be seen."

That medium—

paradoxically described only as the unperceived—

is neither substance nor idea,

but the latent fissure between being and non-being,

from which all elements emerge,

and to which all things must return.

"O wise Priam," came the echo from a nameless dimension,

"it is the Fifth Essence that shapes not only what lies beyond your walls,

but what exists beyond even the outermost limits of celestial imagination.

Before the Myrmidons shook golden Ilion, they were imperceptible;

before your birth, you yourself were an impossibility that sculpted destiny."

All things, in the end,

flow from the perceived to the unperceived—

and to the unperceived they return.

In a cycle without end,

everything is woven from Quintessence:

the primal substance of the Creator's Dream,

the silent scaffold of Reality.

Quintessence is not merely the foundation of matter;

it is the unseen breath of Creation itself—

a primordial force that predates all laws, all forms,

even existence and its annihilation.

It has no shape, no will, no origin;

and it is precisely in that utter impossibility

that it becomes the wellspring of all possibility.

It is liminal—forever at the threshold,

lurking between the pulse of reality and the fog of dream.

Not object, not spirit, not even idea:

Quintessence is like a river of spirit-water

that does not flow

yet floods everything.

Even this is but its shadow—

a blurred reflection

in a mirror long since shattered.

Each culture, each metaphysical system,

has tried to name it:

Fifth Essence,

Breath of the Divine,

Divine Fluid,

Primordial Vibration,

The Sound Before the First Letter—

but all these names are echoes,

distortions of something that will never fit

into the framework of the human mind.

In the deepest silence of the Tapestry,

a few damned souls have claimed to see it—

not with eyes,

but with an inner sight that ignited their nerves into ash.

They described it not as light, nor darkness,

but as a color that cannot be imagined,

a sound that slices through time,

a taste that contaminates thought.

"It is not something that can be known,"

wrote one of them before dissolving into hysterical laughter,

"but it knows all things.

It is not part of creation,

but all of creation is the residue of its silent unrest."

And such is the nature of Quintessence—

a living paradox,

a substance that is not substance,

the heartbeat of divine chaos.

It is not something to be mastered—

only endured.

And only by those who have

abandoned the limits of human sanity

in order to brush against that formless uncertainty…

and welcome the ruin it brings.

To be continued...