Oh look it's 2024
Hey hi it's a new year
As promised, I kinda let myself be away from writing work for much of December. I figured... agents are generally focused on holidays, I wanted to let Vicehunter simmer before revisions, it was worth the downtime. Of course, I didn't let Vicehunter totally simmer, I've poked at scenes and ideas. I can't help myself. I have no self-control. It's terrible.
Anyway! With the new year, I'm getting back on the querying train. This is where I take a moment to complain that QueryTracker, basically the site to use if you're a fledgling writer trying to find an agent... it just doesn't work on Firefox. The UI borks. I'm irrationally angry about this. Yes I can work around it I'm still grumpy
Also I did happen to spend some time over the holiday hanging out with Nate, a friend from streaming who's been editing Vapormage thus far. Made for a good reason to poke around Powell's and the art museum and all that jazz. Hopefully I've dodged all the Covid surge, feels like I have, huzzah.
Look at these things
Currently reading: The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett because I am long overdue on reading more Discworld.
Currently listening: Penguin Cafe Orchestra by Penguin Cafe Orchestra, a random suggested video on YouTube that took me down a sampling hole when I heard the opening to Spacehog's In the Meantime on the third track.
Currently playing: 30XX, Mega Man but roguelike. It's the sequel to 20XX, which was the same concept, and I put a lot of hours into that one (even did some rubbish Let's Plays way back when). Still fun!
A little story
In talking about Vapormage with Nate, he would occasionally go in about a side character that caught his interest. His strongest reaction, as I recall, was around the Barlow's Bread captains Rowan Kearney and Emery Sleetre. They're some of my favorite side characters too, so of course they'd get a short story early.
The last of the snow had melted, and Rowan was eager to get farming. An acre of barley, perhaps, if the seeds come through. A small grove of pear trees as a long-term investment. She had a dozen different guidebooks about crop rotation and efficient harvest planning and the like all stuffed in her satchel, draped across her body beneath her longbow. She had pored over all of them plenty of times. She had the knowledge and the plans.
It was Emery who had the sense of direction. The vian led the way through the forest, occasionally plucking one of their own blue feathers and stuffing it into a chip on a tree they had cut out with their sword.
“That’s gotta hurt, Em,” Rowan said.
Emery shrugged. “Forgot paint. Don’t wanna lose the trail. Barlow’s farm should be a click away.”
Practical, businesslike, and a bit strange. Rowan had a good partner for her mission.
The two were aware of Barlow’s farm for years. The man, Barlow, was a bit of a notorious figure in the Four Kingdoms of Farolé. Opinions were most divided in the old Tabras land, in the west of the unified country, where Barlow was from and where he set up his secret homestead. The effort was his latest attempt at sticking it to the monarchy, and it would be his last; the Queen, having finally had enough, sent her assassins after him some years back.
The farm was supposed to now be some public-benefit operation, but Rowan and Emery had seen first-hand that such claims were bollocks. The farmland had simply sat abandoned, and still was as the two approached it that spring morning. Moss and weeds crowded around the bases of silos and stone buildings, their doors left wide open, their contents exposed indirectly to the elements.
Rowan took the first step inside the largest of the buildings, looking around for any substantial damage or decay. There wasn’t any that she could spot, but there wasn’t much of anything else either. The hall was hollow, lacking any machinery or stockpiles of supplies that might speed the project along. All that remained was some aged furniture: tables and benches and shelves and other things of the sort, dotted with moss or the remnants of wildlife nests.
“It’s good shelter,” Emery said, taking their own look around. “Lot of space to subdivide for our purposes. Need to take Kristof up on his offer. Place is a mess. Did they leave a broom around or anything?”
“Doubt it.” Rowan set her bag and bow down where she stood and conjured up a small amount of wind-aspected vapor. Her spellcraft wasn’t notable, and the gusts she could produce hardly tidied anything up. “I’ll look around, though. Could you get—”
“Already on it.” And Emery was. They were working out a way to light the interior before night fell, closing the broad doors as they circled the interior.
The building had one nook that was well away from the doors. Planks of wood and the approximations of tools were piled up like a nest against the wall. Rowan pulled away the top layer, hoping any of the dowels were instead the handle of a broom. After pulling away a humble pile of wooden planks, she could see a crate buried underneath the rest of the wood. Supplies, possibly. Rats likely would’ve gotten to it if it was food, but it was still worth digging out and investigating.
From a distance, Emery had noticed. “Find something useful?”
“Maybe.” The crate scraped against the ground as Rowan dragged it towards the center of the room, pushing leaves and dirt out of its way. The floor was getting clean, at least. “Still nailed shut.”
“Step back.” Emery grabbed their sword and approached. Rowan stayed clear as Emery chipped the lid of the crate open with a pair of axe-like swings.
The crate contained small artisan’s tools and hastily-bound journals. Emery gathered the tools, sorting out what they were and what utility they could have, while Rowan started reading one of the journals. “This is Barlow’s,” she said in quiet surprise. “Figured they burned ‘em all.”
“Can kill a man, can’t kill an idea,” Emery said. “For better or worse.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Rowan flipped through a journal, reading slowly thanks to Barlow’s scratchy handwriting.
She could hear Emery winding up to get her attention. “Hold on, Em.”
“What?” Emery had things they wanted to do.
“Folsom is ready,” Rowan read, surprise in her voice. “Win or lose, the basement is there for her.”
“That can’t mean Casey,” Emery said, “they had no connection.”
“Barlow was a pacifist,” Rowan said, “why would he help someone trying to kill the Queen?”
“Maybe pacifism doesn’t work. What basement?” Emery looked around the grimy hall.
Rowan looked as well, though her heart wasn’t into it. Casey Folsom never wanted to free Farolé, she wanted to conquer it. Rowan was glad she failed. To think that Folsom and Barlow were allied…
“Fuck!” A sudden shout from Emery. They were bouncing on one leg, having apparently hit something as they swept the floor with their foot. “Found something.” The two carefully cleaned the piled-up leaves and muck away to reveal the bare stone of the floor and a handle etched within.
Rowan cracked her knuckles and tugged at the handle. It was moving, but it was heavy. The two had to pull together, hand over hand on the small latch, to get it open. A ladder descended into the dark.
Emery’s feet found the wet basement floor, a small flame flicked from their thumb. Surrounding them was a supply of spears and other weapons. Most were rusty, worn down by the musty air. “Well shit,” Emery said. “Can’t use any of this, but…”
“You’d think Eileen would blast this all over,” Rowan said, incredulous. “Most the people we’ve talked to wouldn’t be in if they knew Barlow was a Folsomite.”
Emery looked around and nodded. “Then we smash it. Burn it. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Em, we can’t lie to people.”
“Sure we can,” Emery said.
“This is about keeping up Barlow’s legacy,” Rowan argued.
“Exactly. His legacy, not his beliefs. Doesn’t matter who he was, it matters what we make him. If we can do something good for Farolé, who cares how we got there.” Emery Sleetre, practical as ever.
Rowan conceded and started climbing up from the basement. She’d have to figure out how to keep it dry; the extra space was too handy to go to waste. “I just don’t want us tied to a piece of shit, y’know?”
“Folsom’s dead, Barlow’s dead,” Emery said.
“They could’ve had accomplices.”
“Then,” Emery said as they cleared the ladder, “we build up this base, get our recruits, help everyone we can, so that if someone does come at us, then they’re clearly trying to discredit the good guys.”
The idea gnawed at Rowan. It could work, it sounded like something that could happen, but she could feel the hall’s muck under her skin.
“Rowan.” Emery spoke with a stern kindness. “You knew this is what these politics can look like.”
“Can,” she emphasized. “I only want us getting our hands dirty working the fields.”
Emery responded by pressing their hands into the floor of the hall, coating their palms in the grime. They held them up at Rowan’s face, a coy look on their face.
The gesture made Rowan realize her own hands were dirty from climbing the ladder. She wiped them off on her pants.
“They’ll just get dirty again,” Emery said with a hint of taunt.
“Honest dirt from honest work,” Rowan said.
Emery’s beak tapped, slightly amused. They left a grimy handprint on Rowan's shoulder. “I have a good partner for this mission.”