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 77: Kasca went to the shelves and pushed her sight into a book that looked likely to yield interesting information.
Kasca went to the shelves and pushed her sight into a book that looked likely to yield interesting information. Kasca read until she had little energy left. She then took one more look around the Sanctuary.
Jascon was standing next to an older man. He had an age spotted scalp and a few tufts of white hair growing in a ring around his ears. He was bent over a scrying bowl and looked weary. He pushed back from the bowl ending his spell.
“Still nothing, Jascon,’ he announced.
Jascon ground his teeth. “Rest and try again in the morning. Keep trying until you find her.”
“She may already be beyond my reach,” the old man said. “I loose sight before the old silver mines.”
“See what you can do after a rest.” Jascon said, unwilling to listen to thoughts of failure. “With so many deaths you have the greatest reach.”
The old man nodded even as Jascon turned and headed out of the room.
“Its’ not going to change anything,” the old man said softly to himself. He darted a glance to he door as though worried Jascon would overhear him. Kasca felt her own exhaustion pulling at her. She left the sanctuary and returned to her body, hidden in the mine. She set her scrying bowl to the side and rubbed a hand over her tired head. Many new spells danced inside and she leaned back letting them sink into her memory while she rested.
Eventually she pried herself off of her bedroll and took out her evening rations. She hadn’t found the spell to keep someone else from scrying out her position or spotting her when she was shielded, but she found out several useful things and was hopeful she could learn more. “I’m sure I am in the right section,” she told herself.
As she ate she thought of the non spell work she learned. Jascon meant to have her killed. “But he is having a hard time finding scryers who can see past the old silver mines.”
It gave her a greater feeling of protection and made her less worried about being spied upon. ‘Still looking for those spells,’ she reminded herself. Even if she didn’t find them right away she was adding to her repertoire and what she learned now would be useful later.
‘I’m not hiding here forever,’ she told herself.
Still the floodwaters needed time to go down and she needed to pick a port and a destination. ‘Time well spent.’ She finished eating, went down one of the other passages to relieve herself, paced a while to allow her body movement and then gave in to the sleep that wanted to claim her.
In the morning, she did it all again. She checked the passages, found them all still impassable and then went to the Sanctuary. The island had been searched and she was not found. They all believed she left and was not hiding somewhere. The scrying was yielding no information and no one was eager to leave the sanctuary and see where she went.
Watching them Kasca wasn’t certain if the reluctance to leave the sanctuary was due to the possibility of decontaminating themselves or because many of them had never left the island at all. The world outside the island was a vast and daunting place. There were many discussions about what the next steps should be but no final decisions being made.
Kasca left them to it and returned to the library. Towards the end of the day she found a spell designed to hide her from anyone intending to scry for her.
Ten til Midnight 