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The Four Vales

Page history last edited by Tim 15 years, 11 months ago

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The Four Vales

It is thought that The Four Vales were an alternative ur-formation of the four elements that are known to consitute reality in Battal. The exact constitution of the Vales is unknown, and so various formulations, all interchangeable, are used. The most popular formulation of the Vales is:

Nature of the Vales

It is not known if the four vales were each a literal valley in some sort of unformed proto-battal, or if they were each (as is widely suspected) pocket dimensions which are referred to as vales in a merely figurative sense.

The first mention of The Four Vales occurs in the Weighty Tome of Elemenstor, which it is said will be available in its entirety in paperback by 2008. Even a cursory perusal of the much-disputed first seven verses of the Tome, which can be assembled from various references throughout the series, gives a sense of the disturbing vagaries that surround The Vales:

1 The Ununlight could hold itself no more ... in lichtless stupor it rumbled a rumble that preceded the capacity to grumble. A chanting disambiguation before speech: Ex Nihiloooom Disembruglioooom!
2 From whence an effulgence of effulgences, of teeth and gnashing eyes, of gorpwracked darmscapes and forbidden corpuscles emerged: Teh Word.
3 A hence forth, the first of the four hences, emerged from a nap. Whence Teh Word was spoken, henceforth a speaker unfathoms its emergences: Prepare darkstorm, pre-grumbled lichtless stupor, The Hierarchs are spoken.
4 And in the speaking from whence the Hierarchs circumpredicated their existence, were the first Words of immortal beings "Behold the Four Vales, for verily they art pleasing/havst been pleasing/willst be pleasing to Ourselves."
5 Yet the spark which they spoke knew not its light, nor could its flow congeal. Rind and husk and quills and rust, the musk of vap'rous shipwreck ales. Proclaim all vales for Furnishings! Proclaim all vales for Kryatures! Proclaim all vales for sacred Sjkarblae! Proclaim all vales for...
6 But what of their transmorph residues? In the interminable intermixing, the endless length of nought, lethargic loneliness was lapped in overlapping slop: the listless sleeping of the bottom, the exhausted muscles of the top.
7 Dismaying at their illgrown gains, exhausted and krill, sloppy and wroth, the Hierarchs intoned "Verily, the Vales of the non-Furniture most assuredly hav'st made themselves unholy Shitholes of despair and melancholia." (Elemenstors 1:1-7)

So long as an understanding of the Vales was restricted to textual interpretation, the nature of The Four Vales was long deemed an object of idle speculation or a justification for wars based on dogmatic conceptions of the Vales. Some headway has been made in understanding them by Chronosorcellors associated with the Chronoclave making use of Oraculation.

Each vale was home to one of the four Most Discerning Races, the first races in the Elmether. The Darkstorm, however, transformed the Vales from their primordial, promethean state into clearly defined elements, and scattered the four races throughout time and space. Traces of the Vales' previous admixture are still experienced as hiccups in the practice of Elemenstation; thus, Elemenstors can often be heard mumbling, "What the Farth!" after the fizzling of a difficult transmorgification.

There is some confusion surrounding The Four Vales. The Four Vales of ELotH:TES are sometimes confused with The Four Vales of The Elspinster Saga, which freely plagiarized from and bastardized key concepts and terms in ELotH:TES.

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