Smiling to himself, Joachim watched the fire. But, then his smile faded, into a look of concentration. "Yes, it is where we're going." He said, musingly. Then he remained silent for a time, deep in thought. Sometimes, a ranger had no other company but for his thoughts. It took Joachim a minute to remember that he did have other company.

"Sef." He said slowly. "You are going south, to the long mountains and beyond, following the stories of your elders. You entire journey is all rife with danger." Joachim stood up slowly, drawing nearer to the fire. "I am doing the same exact thing. What if, we-"

From deep within one of the tunnels, branching off from the alcove, a wet slithering sound echoed loudly. It came closer, growing louder by the second.

Sef watched the other ranger closely. She had some idea where he was going with this, and wondered how she felt about it. Yes, of course it made sense. They were heading into unknown territory and, like fledgeling rangers, it was safer to have someone there to learn with you.

But she was interrupted by the sound of company. Her hand found her spear and she pulled herself into a crouched position. It definitely wasn't Dessa - she wouldn't fit into such a small space. Because of the odd way the cave echoed it was difficult to tell from which direction it came.

It was the sound of a slithering scaly belly rubbing against wet stone, unmistakable for anyone that's heard it before. Growing louder and louder, it was then punctuated by a hissing noise like a person shaking a bag full of debris. Then, it's head poked from the tunnel to the right and answered all questions. The monster was a thing like a snake, a tube-like body full of rough pointed scales. It's head was slender and thorny, and as it raised up into the more roomy alcove it unfolded a pair of arms that looked like nothing but huge scythes. They matched the fangs in it's mouth.

Joachim sprang to his feet, gripping his staff defensively. His first impulse, to call for Grint, was useless. With nothing else but his hard wooden staff, he pushed aside his fear and glanced to Sef. Her long pointy spear made him jealous. "Seen one of these before?"

"No," Sef said through gritted teeth. She'd done as thorough of an inspection of the cave as she could before she settled in, and not even Dessa had seemed to smell anything amiss before she wandered off into the ocean. Where had this thing been hiding?

As with most animals, any sudden movements were a bad idea so she remained crouched with her spear raised in front of her, ready to thrust up if it lunged at her. "Are they poisonous?" she asked, slowly turning so her back was to the exit. If given a choice she preferred to retreat rather than engage.

The snake didn't seem overly aggressive. It hissed more than anything, waving it's weird spike-hands intimidatingly. All of it's scales were dripping wetness, like it had just popped straight out of some little pool of water somewhere. Joachim shivered to think what else might be hidden deep within those tunnels. For the first time in his life, he suddenly felt claustrophobic.

Reaching out, he grabbed a light hold of Sef's shirt with his blackened arm to get her attention. "We can't leave behind all your things. You might need them. Watch my back." And like that, carefully, he crept forward towards the creature, bending low to try and pick up the bedroll and anything else he could reach... before the strange snake lost it's patience.

A frown of bewilderment broke through the tension and surprise on Sef's face. For a brief second she forgot all about the snake and the danger and she could do nothing but stare at Joachim as if he'd sprouted a second head. He wanted her to watch his back? No, no. He wanted her to watch his back while he leapt into battle in defense of her - her things.

Really. Really?

The frown deepened. That wouldn't do.

"You watch mine," she said with a certain huffy tone and lunged forward past him. Not giving her next move a great deal of thought, she simply did what seemed like the best idea under the circumstances. She defended it by reminding herself that a plan was better than no plan.

Using her bare hand she snatched up a glowing piece of burning coal and tossed it into the snake's face. It was out of her hand too quickly for her to feel the pain - yet. A split second later the tip of her spear shot out through the air at the underbelly of the snake.

Quite confused by what was happening, Joachim stopped and watched her leap into battle with the weird snake monster. Why had she sounded so put-off? Did he do something wrong? He couldn't really think of what, not in the short time he had before she'd attacked their predator.

The coal frightened the snake unmistakeably, it dodged it's agile head out of the way and watched the glowing coal soar by it. What it did not dodge, however, was the point of her spear snicker-snacking it's way through the air and scoring into it's softer pale underbelly. With a hiss of anguish, it slithered back with lightning speed and then raised both of it's spikes. As it chopped them through the air, Joachim reacted just enough to batter one of them off-course from Sef's vital bits. The other descended with bloody revenge on it's mind.

Adrenalin surged through Sef's body, heightening her senses and making every moment seem to drag on for an age. She smirked in satisfaction when the spear hit home, but wasted no time on self-congratulation. With her primary weapon out of reach she went for the knife at her belt - used just minutes ago to kill and gut a fish.

Pulled out of its sheath, she raised it up only to have it knocked out of her grip by a hard, jarring blow. The snake had lunged at her even quicker than she'd expected it to and for a second fear gripped at her chest. She was weaponless.

Weaponless but not alone, however. She became aware of Joachim next to her, blocking a blow from the snake with his blackened arm.

It dawned on the male ranger that he relied heavily upon Grint's spikes and teeth. When something needed to be killed, it usually turned out that his beast had it under control. This was now a glaring weakness made all the worse every second. He was happy when Sef had stuck the snake, but just restrained himself from cheering as he saw it hadn't killed it immediately. Now a green ooze leaked from the wound around the bobbing shaft of the embedded spear, bubbling and frothing encouragingly. The snake's blood, probably.

But, his companion was weaponless and all he had was a weird arm and a long stick. As the monster slithered forward a little, raising it's scythes once more, Joachim gripped his staff in both his hands like a sword. He ran forward, raising it above his head, and swung wildly at the air. It was a suicidal attack, lacking in expertise or finesse, but it did make the snake hesitate... whether in fear or just confusion, it was difficult to say.

And that was how Sef learned that her new companion wasn't particularly good in a fight. Seeing him leap into the arms of death without so much as a blade to his name, she reacted instinctively. One of her feet shot out and kicked at the back of his legs, knocking them out from underneath him. Rolling into the next movement, she pushed herself upright and made a grab for the spear still stuck in the struggling snake.

With her momentum lending her extra strength she took a hold of the end and thrust it home, hoping to overpower the injured snake and keep its wicked claws away from her with the length of the spear between them.

The snake reared backwards as the spear drove in a little deeper, eager to escape the way it was tearing up it's insides. It slashed at the air a few times, fast enough to whistle in the air, but they were wild. hissing, opening it's mouth wide, it found itself pinned against the wall of the cave as Sef pushed it away. The fight slowly drained from it, weakly swiping in an attempt to knock the spear away.

Meanwhile, Joachim was smarting from being knocked to the floor. Though his knee didn't feel so great from getting knocked on the ground, it was his pride that hurt most of all. He stood and watched the struggle between Sef and the snake thing, feeling uncertain. The wooden staff was laying on the floor beside the campfire. Instead of reaching for it, he reached into the campfire with his black hand, feeling nothing. He took aim at the pinned beast, waiting, and threw just as it opened it's mouth once more. The burning chunk went straight in, and the snake gulped it down in surprise.

The snake was dying. It was nearing the end of its strength and Sef could feel its struggles through the spear growing weaker and weaker. She gritted her teeth and waited, keeping the pressure on the spot where her blade pierced its torso.

Her mouth fell open when a burning coal flew through the air and slid right down the snake's throat. "What are you doing?" she yelled, horrified. An earsplitting sound tore through the small space and she cringed. The creature was screaming, an unnaturally high pitched sound of agony.

Sef redoubled her efforts to ram the spear home and in the process twisted it upwards, trying to find its heart and kill it quicker. "Why would you do that?" she demanded angrily.

"What?" He responded defensively. "I was hoping it'd choke and die! What's wrong with that?"

His defense wasn't exactly solid, of course, and he found it hard to really look at her. But then, she had knocked him to the ground in front of a deadly monster. Something about that made him feel more in the right. Snatching up his staff, he watched Sef and the beast struggle out some more, not moving forward. There wasn't exactly a whole lot else for him to do now.

The snake monster was quickly losing it's strength now, not even able to hold it's arms up any longer. In addition to bleeding profusely, it was also gasping in weird pitiful sounds. It wasn't long before it slid back against the wall, down to the floor, and ceased to move.