It was already late afternoon when you boarded the ship, and as Viola and Calliope talk that turns first into evening, and then into night. Finally, Calliope excuses herself with a yawn, and then two magi turn to sleep.
The next morning, a sailor can be heard speaking (in greek) to Calliope's shield grog, who then comes to Calliope. She turns to Viola.
"The Captain sends word that we're out of sight of land and shipping. Do we want to embark on the submarine now, or wait until we're closer to Aegea? It's apparently another 4 days by ship, assuming a reasonable wind. The submarine might be quicker, but probably less comfortable."
Calliope says something to her shield grog, who goes and speaks to the waiting sailor. Then the process reverses itself. Finally Calliope addresses Viola
"We might be there by late evening today, apparently, so it would be quite a lot quicker. We'd still be in the submarine for a while. Shall I ask that the Captain to get her up so we can have a look at it and then decide?"
Calliope sends word, and shortly afterwards the magi are invited to the deck. Several sailors are doing something to the iron chain that hangs from the stern of the ship. Several minutes later, there's a disturbance under the water, then the submarine bursts from the water in a shower of spray.
It does indeed look remarkably like a huge dolphin, with rivets along its sides and a hatch where a dolphin's blowhole would be. At chain is wrapped around the point where its tail thins, dropping back underwater. The Captain whistles, and it swims to the side of the ship, where a couple more sailors start to arrange a rope ladder.
With perhaps slightly excessive care, Theodoric climbs down the rope ladder onto the top of the submarine, then swings himself through the hatch onto the ladder into the submarine. Viola starts to follow suit, but when she leans down to take hold of the hatch edges the submarine burns her hands. Instinctively, she snatches them off again. Unfortunately, leaning down on top of the submarine isn't the stablest perch.
[Roll Dex + Atheletics, with a -3 penalty, and 6 botch dice. (Base 1 + 2 circumstances + 3 untrained)]
[Give me an Intelligence roll on the reason it burned her hands. Compare against ease factors 3 and 12, with a -3 penalty again and 3 botch dice.]
Viola loses her balance, and starts to tumble down the side of the submarine towards the waiting sea.
[You can attempt to cast here before she reaches the water, but it's going to be difficult - give me a concentration roll against ease factor 12, and beat an initiative of 9. Assume a -3 penalty and +2 extra botch dice for all rolls.]
As Viola tumbles down the side of the submarine, the stinging in her hands reminds her of previous times she'd accidentally touched iron since her initiation into Potent Spontaneous Magic. Quite why the "glass" submarine should trigger that for the moment eludes her.
[I'm going to say that a botch in a concentration roll causes a botch in the spell - that seems consistent with Finesse. The concentration rules on page 82 also say that if the concentration roll fails, you need to still roll to see if the spell botches, with an additional botch die, so roll for the spell to see if the botch is any worse than a single one. Botch dice...base 1 + 2 (circumstances) + 1 (failed concentration roll) -3 (gold cord) +1 (weird magic), plus any other modifiers I've forgotten. If you were fastcasting (realistically probably the only way you were going to make the initiative ease factor), add another two for that. Also, what was the spell you were casting?]
Was Viola told earlier that the submarine was iron? If so, I forgot it, but I don't think Viola would have.
If the rule says that a Concentration roll means you need to roll for a spell botch, then doesn't that imply that the the Concentration roll is separate, or at least that it would only add to the chance of a botch? I suppose that since the SG can always specify the effects of a botch, this could fall under that, though it seems severe for a single botch.
In any case, a roll for what would have been a ReCo spell:
[The concentration rolls say you need to roll for a botch if you fail a concentration check, yes. I think a concentration botch is this circumstance leading to a spell botch is reasonable, and not out of line with other similar cases. It's only a single botch on the spell roll.
There was a reference to iron earlier, yes, and there were also the rivets in the submarine a lot more recently (which if not indicating iron, were at least an indicator against glass). Ultimately, if you missed them, Viola missed them - I can't spell out every potential danger for you without making the story trivial.]
Viola tries desperately to cry out a spell, but the joltings as she tumbles down the submarine and then the splash as she hits the warter break her concentration so she fumbles the words, and feels the magical energies twisting out of her control. She leaps, but not to where she had intended - suddenly she's immersed 5 paces beneath the water.
[Str + Swim check ease factor 3 to get back to the surface. Ease factor 0 not to sink further. Roll regardless of what else you're doing. -3 penalty still applies to all actions. Casting will need to be without words. Full gestures will result in an automatic failure of the swim check; subtle gestures in another -3 penalty. This may be a good point to remind you you can use confidence.]
While that's true, it wasn't the iron I missed, but the Flaw: I completely forgot about it, because Viola hasn't been roleplayed much since obtaining it. The Flaw literally has never come into play before, even though it's something that the character herself would have to be constantly mindful of (she's suffered from it since 1218, but I had to check her advancement log to figure that out). Yes, ideally I should remember that kind of thing, and yes, I'm aware that at times you know her character sheet better than I do. But it's hard to believe that Viola wouldn't regard "iron" as a huge red flag. And yes, I'm going to need prompts sometimes when I don't remember stuff that Viola would, at the very least an Int roll of some sort.
This isn't "every potential danger"--it's a very specific one that Viola's quite mindful of. Not only that, but it's probably that Calliope, as a member of the same cult and someone who's spent time around Viola, was ware of it.
[I have to admit, I didn't catch Viola's iron malediction until during her conversation with Calliope, by which point the submarine was already firmly established as iron, and both Viola and Calliope (who's been put through the same initiation as Viola, I believe, by Viola) had already failed to notice it as a problem - I might well have given you the Int roll if I had remembered it at the time, and will bear it in mind in the future. Only remembering it then, though, it didn't make sense for Viola to suddenly exclaim "That submarine we've borrowed - I've just realised there's a bit of a problem..." in the middle of a random conversation.
I don't want to retcon all the way back to Alexandria, so run with the situation as it stands, please. There are a number of justifications for why Viola didn't realise - she's spent the vast majority of the last 10 years in private faerie regios where she hasn't needed to worry about iron (and when she's left, as you said, it never came up); she just wasn't paying close enough attention and missed the reference to iron; pick those or something else to suit.]
I'm not really worried about one Warping Point, or being underwater, but it's important to me that whatever happens seems believable, so let's take the time to explain it if we have to. Has Calliope ridden in this submarine since acquiring Discomfort from Iron?
As for what Viola is doing now, it's a spont to make the water breathable as she swims to the surface (though I don't know that that's strictly necessary), followed, if necessary, by a spont to make her wet clothes lighter. I'm not at home with my books right now to calculate spell levels, though.
[No. Calliope's never been near the submarine before. She had it recommended to her as a way of getting to Aegea, but only as the "Glass submarine". It does look like glass at a casual glance, albeit not something a mundane glassblower could ever hope to construct.]
Let's see...Lungs of the Fish is level 20, but if we drop range to Pers and duration to Diameter, it's level 10. Since it's MuAq(Au), the roll using Potent Spontaneous Magic is:
[Sta +2 + Mu 10 + 2 * (Aq 5) + stress die 0] /2 = 11
not be a good idea); are you using subtle or no gestures? And are you using Life Linked Spontaneous Magic?
You're currently one fatigue level down from your earlier spell. (Edit: assuming Viola was casting it in a fatiguing manner, which I'm assuming she was given her arts aren't high enough to reliably pull a ReCo 10 spell off without doing so).]
It's debatable whether there should be a penalty for being silent--just because she can't be heard through the water doesn't mean she's not making a sound, as long as there's still air in her lungs. But before we cast a spell, why not just try to swim. It's not like she's very deep.
Dex 0 + Swim 1 + specialization in underwater maneuvering 1 + stress die 4 = 6