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How Beautiful You Are That You Do Not Join Us

Author: 
Michael Kirkbride
Librarian Comment: 

This text was posted by Michael Kirkbride during the Christmas 2001 (on 12/08/01 to be exact), both at the official Elder Scrolls forum and at TES: Storyboard. I guess it was meant to be a holiday wish, albeit it's not immediately obvious. 

As an added curiosity, his screen name at the time was "Amiel Arctus." 

'How Beautiful You Are That You Do Not Join Us' -- V'vehk to the King of Rape, Sermon Twelve
Vivec's Gift to the Company During the Days They Deem Evening Star

Settle for the equations that last and not those that pass unto the West, for there you shall find the wicked and thought-slendered, passing as they are for the all-dreamt jewel, not elder, without CHIM, none possessed of any of the secret syllables, without love of ancient libraries and in an unsafe house every last one, fashioned like Lawless Grammar (34, 2), though that is only more deaf witness to the roads out of Veloth back to lands that were promised beneath their breath, a symbol affixed on things unborn, seen from the mercy seat without love to run or rename, as the Moth Kings will when they strut-humble COPRONYMUS for s-h-i-t-t-ed Malacath and, though more besides, this is regarded by myself, Vehk First Taught by Fa-Nuit-Hen, as the Worst Contract, and to be guarded against, for unsigned should stay the dead and the wise know this and abide, and remember the words of Dumal-ac-Ath (who is not hidden so much):
"We shall not relinquish that which has been our way for years beyond reckoning, just as the Chimer will not relinquish their ties to the Lords and Ladies of Oblivion. And to come at my door in this way, arrayed in arms and armor and with your hosts around you, tell me you have already forgotten our friendship. Stand down, my sweet Nerevar, or I swear by the fifteen-and-one golden tones I shall kill you and all your people," and these are warnings older than the Inner Sea, heeded by the wise, who have seen the coeval crawl forth from the untrustworthy oceans time and time, as from the sediment-memory, warnings older than even the West itself, which was not West yet but the left lung of Aurbis and Old Ehlnofey, alike as during the first of the Altmeri formwars, when as glorious dreughs we fell on the meatmerchants of Thras like loss to split their immutables and render their rude- walking slow, into faces tracing back into misdesigned corals and sandplay AE ALTADOON GULGA, which is to say, my friends, drawn each from a page of the Book of Hours: settle for the equations that last and not those that pass unto the West, for I took the Hortator thither and he returned unwhole and with a bagful of visible spokes for as-yet visible wheels and became confused, and I would not have you be the same, limb-riddled as Ruptga's son, out-of-seasoned as the Sharmat, or as longing-for as the MerTella, and so I give you this, found in the West but given East, from the beloved Houses of Crod-ah-Ahnd-El1 and V'se-Vehk-Volod2 and Krol-Kuhl3 and Carof-noo-Nahn4 and Curar-El and Vahndo-Howd5 (who all ever have the blessing of the ALMSIVI), this: AE-SATAK-ADAETADA-KATAS-EA, an Utmost Spoke (for the Word is the Wheel), found in the adamant halls of the Ur-Dir and, though some call it an Elder Scroll, I tell you now the truth of it: it is a linguist- launch cell from the last Shipstar, ex-Engine'd, made by the hands of beautiful people, whose work is adored by me and all my names and moods, and whose newest creation, unveiled in springtimes, will be more handsome and brilliant and cunning than all the craft of the vanished Dwemer combined.


1. That would be a reference to one Andel Crodo of The Essential Site fame.
2. Qwerty's first name, slightly distorted.
3. Ken Rolston of Bethesda, the lead designer of Morrowind, and Kurt Kuhlmann, one of designers of the TES games, especially the TES lore.
4. Matt Carofano and Gary Noonan, AKA WormGod - both artists at Bethesda.
5. Todd Vaughn and Todd Howard of Bethesda.