“I want to assure you that there is no shame in turning back,” offered Sparrow. “No one would think any less of you.”

“Of course not, it wouldn’t be possible to think any less of me unless they never knew that I existed in the first place.”

“Helmut…”

It was then, at the most inopportune time that Sparrow chose to reflect on why he had allowed Helmut to come with him. No, not allowed, invited; Sparrow was the one that had brought Helmut into this late night hunt and he was rapidly coming to regret that. The non-pointy eared elvan with the tiny eyes and big nose couldn’t be considered part of his family, so what business did he have involved in this ?

“Whether you are having second thoughts or not, I am involved in this,” stated Helmut, glancing around a corner before telling Sparrow to advance with a wave of his hand. “For all we know, this monster may not be that strong at all,” he considered. "Besides, what will happen if we let this monster keeping make its home here ? Your people will keep getting sick and dying and since we are the only two willing to do anything about it, we'd might as well get it done now."

"Might as well," shrugged Sparrow. "Don't come crying to me if you get eaten."

"Do you want to turn back, to avoid punishment for getting caught entering the cave ?" inquired Helmut, scaling the cliff face of the latest room they had entered. "What kind of punishment is it, anyway ?"

"Nothing a foreigner has to worry about," replied Sparrow, dusting off the back of his pants. "Given our luck, we probably won't find the thing."

A low, seething growl caused Sparrow's ears to perk, Helmut equally aware of the third presence within the cave mouth in front of them. Proceeding the growl was silence, proceeding the silence was a pair of dark red eyes and proceeding the dark red eyes were the ivory teeth of a thunder lizard.

Sparrow parried the beast’s snapping jaws while Helmut leapt backwards, landing on the above ledge that they had moments ago been fussing over. “Guess it was looking for us as much as we were looking for it,” he noted with cautious humor, slipping the mittens that were attached to his belt on in one fell swoop.

“Looks like,” admitted Sparrow, retrieving three arrows.

The monster roared, dragging its full girth behind it as it released a blast of black fire that Sparrow darted out of the way of. All three arrows hit their mark, if failing to fulfill their purpose, snapping in a similar manner to how Helmut imagined that their spines might soon.

This thought did not prevent the young man’s bounding off the ledge, abandoning its relative safety to land a single punch on top of the beast’s head, driving it into the jagged flooring of the cavern.