Dark Waves, Dark Thoughts
Twenty Ninth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascending) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)
The first two days aboard the newly christened Fortuna pass without incident, grey and dreary it is true, as though the rain and cold wind clings to the ship with only a few flashes of the pallid sun that speak more of untimely autumn than summer, but rain won't make you rot like an old boot as Tom is wont to say and the men are cheerful enough to have found a prize they did not have to fight for, but merely rig to sail. The sailors still avoid the back of the ship and the sleeping young woman, with only your own men willingly coming to hand you your meals and even that casting uneasy looks at her pale face and the arcane stitching that still binds her.
For his part Zaia had been carefully feeding a sort of thin broth, holding her head with the skill that spoke of some practice. "She can still swallow at least and that's a blessing on its own," he says and neither you nor Inge have to ask what it would mean if she could not.
Each day at noon Inge uses a touch of her magic trying to heal her pushing a little more against the current only she could feel and each night her dreams seem troubled, tossing and turning and struggling against the binding. You did not get much sleep over the last two nights, preferring to catch what sleep you could in the grey days.
Thus it is that night you settle on the last oar bench again with Inge for company while Zaia not far off, the sound of his snoring by now as familiar as the sound of the ocean.
Suddenly a call goes out from the front of the ship: "Man overboard, man overboard!"
By the time you reach the sailor who had called it, a young countryman of Antonio's with a gift for staying in the rigging the man had rushed to the gunwale and was looking down into the dark waters calling out a name. "Carlos, Carlos!"
The cries go unheeded when you shake the man and question him he explains that Carlos had claimed to see something, or someone floating in the water. "Thought it was a body he did and then he just sort of shivered from head to toe and jumped right off and I didn't see nothing, nothing, or hear nothing either, no splasning like he was trying to swim after the first. It was like he wanted to go right to the bottom." The sailor crosses himself quickly then adds in a quiet voice. "It was like he wanted to die, but he wasn't... wasn't like that I swear."
You nod quietly. There had been some black talk of sailors and even a couple of your own men taking the only way out there still was out of this world even if it lead right to hell, but thankfully no one had acted on it and both you and Antonio had though the danger had passed, but who is to know what lies in the deepest corners of a man's soul.
When you ask Inge if this could have been possession all the girl can do is shrug helplessly, she had not been there to see it and if some demon passed from the woman to the sailor she had not seen a change in her manner. All you can do is command the sailors as well as your own armsmen to keep a closer eye on each other and always stay in arm's reach.
For the next three days nothing more happens though the ship sails in far poorer spirits and mutterings about evil spirits grow in the telling, the superstitions of the Anwa spreading like a dark shadow over Genoese sailors and Norman armsmen alike. Still you refuse to give in to the fear and act upon blind suspicion. Inge and Zaia continue their ministrations and the doctor at least learns more of your mysterious guest. "Her blood runs colder that it should, her heart beats softer. I do not know of any natural aliment that does such, for humors most often hut hot and not cold save in on the very precipice of death."
Yet she seems to be doing better and not worse. "I wish you could speak for yourself..." you say more to yourself than the sleeping young woman. Again you consider cutting open the sack, but hold off.
That night again the sounds of the ship are broken by raised voices, curses and shouting. As you rush to see what is the matter you find the sailor from before, shaking like he had seen the devil himself his sleeve wet with sea water and beside him a grim faced Tom. "I swear to you sir the dead man tried to pull him into the water, the one that jumped three nights ago, bloated and dead he was, eyes grey and rotten. I cut off the hand but..."
"But what?" you ask urgently. "Spit it out man, we have seen and heard enough strange and dreadful things not to blame you over it."
"T'was like a sleep came upon me weighing my limbs, even though I was rested before."
"Did you hear anything before that?" Inge, who must have come up behind you asks. "Something that sounded like a spell maybe?"
"I don't know about any spells little miss, but I heard or thought I did a little mumbling mixed in with the rain."
"Never mind asking whys and wherefores, kill the witch! She is the one to blame for this!" the man who had been almost drowned shouts, as he finally gathers his wits.
At this Inge jumps and whirls about, ready to defend herself. The last time there had been calls of that sort she had been the 'witch' in question, but it is clear that this time they mean your stranger passenger. Still the word seems to have moved her from her own suspicions. Facing the man squarely she looks him up and down with a cold gaze. "She has not done anything and if she is posessed you would be killing an innocent woman and letting the evil loose."
What do you do?
[] Continue as you have been, being on your guard has been enough to foil the second attack and Inge's magic should be able to wake the woman for questioning eventually
[] Have Zaia use some of his potions to try to wake her faster
[] Get her out of the sack, maybe that will wake her
[] The men are right, much as you are loath to admit it, she is the source of the evil and must be destroyed (DC 30 diplomacy to convince Inge)
[] Write in
OOC: I thought about doing the decision after the first sailor was lost, but that just felt a bi too much micromanagement plus it would have been a rather short update. Not yet edited. 
