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 57: She felt relief wash over her as she realized what the book contained.
She felt relief wash over her as she realized what the book contained. The book was partially covered, but it was the spell the others used to communicate with her. ‘I guess they had to look up the details.’
Thankfully whoever looked up the details hadn’t put the book back on the shelf. Considering how many other books were left out, Kasca doubted tidying up the library was a priority. She drifted over to the book and read over what she could see. Part of the spell was covered so she had to exert more energy than usual, but as she didn’t have to spend a long time searching the expenditure felt minimal.
Kasca read through the spell and thought it was doable. Then came the difficult part. She didn’t want those in the sanctuary to think that she was spying on them. ‘Which means I can’t go straight to them with the message.’
The spell had a section where she could move the ball of light around and hopefully draw someone’s attention. ‘I still need to find the most likely spots.’
Kasca knew she would have to take a look around the Sanctuary to see where people were. She would have to travel the halls. Worried about what she might find, Kasca sent her sight out of the library and into the halls beyond. She knew if she stopped to think about what she might find, she would worry.
Her sight slipped out of the room and to her relief she found the halls empty. There were no people, living or dead to be seen. While it was a relief not to see the dead, it made her nervous that she could not see the live. Kasca pushed further down the halls.
‘They weren’t left in the halls,’ Kasca thought as she entered a room. There were bodies laid out on the floor under the cover of sheets and preservation spells. ‘So many,’ she thought leaving the rooms.
The Sanctuary was a rabbit warren and as she skimmed through the spaces she found many of them were looking dusty and worn. She suspected this was due more to the Overlord’s sanctions than the disease. In some rooms curtains rotted from the windows and were not replaced. The rotted cloth was left in a heap on the floor. If anyone used the space, they felt no need to clear the mess away.
‘But given the dust, I don’t think they have used the space in a while.’
It was clear that only part of the Sanctuary was occupied and the dead were simply stashed towards the unused sections. As the bodies weren’t too far from the library she visited, Kasca wondered what that meant as far as the research she found.
‘Later,’ she told herself. Kasca realized she could easily expend all of her energy looking over the Sanctuary and still not find the currently occupied spaces.
‘Burning,’ she thought. Kasca remembered the scent of burning coming from the compound. She let her sight slip outside the building and circle around. She found a space in one of the courtyards that reminded her of the other villages she passed. There was a mound of broken and charred furniture. In the ashes, she could see fragments of bone. There were still a few tendrils of smoke escaping from the still hot ashes. She suspected that those left alive were attempting removal in shifts.
Ten til Midnight 