I'm angry I even clicked the first two hints- I knew that already! The third hint I needed, though. I remembered the cipher from old bulletins that were given to me at assemblies, full of puzzles to shut 6-year-old me up, and I needed that hint to remember what it was called.

Yup .. I learned something new regarding the cipher. Had no idea of its existence before this puzzle.

At first I thought the directions would 'draw out' the letters in the answer, but after following that through and getting only gibberish back, I turned to the hints. Having not known about the pigpen cipher before, this puzzle was an absolute treat and a great entry into the puzzles that followed as to what to expect from this book. Loved it!

What does the C mean?

Same!!! :D

This was the worst. Next time I'm stumped and I think it's a code I'm going to look up every kind of cypher there is. I was looking up druid runes and other nonsense.

How is the pig cipher created?

Third clue should’ve been hinted more clearly in the main text, it’s pretty obscure IMO.

My googling threw me off at first. The WikiHow article that was the top result puts two consecutive letters in each pen. I figured there was something off. Fortunately, other sites had the traditional layout.

didn't acount for the triangles in the pigpen cipher

Google saved my bacon. I had placed my own key structures in the wrong sequence.

This was my first time needing a clue. I needed only the third clue.