NaNoWriMo - Day 2 & 3

 

Day 2&3 - 7th November 2025

I can already see that this project will require a delicate balance. Allowing time to write meaningful content here while still giving myself the energy to write 50 000 words will be a difficult challenge.

As of this morning I have written 605 words of my 50 000 word total. That's 3395 words short of goal so far. I will definitely have to increase my pace, although I'm not particularly concerned, as this was amount was produced in the space of only a couple of hours. I should have more time to devote to this project going forward. 

I having been using Google Documents to write in so far. I considered using other websites to host, but figured it would be easiest to work with a website with which I already have an active account. I will provide a link to the document once we are further into Novemeber.

In the meantime I have included what I have written so far in the excerpt below. I will admit that as a writer there are always certain phrases you are looking for excuses to include in your work. The phrase "Civilisation committing suicide" and "He was no longer concerned, and that in of itself was concerning" are two such examples here.

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The Capitol was burning.

Once the crown jewel of the Empire, now the city was thick with fire, smoke, and refugees. Looking down on the streets from up high, Tristan watched as the Lower Reaches were swarmed by tens of thousands of bloodthirsty peasants, eating away at the city like termites. A mindless host, they had already completely overrun the Trade District, and the Education District would not stand much longer. Killing and burning everything in sight, the fools weren’t even looting what they had so violently claimed. Spurred on by rebel insurgents, the masses were piling their ill-gotten gains at every crossroad. There they gathered with torches and dry grass, and set fire to finely woven tapestries, beautiful silk gowns, and great tomes with equal fervor. Drunk on their victory, the crowd jeered and danced around these great pyres like savages from the frontier. The sight of it was enough to make Tristan sick. Animals biting the hand that fed them. 

Through the eyes of his familiar, the archmage’s apprentice literally had a bird’s eye view of the slaughter. A thousand different scenes played out below. A nobleman’s coach overturned, its occupants dead and the horses, animals drawn from the finest bloodlines in the Empire, butchered for offal to fill the stomachs of the invaders. The Imperial Library, an institution that had withstood a thousand years of unification and expansion, reduced to rubble by a misaimed mortar. Hogtied men and women being thrown from the Skytower, their splattered remains forming an ever rising tower. The Myclop Cathedral, kept standing not by the grace of the Seven Gods, but by the defensive lines of templar that still defended the building, their overlapping shields and magic keeping even the endless waves of rebel soldiers in check. Far to the north, the 100 feet tall stone statue of Emperor Anastasius was even now being dragged down by teams with ropes and pickaxes.

It was madness. Pure insanity. A civilisation committing suicide.

And yet Tristan could not bring himself to curse, too tired to waste words on what could not be changed. This complete collapse of law and order had been 7 weeks in the making, and he had far too much death and bloodshed in that time to be phased by what he saw now. He was no longer concerned with the thousand meaningless deaths that occurred every minute, and that in of itself was concerning.

Raising the opal in his hand, he recalled the raven to him, the dark glittering gem shining like a beacon as it called his creature home. It was disconcerting to see himself through the avian’s eyes as it approached, the ensorcelled raven eagerly climbing into its wicker cage and waited there patiently as the hooded man closed the door. Cutting off the spell, for the briefest of moments the archmage’s apprentice was seeing out of two sets of eyes at once, before everything snapped back into place. Rubbing his forehead as he felt the first aches of what would surely be a migraine later, Tristan nonetheless readied himself for his return to the palace. He had got what he had came for, and the Emperor did not like to be kept waiting.

With a swirl of his robes he was off, descending the hill and once again joining the throngs of people that filled every path and clearing in the Imperial Gardens. Safe being the Paling that had been cast over the northern side of the city, the glowing barrier meant that the thousands of refugees that still camped here were safe…for the moment.

His appearance caused something of a stir, the robes of his office marking him as a mage of some renown, and a member (however minor) of the Emperor’s Court.