"Right, uh..." Dais stammered. Something was amiss about Carri's lack of enthusiasm. Didn't she want to find her stuff? Dais eyed her skeptically for a moment, wondering what was going on.

"Carri, unless you know something I don't" said Dais a little cautiously, the logical side of his brain kicking into gear "I don't think you're going to find your house over there. Look, there's no house protruding above the surface of the lake. That means your house must be at least at the depth equal to the height of your house, and I seem to recall that the house was somewhat bigger than you. So if you can still stand where the water reaches up to, that means you're not looking deep enough."

"Oh, umm... fantastic?" replied Dais, still confused after watching Carri thrash about in the water for some time. He quickly swam over until he floated right beside her. "This looks as good a place to go down as any. You ready? Three... two... one..."

With a swift movement Dais bit down on to the breathing tube and kicked himself down beneath the surface. Casually he worked his way down to the rocky, algae-studded ground beneath the lake (shooing away a small school of fish as he did so) and waited for Carri to come down after him.

Dais was still confused. With a slight frown of annoyance, he swam over in the direction of Carri, narrowly missing being struck by her wildly thrashing hooves.

In a crude attempt at dumbshow, Dais first held a hoof to his chest right in front of Carri to emphasize how slowly he was breathing. Then he pointed to Carri, before holding a hoof above his eyes as though he were searching the horizon. Then, finally, he motioned for her to follow him (as opposed to the fish) before turning to swim deeper into the dark water.

Dais just hoped that if Carri could be distracted by one small fish, she wouldn't lose focus on the search when confronted with the multitude of other weird things that he had heard dwelt down in the depths of the lake.

Dais swims along, occasionally stopping and waiting for Carri while she catches up, or simply to look around for a house. Various eyes seem to stare at both ponies out of dark holes and underlake caverns. Eventually, Dais casts some kind of spell to make his horn emit a soft light, which makes things slightly easier to see.

After passing a small shipwreck, various ancient artifacts and a big treasure chest, Dais finally reached a sign saying "The Bottom Of The Lake". Smiling to himself, Dais looked around one more time for the house, then turned back to wait for Carri with a shrug.

As soon as he turned away, a giant octopus came up behind him completely silently.

Panicking, Dais swam frantically back the way he went, hoping Carri hadn't been abducted by a giant octopus or anything (or maybe his imagination was just getting the better of him, he thought). Just as he thought Carri had to be lost and was about to swim back up to call in a rescue party, he turned around to see a giant octopus had been chasing him all around the lake. Not seeing Carri sleeping on the Octopus, he panicked even more.

Dais would have screamed, but of course being underwater it mostly just came out as a whole bunch of bubbles. The octopus advanced menacingly, cornering Dais against an underwater rock. Dais backed up, full of fear, his hind hooves bucking inadvertently, his fore-hooves covering his face in a futile attempt to protect himself, and his eyes clenched shut as he imagined what was about to happen. The octopus lifted a giant tentacle up above Dais as if to strike...

Only to throw down a tax form the council had delivered. In crude ink, the octopus had written something about the form not being waterproof enough, though it was hard to make out because the paper was all ripped, torn and broken.

With a huge sigh of relief but still maintaining quite a heavy shake of fear, Dais nodded quickly as a signal to the Octopus.

The Octopus didn't change its serious expression. With another quick swipe of its tentacle, it casually tossed Carri off its head and back towards its home.

Dais was so happy to finally see Carri alive again that he almost didn't catch her. In the last moment before she was about to smash into the rock, Dais grabbed her and teleported them both back to the shore of the lake.

Wasting no time, Dais spat out his breathing tube and started shaking the sleeping filly violently. "Carri!? You alive Carri? Are you ok? How many hooves am I holding up?"

Dais grinned broadly. "Phew, I didn't think you'd recover that fast after being abducted and apparently sedated by a giant octopus" he remarked, turning to see the sun starting to lower in the sky "Yeah, I guess you're right. We've got a full day's worth of house-hunting ahead of us tomorrow if we want to reach the middle of the Everfree forest. Good searching so far, though maybe try not too fall too far behind next time?"

Apparently oblivious to Carri's gaffe, Dais began trotting down the lane back towards Ponyville. "So whose home are you living in now that yours is gone?" he asked nonchalantly "I have an extra couple of spare rooms at my house - you're quite welcome to stay there if you ever need them?"

"Oh, so you must be staying right here?" said Dais with a grin, stopping right outside the Carousel Boutique that both ponies were conveniently passing at that very moment "Great!"

Dais looks around and adds quietly "So, meet me here at sunrise tomorrow so we can keep finding your house? I hear Rarity's been to the Everfree forest tons of times, so she'll be able to offer some good advice. You know, I was a bit sad that I'm not able to blow up your house yet, but if it means I get to spend time with awesome friends then I guess it's not all bad. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find your house somewhere in Equestria. It'll be all blown up - I mean, err, found - before you know it."

With a smile Dais began to walk off. "I would pop in for a chat with Rarity but I'm afraid I have one last order of business for the day, so I'll leave you here. Just need to tell those rude ponies who put their fancy new house right where yours used to be to go away. Anyway, see you later!"