Swamped

"Wiz. You've missed a lot of intelligence briefings."

"I'm not avoiding them," you protest. "I missed the last one because a pump burst and nobody could reach it. The one before that was when strong winds threatened to tear the ship apart. And as I don't have an apprentice or a spell to be in two places at once, I can't promise future attendance either. Now, do you have anything specific to bring up, or can I pass along the message?"

The captain frowns.

"Seems odd, doesn't it? An emergency requiring the wizard's attention nearly every time there was a briefing. You were always better with numbers than me, Wiz. How likely does that seem to you?"

"It's less strange than you'd expect, when you consider how often problems pop up. I'd say we have pressing matters of one form or another popping up every six days on average, and about half of those are unreasonable to solve with nonmagical methods. And it wasn't every briefing, either. Eight out of twelve."

"But briefings don't take a whole day, and most of these problems don't take a whole day to solve," the captain muses.

"The time of day does make it a bit odder. It could just be that's when problems are most likely to be noticed. Is that all? Because I do have a message for you."

"I'm saying I think it would be good for you to come to the next briefing. No matter what."

You shrug.

"Fine, but don't expect me to go down with the ship. Right now it's not even clear we're going to get to the next briefing."

"I have faith that we will," the captain says. You know he never says that lightly. "Now, on with your message."

You don't know why he had to send Resk and Bertha out to say that part. But it doesn't especially matter. You pass the message along, explaining what you know about the context. Even the time magic.

"This messenger was from another time?" the captain asks, skeptically.

"That's right. I don't know how he got here, or even precisely what time he got here from. I have a suspicion it was the future, but in many ways it doesn't really matter."

"And the message was never intended for us."

"No, but someone thought we should hear it. What do you make of it, sir?"

Before he can reply, you suddenly hear Resk's words passing to you through the spell you cast earlier.