Morning all and welcome to the Fifteen Minute Novel. Here I take the start of a story idea and work on it for fifteen minutes a day. I started with an old writing prompt that interested me, cleaned it up a bit to fit the basic outline of the story I want to write and then set aside fifteen minutes each week day to see it grow. Each morning’s writing starts with the last sentence of the day before. And so now we have the story of Kasca…
Day 15: Kasca set the thought to the side, returning to the spread of the contagion.
Kasca set the thought to the side, returning to the spread of the contagion. ‘It had to have come from the north,’ she thought. ‘Unless it travelled by land.’
Kasca shook her head. Even if it had come by land, it might still have come from the north. With the Overlord’s trade controls, quotas and mandatory crops most goods would have arrived at the overlord’s depot before heading out to their designated locations. The Overlord’s depot for this area was to the north.
As the current caught the small boat Kasca let it draw her down river her mind turning things over. If something this devastating started in the northlands then she should have seen some sign of it as she travelled.
She frowned as she thought over her journey. She looked for signs of the other runners who came before her and saw they quickly petered out. They were visible not far from her town of Deras, but within a few miles they became sparser. With each town becoming more and more isolated as the travel restrictions increased, there was little news from the neighboring towns. They were far north of the others, one of the northernmost points in the empire and for the last six months none of their runners had returned with news of any kind.
Worried about the lack of signs, Kasca avoided the towns and populated areas. She needed to get to the southlands as fast as possible so her message could be passed, and she didn’t want to be encumbered. She suspected that in each town she visited, she would be tempted to stay a few days to gather information on missing runners and to look for what caused them to veer off course and not return.
Knowing there was no time, she avoided both the temptation and any possible dangers. She blamed the mostly empty roads on the travel restrictions. She hid when she heard others as they were mostly the collectors the Overlords sent out.
‘Still, could a contagion like this have spread without us knowing?’ She didn’t think it was possible. The collectors would have brought news of it if nothing else. It would have made their demands for increased quotas seem justified, so they would not have forgotten to mention it.
‘But they were heading into Deras when I left.’ Less than an hour on the road and Kasca had to use her concealment charm to hide from them. ‘I used the full shielding as well,’ she thought. It was the same she used when searching the town to find out why it was abandoned.
Kasca shook the thought off. ‘Even the Overlord would not have let infected collectors travel from town to town,’ She thought. It would spread the disease and make matters worse.’ She may not know what exactly the Overlord wanted beyond power and control, but she knew power and control were key. A rampant contagion wouldn’t do him any good.
‘It might have helped during take over, but not now.’ There were no rebellions now. No ranks to be decimated by disease. ‘Just small villages.’
The boat floated on and Kasca hoped that if nothing else, she might find answers.
Ten til Midnight 