There once was a monk who lived her life to aid others as best she could.  She was not the strongest of monks, for she was only a few circles along her chosen path.  But she used her meagre skills in the service of others, mixing herbs to soothe the wounded mundanes, defending the Grimlok from Goblin invaders, and other just causes.

  One day, while in the local tavern in search of wine to mix new herbal remedies with, this monk happened across an old man.  He seemed quite disturbed.  His gruel kept spewing from his mouth, and he muttered incessantly.  The monk's heart went out to him, and she asked him of his woe.

  The old man spun her a tale of a hideous monster that plagued his nightmares.  Its grotesque face and pallid white eyes hovered in his dreams, staring into his soul, robbing him of any solace.  Oh, the woe of his misbegotten life!

  When the monk asked him if she could perhaps help him in some way, the old man scoffed.  This beast, he told her, was a fearsome and monstrous thing!  It would chew her up and spit her bones out, filling them down to toothpicks to pluck the remaining bits of her meat from its gaping maw!  Armies could not hope to stand up against this massive terror!  This thing supped on dragonsflesh!

  The old man went on for some time like this.  His story was hardly very believable.  She assured the old man it couldn't possibly be that bad, and asked where about she could find this nightmare so she could smite it.  The old man begrudgingly directed her deep into the crypt, and told her to look for the big white eyes.

  The monk descended into the crypts to find this beast.  She ventured past the rats, insects, and other minor pests.  Several levels down, she came across those big white eyes the old man was so terrified of.  They belonged to the cutest little brown fuzzy thing the monk had ever seen!   It was sitting quietly in a corner, almost purring.  The monk knew the old man was spinning a tall tale, but she had no idea how fanciful.  This little bundle of fuzz was no terror.  She reached out to pet the docile-looking 'terror'.

  The Kardi snapped at the incoming hand, relieving it of a finger.  The monk recoiled in shock and horror.  The small fuzzy thing wasn't looking quite so cute any more.  It grinned a smile full of nasty, sharp pointy teeth.

  The monk quickly entered her fighting stance, ready to battle this foe.  The Kardi charged at her, its purring sounding more like laughter.  A well timed kick flew threw the air to intercept the little terror.  A monk's kicks are their strength, if only she could connect her foot to its small body, this nasty little furball would surely perish.

  The foot made contact, all right, but not as the monk would have liked.  The Kardi latched onto her foot with its claws and teeth in a vice-like grip.  The monk screamed in pain, hopping around on one foot, shaking the other in an attempt to remove the little pest.  She eventually dislodged it, at the cost of a few toes.

  The monk regrouped, trying to keep her composure.  The sound of the Kardi crunching on her digits was disconcerting.  She was being taken down by this horror bit by bit.  It was time for strategy.

  The Kardi once more lunged at the monk, who deftly managed to feint and fall to the ground from blood loss, ducking the launching Kardi.  While on the floor, the monk summoned up the protective mists of a monk to give her time to calculate a strategy.

  Shrouded in the mists, the monk climbed back to her feet.  A brief rest, time to recover from her wounds and plan her strategy.  She started to think when she suddenly felt something rip open the back of her calf, and found herself once more on the crypt floor.

  This was not going well.  Lying on her back, with one leg missing toes and the other having a severed calf, there was little hope of the monk fighting her way out of this.  She needed time to heal.  But that thing wouldn't give her the time.  She flailed about in search of some kind of hope, but her hand only found rubble.

  The Kardi leapt upon her prone body, grinning and smiling at her with a now very menacing grin.  The monk did the only thing she could think of.  She grabbed a big chunk of rubble and brought it up to the Kardi's head with all her remaining strength.  A satisfying crack of rock on bone sounded through the air.

  The Kardi fell limp beside her, its cute and fuzzy fur now marred with blood and what looked like bits of brain.  This ferocious little terror would haunt no longer.

  The monk used some fifleaf deum to stop her rapid blood loss, and grabbed the carcass of the Kardi, dragging it up out of the crypt.  That old man was going to get a sound thrashing with this thing.  She thought, perhaps, the lesson the old man taught her came at too high a price...

 Most tales, though they seem farcical, can be founded in fact.