The Hollowing of Foes’ Vale

In the shadowed reaches of Comhlaidir lies Foes’ Vale, a place avoided even by seasoned travelers. The valley is said to carry the lingering echoes of battles fought centuries ago, but what makes it truly uncanny is not the corpses, nor the twisted relics of war—it is the valley’s peculiar appetite for memory and presence.

Visitors speak of hearing the whispers of their own rivals, past and present, long before they reach the vale. Shadows twist at the corner of vision, forming figures that mimic friends, enemies, or strangers with unsettling precision. Those who enter with malice in their hearts report a strange phenomenon: the very foes they despise appear before them—not in flesh, but as spectral reflections of themselves. Every insult, betrayal, and fleeting grudge is mirrored back with a sharpness that unnerves even the bravest.

A 17th-century chronicler describes a knight who rode into Foes’ Vale seeking vengeance. He encountered an army of spectral doubles, each echoing his intentions and repeating his oaths of wrath. By nightfall, the knight could no longer tell which were foes, which were mirrors, or which were fragments of his own fear. He fled, but later disappeared entirely, leaving only his armor arranged neatly at the vale’s center.

Scholars debate whether the vale creates illusions to punish hostility, or if it is a place where the mind itself becomes a battlefield. Locals claim that even speaking aloud the name of a foe summons a presence from the mist, unseen yet insistent.

Today, travelers avoid lingering in Foes’ Vale. The air is said to thrum with quiet menace, and the wind carries a chorus of half-formed names and murmured grievances. In Comhlaidir, the lesson is clear: hatred and enmity are dangerous, especially where the land itself reflects your foes.