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 30: When the bowl was simply full of water, she picked it up and placed it on the table.
When the bowl was simply full of water, she picked it up and placed it on the table. Kasca had always been surprisingly good with scrying. It was also the skill she possessed that caused her the most angst. She was often brought into the council house and presented with a massive bowl in which to reflect the image of the place the village elders wanted to see.
She would bring the image forth and they would all gather around the bowl, each jostling to gain a better position. Despite the fact that they were told silence was needed, they often forgot and commented on events as they unfolded. Kasca had to work extensively to practice tuning them out so that she could focus and not lose the image.
Then there was the aftermath. If what they saw pleased them, they went away happy. If they were upset by what they saw several of them seemed to delight in blaming her for the vision as though she decided to turn events in a way that did not favor them.
Lately there had been little good news and she took more of the blame. One elder even went as far as to tell her that it was her negative attitude that was bleeding into events. After that, Kasca passed the duties of scrying on to Gera.
They weren’t happy as her skills were better than Gera’s as far as scrying went. Kasca pointed out Gera had a much more positive out look on lie and therefore she might get them the results they wanted. She had then stormed off and left them with Gera. While there were overtures, trying to get her back when they realized Gera’s reach was not the same and the images not as clear, no one apologized and Kasca turned her efforts to other ventures.
She informed them that when they apologized she would consider returning. Given that they would never consider apologizing, Kasca knew she would never need to decide. Placing her hands on the side of the bowl now, Kasca felt some of the same irritation. A part of her suspected that had she been scrying knowledge of the disease would have reached the village earlier.
When she learned the runners disappeared, Kasca did scry in an effort to search for them, but found nothing. When she found nothing, there were those who wanted to blame her for the disappearance. She volunteered to serve as a runner once more, partially to search but mostly because she was tired of being blamed.
Kasca took a deep breath and let it go. She placed her hands on the side of the bowl and let her power flow, her mind emptying of all but general thoughts of Dera. She needed to see what was happening now rather than think of the past. The water shivered in a non existent breeze and images began to form.
Kasca looked as the images of Dera appeared. It was not as she left it. The signs for death were marked on many houses. Only a few people were moving about and Kasca could see the marks of the disease on them. She thought of the stages that she was told the disease went though and the general timeline the Sanctuary put together.
As Kasca looked over the town and the few remaining she walked the time line back realizing that they would have been infected shortly after she left.
‘It had to have been brought from somewhere,’ she thought. The only travelers she was worked for the Overlord.
Ten til Midnight 