Chapter 17

I had to hand it to her. Scared or not, Elizabeth came to her senses quickly. Just a few seconds after realizing what was happening, she snarled and shook herself, like a dog freshly emerged from the ocean. “All right. That’s happening. You. Alan.”

“Liam.” I responded on autopilot.

Behind us, people were reacting. Most by crying, yelling or starting toward the entrance gates at a panicked run.

Elizabeth did not panic. Barely reacted. “Don’t care. You’ve got big arms. That horn is the captain, telling us there’s an attack inbound, and everybody’s to pull back within the walls of the Ever Steady and prepare to defend themselves.” She pointed at the cauldron and her tent. “I don’t know what’s inbound out there, but unless we move quickly, we’ll be leaving a good portion of the healing supplies and poisons of the camp for the attackers to find. So, I will need for you to act like a pack mule.”

I blinked, thanking my praises that I hadn’t picked that Tier 5 bad luck quirk. I grinned at her. “Well. This is your lucky day, Liz. Just half an hour back, I picked the Personal Universe talent. I’ve got a cubic meter of space for your goods!”

She made a sound between a hiss and a sigh. “Thank God. Now, get your ass over here.”

Even with my talent, there was no way I was able to pack everything in time. We leapt into her dark tent, and she started handing me items at a rapid pace. I didn’t question anything, barely looked at what I was handed. Large, overly ripe glow-in-the-dark berries. Small pots filled with mud. Raw meat, still dripping with blood. I accepted everything and just stuffed it inside my Personal Universe.

The sensation of placing things in my Personal Universe was something else. It wasn’t entirely unlike working in tandem with somebody you knew really well. Like, you’d reach out without looking and you’d just know that he’d be there to receive it. Same thing here, only there was an inherent sense of order, of knowing where everything lay. Odds are, I’d have enjoyed playing around with it for a long good while, if we weren’t under attack.

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A few minutes later, another horn call, four blasts this time, had Elizabeth cursing, and we raced out of the tent. My Personal Universe was packed, and on top of that, we were both loaded down, carrying large leather tarps filled with stuff over either shoulder.