Astrid attempt to just go to sleep, but her tired brain is still much too active given the situation. She peeks at Blue Raspberry as they lean in close, then she lets her arm flop to the side in defeat. "No..." she says, exhausted. "I don't have much of a plan. Not one that'll work anyway." For the first time since adventuring with Blue Raspberry, Astrid sounds downtrodden. "We could be miles beneath the surface, and we'd have no way ta get up there. I thought maybe I could come up with somethin', but I don't think none of it is practical." 

Astrid rests her arm across her eyes again. She doesn't need to block out any light as if to nap, but she needs to keep her eyes covered so she stops looking around and wondering. After a few minutes, she collects herself enough from her frustration to speak. "Fish have these things called swim bladders, which like... helps them figure out how high or low they're swimmin'. I thought maybe if we had one of those, we could make it to the surface. That's what I was testin' with the bucket, ta see if we're full of air if it'll carry us right up to the top. But that doesn't help us breathe at all.... Unless we was in the bladder. But then how do we get back ta shore? Who knows how far from shore we are..."

The defeatist attitude doesn't suit her, but she has nothing else going for her right now. 

Blue Raspberry sat down on the deck next to Astrid. She seemed different than usual. A lot less energetic and more sad. They didn't like see the girl like this. It felt wrong. Even in dangerous battles where she risked her life, she never seemed so defeated. This situation really must be terrible if it was making her like this.

There just had to be some kind of solution to all this. Something the ooze could help their friend with. But they weren't smart enough to think of anything. They mimicked Astrid, lying down on the deck next to her with a big sigh. Maybe this would help them think.

"Hmmmmmmm.... Hmmmm... HMMMM. Hmm..." they made humming noises, trying to get the idea juices flowing in their ooze brain, hoping for some epiphany, some brain blast, even a brain fart or brain toot might suffice.

They just couldn't come up with any ideas. They turned their head to look at the girl beside them and whispered.

"This is really hard. I don't know what a bladder is or why fish have it, but this sure would be easier if everyone else could breathe underwater too, huh? This Crunchy Biddies thing sure is big. Do you think it ate anyone else before?"

Astrid can't help a giggle as Blue Raspberry says the creature's name wrong yet again. "How did ya even come up with that? Crunchy Biddies??" She looks over at the ooze knight with an amused smile. "The sailor man said Ka-rib-dis. Charybdis." She tries her best to get the ooze to pronounce it correctly, but it only devolves into more madness. After a few minutes, she's back to her perky self, laughing quite hard until her sides hurt. Catching her breath, she lies back on her back and lets out a sigh. "I needed that," she says, her damp hair frizzed and falling beside her face. 

"Do I think it's eaten someone else before..?" she repeats the ooze knight's question. Then it occurs to her that her laughing hasn't stopped echoing. Then it registers that it's not her laughter emanating from somewhere down the cavern. Suddenly the cavern vibrates as the shriek of the kraken from earlier reverberates through the cavern, shaking the water around the ship. "Oh, no, not again..!" She rolls up on to her feet and rushes to the side of the ship, feeling the water shifting and lifting the ship slightly. Astrid peers out into the darkness and sees the water parting as something approaches the ship at breakneck speed. It's probably the kraken. 

"Gods above," she breathes, exasperated. "Have ya not tormented us enough?! Ya want another round of us kickin' yer butt? Cause that's what yer gonna get!" Astrid grips the rail to brace herself, but the creature stops a few dozen feet short of the ship, and from nowhere an expanse of ice forms in the air. She watches it rapidly form towards the ship and grip the rails. The ship shakes, and she whips her hammer out. "Now it's got ice magic?!" The sailors panic, and Astrid starts smashing the ice away from the rails when a crackly, high pitched and angry voice shouts.

"Hey, hey, stop that!" Sliding up and across the bridge is a thin, frail looking old man with a beard that sways near his knees. He has a hooked nose, is balding, and looks like he hasn't seen the sun in a decade at least. "First you attack my Kathleen, then you break my bridge!" His bare feet skid across the ice and land on the deck with the lightest thump anyone ever did hear. He waves his knobby hands towards the confused half-dwarf. "Back off, back off, you disgusting, tiny menace. It's just ice!"

Astrid isn't sure what to make of the situation and can only stand there in place. Maybe she's already lost it?

Blue Raspberry is incredibly confused about this new person here. When they asked their question about whether or not the Carl Ba-Dum-Tiss ate anyone else before, they weren't expecting someone to show up and prove it had. Maybe they should have asked Astrid if she thought it would just go up to the surface and spit them out. Well, it was too late for that now. Who knows if it would work again. The ooze knight stood up, back onto their feet, and took a fighting stance with their fists raised.

"You monsters hurt my precious little baby, Kathleen! Look at her, she's missing a whole tentacle! Barbarians! Hooligans! Rascals! Uh... Scallywags! Hmm... Hoodlums!" the old man shouted, trying to think of every appropriate insult they could. They slowly petered off as they ran out of ideas. "...Barbarians? No, I said that one... Rats! Oh, ne'er do wells! That's a good one. Eh, what was I talking about? Oh, Kathleen! Which one you hooligans hurt my little angel?" he finished angrily, glaring at each of the sailors and adventurers on the ship.

Blue Raspberry raised a hand in answer to the question and looked around at the sailors. Some placed a palm on their forehead while others just looked confused or on guard.

Russel called out to the man. "Your pet kraken attacked us. We only defended ourselves. Trust us, we'd get out of this thing and leave you alone if we could, but we have no idea how far down the creature is and don't want to drown. Did you get swallowed at the same time as us? We ended up in here pretty recently." he said, trying to diffuse the situation peacefully.

The crazy old man turns his ire on Blue Raspberry. "Youuuu no good rotten stinky nobler-than-thou knights!" he rambles, his hands flailing as he stomps about angrily, his bare feet slapping against the deck as he turns around. He nearly pulls what's left of his hair out. "You think you can just go around and attack innocent creatures all for the guts 'n glory of it all! Damn you! Damn all of you!" His hands come up with icy trails following his movements, and he looks ready to blast Blue Raspberry with some kind of spell when Russel draws his attention. 

"My Kathleen didn't do anything of the sort! She's just a hungry girl, and she says you didn't even try to talk to her!" He stomps over to Russel and grabs the fisherman's red beard and yanks on it. "I oughta cut one of your arms off and see how you like it!" He releases Russel's beard, and the captain stumbles away, rubbing his chin in pain while the old man continues. "Nooo I didn't end up in here at the same time as you! Unlike you dumb, digesting idiots I want to be in here! It's the perfect place to escape the heroic fools of the world and keep my Kathleen safe! Instead she still manages to get hurt!!" His icy fury returns, and his eyes glow a bright blue as magic manifests in his hands. "You'll all make nice kebabs for her as retribution!!" Icicles form in the air around him and are about to fire off when Astrid throws her hammer at his feet. It imbeds itself in the deck, and he leaps up in surprise. "YEEEOOOOWCH!!" he cries, suddenly grabbing his foot and hopping around, holding it as if he's in pain. In reality, nothing hit him at all. 

Astrid has never dealt with this kind of crazy before. Is yelling going to help? Maybe. Maybe not. She yells anyway, "Oh come off it, ya crazy geezer!! I didn't hit ya at all!" She walks over and gets her hammer then grabs the crazy man by the beard and yanks him down to her level with a mighty stink on her face. The girl has hit her limits. "Don't ya dare show up on this ship and threaten these folks. Ya want us out of yer hair? Help us get to the surface! We'll be outta here, and ya'll be right as rain! Can ya do that? Huh? Mister Frosty Pants??" She lets his beard go and pushes him back, ready to pummel him with Blue Raspberry if he tries anything else. "Obviously ya can talk ta the beasts, so get us outta here!" 

The crazy man stumbles back into the rail and holds on to it with quivering legs. Not because he's afraid, he's simply just weak. Who knows wha the eats down here? Then he strokes his beard. "Get you back to the surface...? Yes... Yes! Get you out of my hair! Out of my beard! Out of my beast!!" He throws his hands into the air and tromps around in a circle excitedly, his fingers grabbing at nothing. "HOLD ON TO YOUR SEAHORSES!" he shouts, suddenly throwing his hands towards the group of very confused and concerned sailors. Blue magic sprays the entire group, raining down and shimmering like ocean spray in the morning. Everyone feels a bit tingly, but besides that, nothing seems inherently different. 

Russel starts, "Hey, what's the big ide-"

"Charlize, they're on the way up!!" the kooky man shouts suddenly. The cavern around them rumbles violently. The icy bridge between the kraken and the ship begins to break down and shatter. The old man dances around again with a bout of violent laughter then he throws himself overboard. "WHEEEE!" Astrid chases him to the rail only to see him sailing into the air, lifted by a tentacle. He makes a sweeping motion with his arm, and the ship suddenly lurches in the opposite direction, lifted by a sudden wave and rushing through the cavern. Everyone on board hits the deck or grips something to keep their footing as the ship speeds towards some unseen end of the cavern. They can only hear a faint gleeful shouting of, "Hope to never see you againnnn!"

Suddenly the cave opens up. Rows of jagged teeth in circles around the end of the cave. And with the teeth? A wall of water. The ship slams into it, the force threatens to throw the crew off. Suddenly they're all completely surrounded by water, and behind them they see it: the giant sea worm Charybdis in its full glory, a fading shadow in the ocean. The ship doesn't stop moving though. It flies through the water full speed, things getting brighter and brighter until finally with a mighty splash, the ship breaches the surface in a spray of water. The sun is out now, the storm having passed, and after a few moments, the ship, though damaged, settles amongst a calm ocean. 

With the ship safely out of the massive beast, the sailors all heaved a sigh of relief. Russel and Robert embraced, happy to finally be out of such a mess. The ship creaked slightly from the damage, but it was still watertight and they should be able to make it back to shore. They didn't know how far they'd been taken, but with the storm settled and a compass in hand, they could start heading home. Russel walked up to Astrid and reached down to shake her hand.

"Thank you for all your help. My husband and all these sailors would have surely died without your help. I don't know how to repay you. We're already down a boat and this one will need a lot of repair, so I can't really offer any money, but I'll give you a ride anywhere you need to go once we're back in order. Both of you. Uh.. Where's the knight?" Russel finished, looking around at the deck for the armored ooze.

"Honestly, why are you still in here!? I thought I sent all of you back to the surface!" the gnarled old wizard angrily asked the knight that was sitting cross legged on top of Kathleen with him.

"I don't really know. I think I fell off the boat, maybe." Blue Raspberry said with a shrug.

"Well get out. Charlize, one more on the way up!" the wizard shouted out and the walls rumbled once more as the blue light wrapped around Blue Raspberry.

"Did he fall off!? Where is he? How could this happen!?" Robert was asking in a panic.

Suddenly some of the water nearby began bubbling and the knight flew out of the water with a scream, cartwheeling through the air in a long arc, directly over the ship, before splashing back into the water.

Russel just stared at the spot in disbelief for a moment before blinking and shouting orders to throw a life preserver and fish the knight back onto the ship.

Astrid, waterlogged once again but finding that she had no issues breathing while they rushed to the surface, coughs a bit of water up and gets her breath back, dragging herself to her feet. She decidedly did not enjoy any part of that experience, but it's all worth it when Russel and his crew comes over to thank her for her help. "Oh, that's alright, ya don't hafta pay us... maybe feed us and let us clean up and sleep somewhere is alright..." She's about to mention she couldn't have done anything without Blue Raspberry, but the ooze is nowhere to be found. Yet again, Astrid panics and starts searching for the ooze only for the knight to come flying out of the water spinning like a starfish and plopping back into the water. She works hard to pull them back on board and collapses on her back when they're finally safe again. 

"Blue..." she huffs. "What happened? Didja fall off?" It's been hours since they first set off from shore, and she's exhausted. With a heavy armored hand, she pats the knight's chestplate. Clang, clang. "Glad yer alright buddy... That old man sure was weird... I'm tired... Let's have a good feast when we get back ta shore, yeah? Bet Mister Russel and Robert will feed us... At least a normal meal... Nothin' too" -she yawns- "extravagant." The warm sun on her face makes her fall asleep quickly. 

After sailing for quite some time, it seems they'd been taken farther from shore by the Charybdis, the ship finally groaned its way into the docks of Eclipse City. The sailors had had plenty of time to rest on the boat and eagerly disembarked, going back to their own homes and families who would be relieved to seem them home safe. Russel clapped a hand onto both Astrid and Blue Raspberry's shoulders after sending Robert on ahead to get some rest.

"Thank you both again for all your help." he said out loud before leaning closer and whispering. "I know there's something strange about you both, especially you, Mr. Raspberry, but don't worry. I'm not one to judge others for being a little different. I'll make sure the others don't worry so much about it either. It's the least I can do to repay you."

He leaned back away from them and tipped his hat before looking back at the boat with a sigh. It'll take a lot of work to get her seaworthy again. At least he could just work on some other boats until he could get this one back in shape. He nodded to the pair before walking past them, on his way to join his husband in their home and rest himself.

Blue Raspberry waved the man goodbye and then looked around at the shops and stalls that had reopened since the storm had ended. One stall was selling what looked like octopus tentacles on a stick that really reminded the ooze of a tiny version of the kraken they'd fought. They leaned down a little closer to Astrid, both fists held up in front of them.

"Let's get some more street food!" they said excitedly before walking quickly toward the stall with Astrid right behind them. They were really in the mood for some calamari.