And offer them some fish in these trying times.

With the plan, or at least the start of a plan, decided, you swim up with your fish and get out of the water. Now to find where your host's "loyal" companions are, and see if you can work with them, or if they need to become puppets. You expand your sense and immediately find them, and the five giant rats surrounding them.

(Alive, and panicking. Sitting up on a rock but it looks like the rats haven't tried to climb up to them yet.)

Taking in the information you go to the cavern they are trapped in to get a look with your new eyes. You see the rats, three are circling around the rock and two are staring up at the goblins, who see you and start yelling for help.

"Boss! Help me!"

"No, help me boss!"

The selflessness of goblins is absolute. Luckily the rats aren't smart enough to look at who they are shouting towards, and just start moving around faster.

You signal to them to calm down and attack after you distract the rats. They look back and nod, getting their spears ready to jump down. Setting the fish down and readying your bow, you prepare to charm one of the rats.

Sneak Attack- successful, Critical hit! 24 damage

Charm- successful, Giant rat is charmed

With one rat dead and two other rats fighting, the goblins jump down on the last two very confused looking rats and launch their own sneak attacks, killing them instantly. Not a race to waste an opportunity they each take one of the fighting rats and end the fight, then the three of you make sure the rats are all dead.

level up!

Without shame, considering they both thought they were leaving you to die 20 minutes ago, they start scavenging the corpses.

"Hey!" You say getting their attention, "We will come back for that, I need to tell you something first, while we get some food ready," you say gesturing to the fish.

You get a fire started and hand out a fish on an arrow to each of them. You should have expected them to eat the fish raw, but it still disgusted you. Though, they may feel the same way if you get ahold of a nice juicy brain. You'll keep that particular dining habit to yourself of course.

You look them over, and search your new memories. They don't have names but one always wears a blue headband, and the other never leaves hut without his red belt, so red and blue will work as good as anything else for names.

"Did either of you get a message from the gods today?" You ask, wanting to know if the message had been sent to every monster, or if it was only sent to those who woke up with a shard. Then you focus your sense, not wanting to rely on their honesty.

"No boss. Not today, and not since they helped the PCs destroy The Great Goblin Horde," Red explained, looking concerned.

"No messages here either boss," Blue chimes in.

(Both are saying their thoughts openly. Only leaving out the part where they think you are about to say something insane.)

"When I fell into that water a message from the gods appeared to me. It gave me a warning. A warning that we no longer have the protection of respawning. That these lives will be our last, and unless we come together we will all be killed and forgotten." You want to avoid letting others know the world is ending, and you want to keep the knowledge of the Shards to yourself, for now at least.

Red and Blue look sideways at each other and finish their fish, similar rapid thoughts going through their heads.

(Has the boss gone crazy? What if he's not? If we can't even build huts how are we going to survive the next few days? How many times have I been killed, and now I can't die at all? Holy shit, I almost wasted my last life getting eaten by a rat!)

"The good news is that my brother has what we need to claim this cave, and we have the goblins we need to turn it into a more than defensible home, with the resources and materials we need to make anyone pay for every goblin we lose! I just have to convince him that his shiny new necklace isn't worth all of our lives."

""Ha HAHAHA,"" At that last part Red and Blue both start laughing. Then Red remarks, "You know, like we do, that Kluzz would be more than willing to let the tribe die than give up a shiny he sees as his."

"THEN WE KILL HIM AND TAKE IT," you shout. "If that is the only chance we have to survive then, damn it all, I will end my brother to do it!"

"Tell me honestly, do you two want to die so that Kluzz can keep his necklace?"

You begin eating your cooked fish while you wait for them to decide.

They don't disappoint you.

"No," Red says, with Blue nodding in agreement, "but we also don't want to die taking it from him."

You pull out your spider venom, and use all of it on five of your arrows, marking them and placing them back in your quiver. "I don't plan on it being a fair fight, and you two only have to step in if it looks like he will kill me. You don't even need to do it if you think he would still win, though you would be leaving the entire tribe to die. I'm still hoping I can talk him into using the crystal on the cave here," you finish with that, knowing full well you need him to die to take over. The chances of you getting him alone after challenging him are nonexistent, the same if you try to charm even a micro-boss monster like him, and as the tribe stands there would be nowhere private to burrow into Kluzz.

Taking the lead for the two of them again Red says, "When it comes to a fight, and if it looks like you can win, we will step in. We are sure you will find some way to pay us back for our help of course."

Getting up and gesturing for them to get ready to go, you say "Of course, other than you not dying with the rest of the tribe, I will find something to pay the both of you with. Now let's go, we have a long hike and I want to get back to the tribe before dark. Oh, and don't worry about searching the rest of the cave, when we come back and I claim it, anything left here will be ours."

Other than a few wolves keeping an eye on the three of you, the journey back was long but uneventful. Your sense was telling you that your compatriots were getting more nervous the closer you got to the tribe, but had not changed their decisions with the plan. You stayed silent, getting yourself ready for the confrontation.

The three of you walk into the clearing, piles of resources lying scattered around in failed attempts to build huts. The green faces you expect to see all turn towards you, excited to finally have some good news.

"BROTHER!," Kluzz walks up to you bellowing like normal, "All of the other teams have come back with less than promising results. So have you found a new home for us?"

"I have brother, but we will need your new necklace to claim it," you declare, pointing towards it and raising your voice enough for everyone else to hear.

:countdown until world open:
6'10:43'27