"You know what adventurers have a killing of?" he asked, his face ruddy with drink. I shook my head, trying to hide my amusement. I was good at that, honestly. Humans weren't great at recognizing emotion on a reptilian face.

"TREASURE!" he yelled. He slammed his tankard down as he yelled it, sending ale splashing and sputtering in a small arc over the rim of the ceramic mug and onto the wooden table in front of us. The smell of alcohol grew stronger in the room, though I was amazed it even could. Heinem was staring at me now, his eyes full of ugh, optimism. I remembered being annoyed when I first came here and wanting to eat him. He was a boy smaller than I, and just as quick to throw his foolish ideas in my face back then. Drumming my blunted talons on the table, I thought for a moment.

"Ssshhoooo," I said, drawing out the word as my forked tongue flicked out, "yer shaying we should become avenshurers." It wasn't a question but he took it as one anyway.

"YES."

A small scroll of paper appeared from some pack he had on the floor and he flattened it out and pressed it to the tabletop, ignoring the dark spots that bloomed where it soaked up his ale. There was a crude drawing of some long-toothed elf. I couldn't read any of the writing around it, so instead I paid attention to the picture. What some old man had to do with adventure, I was uncertain. Was it a criminal with a reward? That was my guess. Politely, I waited for Heinem to explain to me what the paper meant.

"So this guy stole stuff from a tomb, like LITERALLY tons of gold, Vuk. And they're putting together a group to go get him and haul back everything he stole."

"Who ish?" I asked, leaning back and crossing my arms.

"I don't know, maybe the government."

"There are more than enou' sholdiers to send, that doeshn't make shensh." Before I even finished the sentence, Heinem was shaking his head, holding up his hand as if he'd wanted to interrupt me.

"Not out here in the boonies. I'd just be a waste of their time. I bet the reward is going to be less than some soldier's salary for a week but - now hear me out - what if we go and we bring back the loot but we don't bring it all back? They'd never be able to prove he hadn't spent or sold stuff or whatever so if we bring back all but a few things we'll get the reward and we'll turn a profit!"

"Not if the othersh rat you out," I hissed, shaking my head. It sounded like a bad idea but I'd already made up my mind to go with him. He'd probably get killed if I didn't and I didn't go through all the trouble of not eating him when we were children to let him die so foolishly now.

"Nah," he practically belched at me. "No one will even know. I'm very sneaky!"

Everyone was staring at us. Right. Sneaky.