Ardasa couldn't help but laugh upon hearing Ternoc's comment. "Really, Your Majesty, you speak as if you had never grown up with stories! You, in your youth, must have had your share of favorite larger-than-life heroes, who you longed in your heart to be, despite your head knowing that their feats were impossible. We the kobolds of the north adore our heroic legends, and have more of them than perhaps we have tribespeople alive now." 

When her laugh subsided, she continued. "My memory is not as good as that of my aunt Sasak. She was the wise woman of our tribe, and has perhaps all the traditional tales of our people. How she can keep them all in her head is a mystery to me. Yet, even her great mind was not so perfect. I could swear the king's guard in Arjun's tale gets larger with every telling!" She speared a bit of the food with her fork and placed it in her mouth. "This is truly good, you must teach me how it's made sometime. Rughoi had to teach me how to use this tool, he having grown up with such things. It were silly to me when I was still a child, but I think I'm growing fond of the . . . fork?"

Ardasa took another drink of water, and continued. "Where was I? Right. Upon discovering the old king was dead, his son swore vengeance against Arjun. He brought his engineers together, and they built a tower as tall as the sky and as wide as the depths of the earth to repel the kobold tribe. Arjun attacked the tower many times, but was thrown back without fail. As he sat in the grass and formed his next strategy, his eye caught the most beautiful female he and anyone had laid eyes upon, bathing in the nearby river. Her name was Deborah the Stonecutter, and she was the greatest mage the surface kobolds know of. Other stories tell of even greater tunneling kobolds, but they are so far removed from us now we would never know if those stories are at all founded. My grandfather claimed to have found the very location where their eyes met the other. The neighboring tribe has claimed the same thing, but in a different location entirely. Wars have been fought over where the true location lie."

"Her love for Arjun, and for the tribe, were great, and she saw the tower as halting the progress of her subjects as empress and consort to Arjun. This is where the tale dips ever more into metaphor than it already is. Aunt Sasak tried explaining the philosophical significance behind the story's characters and objects, but I could not wrap my head around it. Deborah somehow attuned to the very stones making up the tower, either by a pact with a dragon, a demon lord, or even a wish granted from a god. As she was spiritually connected to the stones, she drew a blade and killed herself. The stones themselves were made weak by her death, and the tower collapsed, burying the army with it. Where Deborah's corpse lay sprouted a tree, which quickly bore fruit. Trees of the sort are still called Deborah trees by my people, and its fruit grows only a day for each year. It is the sweetest thing you could ever taste, and is said to have the ability to cure diseases, patch wounds, and dispel sadness."

"Arjun, grief stricken, flung himself from the highest cliff of his empire, and the tribe, leaderless, scattered, becoming the Invincibles, the Unreachables, and the Deathless tribes, all members legendary in their own right. From them are born all the kobolds and kobold tribes of the entire north, including myself, as the tales say. Arjun's corpse also birthed a tree, which we call bravery trees, and its fruit may only be consumed by the most valiant of warriors. Consuming one gives the chief visions that offer supernatural wisdom from the gods. My father, after eating one, changed his demeanor entirely, from a hotheaded warrior to an even-handed and pragmatic leader of our tribe."