Swamped Chapter 153 Page 10

It’s a bunch of symbols. No wonder they can’t make sense of it.

Wait… You’ve seen these before. They were on that chamber in the flying ship. The weird place you were in before this whole mess started. Do they have something to do with time magic…

Corvus?

All of a sudden, you hear Marshall’s voice in your head.

Did I send you somewhere? Who are all those greblings? What’s going on?

You get a weird idea.

Hang on. Where are you, Marshall?

What do you mean? I’m in this strange chamber, checking what this weird ether does like you asked. Next thing I know, I see you surrounded by greblings. And I think I opened some kind of mental link to you without meaning to?

Oh, hells. This was just before you got sent back in time, isn’t it.

All right. Don’t panic, Marshall. I don’t know what’s going on, exactly, but I’ve gone back in time. Except, from your perspective, I haven’t yet. So when you leave the chamber, act like nothing weird has happened.

There’s the mental equivalent of a pause.

So. After I leave the chamber, I pretend everything’s normal? I shouldn’t try to stop it? Marshall asks.

So this is what I know: I’ll be sent back in time soon after our conversation. Then you’ll magically retrieve me, don’t ask me how, and fall unconscious in the process. Not long after that, I’m going to be pulled even further back. Which is where I am now. Don’t let me know any of this, I’ve got something important to do here and I haven’t done it yet. Except, if I succeed, I guess I’ll have done it long before we’re even talking… look, don’t worry about the details. I’m just telling you what you’re going to have to deal with.

I think I understand, Marshall replies. Is there some way I might be able to help from here?

Maybe. Some of the stuff I’ve found while poking around has to do with a Matilda Laikenne, and there’s a woman named Minnie who claims to be her granddaughter. You pause a moment to try to sort through your thoughts without sending them. That’s your family name, so maybe they’re relatives of yours. I don’t know if it’ll help, but if you happen to know anything about them, I guess let me know just in case?

It takes Marshall a few moments to respond.