An Ocean

[Dracos]

OOC: Bolt, Ika, Alberto, you're here.
IC:

Alberto found himself strangely swabbing a deck, a raggedy sailor's uniform having replaced his tailored suit, the sound of ocean waves rolling beneath the ship he was standing on, the chatter of energetic sailors nearby.  Were all of these contestants?  Enemies?  It was hard to say.  He had not been told how many would be challenging for the prize.

A tall silver haired man found himself holding an archaic ship wheel in his hands, the wind blowing through his hair as as clouds drifted overhead.  Where the hell was he now?

Sitting down in a big comfy chair was a small girl, her head covered by a big black captain's hat and not at all sure how she got there.  She could smell the ocean water not far beneath her.

[Arakawa]

_{OOC: Rolls a knowledge check on the comfy chair and the meaning of having a captain's hat and fails automatically. As shown below, knows what a hat is because she has one built into her anatomy.}

Ika-musume was disoriented. One minute she had been swimming in the ocean, waving her tentacles furiously to clear the water and keep from inhaling the microscopic bits of plastic that choked it these days, about to close in on a delicious morsel of prey, and the next...

Well, that was the way of the ocean. One minute you were the eater, the next you could be eaten. She leapt from the soft, disturbingly comfy maw of the creature which had engulfed her (surely the comfyness was an evolutionary adaptation to allow it to entice and devour unsuspecting squid girls!), and panicked for a moment as her vision refused to clear. For some reason, her hat had become huge and... it was dark inside. Some kind of sudden tumor? Tentacles swishing about in order to keep an enemy from closing in while her eyesight was impaired, Ika gulped, grabbed the edges of the hat and... it came off?

After a brief moment of complete body horror and then utter confusion, Ika noticed that her real hat (actually fused to the top of her cranium, such that successfully removing it would probably cause her brain to fall out) was still intact on her head. White, rounded and conical, with two cute flaps on the side. Okay. Where was she...

Something had been attacking her! Focusing her attention on the comfy chair, Ika watched it for any sudden moves. It was disturbingly still. Tentatively reaching out with a tentacle, she poked it very carefully, ready to snatch it back if the chair made any attempt to snap at her...

[Jon]

Alberto is more disturbed at his change in costume than the change in scenery. A uniform is acceptable, but these rags simply will not do. He will need to find a replacement soon. Alberto continues swabbing the deck, evaluating those nearby to see if they look troublesome.

[Arakawa]

_{OOC: It's reasonable to assume that, contrary to Ika's strange idea, the comfy chair is not, in fact, predatory.}

The chair does not react. Ika pokes it once, twice, in the side, then in the comfiest spot, which should presumably have reacted and taken off a tentacle by now. It does not move. It was never alive in the first place.

Feeling very silly, but also a little disturbed, Ika takes stock of her surroundings, only now noticing that she is out of the water. Not the first time she's experienced the sensation, but it always feels just slightly off. She is standing on a vast bulk floating upon the surface of the ocean. A whale? No, it smells... dead. Unnatural. She notices what the surface of the vast bulk is crawling with. Humans.

Now these she does know about. That an entire huge weird bulk full of them is floating through the sea like this, is not a good sign. They can't be up to any good purpose. What does a squid do in a situation like this?

She takes stock of what little she knows about dealing with humans. Propensity for dumping pollution into the ocean? Complex social structure? What does that even mean? That they play endlessly convoluted domination games against each other? In short, a large amount of wasted cranial capacity that can be turned against them. In theory. Ika doesn't even begin to have a clue of how to begin to do something like that.

Well, the one thing you should never do when surrounded by apex predators in an unfamiliar environment is to show weakness.

Ika leaps up on top of a prominent architectural feature of the bulk (that she can't quite name), raises her tentacles into the air and stretches them outwards to make herself appear larger, and addresses the humans thus:

"Nobody move, under pain of death! Identify yourselves, and confess your evil purpose in coming to this location!"

Ika-musume has the unpleasant feeling that this didn't come out quite as intimidating as she'd hoped. While maintaining her intimidating stance, she glances towards the surface of the ocean to see if it will provide a reasonable escape route.

[Dracos]

Everyone sees a small girl coming out of the main cabin, her voice shouting loudly as the sailors look at her with confusion.

The nearest one turned and laughed.  "Captain, did you forget again?  You really have the shortest memory!"  Everyone seemed to start laughing at that, save possibly the man at the wheel and the swab, the only ones who didn't have a clue what was going on.

[Arakawa]

Ika stands there for a moment, looking utterly and completely confused. Had she really forgotten something? That did tend to happen... however! What she was witnessing, was probably the hideous and confusing complexity of the human social structure in full play! They were just saying things and laughing to throw her off guard, and then presumably they could all rush in at once and...

Certain apex predators hunt in packs. Fighting off a pack of apex predators was not something Ika had ever needed to do before, being too cautious to let herself get into such a situation. Or so she'd thought. There were some rules about doing it. Think, Ika, think, what did your father use to say?

(Ika's father didn't use to say anything. He was a giant squid, who also never needed to fight off packs of apex predators. Just solitary whales. Not an analogous situation by any stretch of the imagination.)

Eh, whatever. Probably the logical solution was to latch onto the one who'd called attention to himself, and make it very clear to the others that they did not want to be the first one to rush at her.

Dragging the now-certainly-never-alive-in-the-first-place comfy chair towards her with one set of tentacles, Ika wraps another set of tentacles around the sailor who'd spoken up, and hoists him up into the air, making what she hopes to be a dangerous face.

"What do you mean, 'again'? What do you mean, 'captain'? I think I'd like an explanation!"

[Dracos]

"woah...woah, captain, you promised you wouldn't do that!"  The sailor stopped laughing as he was lifted up by the tentacles, flailing about, his stained white shirt tight against his skin under her grip.  "You wrote it all down for yourself, but I can tell ya all the same, captain.  You said when you hired us that you had a short memory, and you really weren't kidding!  Barely a day goes by before you forget why you hired us all, to hunt the Great White Whale aboard your ship.  Ah...  Mind kindly putting me down, cap'n?"

[Arakawa]

The expression on Ika's face is one of complete and utter bewilderment.

"Huh? Hunting a whale? What the heck would I do with a dead whale? Well, at least you have given away your nefarious purpose!"

Feeling -- bizarrely enough -- that the sailors around her are ridiculously submissive for whatever reason, and are unlikely to rush her en masse, Ika puts the one she'd grabbed down as roughly as she can manage and sits down on the comfy chair, deep in thought. Fortunately, writing and things written down are quite familiar to her.

_{OOC: ... don't ask me why, it was in the manga.}

"... so. You say I wrote it all down somewhere. Bring it."

[Jon]

Alberto takes advantage of this distraction to sneak off in search of more suitable attire. He can confront this tentacle girl later, at his leisure.

Yes, he's aware the most likely location for adequate clothing is the captain's quarters, but there must be some other place to look. The first mate's quarters, perhaps.

[Dracos]

Alberto:

It seems it is not hard to escape your work with the eyes upon the captain, the boat mostly drifting along the ocean as you spot a couple of options, sneaking into the captain's quarters is definitely one, but so is heading below deck, where perhaps there would be other rooms.  Where does your judgement take you?

Ika:

"Ah, It's tuesday isn't it?  Friday's captain always says she wants to eat the whale.  Either way, it's a big one, and we'll all be famous when we get it!"  The man grunted as he was flung down, bouncing among the wood.  "Hey, captain, come on man, we're working with you here!"  He frowned.  "I think you had it on your desk?  You don't let us in your room much at all."

[CyMage]

Wiping some errant water from his glasses, Bolt kept a steady hand at the wheel while taking a quick look around.   Only half paying attention to the antics of the 'captain', he tried to locate any navigational materials. 

[Jon]

OOC: The first mate's cabin is below deck? Alberto heads there, then.

[Dracos]

Bolt:

There seemed to be some maps in his pocket, with several courses marked upon them, declaring whale migration patterns.  There didn't seem to be a particularly clear path that they were definitely on though.

[Dracos]

Alberto:

Down below deck, he found several rooms, as well as the brig, though his attention was quickly gotten to the first mate's room, a larger one at the foot of the stairs, a man sleeping in the bed inside.

[Arakawa]

Ika remembers something... about being on the beach before (as part of her, ahem horribly botched stratagem to invade Japan), and the strange foreign man who'd kept hanging out at the cafe and trying to get Chizuru's attention with some talk about a challenge. However, it would be Squid Girl who was the equal of any challenge that might be placed before her! (The strange man had looked at her oddly, shrugged, and then grudgingly agreed to let Ika go instead.)

_{OOC: note for the future -- logically, Ika should know a lot from having invaded Japan, but to keep consistent about the 'Clueless' rule, we'll assume she doesn't.}

Essentially, it was simple enough: for some odd reason, these humans insisted on obeying her. Well, their loss! Now if only she could get to the captain's quarters where allegedly there was something written down...

About to let the sailor wander off, and about to head off herself to the captain's quarters, but then remembering something, Ika pauses with a look of utter exasperation. The end of one tentacle snags the sailor's collar, preventing him from leaving.

"Where is the captain's quarters, anyways?"

(This was probably going to be a very long day for everyone concerned.)