"How are they so different?" Ardasa asked. The priest's words were so hard to ignore. She had to do something, anything to put her mind off it.
_______________________________________________
"Yes you will," said the corpse. His razor claw stretched a line across his neck, letting blood and unspeakable fleshy parts spill out. "The empire is cut, from neck to temple. If even the rebellion against the dracon is housed by dracon, then we the kobolds are already lost.

"I know not of what you speak," Kutur said, clutching his sheets around himself. "Rughoi is our emperor, and he has already won."

"This is our continent. We did not tunnel for so many generations to find at the end a slavemaster with a whip," said Arjun. He crossed the room, letting the blood trail behind him as he went. "It is they who invaded us. So long as even one remains, we are oppressed. You feel the fire in you, it wants to come out and see justic-"

Kutur awoke, feeling too warm in his sheets. The dream comes to him every night, tormenting him. He rubbed his eyes and got out of bed, pulling a book from the shelf. He felt so alone, trapped inside his own head with a beast he only vaguely understands. Something long and dreary might help dispel the horrors that night keeps. Yet, as he flipped through the book, he could not even find solace in the workings of magic. Something was wrong, very wrong. He put on a robe and bustled out of his door. He needed to see priestess Kali about this.