Yes, because not all heroes are idiots

You let out a sigh. Mentally, because you had no ability to vocalize your thoughts and in fact knew sound only as a concept; being a cephalopod you were familiar with pressure changes but had no dedicated organ to detect and analyse them.

While being level 15 was far from granting you true freedom, it allowed you to leave the pond for 18 seconds, before you started to dehydrate, then another 200 seconds for your hydration to go to 0 and then you lost HP at 16 points per second, which thanks to your increased health pool gave you a total of 4 minutes and 3 seconds of air time. 4 minutes and 2 seconds since you actually had to make contact with the water to not die.

The reason you (mentally) sighed was, that your time exploring the dungeon after killing another may level idiot was cut short by you being reset because somebody else new entered the dungeon. This was the most boring part of your existence: waiting in your base form for a hero to make it to you, without a way of knowing, whether they were even still alive.

You spent the time playing around. For example you had recently discovered that even though there was nothing listed on your character sheet to suggest this, you could squirt water. From what little experimentation you've done it wasn't listed because it didn't cause damage, knock-back, stagger or aggro. All it did was make the target area wet for a few seconds, not long enough to use it to extend your roaming range. You were training your aim on the leaves of the mangrove, when the heroes came in.

They had been quick and one look explained why: Only one was a pure magic user; while the cleric surely was also bothered by the neigh omnipresent effects that drained MP and reduced the effects of spells, straight up magic resistant enemies and the 'Arcane Mimics' which could cast a copy of every spell used in their vicinity for 2 MP, she still could function as the parties tank effectively. Then there was a Beastmaster, or rather Beastmistress, you could tell, because you could see as much on her tag, not because she had a pet or familiar or anything of the like. While you knew, that beastmasters had access to some magical abilities they could do DPS just fine without them. The forth was the most boring individual one could possibly be: A male human fighter. The last one was also a tiny woman who had managed to get right up to you without you noticing: "Finally, Mp's coming back!" Judging from that you assumed she had an arcane trickster build going. As they leisurly explored the cave for anything of interest other than your pond, which was illuminated by a ray of sunshine falling through the ceiling, you decided to read as much of their character sheets as you could:

"Ariadne Lightweaver [Wizard] [Gnome] lvl 12"

"Helga Helspurger [Cleric] [Dwarf] lvl 12"

"Athariel of the Hunting Woods [Beastmaster] [Wood Elf] lvl 12"

"Schlch [???] [???] lvl 6"

"Joylanda the happy [Rogue] [Halfling] lvl 12"

Your happiness over finally encountering a group, that might actually be smart enough to earn your dagger evaporated. There names were lazy, the fighter apparently simply hit his keyboard instead of even coming up with something as stereotypical as 'Joylanda the happy', The fact that they already had some very good gear for their level, that they made it to you in record time and that their races and classes _happened _to synergise this well made it simply unlikely, that they were playing for fun. These people probably only made these character specifically to get through this dungeon as efficiently as possible.

You were a little bit intrigued by the fighter however: even if he was covered in armor, you had never seen somebody being more obviously being a human fighter, yet his character sheet refused to display both. Before you could finish scouring your knowledge of how the world works, for a reason you wouldn't be able so see someone's race, the beastmistress Athariel was standing ankle deep in your pond. A silvery piece of fabric popped out of her inventory and fell in the water in front of you. You could tell from the vibrations in the water it was causing, that she was speaking loudly. Of course without ears you had no idea what she was saying. You instead made use of another unlisted ability: since you were a cephalopod you could camouflage yourself, an ability that was represented in the game from lvl 1 with the ability to massivly decrease detection chance and boost your chance to avoid hits. At level 0 the game itself ignored the fact, that you were basically invisible, meaning if anybody looked at you, you'd be highlighted and your tag would show. However against heroes this meant unless they were already aware of where you were, they had a hard time finding you, similar to how a ring on in your loot pile would be hard to find, despite being not hidden at all, as far as the game was concerned.

You crept up on the cloth she had dropped and as soon as you made contact you realised what it was and heard for the first time: "like to talk to you... Hello? Did you ... can you use it on your own, or do I have to equip you somehow?" She looked at the fighter, who gave a weird shrug.

"Uhm, it's not like it'd know, what speaking is, right?", Helga the cleric offered, "Are you sure there's an animal in there? I can't see anything!"

"What do you mean? It's right there. It's touching the echo-scarf-thingy... wait, I think it's because of my class!"

"What?"

"I think I can sense animals, because I'm supposed to tame them!"

The cleric had finally found you and was now argueing with rogue on whether or not you were invisible. To demonstrate the rogue first hid behind your mangrove and then used an illusion-spell. Meanwhile the wizard asked the beastmaster how she had dropped the scarf.

"How the hell did these people get here?"

Even as everybody turned to face you, you needed a moment to realise, that you just spoke. Distinguishing between thinking and speaking came much easier than you expected, as your next thoughts were internal only: How the fuck could someone who gave this strong speedrunner vibes be ... like this?

Sadly instead of answering the question Athariel told you, why she had dropped her echo-scarf into the water: "Uhm, hello uhm Mr Squid... we came here, because we heard there was a dagger here, that would be usefull for Ariaddne here. Could you help us find it? Of course we'll reimburse you for your help in whatever way we can."

You thought about your answer a bit and decided to get into character: "I could help you, but why would I?"

"Please Mr Squid, I've already said we are willing to pay however you want and I am sure we can give you something you have more use for, than this dagger!"

"Let me be clear: Every being in this sacred caverns was tasked with making sure, that this dagger would not fall into undeserving hands. You have not convinced me, that you are deserving."

You were aware, that they were the most exiting thing to happen since you were placed into this pond and you were aware that you risked ending it to quickly, but that last command of the developer was your literal meaning of life and you'd be damned to ignore it in the name of fun.

"I can't imagine we can prove ourselves in here", Joylanda said "How about you come with us until you've got a good idea of us and than you can tell us, whether we're worthy?"

"You're a genius!", Athariel exclaimed, then she started mumbling to herself: "There were like a thousand pop-ups on animals and familiars, one of them must have said, how I invite them into my party." Her face got blank as she read about something she should have used several times by now.

"Before she gets ahead of herself: Do you find Joylanda's proposal agreeable?", Helga taking the role of party leader, asked calmly.

You had trouble containing your excitement: being part of their party, especially as a pet would mean consistent exp gain, actually travel around a bit and most importandly: It would save your progress!

"Bad news!" You turned to face Athariel. You wouldn't be suprised if she somehow didn't have a single taming crystal. "I can't add creatures below level 1 to my party, without enslaving them, so one of you has to let herself get killed by him..."

Was that, why she had no pets? She considered it slavery? Before you could ask, whether they knew that since the update being killed by a critter was handled like suicide and gave a massive exp malus the other three women were already arguing, who would sacrifice herself and judging by their tone, they knew.

"Before one of you tries to drown herself or anything like this, you should know, that I would not object to being tamed and becoming your pet."

"But that would **** you to obey me!"

"I think I can trust anybody who would have this concern to not **** this power over me." In truth you had ample evidence in your knowledge-base, that to sentient creatures taming was pretty much purely formal.

"Are you sure?"

"I've said yes several times now..."

"Ok", she said and hesitantly used a taming crystal on you.

Do you want to be tamed by Beastmaster Athariel of the Hunting Woods(lvl 12)? Yes / No

Athariel blushed: "I'm sorry I didn't ask you, but I didn't get the opportunity..."

"What did you do?"

"I gave you a name..."

You checked... 'Nimis Bracchia' (to many arms).

"I can't complain, though I would like if you'd just called me Nimis."

"Great. Now that that's settled, can you just follow us through the portal?"

"I'll die after 28 seconds after leaving the water, so I won't make it on my own."

"Okay, even if your fine with it and I can summon you back to me every time, we can't just let you die over and over. You'd only get the the shared exp and you probably get it subracted right away for from suicide!"

Finally Schlch, the fighter involved himself in the conversation, though not verbally. He pointed at you and then patted his stomach. Before you could voice your concern, that their friend had just suggested to eat you Helga already gave the ok: "Good thinking, but you have to be fast in case it doesn't work; He said he'd only survive 28 seconds. Ok Nimis: if we don't hear you telling us, that it works within ten seconds, we'll assume it didn't and get you back into the pond."

And again before you could object Schlch grabbed his armour and jumped stomach first into the pond right onto you.