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 52: The volume was by the bed, placed on a writing desk that could be fitted over the lap of the person sitting in the bed.
The volume was by the bed, placed on a writing desk that could be fitted over the lap of the person sitting in bed. Kasca took a deep breath and tried to ignore the body of the overlord sitting not too far away. The book was closed but its edges showed wear as though it was used heavily in the time it was used. It gave her hope that there would be something she could use in it.
Kasca altered her scrying to allow her sight to slide into the book instead of remaining on the cover. The page came into view, but she found that with the added distance, it was going to tire her out faster than before. She focused, paying attention to only what was in the book.
Kasca managed to get a few pages read in the book before she had to let it go and return to the cottage. The distance as well as the added sight drained her.
‘Next time I won’t have to look through other things,’ she consoled herself. She would just be going to the book. She knew where it was now. ‘And there is information.’
The Overlord may have thought he fled before he was contaminated but thought contamination was on the way. He believed that towns like hers in the north were making alliances. He heard it from his spies and was in fact counting on it to spread the disease. He expected someone would come to investigate and they would bring the disease back with them. His plan was to have the cure settled and ready as the disease rampaged.
‘He would be the savior,’ Kasca thought. She read his plan for power. It was a surprisingly solid, if wicked plan. Thousands would die, but he would rule something much larger than their small island kingdom. He would have a true empire.
‘At least he planned to cleans our island,’ Kasca thought. ‘If only for our resources.’
It was a grand plan. It left a foul feeling in her mind but it was at least contingent on him having a cure and being able to cleanse the area of disease.
‘If he worked those out, at least in part then it would be helpful,’ she told herself. ‘Especially now that he is dead.’
Kaska thought through what she read. Most of today’s pages were boastful planning. He truly believed he could carry out his plan. She could only rest and hope he got a good way towards that goal before he died. “I’ll find out tomorrow maybe,” she told herself.
She realized how tired she was. “Or sometime soon at least.”
Kasca rested, ate and returned to the volume. Her days once again fell into a rhythm. While she would never like the Overlord, he had pushed further in his study of the disease. In fact, once he realized he was contaminated, he doubled down on his efforts.
‘It there was one life he wanted to save it was his own.’
After a week of study, Kasca found what she needed. It was an antidote and a way to cleanse the disease from a space. She found the formulas. They were part chemical formula and part magical incantation, the two working together. The Overlord thought it was the reason the disease was so virulent. It was both physical and magical. He surmised that someone with magic had to have been t’s creator. He also assumed he was the target.
While Kasca knew he felt he was the center of the world, in this she believed he was probably right.
‘He also tested the antidote, and the cleansing.’ Kasca shivered as she read the description.
Ten til Midnight 