Ivy might have yelped her surprise, but she was having trouble breathing, and she knew from a scary experience with her then-four-year-old sister Dahlia, you couldn't make a sound when you were choking. 

Was she choking? It was hard to tell. She couldn't [i]feel[/i] anything wrapped around her neck, but there was definitely a weight centered somewhere over her chest, even as she scrambled to her feet and away from the talking skeleton. The [i]talking skeleton[/i] of a dead [i]pirate[/i] whose name she didn't recognize, but made her shiver anyway. The thing before her was the stuff of literal nightmares, and that was [i]without[/i] the mini-cannon she'd made. She knew precisely what it could do to her, and yet not enough at all. 

But somehow, Ivy could only feel a muted sense of fascination and awe. Her eyes widened at the sight even as Jötz sidled in front of her. She hadn't so much as glanced toward the clank dogs yet. She was sure she could dismantle them, figure out who they'd been kept working after generations underwater. There would be time for that later, assuming she wasn't reduced to a pile of gory, boneless Ivy insides. 

The real mystery stood not three feet away, her pistol held even in one skeletal fist, an eerie, lipless smile that might have been charming if it weren't also terrifying. 

"Th-th-thank -- " she started, then stopped, because her voice had come out all husky, almost unrecognizable. She wasn't shaking, not yet, but that might have been just because she felt like she couldn't move. Even despite the fact her legs were like water. 

"Thank you," she tried again, and was pleased when she sounded almost polite the second time around. "But I'm not really a pirate. The arm thing is kinda new, actually. And it was an accident. Sort of." She glanced nervously at Jötz, and then, very, very briefly, at something else, before turning her wide-eyed gaze back to Mr. Jacob Ludd. "That gun," she lifted her good hand slowly, deliberately, and pointed. "That's my friend's. I made it for him, and you took it. So...if you could give it back, or at least stop pointing it at us, we could probably discuss things like civilized people. Mama Petra would say even pirates are s'posed to have manners." She chewed her lip, thought for a moment. Wondered briefly if her heart sounded as loud to the others as it did to her. 

"I can read your code," she said. "So...maybe we could make a trade."