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 68: Kasca decided it was a good idea.
Kasca decided it was a good idea. The supplies had freshwater in abundance. She made certain to cleanse it a second time before refilling her personal supply and then decanted a bowl of the water to scry. Given the practice she had over the winter the scrying came easily.
She started with the Overlord’s Keep/ It was silent. Anything that was dead remained where it was. Nothing moved since her last visit. She stayed away from the laboratory where she spent so much time and allowed herself to skim through the area. Nothing moved. It was an empty place now.
Kasca widened her search looking for any of the patrol that might have been spared the disease and thus be a danger to her. ‘Less of a danger now though,’ she thought.
While she could shield herself with the same spell she used to keep her safe from the disease and go unnoticed, she could not use it on her way down. Then the Overlord learning she had magic of any sort was as dangerous as the patrols. While she could see the patrols, she couldn’t see the traps the Overlord set to notify him that magic was being used in the vicinity. She always used extreme caution when passing by the keep so as not to trigger those defenses. She relied on skill and speed rather than magic.
She knew many of the other runners didn’t and they hadn’t lasted long.
Kasca set the thoughts of the long dead out of her mind to focus on the recent. ‘Or those still alive.;
That seemed an unlikely prospect as she widened her circle around the keep. No patrols moved. She saw the heaps of the decomposing creatures as she searched. ‘They must have fallen shortly after I passed,’ she thought looking at the decomposition the wind and ran and sun did to the remains.
She started to widen her search but knew she knew all she needed to know about the area around the keep. She was stalling, not wanting to send her sight north. Still she knew she needed to know all of her path not simply the immediate area ahead.
Steeling herself, Kasca slowly proceeded north, letting her mind travel swiftly long the route she would be walking. There was no movement on the road. She saw a few abandoned carts, most from officials of the overseers. Food rotted in the collection carts. Boxes of collected coinage remained safely tucked away, no bandits to attack the now defenseless collection wagons. Some had bodies, as though the driver was determined to complete the trip but expired enroute. Others appeared to simply have been left.
Kasca skimmed past them and looked into the villages along the way, places she knew well and would be welcomed with a meal or hidden from those searching travel passes. These too were empty of people, at least the living ones. Kasca moves quickly. She told herself it was because she didn’t want to waste her energy, but she knew it was more that she didn’t want to see the familiar faces among the dead.
Finally, she reached her hometown of Deva.
Like the others, the disease ripped through it. There was no one moving. No people, no anilamsl. The cattle lay dead in the barns. The cats and dogs expired in corners and even in the middle of the streets. Her friends and neighbors were all gone.
Ten til Midnight 