Epic

Epic!

In the year 2349 of the Aesyllian Calendar, which is 1498 in the Ancient King's Calendar, and 1126 in the Mydori Calendar, and 937564 in the Calendar of Very Short Years, there lived first the Felaendori. These were the Great Spirits, and they walked the void in beauty and splendor. But they strove ever to outdo one another in feats of strength and greatness, and it came to pass that two of the greatest Felaendori, Suile and Maniav, entered into a contest to see who could create the most pointless thing imaginable. Suile went first, and he created in the midst of the void that which he called Uoaea, which means Huge Rock, and he declared it to be useless beyond all standard of compare; and in later days Uoaea was named Earth. But Maniav created for his part a race of living creatures, and called them the Bueacoli, which means The Complainers; and these were later known as Elves. And he set the Elves down to live upon the earth and complain relentlessly, and all agreed that the Elves were much more pointless than the earth, so Maniav won the contest in splendor and majesty.

Now the Elves were at first mortal, and they died of sickness, and disease, and old age, and naturally they raised their voices to the Great Spirits to complain heartily about this; and Maniav heard their pleas and granted their desire. And so the Elves became immortal. Thus they began straightaway to complain about the awful burden of immortality, and wrote long poems lamenting this curse, and the other Spirits interceded and gave them all misshapen ears in punishment for their whining; for the Spirits were wrathful in those days.

But in the early days of the Elves there was one who was named Euinymsallifiviaeae, and because his name was much longer and harder to pronounce than anyone else's, he was immediately chosen as king. His first command was that the Elves should become masters of lore and create many more languages in addition to the current one, for at the moment some outsiders could actually learn the Elvish language, and that was clearly unacceptable; and when they had created a satisfactory number of languages, Euinymsallifiviaeae further decreed that everything with a name must be given a name in every one of the languages, and further that everything without a name should be given one. And so the Elves were busy for several centuries.

But at last they had completed their task, and now they were concerned, for they had nothing more to occupy their time, and furthermore they were becoming very overpopulated, immortal as they were; and they began what was known as the Aeis Nomae, the Third Complaining, to beg for a Dark Lord. If they had a Dark Lord, they could spend their time fighting him, and not become bored, and also their numbers would be cut satisfactorily. But the Spirits had all long since retreated into the void, for they were sick of the Elves, and had begun a new project, destined to be far greater - but Dwarves do not enter into this story.

So the Elves created a Dark Lord of their own, and they named him Worvin; and they would have given him other names, but he killed anyone who did so. In this way he became known as Peroguias, which is Elf-Killer. And Peroguias also killed the Elves' king, so they were forced to choose a new king, and this way there began a successive lineage of Elven-kings:

Euinymsallifiviaeae II

Euinymsallifiviaeae III

Moriviaeaellaie the Great

Kimcolleuiaeveni the Relatively Good

Renuin the Short-Named

Veiullaeniaes I

Veiullaeniaes II the King Who Was Poor At Arithmetic

Veiullaeniaes VIII

Yet while this line of succession was going on, another force was emerging. When the Elves were made immortal, there was a small group who was missed receiving the gift (for the Spirits had drunk quite a lot of ale that day, and they were feeling Very Spirited). This group thus lived on, tragically mortal and lacking the oddly-shaped ears of the Elves. They called themselves Men, for by the time they discovered women in their group it was too late to change the name. Men, having shorter lifespans than Elves, were not able to practice complaining for as long; and so it was that although they did try very hard, they were never as good at it as their immortal counterparts. For this reason, and also because their names were seldom longer than three syllables, they were known as the Lesser Race.

At first the Men, seeing that the Elves had a Dark Lord, were very jealous, and they set about creating a Dark Lord of their own. But lacking the Elves' mastery of such matters, they succeeded only in creating a Moderately Dim Lord, which was nowhere near as much fun to fight, and anyway he soon died of old age. Therefore they were forced to join the Elves' fight against theirs.

The alliance of the two races proved a formidable adversary for Peroguias the Dark Lord, and he was forced to create armies of fell creatures to counteract it. These creatures, however, had only enough sense to give themselves one-syllable names, and so they were swiftly slain in any battle, even when they outnumbered their opponents. So Peroguias saw that this was a problem he would simply have to deal with personally, and he set up a sign on the door of his great fortress, Naivmoth Geiaran (Elvish for "The Place of Pointy Things"). The sign said: "Peroguias, Dark Lord, hereby issues standing challenge to any warrior deeming himself worthy to appear against him in single combat."

Veiullaeniaes VIII, King of the Elves, saw the sign and prepared himself for battle. He took his shield, Efgoriaea, and his sword, Bernigeal, that was set with the ruby Lamisoth and the two emeralds Galvanoria and Quesitilia. He also put on his armor (Mastrovilliamus) and his boots (Raeschor and Maeschor) and climbed atop his great horse Vallenoeoiue upon his great saddle, Jalymin. Upon his head he set the helmet Haeiullius; and thus arrayed he set out for battle.

The king wished to fight on the Plain of the Ancestors, a famous Elvish battleground, and Peroguias wanted to fight in front of his own evil fortress, so they decided to arbitrate the dispute using the ancient game of hand-forms, Tiger-Snake-Eagle (in which Eagle beats Snake, Snake beats Tiger, and Tiger beats Eagle). Unfortunately, all three hundred times that they tried this game, both of them picked Snake (Peroguias because snakes represented evil, and he liked them; Vallenoeoiue in an attempt to second-guess Peroguias). Thus every game ended in a tie, and they were at last forced to pick a point midway between the two battlegrounds, which, as it turned out, was Caerona-eln-Masvereth, The Meadow of Small Forest Animals. The rabbit spirits were wrathful for years to come.

Of the two warriors' duel in that fateful meadow, many songs are sung; so many, in fact, that an actual description of the battle will be omitted here. Suffice it to say that Peroguias was the victor, and the Elves were forced to choose yet another king. The new king was also killed in single combat, as was the one after that, and so on for seven generations. Songs were written about all of these as well, but near the end they began to take on a bitter and spiteful tone, pointing out that if someone other than the supreme leader of the government would do the fighting once in a while, perhaps something would get done in the way of actual leadership.

But at last the Men made their own challenge to Peroguias, and they sent forth a champion of their own to fight in single combat; and when Peroguias appeared, they brought in a huge army and killed him. And that was the end of that problem.

Because the main villain is dead, the story is obviously over now.

THE END

A note on pronunciation:

Letter: A
Pronunciation: eh

Letter: E
Pronunciation: eh

Letter: I
Pronunciation: eh

Letter: O
Pronunciation: ah (except in certain circumstances; see below)

Letter: U
Pronunciation: eh

NOTE: when the letter O is preceded by any other letter, its pronunciation changes to 'eh.'