#(i will say her hair turned out more orangey than i intended but oh well ^-^)

[artsy-book]

I present: a pearly pop for you!! ^-^

I would like to return the favor and I will do a doodle for you too ^-^

what is your hermit of choice ^-^

Aw sam thank you so much!!! <3

May I request a pearl👀

[ayellowbirds]

Pre-senting, here upon this very first night of November, elsewise known as National Novel-Writing Month, the sequel to Cypora’s Guide to Becoming an Evil Queen! A tall tale centered upon the not-so sinister destiny of an autistic trans girl in a world of high fantasy based upon both Jewish and North American folklore and legends.

Here we are! The first 1817 or so words, a bit earlier than planned, because I reached a stopping point and need to rest after a nervous day at work. The text is below the Read More, but first, a reminder: NaNoWriMo is a big undertaking, and it will mean a lot to have some support and encouragement. How can you do that?

Keep your eye on the Cypora’s Guide to Cementing Your Rule as an Evil Queen tag on my blog. Story updates and thoughts will be posted there.

Look back at the tag for the original story, here; the posts from last year of the original, un-edited draft of the story can be found about halfway down this page.

Tell me about your favorite characters from the story—or draw them, if you like! You can find visual references in the art tag, or look at the stuff that inspires me, visually, in the inspiration tag.

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Got any questions about Cypora’s Guide, the characters, or the setting? Feel free to send them to me!

And now;

30th day of the month of Vernary, the year 5647 CC

Alícha de Matos sat in a corner, staring into a cup of coffee that was long past even being counted as lukewarm, much less hot. She’d arrived in the small café in the “city” of Berry Hill when it opened in the morning, as she had done every morning since the end of the sabbath. Three days of making the gesture of ordering an overpriced mug, three days of waiting and watching.

By now, she had memorized every small detail of the café, from the mismatched chairs and tables, to the aging broadsheets and posters nailed to the walls from the days of the revolution, before she was born. Caricatures of the Icarian Empire and its leadership as monsters more grotesque than any she’d faced in the depths of a dungeon, and bold illustrations of revolutionary leaders in now faded colors. On the wall beside her, the red mane of Velvela had turned a sort of orangey-pink, like lox left out a little too long.

She was starting to think that the word she’d put out had been a waste of time, and the advertisements a waste of money. In a larger community, she’d have just hit up the local adventuring guilds, but Berry Hill was too small, too rural to even have a guild office run out of someone’s house or in the back of a shop.

Someone less familiar with adventurers—say, a wealthy citizen seeking to hire a swordswoman, spellcaster, or shootist to slay some monsters—might have assumed that a tavern, saloon, or bar would be the place to go to find them. And sure, that would be the case if you wanted to hire someone who had already won treasure and was happy to spend it on overpriced brandy.

But an actual adventurer looking for others like herself? Well, Alícha knew that the place to start was anywhere that served coffee or tea. She looked out at the crowd over a mug that she had only bothered to sip from when the café owner started to look sour at her, and tried to judge the current small crowd.

The first type coffeehouses attracted were ordinary people of the land looking for a kosher indulgence. Second were foreigners, visitors from outside the former Icarian Empire who were curious about what life was like now that the Icosans were either dead or gone. These showed up because of the third type: former revolutionaries, and those of like mind. The common sentiment was that the revolution started over a hot cup of dark roast, though Alícha was sure that café owners were the ones who popularized the idea. Whatever the truth of it, late nights of planning and strategic meetings over brown-stained maps had created a lifelong coffee habit, and the revolutionary generation and their children had proven the best thing for the business.

That generation was key. When the revolution—really, a great many small revolutions, rebellions, and insurgencies that happened to roughly coincide—achieved lasting victory, many of those at the forefront turned to seeking out treasures hidden away in the labyrinths and fortresses created by the Dungeon System. The most noble* claimed they were trying to liberate centuries of stolen wealth and property.

This café did not attract the most noble adventurers, but she hoped it would at least attract a few. Alícha looked out over those seated, standing at the counter, or loitering near the entrance, where a golem in a sandwich-board sign hawked extra-cheap cups of the weakest brew the café offered, a mix of leftovers and chicory root.

A western-looking woman in a lilac headscarf near the counter, haggling over exchange rates; most likely a foreigner passing through. Berry Hill might be a speck of dirt on the map, but it was a speck on the side of a major road, and travelers from afar often passed through. Other probable foreigners included the trio in fine black garb heavily decorated with colorful beadwork and copper, probably far-easterners† of the type who had brought coffee to the people of the land in the first place.

Seated further back was a woman who had been just as much a regular at the café as Alícha herself; all delicate features and the softness of a pampered lifestyle, with long blonde hair that curled beneath a red scarf in the way that suggested deliberate alteration rather than natural growth. Her green eyes met Alícha’s, and her expression hardened. A snob who thought herself trendy and important.

Among the lingerers out front, there was a more promising figure, who had something of the look of a lumberjack of the northwoods. Well, a lumberjack if clothed by someone who had forgotten when to stop knitting or weaving. Red plaid not as a shirt, but a robe that reached near enough to the ground that its ends were frayed and mud-stained, paired with a tuque that extended so far that Alícha thought it might have been originally intended as a thigh-length stocking for a giantess, rather than a hat.

The promising part was none of this, but the too-long sword strapped to the figure’s back by way of a bandolier that also lashed a very large bag to their hip. When they moved, Alícha saw what looked at that distance like an unusually large assortment of membership badges from adventuring unions and guilds. As the person turned to enter the café proper and come into better view, this was confirmed. The flannel of their shirt-robe parted to reveal faded blue trousers reinforced with old-fashioned plates of armor, and boots that were either gray-brown or else far too encrusted with mud to make their real color visible.

They made their way through the cafe, casting wide smiles that showed too few teeth, with several of those that remained well-chipped. Alícha could not guess at their gender from their appearance, though she supposed that it wasn’t proper to make that kind of assumption in the first place. She’d dealt with that enough in her childhood.

The likely adventurer reached into a pocket, and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper, and shook it out, then looked around the café.

“Hey, uh,” they said in far louder a voice than was needed for the small coffeehouse interior or the volume of conversation therein, taking a sip of coffee from a cup at an abandoned table before continuing, “anyone know anything about this here ad looking for adventurers and such as?”

They were met with brief glances and a few expressions of contempt, but Alícha raised a hand and waved to herself.

The cracked grin returned, and the newcomer sat down heavily on the chair opposite Alícha without turning it around the proper way. A good thing, too, with the size of the sword on their back, which Alícha hoped they could actually use. This close, they did look to have the muscles for it, but many a new adventurer grabbed the biggest and scariest weapon they could without consideration for how to actually fight with it.

“Oh hey, you’re scrappy looking and suchlike,” they said as they scooted the chair closer. “Name’s Broke, on account of my pop had a bad sense of taste for a feller named Moneymaker. I’m here about the advertisement, likewise I said.”

Alícha boggled for a moment. “Your name,” she began, and hesitated, “is ‘Broke Moneymaker’?”

“Sure as a skunk is striped,” Broke replied, passing Alícha a card‡. “Excepting those as has spots.”

The card was not a typical business-card; in fact, it was a playing-card with text hand-written over the back in surprisingly precise and bold ink. Broke tapped a deck of other cards back into place in a box, while Alícha took a closer look.

BROKE A. MONEYMAKER

Ze/Zir

PRO-FESSIONAL ADVENTURER, BODYGUARD,

BOOK-KEEPER,

SWORD-SWINGER AND INK-SLINGER

“SUMS AND CRITTERS A SPECIALTY”

“I’m afraid I don’t have a card, myself,” Alícha said, offering a handshake. “My name is Alícha de Matos, of Martıkoy.”

She recalled the format of the card, and added, “she, and her.”

“Proper excellent and good to meet you, Miss de Matos,” Broke replied, returning the offered hand. Ze had some sort of curious tube or hose wrapped around zir wrist, with the rest continuing further up zir sleeve. “Say, wait a minute or less. Ain’t you the Alícha such as some people been calling ‘the Breaker’, on account of what you done to dungeons?”

“Is that what they’ve been calling me?” Alícha sighed, and fussed with her eyepatch. “I suppose I’ve been doing things on my own for too long.”

“That’d be whatfor you made this bill of advertisement?” Broke guessed, waggling the paper. It was not the only one Alícha had paid to have posted, or else she might have been uncomfortable with Broke so casually keeping it to zirself.

“Yes, it is,” Alícha said, patting the paper down flat on the table and stopping the crinkling noise it made. “I’ve realized there are reasons I should involve myself in the adventuring community more, and either join, or if necessary, form a party.”

“Well that sounds reasonable,” Broke replied, the grin returning. Alícha wondered just how much sugar the strange-speaking androgyne ate on a regular basis. “One presumes such terms and conditions for party formation as are de-fault across most unions and guilds?”

She shrugged. “As I said, I’ve not been very involved in the community. We can go over what I had in mind, and I would welcome suggestions.”

Alícha and Broke started to discuss the fine contractual details of forming an adventuring party, including division of resources and starting finances as well as shares of any treasure, even pausing so that Broke could order zirself a proper cup of coffee on Alícha’s coin. In spite of the oddities of zir speech, Alícha quickly realized that ze had a mind for details that gave truth to zir card. Considering that canniness, Alícha made a point to keep quiet on exactly the reasons she wanted to get a closer look at the adventuring community. Her recent defeat seemed spurred by a hatred of adventurers not only by monsters, but humans as well. If there was reason for ordinary people to mistrust adventurers, it might be that there was corruption in the community. Getting more involved might be risky, but she needed to find out for herself.

She was focused enough on this and the discussion, that she didn’t notice the close attention the pampered blonde paid her or Broke.

* Or at least, those who most ardently insisted on their nobility. 

† Said “far-easterners” referred to themselves as being from the west, which was generally confusing for everyone involved, requiring the matter to be ignored during discussions. This led to a lot of circuitous avoidance of giving directions, especially difficult in planning trade routes.

‡ The Knave of Swords, in this case.