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 76: Kasca listened and realized something that hadn’t occurred to her.
Kasca listened and realized something that hadn’t occurred to her. The Sanctuary had been at odds with the Overlord since the beginning of his rule. ‘Before his rule even became absolute,’ she recalled.
She thought about the history book. Hidden tattered and officially banned by law as it mentioned a time when the Overlord was not the absolute ruler of the island. In it was detailed his rise to power and before anything else he took on the Sanctuary. ‘The blockade of the island predated the redistricting,’ Kasca remembered. ‘It even predated the rebellions.’
Those in the Sanctuary would not have left the island very much at all. ‘Even before my lifetime.’
There were no doubt some who remembered leaving the island, but they would be older. ‘Much older than Jascon,’ Kasca thought recalling her history and its timeline. While there were bound to be a few who managed to evade the Overlord’s block and make it to the Sanctuary it was doubtful that it was more than a handful. ‘Everyone else would have been born to the Sanctuary.’
She thought about the tokens she had to use to see places she had never been. ‘Trade is even more restricted,’ she thought. There would be no small trinkets taken from a passing trader they could use to see distant places. There were old items, things imported well before the restrictions were placed. Some of the carpets in the old sections she recognized from other locations. Many of them were threadbare and showing signs of breaking down over time. In the more occupied sections were mats made of rushes gathered at the shore or cloth woven from the plants that grew on the Sanctuary’s island. The food too was grown on site.
‘With no one born elsewhere and few materials to use to extend their sight, they might not be able to see much beyond the Sanctuary.’ Jascon listed names and Kasca guessed they were the ones who had the best chance of seeing. ‘I’ll have to look into this Goran,’ Kasca thought
For now, she knew the search was on to find her, at least on the island. She also knew they meant to kill her if they caught her. ‘Not going back to the Sanctuary.’
Passage south had not been in her plans, but now she knew the way was no longer a viable option, she would use the passages in the north. Which one would be decided, but they were her only options.
Deciding that she would gain nothing more from watching Jascon, she let him be and slipped into the library. While she wanted a spell to block those searching from finding her once she left the mine, finding it would take a while since she didn’t know what books to look for specifically.
It was important, but as she suspected they might not have anyone who could find her, she wasn’t as focused on finding it as she was before. ‘But there is no reason I can’t gather other spells while I monitor the situation and wait for the flood waters to recede.’
Kasca went to the shelves and pushed her sight into a book that looked likely to yield interesting information.
Ten til Midnight 