Silly Plots 2: Electric Boogaloo

[Recaiden]

Omiko steps forward and catches the fish. A quick snap of her mechanical arm and it's dead, perfect for taking a bite out of. Chomp!
"Magic. Dot has a spell for a temporary boat to get us there, right? Great." It kind of sounded like Dot disagreed and Omiko decided to carry on anyway.
With a flesh-and-blood hand, she beckons Clara closer.
"Besides, it's not just about the ship. It's also the crew!"

[Deathkeeper]

The Beach

Clara nods and dives in, swimming up to Omiko. She understands that she has to swim a little. If a boat appeared in shallow water it would just run aground!
"Okay, great. How's it work?" she asks.

[Recaiden]

"It uses an arcane catalyst-" Omiko spins a tiny vial through her fingers, unstoppers it, and drinks it down. "-to turn magical energy into things according to a pattern my familiar has."
This is at least part of the truth.
Omiko closes her eyes, and a ring of water around the two of them starts to shine.
"Tread water there."

[Deathkeeper]

Beach

Clara nods. "Uh, I think that makes sense. Here?" she says, treading water in the spot Omiko is indicating for her, riding over a passing wave.

[Recaiden]

The waves start to avoid the magical ring. The water grows still. Omiko contorts her hands into careful signs and drags her fingertips across the ocean surface. And then suddenly the lights flare up and things change. A little sailing craft takes shape as Clara loses shape, and after a brief but disorienting (and probably disturbing) sequence the actress will have been turned into a boat.
Clara should mostly feel like she's the little minotaur-esque figurehead, but she'd be able to feel the waves (back in motion) lapping against the hull, and the ropes and rudder respond to her intentions.

The pirate is standing on the deck. "Okay, so my familiar is now telling me we were supposed to be outside of the circle. Whoops. Don't worry. I can definitely fix this. Eventually."

[Deathkeeper]

Beach

The less that can be said for being turned into wood and stretched into such a shape, the better. The little red boat bobs in the water without any real issue.
How do you not know how your own magic work? And why are you fine? You had better do better than 'eventually.' The wood of the deck vibrates with her voice, and the cow figurehead moves ever so slightly to glare at Omiko with one eye.

[Recaiden]

Okimo holds up all her hands in a helpless 'don't-look-at-me' gesture.
"Magic is inherently unpredictable!"
It mostly comes from forgotten old tomes that may have been written just to mess with the future, staring into the stars until they start whispering, and downloading untested incantation fragments from SpellOverflow. Basically developing spells in Omiko's tradition of magic is terrible and Dot claims to be doing the best it can.
"I can't be magically transformed almost ever. It's part of this whole thing. I will, I will. It'll just take some time to build up more energy. Besides, this'll get us thee quicker, right?"

[Deathkeeper]

Beach

There's a long pause.
Fine but you drive. I don't know anything about sailing and at this point I just want to nap
Can she even do that?

[Recaiden]

"This kind of seems like a perfect time to learn to sail, doesn't it?"

Should be possible, but whether she manages to sleep with Omiko hauling in ropes and working the tiller is another question entirely.

Soon enough the sail is trimmed, the rudder is taken hold of, and off they start to go.

[Deathkeeper]

Sailing

Well yeah but I couldn't repeat anything you're doing right now. I can't see it. I can sort of feel it but my eyes are stuck in this....whatever it is that I'm looking through right now. What is this exactly?

Omiko probably shouldn't tell her.

[Recaiden]

"That's the figurehead."
Omiko says. No unnecessary embarrassing information there.
"With some practice, feeling is all you need! Okay, this line here is the mainsheet, which adjusts the cut of the main sail like so-
A dense sailing lesson ensues, which results in going a little out of their way as Omiko demonstrates turning and tacking and traveling windward and so on.

[Deathkeeper]

Sailing

Okay, I still can barely see what you're doing but I think I got some of that. Leave me some notes when we're done and you can show me for real when you get me back in working order and you can do that boat spell right so I can actually be on it. the deck hums. Of course it's also possible the spell worked exactly as intended and there wasn't an actual alternative. Might be hard to make a boat out of thin air. Who knows?

[Recaiden]

Possible. Even when you explain a magic trick, you ought to leave the listener wondering if that's really what happened.

"I'll work on something informative."
Omiko continues to provide instruction and advice as they travel.

They pass by a tiny palm-tree-studded island, full of seagulls and little crabs and not much else.

Miniature dolphins come and swim in the boat's wake.

The sun beats down and the shore they started from disappears over the horizon.

[Deathkeeper]

Sailing

Clara is mostly quiet for this part. Speed, regardless of the circumstances, feels nice. And it does make her think that something's getting done.

Eventually, they should arrive at the island that might be the one they're looking for. Very sandy, though there might be some grassy areas on the horizon. It's hard to tell. Wooden boards litter the shore, as if a wreck happened nearby.
"Is that it? Please tell me that's it and you're ready to fix me." the figurehead begs.

[Recaiden]

"That might be it." Omiko concedes.

For the landing, the pirate does everything herself, running the Red Cow Queen carefully up near the shore. Someone was wrecked on this island, after all. Furl the sails, tie everything down, and now the magic.

"Here we go. Try not to move."
A red ritual marker encircles the whole ship, and Omiko seems to be performing some somatic components that Clara can't see easily from here, and about a minute later a proper normal human* Clara should splash down into the water near the island, followed shortly by Omiko when the ship drops out from under her.

[Deathkeeper]

Desert Island

Clara flails in the water as her brain remembers how limbs work, but should be able to reach the beach without too much trouble.
"We never speak of this again, and do me a favor and read the manual before you use any magic on me again. You owe me for that one." she says as she sprawls out on the sand.

[Recaiden]

"You think there's a manual? How cute."
Omiko swims easily to shore and walks up on the sands past Clara. Somehow, although her clothes are soaked, she herself seems perfectly dry.
"I think I can keep quiet. But you were a pretty good sailboat. Perhaps you can try again when we're leaving this little isle."

[Deathkeeper]

Deserted Island

Clara glares at the cat.
"I didn't do anything and you know it. You'd do just as well if you did the spell right and we were outside the circle. Look, we're searching for your crew, right? I don't see a ship so maybe they're wrecked here, or maybe they got picked up."

Or perhaps they were turned into animals by a witch. Wait no, that's the Odyssey. Easy mistake to make.

[Recaiden]

"It was fun, wasn't it?" The cat asks, mostly ignoring Clara's response.
Omiko picks up one of the broken planks in her claw.
"This isn't the wood our ship is made of. So they're probably not here."

A load roar can be heard about then from somewhere further into the island, on the grassy, plant-containing parts.
"And they don't sound like that either."

[Deathkeeper]

Desert Island

"Well what do you want to do? We could summon a real boat and head out or we could look around for whoever left that note." says Clara, getting to her feet and looking out in the direction the roar came from.

[Recaiden]

"Let's look around. Maybe there's something inland, or a neat thing is still washed up in the beach. There was something built to leave that wood scattered here, after all."
Omiko waves at the shoreline and starts picking her way along the waterline like a proper beachcomber.

[Deathkeeper]

Desert Island

"Okay. If you don't mind I'm gonna stay by you, though. I don't know if I'm strong enough to take out a big bear or something with a tiny sword like this. It's not built for that." she says, quickly speeding up to keep up with Omiko.

[Recaiden]

"What, are you expecting me to protect you?"
Omiko snaps her gun-arm around and blasts a little patch of sand into glowing glass.
"What's it for, then? Do you fight duels?"
She picks up a weathered little brass hinge from a patch of differently textured wood.

One might notice that there's something slinking through the tall grass at the edge of the beach.

[Deathkeeper]

Desert Island

Clara jumps up with a yelp.
"I mean, that was the idea. Rapiers are for duels and such, from what I remember. I was never formally trained in doing one except for some stage fighting classes." she admits. "Sometime maybe you could give me a lesson, but that's what I meant when I said I wasn't that useful how I am." Clara is looking down for anything interesting and not watching the treeline.

[Recaiden]

"Honestly, I don't know anything about rapiers. And I'm pretty out of practice with swords in general. But if you're going to carry a weapon around, I recommend you learn how to use it. Intimidating people by carrying it only half-works."

Take for example this ring-tailed shark-lion pouncing out of the brush at Clara, mouth open wide. It doesn't hesitate at all at the sight of the rapier.
On the plus side Clara finds a cool seashell and a little jar of dry tea.

[Deathkeeper]

Desert Island

Clara spins, managing to at least get her sword out of the sheathe before the creature pounces her. Its teeth cut into her arm as she pulls it away, bleeding but not caught in the beast's jaws. Clara swings at the creature's flank with the blade, but it might not do much damage the way as it's not meant for such close quarters combat.
"Omiko! Help!" she cries.

[Recaiden]

The beast is not really bothered by the swing. There's a small cut in its side, but Clara's sword is a thrusting weapon, and swinging it like that, with little leverage, is not very effective.

Omiko looks over and raises a finger to her chin, like she's pondering whether Clara should be left to handle this on her own.
Then after a moment she fires her weapon-arm at it. A near miss, but still some of its fur is singed off.

Apparently invigorated by having drawn blood, the beast makes another lunge at Clara's arm.

[Deathkeeper]

Desert Island

Clara manages to not have her arm chewed off again, but is still far too close to use her weapon effectively. Desperately, she transfers her sword to hold the blade and tries to stab it with the end.

[Recaiden]

You know, there's a part of this sword meant for just that!
This time, it's meaningfully stabbed, and recoils in pain, right into the path of another blaster shot.

The shark-lion howls, trying to scare off these unexpectedly pointy things.

[Deathkeeper]

Desert Island

Clara tries to stab it again, this time kicking it with her knee in an effort to knock it off of her so she can roll out from under it, yelling the whole time.