Wrote 196 words. I'll be doing a rolling word system each time I submit. I'll mention what/if I wrote after submitting along with what I wrote for that current day (gives a better word count, but it allows me to submit earlier when I -might- write a little more later). I'll also try to give samples of what I wrote each time.

What I wrote:

Piercing through the wispy fog, its eyes glowed a neon green. With a two-colored coat of dark raspberry purple and glistening peach, the starling darted up a branch. The morning light wedged through white bluffs, scraping out pipes of light that streamed through the sky.

Gould deliriously gazed at its beauty. His bulky frame leaned beside a rock overlooking a mountain pass. It led to an inn with a pool of blood and two bodies near its bar.

Hearing a bird call, the starling reversed itself and cocked its head towards the source. It seemed to pause just long enough to decide on hopping up another branch. Once there, it reversed course again and looked about, oblivious to Gould's presence just feet away.

What a graceful creature, Gould thought as his mind took a dark turn to the bodies on the inn's pine floor. He had thought the same thing before his brothers had…

He looked away from the starling to the pass he was responsible for watching. He felt his entire body lift off the ground a little when he saw the posse. It was enough to frighten the starling, causing it fly far away.

Falling asleep! Goodnight!

Slowly, the illhb calmed, it's breathing slow. Its eyes went heavy-lidded. All of Oru's men gathered close in beside him.
A scrabbling noise came from just below the lattices. Stones splashed in the ravine below. A dark cloud rose over the edge. It was massive, three men tall and a dozen abreast. Within the swirling mass of grit and smoke, subtle and shifting shapes suggested themselves, but never lighting too long or so completely on anything that the mind could grab hold of and understand. But the creature had wings. And teeth and claws the size of children. And though it had no discernible eyes, Oru could tell that it looked at him all the same.
Sinuously, the form slid over the arch of the bridge. First its forelimbs rose high above them, then two sets, four, and finally a half dozen sets of limbs gripped the fallen old road and masonry all about them. The creature loomed above them momentarily, cobalt-colored dust falling on them, and then the head descended through the patchy stonework until it was very nearly on a level with the group of men.
Oru did not move. Of course he said not a word. But his stillness braced his companions, and to their credit, not a soul stirred.
The ifrit paused and surveyed them one by one. Oru prayed that each might blaze his covenant such that there could be no doubt. The ifrit would find no prey; no meager soul to trick with limp promises of magic or wealth.
With a puff of wind, like a snort, the cloudy neck swept back above them, and with a leap, the creature flew from the bridge into the chasm, chased by the last light of the sun into the valley.

Woke up late, and just barely got them done. Will add whatever I do to tomorrow's.

Still working on the novel! No preview this time. Maybe next time!

Oru brought the illhb to the stairs, dismounted, and tied it to the post. Between him and the semi-gloom of the recessed decking streamers and flags of various colored papers hung from strings tied to the posts. Beyond those pride could not enter. Thankfully, Oru felt only relief.
A burlap mat and a reed floor was all he desired.

Oru and his companions had set out early the following morning, the time for which their order was named. Light steps and nostrils full of countryside smells helped them among the wet grass. The calls of the night-fowl, returning from the hunt slowly gave way to the waking of the world. The road had been empty, hemmed in by the steaming rice marshes stretching endlessly into the pre-dawn darkness. But now they passed a farmhouse, and soon another, each with glowing windows and smoking chimneys, and the smells of roasting reached them.
Now they came upon a group of old men ribbing and joking one another on their way to the vineyards. As Oru passed them on the illhb, and his men on foot, the elders fell quiet; still with jolly faces and pleasant bows. Oru returned their smiles. As the last penitent cleared the gaggle of men, they fell instantly to harassing each other once more.

Bardo scene

Before the sun had fairly risen, fifteen miles lay between them and the waypost. The road widened. Now the fields and marshes gave way to hedges and stone walls. Here and there upon the swells of the countryside, buildings clustered in markets or craft guilds, linked by meandering roads of hardpack, lined with wagon ruts.
Here, even the stone of the imperial highway was rutted. Centuries of use impressed their will on even the impeccably worked granite. Oru made an oath for the men and women of ages past whose toil and heartache lay so clearly etched before him.
Presently they came upon a village which crowded onto the main thoroughfare. Mostly the buildings consisted in stone greatrooms with stick and paper additions. On some, woodwork adorned the brightly painted gables of the many-leveled curving roofs.
As the village grew dense, they were pressed in on all sides by life. People and animals, cooking smells, the shouts of hawkers and penitents of other orders. From his seat upon the illhb, Oru could see above the crowds, and due to his station, everyone made way.

sample: "We can't—," Bardo was interrupted by the mother breaking free of the third raider and running towards them. Reacting to the mother charging, Medea began drawing her sword.

Tough day!!

Still on Bardo scene

Finished the chapter and added some details into an earlier chapter that clarifies motivations, personalities, history and whatnot.

Sample:

"..., Medea felt a conflicted pang of regret. She first looked to the distraught family, crumpled and crying in a patch of tall grass, and second to Bardo, resolute and seemingly indifferent. Bardo surveyed the horizon where soft, fiery glows lingered."

The sample makes sense within the context but reading it alone, it may not make sense. But that's ok. I'm picking things that won't give anything in the novel away. Or at least, not much.

was

in

bed

when

I realized I hadn't written today!!

That's nothing. I slept and then woke up after 2 hours to my alarm blaring (set it previously to wake me up after 2 hrs). lol,

Gotta power through.

Did some restructuring. About a hundred words shy of 14k now.

The stately but smallish hall of the University's buildings in the colony had been dark save for what light filtered through the dusty air from the tall windows running down the side wall. The windows looked as if they had never been cleaned, so the clear glass looked like parchment.
The room had been about half full, maybe a hundred souls in all, all of whom Urcea could see from her vantage near the back.
Somehow the heir to Aurumdale freight lines had also been at the University meeting amongst the various country officials, Suurin dignitaries, ambassadors, and researchers from the colonial university. And when it had been announced that, due to the strong evidence of the artifacts, there would be an expedition, the heir had quickly joined the group. He had in fact been planning his own trip out, although for what he wouldn't say.

Pressing onward

Once the old lady had shunted her back through the archway and shut the gate, the boy was there, already bowing to her.
Urcea smoothed her skirts and fixed her hat. She took a slow, deep breath. The air without the inner chamber seemed much lighter. Fog cleared from her mind.
Once she had looked herself over and stood staring at the boy for a moment (had it been a dream?), she took another hesitating step toward him, then opened her mouth to speak.
Before the words could escape her throat, the young boy spun on his heel and set off down the hall, briskly. This was the same way Urcea had come to reach the audience chamber when she had entered Noctylatl's palace. They must have (strode) two or three stadia before she recognized the main thoroughfare.
Here there were many people. Tall, thin, orange-ruddy skin. Many of them wore elaborate hooded cloaks.
It seemed to Urcea that the taller persons were most likely to stay further away.
Far off to their left now she caught a glimpse of the main gate, for here the large hallway opened out into a sort of covered market. Even under the protection of the great rough, lost in darkness except where here and there some bright surface reflected a stray bit of afternoon sun, many of the keepers of the bazaar had set up tents.
These tents were of the most haphazard sort Urcea had ever seen. Nothing like the tailored pavillions of the races or an afternoon upon the grounds. These were pied in the brightest dyes imaginable, sewn together roughly with great twine threads visible clearly from a bow's-shot away. Here and there even the skins of animals added to the parti-colored tents. But what struck Urcea as more than passing strange were the giant feathers.
Each one was as tall as she, or taller, each predominantly of a single color, but each a different color from its neighbors.

The main gates now behind them and receding every moment, Urcea had time to appreciate the swift animal grace of the boy. He somewhat glided along the polished but ancient stones of the walk.
The wall on her right was high, spotted with ornate, high doors recessed and set upon a short flight of stairs. To the left, a great courtyard gleamed in golden light, shining in on their path so that now they were bathed in golden warmth, now they passed through an almost wintry shade.
Here the roof was perhaps one hundred hands above her. At intervals along their way, great tapestries hung in the open spaces. One theme in particular caught her eye. She surmised it to be the very Rainbird. A giant bird flew spread-winged within the tapestry. Beneath the wings, crystals adorned the parti-colored field, as if raindrops flashed within a rainbow.

Dance!

A sample:

Her cheeks were rosy now. She felt the incense wrap her in the warmth of the room. The scent and swaying of the strange lady beyond the curtain, the reverberations of her own voice, strangely childlike and foreign as they returned to her ear; all of it threatened to hypnotise her completely.

She finished the rhyme, ending meekly, "... and thus the sailor cried the night, throve cried to heightened dreams of night, he rode the billows and the bound, his wails the swells, they echoed round, fell tumbling through the salt and deep no human ear to find. It sank and more, it dived below and in the halls of Ocean then, it amplified its sounds. And Ocean opened up his arms, and craggy tooth and smile, he welcomed in the drowning man to stay and bide a while."

Urcea blinked a bit. From behind the curtain, the undulant form of the woman now was crowned by giant wings. Sprays of rainbow-colored liquid glittered over wings which roiled with lively feathers the color of stormcloud.