The water was much calmer now than it had been in the storm, and the rain was no longer pelting the ship and its passengers. This was definitely an improvement from their previous situation, wasn't it? No. It was not.

The rumbling groan of whatever gargantuan titan of the sea that had just swallowed the boat whole rumbled through the water, shaking the boat and echoing all around them. The insides of the creature were pitch black. There was not a single glint of light on the water or a star in the sky. Everything was blotted out by the thick walls of flesh around them. They couldn't even tell how far away those walls might be. The creature was massive. It felt like it had swallowed the entire sea around them.

As they stood there silently, the silence was finally broken by Russel calling out from the bow of the ship.

"Robert! Are you out there!? Er, in here? Hello?" he shouted into the darkness.

For a moment, all they could hear was the water lapping at the side of the boat. But then, they heard a response.

"Russel!? Is that you? I'm here! And so is the rest of the crew! Where are you? We can't see squat! We can't tread water for much longer. We're exhausted." the gruff voice of Robert called back.

They didn't sound as far as they had looked before they'd all been swallowed. They must have been pushed closer together by the creature's jaws closing. That was good, at least. But how would they help them up onto the boat in this darkness? More importantly, how would they get out of here?

If Astrid hadn't been hanging on to the mast of the ship, surely she would have been thrown from the deck when the ship crashed into the belly of the beast. In fact, she continues to hold on until she's absolutely certain that the ship won't rock anymore. Finally, she takes one tentative step away from the mast and looks around. The cavern is filled with water and lined with repeating ridges. Above there seems to be a spine running down far into the darkness. Everything is wet, ping tinged with veins occasionally being seen when lightning flashes outside. 

"This place is real... meaty..." she says, her eyes shining gold in the darkness. "Did...did we get swallowed?" 

Russel runs to the side of the ship and calls out for Robert, and Robert replies. They can't see? Oh, but she can! "Mister Robert, keep shoutin'!" she says, rapidly working to untie herself from the rail. "Which direction are ya?"

Robert calls back, "I don't know! It's pitch black!"

"No, no, that's good, keep shoutin'!" Astrid rushes to the front of the ship and squints her eyes to look around in the direction of the voice. She can just barely make out some shapes in the murky water. "There! I think they're there!" Astrid points excitedly, realizes no one else can see her, so she searches for the oars and shoves one into Blue Raspberry's hands. Then she leads Russel to the helm. "Follow my directions!" she shouts then hops down and gets to rowing with her knight friend. 

---

Night Vision

With the oar in their hands, Blue Raspberry doesn't actually know where anything is or what to do. They can't see anything. After a moment of Astrid sitting in the other rowing spot while Blue Raspberry fumbles around, she finally helps the poor ooze into the seat and gets the oar positioned properly for them so they can start rowing.

With the girl's directions, Russel manages to steer the boat and her and Blue Raspberry row until they're close enough to star hauling the floating sailors on board. One at a time, they throw out the life preserving donut for the men and shout directions for them to find it in the inky darkness. Three of them are on board when a splashing sound can be heard in the water. It sounds a bit further away than the men to Blue Raspberry and Russel. The two men still in the water also seemed a bit confused about what might be making the noise. They knew it wasn't them.

The only one able to see what the cause of the noise is, Astrid can see something breaching the surface of the water a ways away. It looks to be some kind of tentacle, and it's getting closer. Clearly, the ship and the stranded fishermen weren't the only ones that had been swallowed by the enormous creature. They weren't as safe in her as they might have thought. Well, less safe than the insides of a giant monster, which honestly didn't sound like a very safe place to begin with.

With all her might and best direction shouting skills, Astrid helps pull the men on board. Russel and Robert embrace, panicking about the conundrum they find themselves in. The half-dwarf is glad to have reunited a family. It's the closest thing to the warm fuzzies she can feel with as drenched as she is. The creature around them groans, and it's deafening. She feels like her ears will burst, but that doesn't stop her from hoisting the fishermen up. She hears one of the men trip behind her, and says back to Russel, "Hey, haven't ya got any lights or anythin' on board?" 

He seems flustered when he replies, "I have a few lanterns, but they were soaked by the storm." 

"Russel, this is exactly why I packed a few into the cabin," Robert says. He sounds exasperated and exhausted, as if he might fall out at any moment. It seems the two husbands plan very differently for circumstances. "It'll be hard to see in the pitch. Girl," he pauses, not knowing if she's truly little but thinking he'll say that, "can you fetch it quickly? I think we'll be alright for a moment." He quickly explains where the lantern is. 

"Sure can!" Astrid says, much too chipper for a situation in which she nearly drowned and has now been eaten by a monster. She rushes into the cabin and starts searching quickly for a lantern. Finally, she locates a simple oil lamp with a brass base and handle and lights it. The cabin flushes in warm light, and she takes a quick glance around before rushing back onto deck. The light is enough for the fishermen and Blue Raspberry to see but it eventually tapers off farther down the back of the creature. They all get a decent look at where they are just as the third man is pulled aboard. Astrid hurries over to help the last two when the water shifts in the distance. "What the?" she wonders, leaning on the rail and squinting her eyes. 

Whatever it is has puckers and looks...sort of like one of the Eclipse City street foods: fried octopus on a stick. The street food is coming right towards them! Right towards the last two fishermen! Can they haul them up in time? Probably not. The ship lurches slightly with the movement of the water, and the sailors startle, wondering what's happening. 

"On yer feet! Somethin's in the water!" Astrid shouts, whipping out her hammer. "Pull up the last two! Blue, you and me got somethin' ta deal with!"

The ship lurches again, and it's quickly followed up by the massive cepholapod bursting forth from the water. The lantern light catches its glistening form and beady eye, and water droplets rain down in a shower of warm sparkles. Now they don't just have to escape the belly of the beak, but the capture of a kraken.

With the bit of lantern light, Blue Raspberry can finally see the dimly lit surface of the boat and a bit away in the water. The giant creature in the water was headed directly toward them and looked really tasty. No, it looked scary! It looks a lot like that street food though. What was it called? Calamari? Yes, it looks like calamari, but bigger!

The ooze knight ran over to the side of the boat and jumped over the railing, diving into the water headfirst with their arms at their sides. They landed in the water with a splash and immediately realized it was a bit darker down here in the water than it had been up on the boat. They're also sinking thanks to their armor. This may have been a mistake.

The other sailors are close to the ship, trying to get aboard as quickly as possible. It's much easier now that they have a bit of light to see what they're doing, but they'll still take a moment too long to escape the creature. Blue Raspberry will have to distract the creature. Underneath the dark water, the ooze absorbs their armor and transforms into their vaguely humanoid shape and swims toward the approaching calamari. They begin to spark with electricity, providing a very small bit of light.

The creature takes immediate notice of the lights and movement coming from the water below and starts to swim toward their source instead, thinking it could be a new meal. The fishermen are escaping onto the boat, but this one won't be able to from all the way down there. It'd be much easier prey.

It thinks that until it gets close and feels the shock of the electricity coming from the ooze.

In the chaos of trying to foist the fishermen up onto the boat, Astrid doesn't notice Blue Raspberry go for a swim. The creature suddenly redirects its attention, and she lets a slight sigh of relief escape her lips. Then she focuses and gets the last two fishermen on board. They all collapse tiredly, but there's panic, as the ones with enough energy run to find spears and oars and try to row away from the monster. It's a struggle, but Astrid manages to count them. Four... five... six. "That's all of them, Blue! Let's take this thing down! Light me up!" 

Astrid holds her hammer out, expecting Blue Raspberry to be at her side and ready to practice an as of yet unnamed maneuver where the ooze sets some electrically charged ooze on her hammer then she throws the hammer at an enemy. Now that she's gotten a cord attached to the hammer, she can pull it back. But the ooze doesn't respond, and she's left standing in a ready pose, still amongst the chaos on board.

Then she notices the blue glow under the surface of the water, and her expression becomes somewhat dreadful. "Oh Blue, I can't help ya down there..!" she groans. What can she do to help? The fishermen bring forth a few spears, so she rushes over and grabs one and launches it into the water as hard as she can hoping to at least skim the monster. She's never thrown a spear before though, and she overshoots the spear by a lot. In fact, it sails across the surface of the water and embeds itself in the meat cavern walls. The world around them shakes as a blustery groan reverberates throughout the chamber. Astrid clutches her ears this time. Oops.

The calamari creature lets out a screech as its tentacles are shocked from coming within range of the blue ooze's ability. Like an electric eel, they swim up to the creature and grab hold of the tentacle, shocking it further and starting to burn it. They bite down on the tip of the tentacle, trying to eat it like some enormous noodle.

This doesn't taste as good as the ones from the city. Blue Raspberry thought to themself as they ate the slightly burnt, slightly melted tentacle of the creature. It screeched out in pain again, trying to whip at the ooze with its other remaining tentacles to get it off of it. After a moment, the tentacle that Blue Raspberry is biting onto and has eaten about half of is whipped upward, flinging the blue ooze up out of the water and onto the deck of the boat.

They land on the deck with a plop, squishing and flattening slightly from the force of the landing before reforming into their (relatively) regular shape. They look around at the sailors on the deck who are now staring at the blue ooze that just landed on their ship with no idea they were actually the knight that had just dove into the water.

"Uhh, blub blub. I'm just a jelly fish. Bye bye." Blue Raspberry said before sliding back, away from the men with spears and toward the railing on the opposite side of the boat.

The creature continued to screech, but with no easy prey visible in the water, it looked to the boat itself and began reaching its tentacles toward the deck.

As things stop rumbling, Astrid pulls her hands away from her ears only to hear the screeching of the tentacle creature then an absolutely meaty slap. She looks over to see a splatter of blue ooze pull itself together into a blobby form. In that moment, she feels dread and panic, which is only exacerbated by Blue Raspberry's not very convincing lie about being a jellyfish. Already in a tizzy and looking for something they can fight effectively, the fishermen shout and try to spear the ooze, but a tentacle slams into the deck of the ship, separating the sailors from the ooze. The boat rocks and more tentacles begin to wrap around the vessel. Everyone's attention turns to the tentacles and they begin harpooning and slashing the meat noodles with all their remaining might. Astrid gets a few good whacks in before rushing over to the ooze.

"Blue! They all saw ya!" she fusses. Her voice is nearly drowned out by the monster's screeching. There are few times when Astrid looks truly worried. This is one of those times. "Get back in yer armor or- I dunno! Zap the monster from the inside! Dissolve 'em? I dunno if sea beasts have stomach bile! Do they even have a stomach??" A tentacle comes whipping in their direction, and she mashes it with her hammer. It seems annoyed but not deterred. "I think I need a bit of yer static!" Without waiting for a response, Astrid peforms a trick she and Blue Raspberry have done a couple times before. Usually Blue Raspberry will touch and coat her hammer with a bit of electrified ooze, but this isn't the time for formalities. She instead just skims her hammer across the top layer of sparky ooze, drops it from her hand but catches the cord embedded in the end, and spins the hammer around to get enough momentum to yeet it into the approaching tentacle. The heavy metal slams into it, and residual electricity carries through the slimy appendage. The creature shrieks again, and the tentacle limply falls away from the ship into the water. 

---

Charged Object
Weapon Tether

That felt weird, having a bit of their slime scraped off of them and onto the hammer, but they'll just choose to trust that Astrid had a reason for doing that. It did seem to be helping make her hammer more sparky. Also slimey, but that didn't seem very useful. It must have been for the sparkiness.

With the sailors' attention taken by the remaining tentacles, Blue Raspberry took the opportunity to slip into something a little less revealing. Their form hidden once again in the heavy, metal, incredibly non-buoyant plate mail, they stood up and began trying to help stop the tentacles. They rush up to the railing with the sailors, who are trying to defend themselves with spears. One of the sailors is surprised to see the armored knight there, since they'd watched the man dive into the water just a few moments ago, but doesn't question it. The tentacles are their biggest concern at the moment.

One of the tentacles attempted to wrap around the knight, but the arcs of electricity connecting with it made it spasm and go numb, collapsing to the deck and sliding off into the water. Blue Raspberry really wanted to eat the tentacle, but it would have been difficult to do so in their armor and also in front of all the sailors. They just had to let it go.

With several of its tentacles numb and useless and many of them bleeding from stab wounds from the sailor's spears, the calamari creature let out an angry cry of defeat and retreated. This meal had proven far too troublesome for it.

"Uhhhh, how did you get back onto the ship?" Robert asked Blue Raspberry now that the immediate danger had passed.

"Uh... a very friendly jelly fish gave me a ride?" they answered, very convincingly.

Finally, things on the ship settle, and Astrid pants heavily. They're safe-er for now. There's still the matter of getting out of the monster cave. She feels she can relax some now that Blue Raspberry is back in their armor, but then they say they got a ride from a jellyfish. She smacks her hand against her forehead and cringes. Is she the best liar in the world? Absolutely not. Is her ooze best friend the best liar in the world? Definitely not. "Blue..." she groans quietly before rushing over to the group. 

"That big monster was a jellyfish, yeah?" she tries to cover it up. "Blue got thrown back on board by its big tentacles!"

The crew doesn't seem quite convinced. "Jellyfish have tentacles, sure," Robert says. "But those were more like a squid or an octopus..." There seems to be some recognition since the mysterious ooze called itself a jellyfish before too. Robert gives Blue Raspberry a confused, suspicious look, but before he can say anything, another tired fisherman speaks up, his arms flailing about wildly.

"I've heard of beasts like those! Giant squid but a more monstrous kind! They sink ships and eat sailors! Probably whipped up the storm, too! Krakens, they're called! Never thought I'd live to see one! Never thought I'd live if I did!" he rambles.

"We're not out of the water yet," Russel says. He's bruised and battered, but seems to be in good spirits. He has his husband and the crew back, after all. "Or maybe I should say out of the belly?"

Russel stops and thinks for a bit.

"I'd say maybe we could try to just tear our way out, but if the thing is miles beneath the surface now, that'd be the death of us. We need it to surface before we can escape, but there's no telling when it's doing that. We also don't even know if we could tear our way out in the first place. That spear earlier annoyed it, but who knows if it did any actual damage?"

He looks over to the stomach wall that was closest, where the spear had landed. He stroked his beard in though for a moment before nodding to himself.

"Right, first we should just get closer to the wall and check things out. There's no wind in here, so we need to row. I'll take one oar. You've got the best eyes right now, so you steer." he said, pointing to Astrid.

"And you take the other oar." he pointed to Blue Raspberry.

"Everyone else can rest up. You must be tired from keeping above the water for so long." he said this glancing between the rescued sailors, his eyes stopping on Robert and looking concerned.

The sailors all lied down on their backs on the deck, exhausted. Blue Raspberry took an oar and got into position, a little nervous about their identity being discovered. Russel seemed to just be ignoring the oddity of the knight for now and took and oar on the other side of the boat. They began rowing as Astrid guided the ship toward the walls, hoping to find a way out of the massive beast.

Astrid has no issues finding the cavern walls. Or the walls of the beast's stomach? She's not sure. They row until they bump the side and the beast groans in complaint. It's been a while since she's seen a flash of lightning backlight the monstrosity. She's tired and at a loss for what to do. With her hand solidly in a glove, Astrid prods the side of the stomach. Maybe with enough force they could puncture it, but that wouldn't do them much good, especially if they're far beneath the ocean's surface. So what exactly are they to do? 

She looks around the cavern, and instructs them to follow the wall and see if they can find the end. Honestly, she'd prefer the mouth to the rest of the digestive track. That would solve the issue of where to exit, and the how? Well, they could probably just ram the mouth hard enough to get it to open. It's possible they'd just have to accept that the ship might not make it, but if the ship doesn't make it, then none of them will last on the swim back to shore. So what do they do...? They take a break from rowing, and she ponders, her finger tapping against her chin. It'd help if they knew anything about this monster. 

"Mister Russel, ya got any books about sea monsters on board?" she finally asks. Russel says he does and goes to retrieve a couple of them. Astrid sets them on a dry crate and starts looking through them for anything that might give them a hint to where they are. There are tales of giant whales, krakens, dragon turtles, and island turtles. Only a few monsters are large enough to swallow a ship whole. The one that scares her most is one whose name she can't pronounce. "A cherry-bud-des?" 

"A charybdis!" the kooky man from earlier exclaims. Suddenly he has the energy to get to his feet and scrambles over. "Ya think we might've been swallowed by a giant sea worm?? The whirlpool of death itself?!" 

Astrid is surprised by the outburst and looks at the man. "I mean... I don't know? Seems like one of the only things big enoough to have eaten us whole. And the big squid might've been a kraken!"

"Oh, I don't doubt that one bit. Nasty suckers, them sea beasts. If one of them swallowed us... well they say the Charybdis could swallow the entire sea itself if it wanted!" 

Astrid rubs her head. "How d'we get outta here?" She looks over at Blue Raspberry. "Any ideas how we could make it surface?" 

Blue Raspberry just shrugs their imitation shoulders. They have no idea about how to deal with any of this. They could probably survive this, since they can breathe underwater, but they're worried about everyone else on the ship. It was weird that they were eaten and are still alive. The ooze was used to anything they ate immediately dying from being dissolved, but it seemed not every creature did that. They looked around to try and get an idea.

Looking around, it actually became apparent that the walls and ceiling of the cavernous stomach were moving, rotating. The water they were on just kept the boat level, like a gyroscope. The creature was probably swimming around in every direction and they just hadn't been able to tell before.

"Can Kerry bidets talk? Maybe I can go out there and ask it to surface and spit out the boat?" the knight turned to Astrid and asked.

They wanted to try reading the book, but they didn't actually know how to read. Though, the three voices in the back of their mind did for some reason. But the ooze hardly had any opportunities to practice reading. Maybe they should go to a book store once they get back to a city. Oh, but first they need to get out of the Coral Booties.

Astrid looks over the book again for any signs of the Charybdis having a language. She turns page after page but finds nothing of the sort. "Well... the book doesn't say it can talk, but the book could be wrong." This is certainly a sticky situation. "I'm willin' ta see ya try it. I guess I'm just worried that if the monster opens its mouth, there'll be more water in here than air and then we'll all...drown. That don't sound too fun ta me." She looks around at the sailors napping on the deck. Including her life and Blue Raspberry's, that's eight lives at stake here. The ship can't take on a bunch of water, and if it overturns, it'll likely do just that and sink. 

So their issue boils down to a few main problems: 1) How do they get the creature's mouth open? 2) How do they get to the surface when its mouth opens? 3)How do they survive all of it? 

She decides she needs a brain break and snaps the book closed and paces the deck then eventually paces in and out of the cabin. Russel starts to wonder if she'll wear a hole in the floor. Eventually she finds a book about ships and nautical vehicles and starts flipping through it for ideas. Think, Astrid, think. They need air. Looking for more ideas, she goes below deck where the cargo and tools are absolutely strewn about. Barrels, crates, boxes, and the like are tangled in fishing nets. Maybe she can use some of that. How do fish swim up and down, she wonders? Back into the cabin to read about fish. 

Astrid's trips between cabin and cargo go on for a couple of hours and are regularly met with banging around, curses as she smacks something, and groans as whatever she's doing doesn't work. The crew, now somewhat rested, get antsy, but she kicks them out of her new work area so she can focus on testing ideas. Finally, she rushes up on deck carrying a bucket tied to a rope and a few knick knacks in her hand. She dumps the bucket overboard and pulls it up, full of water. Then she sets it down heavily on deck and sits in front of it. At this point, Russel and Robert are watching curiously while she turns what looks like a tiny boat upsidedown and pushes it under the surface carefully. Then she reaches her other finger and checks it and finds that yes, there is air in the boat. When she lets it go, it flips over, fills with water, and sinks. So then she pulls out another half of the same sort of boat shape, picks up the waterlogged one, shakes the water out, and ties the two together, concave sides facing. She pushes it under water and watches for bubbles then releases it. It floats to the top.

The fishermen are confused, so then Astrid goes about the explanation of a swim bladder and how the boat basically needs that so it can float to the surface. A balloon filled with air to carry them up, but she says it'll have to be large, and if they can't then maybe they can use the dinghy instead since it's more manageable. The sail might make a good material for this balloon of sorts, but she's not convinced they can make it water tight. The barrels on ship are water tight, so they could all shove themselves in the barrels to get to the surface, but then they have no way to paddle back to shore. So she's stuck and exhausted, and plops back on her back to take a break. 

Blue Raspberry just watches Astrid work, not really understanding what she's doing, but also not wanting to interrupt. As they watch her move back and forth, They put a gauntleted hand to the bottom of their helmet and try to also think of something helpful.

Boats float. Fish can breathe water. I can breathe water. Maybe I could just eat them and swim to the surface. No, then they'd be dead... We wanted to save them alive, didn't we? So that wouldn't work. What if they ate the boat? No, it's kind of big. They're not sure they can actually do that. At least not in one piece. What's the biggest animal they can turn into? They can turn into a pretty big wolf, but that's not as big as the boat. They can also turn into a bird. And a lizard. And a dog. Wait, none of those would be helpful. What were they trying to think about again? Oh yeah, something big! A wolf... no... A really big bird? It's hard to try and figure out what the biggest animal they can turn into is when they can't actually practice. All the sailors around would see.

After a while they walk up to Astrid and lean down to whisper to her.

"What are you doing? Do you have a plan? Can I help? I don't know what to do."