Chapter 5: The Crossing & The Cost
The North Sea swallowed them whole.
Paul had thought he understood what sailing meant—images from movies and television of noble ships cutting through blue waters with billowing white sails and heroic music swelling in the background. The reality was a cramped wooden nightmare that pitched and rolled with every wave, filled with unwashed bodies, wet wool, and the constant threat of death by drowning or violence.
The longship hit open water, and Paul's stomach immediately tried to escape through his throat.
"Oh God. Oh no. This is not happening."
But it was happening. Paul lurched to the side of the ship and vomited spectacularly over the rail, his body convulsing with dry heaves that brought up nothing but bile and regret. The warriors around him watched with the detached interest of people witnessing a natural disaster.
"The seer-blade cannot see his own stomach betraying him!" Rollo's voice boomed across the ship, followed by laughter that spread through the crew like wildfire.
Paul retched again, his face burning with humiliation. Between waves of nausea, he managed to activate Success Rate Analysis.
[QUERY: SURVIVAL PROBABILITY WITHOUT DYING OF EMBARRASSMENT]
[RESULT: 67%]
[MANA COST: 2 MP - REMAINING: 10/12]
"The system has a sense of humor. Wonderful."
"Here."
Paul looked up through watering eyes to find Lagertha offering him a piece of dried fish and a sympathetic expression that was notably free of mockery.
"Fix your eyes on the horizon," she said quietly. "Breathe deep. The sea sickness will pass."
Her voice was calm, practical, kind without being condescending. Paul managed a grateful nod and accepted the fish, though the thought of eating anything made his stomach lurch again.
"Thank you," he gasped.
"We all have our weaknesses," Lagertha replied. "The wise acknowledge them instead of pretending they don't exist."
Around them, the other warriors had already lost interest and returned to their own concerns—checking weapons, adjusting gear, or simply enduring the voyage with the stoic patience of people who'd done this many times before. Paul forced himself to focus on the horizon as Lagertha had suggested, letting the rhythm of the waves gradually settle his rebellious stomach.
The first day passed in a blur of misery punctuated by moments of stark terror when larger waves threatened to swamp the ship entirely. Paul learned that television had dramatically understated the sheer physical brutality of longship travel—the constant cold spray, the way wet clothes never dried, the intimate press of bodies in a space barely large enough to hold them all.
But as the sun began to set and the crew settled in for the night, Paul found himself in an unexpected conversation.
Most of the warriors had found what sleep they could in the cramped confines of the ship, but Paul and Lagertha were both awake, sitting near the bow where the sound of waves against the hull created a kind of privacy.
"What do you truly see, Paul?" Lagertha asked without preamble. "Are they gods' whispers or something else?"
The question hit him like a physical blow. After days of careful half-truths and vague answers, here was someone asking directly for the truth. Paul considered his options—lie convincingly, deflect with humor, or take a risk on honesty.
He chose partial truth.
"I see still images," he said quietly. "Fragments of what may come. Sometimes minutes ahead, sometimes days. But I don't hear gods' voices. I don't commune with Odin or the Norns. I just... know."
Lagertha studied him in the dim light, her expression thoughtful. "That must be lonely. To know and not be able to change everything."
Paul felt something twist in his chest—a recognition so sharp it was almost painful. "Every single day."
"Ragnar sees you as a tool," Lagertha said matter-of-factly. "Useful, valuable, but still just an instrument to achieve his goals. I see you as a man carrying a burden he didn't choose."
"She understands. Somehow, she actually understands."
They sat in comfortable silence for a while, watching the stars wheel overhead and listening to the eternal conversation between wind and wave. Paul felt something shift between them—not attraction, not yet, but recognition. The beginning of connection between two people who understood what it meant to carry weight that others couldn't see.
The storm hit on the second day.
Paul woke to chaos—waves the size of buildings hammering the ship, wind howling like the voices of the damned, warriors struggling to keep the vessel from capsizing or breaking apart. Rain lashed down with biblical fury, and every few seconds lightning illuminated a seascape that looked like the end of the world.
[PREMONITION SENSE ACTIVATED]
[WARNING: IMMEDIATE DANGER DETECTED]
The passive warning hit Paul's consciousness like a klaxon. Something was about to go very wrong, very soon. He activated Success Rate Analysis despite the system's warnings about mana conservation.
[QUERY: PROBABILITY OF DEATH IN NEXT HOUR]
[RESULT: 89%]
[MANA COST: 4 MP - REMAINING: 8/12]
"Eighty-nine percent. Someone's about to die."
Paul activated Odin's Whisper without hesitation.
[ODIN'S WHISPER ACTIVATED]
[DURATION: 120 SECONDS]
[MANA COST: 100% CURRENT MP]
[WARNING: COMPLETE MANA DEPLETION]
The world split in two. Reality continued—warriors fighting the storm, water cascading over the sides, the ship groaning under stresses that would break lesser vessels. But overlaid on top of it, Paul saw the next two minutes unfolding with crystal clarity.
Forty-five seconds from now, the rope securing the main sail would snap under the combined pressure of wind and rain. The massive woolen sail would swing free, and the heavy wooden beam supporting it would sweep across the deck like a giant's club. A warrior crouched on the right side of the ship—Paul recognized him as one of Ragnar's most trusted men—would be crushed against the rail, his ribs caved in, death coming in bubbles of blood and seawater.
Unless someone acted.
"SECURE THAT LINE!" Paul screamed over the wind, pointing at the specific rope that was about to fail. "THAT ONE! IT'S GOING TO SNAP!"
Floki, closer to the rigging than anyone else, looked where Paul was pointing. His eyes widened as he saw the rope fraying under impossible stress—individual threads parting one by one, the breaking point seconds away.
He moved with the fluid grace of a man who'd spent his life building and sailing ships, throwing himself across the pitching deck and grabbing additional line just as the original rope gave way with a sound like breaking bones.
The sail swung free for a heart-stopping moment, the supporting beam sweeping toward exactly where Paul had seen it crush a man to death. But Floki's emergency line held, and the warrior who would have died instead rolled safely aside as the makeshift rigging redirected the sail's momentum.
Odin's Whisper ended, leaving Paul gasping and soaked to the bone, his mana completely depleted.
[MANA DEPLETED: 12 MP REMAINING (RESERVE ONLY)]
[SEVERE MANA DRAIN DETECTED]
[WARNING: MENTAL STRAIN ACCUMULATING - MONITOR USAGE CAREFULLY]
The storm raged for another two hours, but they'd survived the worst of it. As the winds finally began to die and the crew started assessing damage, Ragnar made his way over to where Paul sat slumped against the mast.
"That was no guess," Ragnar said quietly, water streaming down his face. "You pointed at that exact rope before it failed. How?"
"Because I saw a man die and couldn't let it happen."
"The sight shows me dangers," Paul replied. "Sometimes clearly enough to act."
Ragnar gripped his shoulder with a hand that could have crushed stone. "The gods speak through you clearly, Paul of the south. I'm glad you're with us."
Around them, the crew was looking at Paul with something approaching awe. He'd saved a life with perfect prophecy in the middle of a storm that had tested everyone's courage. His reputation as a true seer was now carved in stone.
"At the cost of every drop of mana I had. I'm running on fumes."
But he was alive, the crew was alive, and according to the system's notifications, he'd earned valuable experience from the encounter.
[SYSTEM POINTS EARNED: 100]
[TOTAL SP: -100 (STILL IN DEBT)]
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: STORM SEER]
[MENTAL STRAIN: MINIMAL - CONTINUE MONITORING]
The third day brought calmer seas and the first glimpse of the English coast—a green line on the horizon that grew steadily larger as they approached. Paul spent the time recovering from his mana drain and trying not to think about what was coming.
As evening approached and the coastline resolved into individual cliffs and beaches, Paul activated Success Rate Analysis one final time, burning precious mana for information he desperately needed.
[QUERY: RAGNAR'S SURVIVAL PROBABILITY DURING LANDING]
[RESULT: 87%]
[MANA COST: 2 MP - REMAINING: 10/12]
Eighty-seven percent. Good odds, but that thirteen percent of uncertainty haunted him. He remembered enough from the show to know that the early raids went well, but television and reality were proving to be very different things.
"Thirteen percent chance that everything I think I know is wrong."
Paul checked his gear one final time—Dane Axe of Foresight, quality leather armor, five healing potions hidden in his belt. Whatever was waiting for them on that green shore, he was as ready as System Points and precognition could make him.
The English coast grew larger, and with it, the promise of violence, gold, and the chance to make history.
Or die trying.
[APPROACHING LANDFALL]
[NEXT PHASE: ENGLISH RAIDS COMMENCE]
[RECOMMENDATION: CONSERVE MANA - MAJOR CONFLICTS IMMINENT]
Paul gripped his axe handle and tried to ignore the voice in his head that whispered he was about to discover whether knowledge of the future was worth anything when the future started shooting back.
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