The fifteen minute novel writing experiment is a attempt to write a complete (and very rough) draft of a novel by writing for fifteen minutes each day. I have taken a timed writing from one of the daily prompts done in 2021, cleaned it up a little and used it as my jumping off point into a story. Each day I will take the last line of the story written the day before and use it as my sentence starter and write for fifteen minutes, growing the story as the year progresses.
Day 117: “We use one of the smaller kitchens.”
“We use one of the smaller kitchens.” The matron was looking around the room. “There isn’t much to the kitchens I believe, but he is welcome to go into them. If memory serves these are cut off from the rest of the space, so there is little likelihood of him getting lost in the tunnels.”
“Oh,” Lord Mathis said. “This isn’t connected to the vast network that is supposed to honeycomb through the mountain?”
The Matron smiled. “You have studied well Lord Mathis, but no. The kitchens were designed so refreshment could be placed in readiness for the musicians once they finished playing. I believe it was brought over from the larger kitchens that fed into the dining hall. There is a door in the dining hall that leasds down to those kitchens, so the smaller kitchen here is connected to the musicians gallery and the dining hall. It is a closed loop.”
“What an odd way of designing,” Lord Mathis said.
“We believe that it was the original kitchen for the dining hall and musicians gallery and preexisted the larger kitchens later added on. Those kitchens are connected to the tunnels. The tunnels themselves seem later additions as well. Through the mountain there are spaces that have an oddly isolated feel to them. They almost always tend to be older spaces.”
“Ah,” Mathis replied. He signaled his man to head off to the kitchens to double check the passageways and he darted off down the stairs. “I remember reading somewhere that there were once individual chambers within the mountain before they were connected.”
“It does make for some confusion in the lay out of the space. Since so many things are connected one expects everything will be, and occasionally you will find yourself in a corridor that seems to lead nowhere. I believe the final fall of the empire caused the last of the planned construction to be left undone.”
In her closed room, hands placed on the warmed pulsing orb, Anya watched as the man with Lord Mathis raced first down the stairs, searched the forgotten kitchen space and then followed the corridor to the dining hall. The end of the corridor was blocked by a stout door. It was fitted with a heavy bar and a stout lock. It didn’t so much as rock in it’s fittings as the man tugged it. In addition, the man saw finger marks where his hands disturbed the dust. He saw no other marks on the door when he studied it. Looking around, he also saw no marks in the kitchen other than the ones he left. Anya looked to the stone steps wondering if she left foot marks there that could be followed. Having the same idea the man began to slowly backtrack.
Ten til Midnight 