An Ocean

[Dracos]

"Ah, I can answer without you grabbing me all the time, captain.  It's right there," He pointed to the room Ika had come out of when she first began her rant, dragging her comfy chair behind her to avoid lowering her guard.  The fools, they had left all of that undefended!

[Arakawa]

"Oh... oh, right. Well, of course I knew that!"

Releasing the sailor and feeling thoroughly humiliated (a not unfamiliar sensation), Ika stomps off into the captain's quarters and begins looking around for anything that might contain written information -- or for anything else that catches her interest.

[Dracos]

OOC: You're doing excellent Arakawa, gonna hesitate a bit with your responses though for a little and try and let the other two get some motion going.  Other two, get some motion going before your captain squid has you keelhauled.

IC:

Indeed, on the table was her Secret Instructions to Captain Ika Musume!  Just in case she forgot, it told of how her dear old dad had finally lost his life in a battle against a fearsomely large white whale, who's vicious rams and mighty bite resisted his tentacled fury.  Calling a delay to her invasion plans against the mainland, she gathered a surly set of expert whale hunters to help her in tracking down and getting vengeance upon this horrible white whale. 

And beneath that was a journal, written in her own hand.  There was even a half dozen days of captain's logs, detailing such important things as the best way to cow the entire crew, how to use the harpoon, and the color of the clouds. 

And next to that was this nice golden shiny thing, about a hand long and with two arms that could stretch or come near attached together by a center.  They even had sharp points, and one of them had a feather attached!

[Jon]

Alberto ignores the sleeping man at first and searches through his chests for better clothing in his size.

[Dracos]

The man is a bit shorter, and a fair bit rounder than Alberto is, but with some stretching, he could steal the man's clothing.  He seemed to be a deep sleeper at least.

[Arakawa]

Depositing the comfy chair back in its designated location and donning the captain's hat (at an angle that doesn't obscure her vision), Ika studies the materials.

_{OOC: energy point cost due to absorbing the notes on proper captaincy.}

Ika sits down in the comfy chair, toying idly with the shiny, pointy thing, and ponders whether the stuff about her father and the white whale might be true. Everything fits together (how else would she have ended up captaining a ship so suddenly?), and yet there's something she can't quite put her tentacle on about the story... as though she might have heard it before. Well, maybe just deja vu due to the amnesia?

(But then what was that stuff about the cafe on the beach, and the strange man who called himself Q and wanted Chizuru to join in some game?)

The main thing now was that she was stuck on the ship, and they were just drifting about in search of a White Whale. Given the sailors' peculiar insistence that this was her mission, Ika got the sense that they would react oddly if she gave the order to sail back to Japan, or just tried to sink the ship and swim away herself.

So, to pass the time, she should do some captainly things and keep the sailors in line! Maybe she could hand out rum, or keelhaul someone to show she was a properly intimidating invader who meant business. Ika gets up and, leaving the dissonance between the two sets of evidence -- the ship and diary, and her own memories of her recent invasion -- to simmer in her mind, begins to wander about in search of the first mate, starting by trying to find his quarters. Maybe he'll have some advice on which of the sailors might be suitable for administering rum and/or a keelhauling to.

[CyMage]

Unless the strange man wanted a somewhat short challenge, Bolt figured that the 'ribbon' would not be found anywhere near the whale they were after currently.  Bolt studied the maps some more, paying more attention to the land masses shown.   There was a slim chance that he was familiar with the area after all.

OOC:  You mentioned that Alberto's outfit changed.  Is the same true for Bolt?

[Jon]

Not-quite fitting decent clothing is still a step up from these rags, so Alberto puts it on. And then binds the man hand and foot for good measure. That done, it's high time to figure out what's going on here and how best to turn events to his advantage. Back above decks it is!

[Dracos]

OOC: Yes, Bolt's outfit changed as well.  You're currently dressed appropriately for a sailor.
IC:

Alberto was in for quite the surprised reaction as he went back above deck, the nearest full sailor turning and looking confused at him.  "Swab, what the heck are you doing?  Those clothes don't even fit you right." 

The so-called Captain of the ship was coming out again as this interplay was going on.

[Jon]

Alberto grabs this insolent man with one hand and charges his other hand with some energy. "Do I LOOK", he demands, "like the sort of person who cares what you think?" When he judges the man to be sufficiently cowed, he releases him. "Back to your duties, then. I know I need to keep some of you to run this ship, but I'm sure I don't need all of you. You would be wise to remember that."

Instinctively, he reaches for his suit pocket for a cigar, but of course he hasn't got one. Living on a ship will certainly be a trying experience.

[Arakawa]

Coming out of the captain's quarters, Ika observes the man in a nice (though ill-fitting) suit being extremely intimidating and growling something about 'needing to run the ship'. Ah, that must be the first mate, then.

A brainstorm occurs to her. Either she actually is an amnesiac ship captain (kind of silly, really, and the poor idiots who went to work for her deserve every single misery she can get!) or the whole thing really is somehow staged, a play, but in that case...

"Well, well, well!" Ika addresses the sharply dressed man, "you seem to be enjoying yourself actively! How goes the search for the White Whale? No one... slacking off, I trust? I think I might like to have a word or two with you in private... in your quarters, perhaps?"

(A tentacle hooks itself around the edge of Lord Alberto's collar, in a vain attempt to act more intimidating.)

[Dracos]

"T-The swab is challenging the captain!"  The sailor stared in confusion, stumbling back out of the way of the two of them as he shouts in surprise, reading the discussion between them wrong perhaps.

[Jon]

OOC: switching to past-tense; it seems more natural

Alberto smiled. In a way, this girl reminded him a little of his daughter Sunny. "But of course," he replied. "Right this way." He led the captain/girl back to the room he'd just left. "Pay no attention to this man; he suffers from fits of insanity, which is why he's been bound; for his own protection." If the erstwhile first mate had remained asleep through all this, surely he'd stay asleep a bit longer.

"Now then, tell me of this ... White Whale." Alberto smiled; while he doubted he was meant to actually subdue a whale, playing along for now would likely be instructive.

[Arakawa]

Ika pondered the fact that the situation had gotten sort of odd. Well, even more odd than waking up on a ship amidst people who insisted you had amnesia. Again, she needed to determine whether that was actually true, and she wasn't in any hurry to go about it.

(Subconsciously, her tentacles began to sort of wave about idly by her head -- a mimicry of how she liked to dangle them lazily in the water, waiting for some prey to come swimming by.)

"Eh?" she noted, pointing at the bound-up man and ignoring the previous question (how did this man get the idea that it was the crew's job to question the captain like that?), "What a coincidence! I'd just determined that there was either a case of insanity aboard this ship... or maybe an outbreak! I'm trying to determine which is the case. That was very perceptive of you to tie up this man, but tell me... what exactly was he suffering from? Unfortunately, my notes have a lot of information on the White Whale, but no information that the crew is in danger from something I don't understand; it would be nice to find out what my second-in-command knows about the situation!"

_{OOC: I have absolutely no clue as to how to get the helmsman more involved in the proceedings... Drac might want to figure something out.}

[CyMage]

OOC:  The captain might need a refresher on the course we're taking?