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 97: She added an additional shield over the opening, but just inside so the magic would draw no attention.
She added an additional shield over the opening, but just inside so the magic would draw no attention. Before she settled in completely for the night, Kasca filled her bowl with water and used her sight to look to the roads ahead. She first looked around her and saw no one moving in the woods at all. Not near her and not anywhere she could see. When she looked at the nearest palisaded town, she saw that there were lights on in some houses and clearly people moving about in them, but no one was moving around outside either.
The day was mostly done but there was still some light in the sky. She didn’t know if there was some sort of curfew but no one left their houses as the world darkened. ‘Good for me I suppose.’
She knew that in Deva there were several who did work by night and they always had some night patrols. They did not have walls as the Overlord forbade them in all but a few towns. The few towns that had them were mostly viewed as prisons more than anything else. Deva counted itself lucky to have no walls, but relied on the night patrol to keep them safe.
‘Maybe the people who work in the hours of darkness do so behind closed doors as well,’ she thought. Without spending more time studying the town, Kasca wouldn’t know. Given the grievous injuries she saw to the dead outside the gates, she had no desire to get to know the people of this town any better. Instead she looked to the road ahead, saw the villages and towns she would need to avoid and scouted out likely places to stop where she could conceal herself while she slept.
Once these were identified, Kasca ended her scrying and carefully poured the water from her bowl back into the waterskin. She saw several places to refill it along the way, but also knew there was the greater chance of seeing people in those spots. She dare not waste what resources she had.
Once the water was secured, she ate her evening ration and curled up to sleep.
Her dreams were filled with images of the dead she passed. They chattered warnings to her and suggested she keep going. She felt as though she was walking through her sleep. She told the dead she intended to keep going and satisfied they fell silent.
In the morning Kasca awoke at first light. She used her bowl to make certain no one was about and then left her hidden spot for the night. She relieved herself and began her day’s walk.
It was not much different from the previous day. Towns and villages were infected and had no interest in welcoming strangers of any sort by the signs and the dead they left outside their gates. Kasca saw no one on the roads even though during daylight hours, when she veered close to a town or village she could hear the sounds of life. She avoided them and only saw people moving about at a distance. They slipped from house to house, head down and moving as quickly as they were able as though they worried about being caught out in the open as much as she did.
She curled up under large boulders near the edge of a quarry for the night. There were no miners and she hoped they would not arrive at first light. She spent a restless night and was pleased to move on in the morning.
While no one arrived at the mine, it seemed as though she should expect someone at any time. She also knew mines were often jealously guarded and even in good times, did not welcome outsiders. She was happy to continue on.
The days slipped past with little to tell them apart as she moved continuously towards her destination.
Ten til Midnight 