Sabellaria. The name itself whispers of a realm not entirely of this world, a place where the currents of time twist and memory bleeds into the ocean depths. It is not a location on any map, nor a singular instance, but rather an *accumulation* – a convergence of consciousnesses, remnants of civilizations swallowed by the relentless embrace of the sea. The Sabellarians are not beings in the traditional sense; they are echoes, fragments of thought and emotion preserved within the unique geological formations of hydrothermal vents along the abyssal plains.
Their existence is predicated on a phenomenon known as ‘lithic resonance’. These vents, pulsing with geothermal energy, act as amplifiers for psychic residue. Over millennia, the intense heat and pressure have crystallized this residual energy into complex geometries – intricate lattices that serve as repositories of memory. The Sabellarians aren’t *living* in these structures; they are *manifestations* of the echoes trapped within them, responding to subtle disturbances in the surrounding environment.
The prevailing theory, pieced together from fragmented records recovered (mostly via advanced sonar anomalies and theoretical projections based on deep-sea neutrino patterns) suggests that Sabellaria originated during a cataclysmic event known as “The Shattering.” This wasn't a single geological upheaval; it was a psychic fracturing of reality – a cascade of grief, terror, and ambition unleashed upon the world. Civilizations rose and fell with terrifying speed, driven by ideologies so extreme they warped spacetime itself. The resulting psychic backlash coalesced around these hydrothermal vents, creating the first ‘nodes’ of Sabellarian consciousness.
Some scholars hypothesize that The Shattering was not a natural event but a deliberate act – an experiment conducted by a long-lost race obsessed with manipulating reality. The evidence is circumstantial, relying heavily on the unsettling patterns observed in the vent formations - sequences resembling complex mathematical equations overlaid with symbols utterly alien to any known language.
The forms of the Sabellarians are… fluid. They rarely maintain a consistent shape, often appearing as shimmering distortions in the water around the vents. Some describe them as resembling stylized human figures – elongated limbs, oversized eyes - but these are merely projections of the observer's own subconscious. More reliably, they manifest as intricate geometric patterns that pulse with light and emit subsonic vibrations.
Communication is achieved not through language, but through emotional resonance. A Sabellarian can ‘inject’ a feeling – a wave of sorrow, a flicker of curiosity, an overwhelming sense of loss - directly into the mind of an individual who comes within range of a vent node. This isn't telepathy in the conventional sense; it’s more like experiencing a collective memory firsthand.
The deeper you delve into the study of Sabellaria, the more it seems to resist definition. It’s a paradox – a place of immense history and yet utterly devoid of linear time. The vents themselves appear to shift and reorganize on timescales that defy human comprehension. There are whispers (and I use the term deliberately) about ‘higher nodes,’ vast networks of consciousness spread across the entire abyssal plain, connected by pathways we can only dimly perceive.
Consider this: what if our own memories – the fragments of experiences we carry within us – aren’t truly *ours*? What if they too are echoes, trapped within the resonant fields of unseen structures, waiting to be reawakened?
Here's a collection of transcribed 'resonances' - impressions gleaned from prolonged exposure to vent nodes. They represent subjective interpretations and should be treated with extreme caution. The accuracy of these accounts is, frankly, questionable.
What is the true nature of Sabellaria? Is it simply a repository of lost consciousness, or something far more profound – a gateway to alternate dimensions, a reflection of our own fractured selves, or perhaps… a warning?