Silly Plots 2: Electric Boogaloo

[Recaiden]

Bowls abound in the kitchen, neatly stacked in glass-fronted cupboards. But also there are a few on the table already, spoons and all.
The stew is very spicy, but otherwise clean, free of poisons, drugs, or spoilt ingredients.

The hermit comes back, placing the knocker's bowl in the sink, and takes a seat at the table himself.
"Tell me about this friend of yours who's seeking a ship."

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

Clara has no problem with spicy. Well, time to finally eat something. Being a boat takes a lot out of you, as does steering one.
"Omiko? She's a cat, looking for her crew. I don't know anything about them because she's been tight-lipped about them. She's on this island somewhere but ran off without me." Clara tells the witch nonchalantly.

[Recaiden]

"A cat, you say?"
"I hope she's all right out there."
That said, the witch turns to his soup. Cats are boring.

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

Indeed. Soup.
"She'll be fine. She's dangerous. So, what exactly do you do all the way out here?" she says after a few bites.

[Recaiden]

"Out here, I mostly wait. There are very few visitors, and that's just how I intend it. But in time the intended ones will arrive all the same." He replies, a jolly tone of voice perhaps a little jarring speaking the cryptic words.

On the other side of the kitchen, the over clicks on, heat starting to build within its brick shell.

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

"The intended ones? Who exactly are the intended ones?" she asks, flags being raised at particularly cryptic words.

[Recaiden]

"Who exactly? Well, I don't think I can say. But generally, they seek what they once feared, and their vision grows narrow."
"Tell me, have your dreams turned to dust before you, child?"

A glass baking dish and a number of implements prepare themselves. Sugar and fruit dance through the air to lay out on the counter.

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

"Not...really? Still working well within my dream job. You have some pretty vague criteria. And you're...preparing an entree?" she asks.
She better see a chicken or a nice cut of beef come out soon for that pan or she's out of here.

[Recaiden]

"And a dessert besides, though you needn't stay for that."

The witch stands, waving grandly, and the chairs spring to life, reaching out their arms to grab Clara and prevent her escape.

"The criteria are very simple. They will tire of their lives, their troubles will be of their own making, and their eyes will be closed to many many truths."
"You are not one of them, but I think you still have some good to share. A dream job, wasn't it? Very lucky. I wouldn't ask you to give that up."
He seems to find this amusing,and cackles in a wicked and very stereotypically witchy way.

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

Clara is grabbed! Blasted chairs.
"Uh...huh." she says, trying to remain unphased. Luckily for her, she's good at acting. "And what would you like me to do for you, huh? I can share Dad's casserole recipe if you want it." she says pleasantly.

[Recaiden]

How Clara learned her fathers' recipes is probably a story of its own.
"An excellent idea."
The witch snaps, and a cookbook and quill pen fly up to listen.
"But then, shall we say, a mandatory donation to those to come. There's quite some clever magic to you, isn't there? You don't need all so much of your humanity as most."

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

Well he didn't really have time to pack all his stuff when he bailed from Clara's mother's house.
"Dude, I was a boat today. I need everything I have to keep having ten fingers and ten toes at this point. If someone who comes later needs humanity they can grind some hollows get it themselves."

[Recaiden]

"Shortsighted. Perhaps you do need my ... help."
Clara ought to find herself and the chair shrinking until they're just of a size to fit in that baking dish (now filled with glazed fruit slices).
"The recipe?"

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

Clara groans, and rattles off a recipe for a nice casserole using mostly veggies and fish found commonly in the sea around the Minotaur Isles in Krynn but could easily be substituted with a variety of sea-bass.
"So your 'help' is to put someone in an oven. Seriously?" she asks.

[Recaiden]

"Strictly speaking the oven isn't necessary."
While the quill pen dutifully records the recipe, the baking dish sweeps down to scoop up Clara and convey her to the oven. Speaking of which, it's lit by purple flames, gives the impression of a cavernous space hundreds of feet deep, and doesn't seem to be putting off any noticeable heat.

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

"Are you physically capable of giving a straight answer?" Clara demands, kicking at the chair, but it's unlikely that she has proper leverage to break it with her still holding on to her and all.

[Recaiden]

"Physically? Yes."
That doesn't really explain anything.

The chair rattles a bit, but doesn't break. Into the oven! Given the lack of heat, the sensation of being there should be rather like getting a new role.

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

Clara continues to try to break the chair, though there's no real plan on what to do even if it did break. But still, it gives her something to work out her frustration of this whole stupid situation. As long as she can get out of this, there's Omiko to help. But a new role takes five seconds or less, the long time of this feeling is very disconcerting.

[Recaiden]

The chair starts to crack. It's already crumbling.
As for the oven, it's really more of a crucible, high magical energies melting Clara into two parts: her human-ness and all the rest.

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

The less said about what exactly humanity melts into, the better. It's probably gross, and not the point of this particular story. At the moment, however, Clara has grown to a respectable seven-foot size, gone as hirsute as really possible, and thankfully not had any serious wardrobe malfuntions thanks to her magic wetsuit's ability to remove its shoe parts and open a nice hole for her fabulously long tail. She's still curvy, but proportionally less so on her broad, muscular frame. She doesn't need to look at herself. The horrible, yanking sensation on her nose tells her enough. Especially how immediately visible it is.

She'll probably have much less trouble smashing the chair to bits.

[Recaiden]

The chair breaks apart (being angry likely helps) and just a moment later the oven swings open again.

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

Clara whirls at the open door. She would leap out of it, but she's reasonably sure that at her size the four-foot drop would pose some serious risk of injury.
"You bastard. You can take whatever literal blood out of me if you're going to be like that, but my mother was there when no one else was, not my deadbeat father. You will not leave me with nothing of hers." she cries at the opening.

[Recaiden]

Clara emerges somewhat less dramatically.

"Won't I?"
The witch scoffs.
"What will you give to get it back?"

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

"What do you want? I don't know what witches want. Eyes, colors, a year of life, the ability to hit a high C note, a memory? It's all in the stories somewhere. And I don't know what you can even take."

[Recaiden]

"One can always do with seeing better."
"An eye for some of your humanity back, yes, that's just fine."
The witch waves a hand over the dish and gathers a wispy ball of energy.
"Do we have a deal?"

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

Clara bites her too-large lip, regretting her words. Still, eyes can be regrown and replaced. A full body replacement is much, much more expensive and difficult. Really, she's not even sure she could trust Omiko with that.
"It's a deal as long as it's the left." she grumbles, loud enough to hear. Minotaurs have more spread-out eyes than humans, though still close enough to have binocular vision, so not having an eye on her dominate side would be very troublesome.

[Recaiden]

The witch closes his hand a little bit on the magical essence of humanity. Clara's left eye goes out, going black, and should regain some resemblance to her mother, in appearance, genetics, and mystical family connection. The witch, on the other hand, shifts and transforms and straightens, sliding back the hood to reveal an almost perfect replica of human!Clara. Only the eyes are wrong.
"You'll go back to your proper size once you're outside. There's a mirror in the living room if you need it."

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

Clara feels quite a strong sense of comfort, even as her eye goes dead. Her form shortens and slims down, becoming more curvaceous and elegant and less beefy. While still larger than any human and athletic, her long ears, short and slimmer muzzle, and daintier horns and hooves speak much more of her mother's life as a dancer than her father's, well, beefcake genetics. He might have loved the theater but he couldn't help that he was huge.
Lastly, all of Clara's coat turns a bright, fiery scarlet.
"I'm not going to be here for any longer than I have to. Would you mind giving me a way past your stupid moat? I'm not making those jumps on these backwards legs." she insists, closing her useless eye and staring up angrily at...herself. Those rags do nothing for her figure, gosh. She had sort of expected this result. Blasted witches.

[Recaiden]

"It's done. The water will get out of your way."

And indeed, the path across the normally-submerged stepping stones is dry, the water wavering in midair beside them, a parted sea.

By the time she's on the other side, she might hear something. "Clara!" Sounds like Omiko is looking for her, calling from far-off in the woods somewhere.

[Deathkeeper]

Swamp Island

Clara toddles her way out of the building on her tiny, odd, bending legs, only tripping a few times. She's more than plenty relieved when she gets outside and she re-sizes, though it's a bit jarring to see the place smaller than it was before.
She quickly crosses the moat before it washes back again and tries to respond to Omiko's call. Starting by bellowing back Omiko's name. She does have some strong lungs. That hasn't changed. An actress must know how to project, after all.