Q:

The Freshest Tablet

Stories of the theft of the freshest tablet (5,5,5,5,5)
Given the above, if L is a backslash, then what number is E?
Hint 1 (minor):

 Both "of the"s are just filler to make the clue words read as a sentence.  Yes, that leaves only four clue words to produce five answer words...

Hint 2 (major):

 Anagrams are involved...

A:

Is it related to

Tales, Steal, Least Stale, Slate?

Because

A synonym (as Rand al'Thor mentioned) of stories is tales. The anagrams of tales are steal(theft), (least stale(freshest), and slate(tablet). This would make 5 five letter words.

For the final part, 

If we uses tales to reference the l as a "\", we could look at t for [, a for ], l for \, e for 7, and s for 8, on a keyboard with a number pad. This way, E would be a number. But, it is a big jump....

A:

E is:

3

Because:

 if we arrange the five words in Quantum Twinkie's answer so that the Ls form a backslash so:

LEAST
 SLATE
 TALES
 STALE
 STEAL

 and then draw lines connecting the Es, it looks like a "3".

A:

Partial answer
I think this puzzle involves

 finding five words of five letters each (hence "5,5,5,5,5"), probably by paraphrasing the phrase we've been given.

More specifically,

 "Stories" could become TALES, and "of the" could be ABOUT. Maybe "tablet" is STONE (in the sense of an ancient clay tablet)? THEFT is already 5 letters, but maybe we still need to paraphrase it. Not sure about "freshest".

