"Friends? In that case, the request I'm about to ask should be only a small burden...

...next time we encounter some-thing that may well escalate from conversation to conflict if threatened, why don't we go with the admittedly unorthodox option of not threatening them?

Just putting that out there.

'Cause, you know, with everything at stake, one might think that, say, accidently angering an elder squid god, and it sounds like we killed a potentially valuable source of information back in the mountain... you know, crazy thought, there was possibly a better possible outcome.

Oh, sorry, I forgot. Respect for the lives and self respect of other sentients is childish. My bad."