Part I: The Lost Tablet of Allomerostas
The Tablet of Allomerostas is a monolithic slab of volcanic blackstone preserved by layers of ash deep under the seas that sank the Riz-Leutheria archipelago. It is a strange relic, attributed of course to Phoibos given its symbols, metaphors and language, but whose subject matter concerns the mind of Ultor as discovered by the experiment of Phaistos. So Phoibos himself has very little to do with the content, though he invented the blend of angular glyphic geometry, animal sigils, and sparse words written in a proto-script. The below is the result of a hundred generations of the cult of Phoibos painstakingly reconstructing its meaning.
The Recovered Message
The top row is three concentric circles. The outer circle is made of fractal hexagons, considered the Field of Perception. The middle circle is made of spiralling triangles, considered the Stream of Attention. The inner circle is a single white dot, considered the Core of Witnessing.
The center column has 7 stacked animal-sigils, each accompanied by an abstract glyph showing pattern density (thought to be dullness/energy) and flow lines (thought to be distraction/balance/focus). The sigils are those of a fish (dull and distracted), a tortoise (dull and balanced), a serpent (dull and focused), a monkey (energetic and distracted), a lion (energetic and balanced), and an eagle (energetic and focused). The seventh is a creature not of this world, and is considered the sigil for Ultor himself.
The right side of the tablet has a series of words whose meanings we can only guess at. Each word is a gate, opening a rhythm in the mind.
π Aprostasis β that which commands nothing: the unled emergence of mental content
π Skindapsos β the slicing scatter: when attention splits and consumes itself
π Lathostrophe β the turning of forgetting: when the object fades but the gesture persists
π Kellidron β the slack thread: a dulled moment sagging from presence
π Elachnaphaos β the least light: the moment before perception extinguishes
π Anastrepsis β the re-turning: when awareness realigns with the object
π Diapsechon β that which bridges the breaks: the continuity that spans moments
π Analogon β the rising ratio: the rhythmic shape that clarity takes
π Synkleidos β form locked with form: moments linking perfectly, each echoing the last
π Allomerostas β deep occupation elsewhere: the intense focus of the War-God Ultor
Part II: The Reconstructed Edicts of Ultor's Mind
From these, we reconstruct the 16 drumbeats of the War-God Ultorβs Focus
Section I: Ontogenesis β Structure of Mind
β₯ A moment may perceive. Or not.
β₯ What is perceived may be the object of focus. Or not.
β₯ The object of focus may be held. Or not.
Section II: Katabasis β Descent of Mind
π Not-perception can be blindness, sleep, unconsciousness, death, and one more that is not known.
π What is known can be forgotten. But what is forgotten can be recalled. To return is the root of training.
π What is sharp may fade. But what is faded may sharpen. To return is the root of training.
Section III: Anabasis β Return of Mind
π The Tortoise bears it patiently over eons, until the first thought is ready to be born.
π The Serpent makes first contact, between perception and object, birthing the first Intention.
π The Monkey energizes even as it scatters and disperses.
Section IV: Metastasis β Mastery of Mind
π The Eagle's absorption without wavering closes the portal to the Underworld.
π The Moment of Mind is not a container but a wave, an interface between the Underworld and the world above.
π There is no arrival, only refinement, until Allomerostas: the shape of no-change, the focus of the War-God Ultor.
Part III: The Experiment of Phaistos / The Temple of Ultor
Phaistos, the God of the Forge, built the first Temple of Ultor, his only friend. In reality, they built it together, for Phaistos designed the space and Ultor provided the energy that together created the edifice that we now call a Temple. They simply built, for the Godsβ purpose is alignment and connection. The two connected and aligned the material space of stone and the liminal space of the mind, seeking to invert that last hidden realm in the world.
The sanctum has 3 layers: the resonant core, the concentric lattice, and the inner vault of Ultor. The resonant core is a spherical chamber made from a single crystal of an alloy not found anywhere else on this earth, of obsidian, quartz, and silver. The black crystal holds stone-borne memory, for it sings under the pressure of the mind and translates attention into movement.
The concentric lattice is 108 hexagonal plates of quartz interlaced with sapphire veins and a core of gold-threaded ceramic, recording minute shifts in the ambient field pressure of the crystal walls.
The inner vault is both the geometric and the ontological center of the Temple, surrounded by layers of harmonic architecture but itseslf untouched by glyph, metal or stone. It contains a hollow sphere made of void-glass, an alchemically refined matter that does not reflect, transmit or absorb heat, light, or thought. It encloses a vacuum-shell suspended inside it by tension rings that donβt touch the surface. To approach is to feel oneβs being dissolve. It is the shape of madness, and its fatal presence is felt for hundreds of miles outside the mountain.
Ultor sits inside, waiting patiently for Phaistos to seal it in.
The Experiment begins.
The Vault is the source of Null Sympathy, so perfectly receptive it is invisible to will. Ultorβs mind presses outwards, imprinting its shape on the negative mold of intention. He creates an internal flux, of wavering, forgetting, returning and focusing, creating ripples like heat in water. Phaistos links each plate to a temporal grid, isolating slices of attention as moments, solidifying the undistorted plates of non-perceiving, the chaotic asymmetric stress signatures of mind-wandering, and the harmonic symmetry of focused attention.
Phaistos lowers the plates into chimewater, a basin of infused silver-fluid that hums at the frequency of three glyphs. A black square appears when there is weight but no motion, the four edges of containment without extension, the right angles of lifeless stability, the slow, sealed, opacity of absence. A red circle forms when presence is radiant but uncentered. It is unanchored, errant, over-saturated energy. It is a vortex in the field, pulling harmonics away from the center in turbulent arcs of non-linear instability. A white triangle forms when attention is sharp, directional and unified. Three lines form a minimal structure of maximum clarity, with a vector concentration forming the apex. A symmetric triangular ripple coheres the field, stable and precise.
Ultor wakes from total absence and reaches his state of Allomerostas. 8 plates are left over. Phaistos captures 200 moments, one on each of the two sides of 100 plates. There are 10 plates captured for every blink of the eye. The experiment lasts 0.52 seconds.
The Projection
The walls of the Temple have since been studied by the cults of Ultor, Phaistos, and most importantly, of Phoibos. It is the latter that managed to clean, layer, and render the walls of the experiment into a series of tablets, slowing down the mind of Ultor so the mind of man can comprehend it.
This is the result of those tablets. Slowed down by 100X. Every triangle, circle, and square represents a fixed snapshot of the attention plate imprinted by Ultor onto the Templeβs walls. The trendlines mirror the sequential harmonic analysis derived from the field data, measuring the ratio of non-perceiving moments (clarity), and the ratio of focused perception (steadiness).
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