The first clue, that the correct portrait is from the front, narrows it down to Plant Study, Star Study, and Literary Study. Star Study wears a silver necklace, so she’s out, and Literary Study has three parts to her cutie mark, so she’s out, leaving only Plant Study.
Now the only question is where the portrait’s clue is. You study the picture carefully, but the only hidden thing you can find is the artist’s signature in the shadow between two flower petals. Do you need to count the petals or something? What form does this clue even take?
After a careful examination, you take one corner of the frame and pull the painting slightly… revealing there’s numbers scrawled on the wall behind the painting. Oh.
541.16… It looks like a Dewey Decimal number. Of course; according to the portrait order, Literary Study’s puzzle is next. You’d assumed it would be related to books around the Study manor, but most ponies don’t organize their personal library by the Dewey Decimal System. Did she hide it in a public library? Did Blackmoor have one of those?
You could use Fabric Study’s expertise on this, but your vision is starting to blur from lack of sleep. It’s definitely time for a coffee break.
You tear a piece of paper from your notebook; writing a direct note seems risky, so you drawn the sign of the restaurant where you left your motorcycle and tuck it behind the painting and the wall with most of it showing. That should be clear enough to Fabric when she comes looking for you.
You sneak around the house for a while, choosing your path somewhat at random since you have no idea how to get out of this huge labyrinthine manor, but finally you find an exit door and step out into green grass and warm sunshine. Sighing with relief, you circle the house and retrace the path you took earlier today. There are only a few ponies on the sidewalks, and you do your best to ignore them; you’re too tired and hassled to worry about other ponies.
A fluttering of wings over your head makes you look up suddenly, causing a passing couple to stare at you momentarily. Your eyes focus on the sparrow that just launched off a branch over your head. For a moment, you imagined that it was a raven. Sucking in deep breaths, you continue on your way.
As you approach the restaurant, you freeze, horrified. Your beloved motorcycle is lying on its side. Panicked, you dash up to it; the tires are slashed open and she’s covered in scuff marks.
“It’s okay, I’m here, this’ll be okay...:” you whisper soothingly to her as you examine the damage.
Fortunately, nothing seems damaged except her tires and the paint job. “You’re not too hurt,” you sigh in relief, patting the seat reassuringly. “As soon as we get home, I’ll get you fixed.”
The restaurant owner may know who might have done it, or at least who to tell about it. “I’ll be right back,” you whisper to your bike as you jump onto the restaurant's wooden porch and push the door open.
The place is badly lit despite all the stained glass lamps dangling from the ceiling, but you can see the many round wooden tables, the bar, the pool table to one side, and the swinging doors leading to what looks like more seating. A teal earth pony stallion in an apron is behind the bar, chatting with a cute yellow pegasus mare.
“Um… excuse me?” you say, walking up to the apparent owner.
The teal pony’s eyes flicker over to you. “Oh! Tourist, eh?”
“Kind of,” you say. “Family business. Could I talk with you, or is it a bad time?”
The yellow mare laughs so hard she snorts. “Oh, don’t mind me. I’ll just be having my juice and cookies over there.” She slides her items down the bar.
“That Dandelion is a wonderful mare,” the teal pony says, staring after the mare for a moment before turning back to you. “My name’s Shot Glass. You?”
You tell him your name. “Listen… someone slashed my motorcycle tires. Do you have any idea who might have done that?”
Shot Glass blinks at you. “U-um… that sounds nothing like something that’d happen in Blackmoor. I know it’s a cliche, but we’re a small town, and everyone knows everyone, especially me.”
“Well, it happened, for some reason,” you state bluntly. “Who enforces the law in this town?”
“We have a sheriff. If you’re willing to wait, one of the deputies is having lunch in the back room and will probably take you to him when he’s done. He’ll be in uniform.”
“Okay, thanks,” you say. Walking over to the swinging doors, you nose it open to look around. The back looks the same as the front except-
Your heart stops, and your chest tightens with terror.
At a table in the center sit two stallions. One is purplish blue and wearing two swords and obviously Swordplay, the pony you’re sent to find. The pony he’s talking to is a portly, dark blue unicorn with a wavy lime green mane and a cutie mark of a diving hawk and a silver six pointed star. A pony you know all too well. Hawkdive, former sheriff of Raven Hollow, enforcer for the Court of Ravens. The pony who locked you up in an abandoned mine and left you to go insane and die.
You stumble backward, heart pounding, hooves shaking. Did he see you? Where can you hide?
“Woah, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Shot Glass says.
You want to jump at him and tell him to be quiet, but somehow, you manage to inhale somewhat normally and say, “N-no, just remembered, I n-need to… to…” Library. You were going to the library. “Meet someone at the library. Now. Can you tell me where?”
“Ok… I’ll just mark it on this map here…” Shot Glass says, very very slowly making an X on a small map he pulled out from behind the bar while you watch the swinging doors anxiously like it’s the entrance to a dragon’s cave.
“Another thing,” you whisper urgently, staring at the swinging doors. “If Fabric Study comes in, tell her I’m at the library. Only her. If anyone else asks, you never saw me, please.”
“Secret rendezvous?” Shot Glass says, looking at you mischievously.
“Sure, whatever,” you say, taking the map from him. “Thanks. Sorry. Thanks.”
You leave as fast as you can without attracting attention, which is not nearly fast enough. The sun is bright and the passing ponies are smiling. In some places flowers bloom.
At least one of your enemies knows that you’re here. You have no idea how many other Court of the Ravens members are in this town… for that matter, you don’t even know just how many members the Court had, never mind who they are. Anypony in this town could be one of them. Anypony….
The sun is warm but your skin is cold. You feel eyes boring into you from every side, watching, waiting, wishing you dead. You need to leave town. Cut and run.
You haven’t really been consciously walking anywhere but you find yourself hiding in the shadow of a huge oak tree. The darkness calms you, and you kneel down, sitting between two tall roots. Your thoughts slow to a normal speed, now that you’re away from the immediate threat. Then, you look down and see something attached to your jacket: a silver pin of a triangle with a star in the center. A Pinnacle Club pin, a token received from the wife of one of the Court’s many victims. It belonged to Idea Spark, whom you had been sent to find. Idea Spark, who had been driven half-mad and left to die for fighting back. Idea Spark, who had left it to you to destroy the Court.
Yes, for your own sake, you should definitely leave town. But on the other hoof, you know what the Court is, what it’s capable of. Nopony in this peaceful town has any idea what they’re in for. Nopony even suspects anything. You know that the Court must have nothing good planned if they’re here. You may be the only one who can stop them.
Sighing, you stand up. First things first, you need to have some clue what they’re doing. And right now the easiest way to do that would be to ask Swordplay what he knows—not that it feels safe doing that now. But now that Fabric Study knows where her brother is, maybe she can talk to him and learn how far gone he is.
Unless there’s a puzzle in the restaurant, and you didn’t see a Gourmet Study so it doesn’t seem likely, Swordplay was taking a break from the path of puzzles… so you still don’t know where exactly he is on it. For all you know, you passed him up somewhere. In any case, you told Fabric Study to meet you at the library, so that’s where you’ll go.
Following Shot Glass’s map, you manage to find the Literary Study Public Library. It’s an L shaped brick building with a two-tiered fountain in front. The floor is covered by a carpet decorated with red-purple and olive diamond shapes and filled with heavy wooden bookcases lined with a motley assortment of books, with new paperbacks squished between hefty tomes with cracked spines and no book jackets.
There’s a front desk, but that reminds you too much of the librarian from Raven Hollow, so you slink past it with your eyes on the ground, trying to pretend you know where you’re going, hoping to avoid detection.
Of course, you don’t know where you’re going, and it doesn’t help that the library, isn’t organized in any actual numerical or alphabetical order that you can figure out. Spotting a plaque on the wall with Literary Study’s cutie mark on it, you lean in close to read:
“This library was organized based on the instructions of its founder and funder, Literary Study. She organized the books by subjects, placing them in different parts of the library. For example, she put the mystery books near the book nooks in the walls because she always loved to curl up there with a good mystery. If you ask any of our library staff, they’ll be happy to give you a map!”
You sigh. “Because nothing in my life is ever easy,” you grumble, continuing your search. You pass a colt reading Encyclopedia Page. Ah, so many happy memories…
Finally, somewhere in the back you find the book with the number from the portrait. It occurs to you that she might have arranged for it to be in the back on purpose so that someone systematically going through all the books looking for the clue would at least take a long time.
The book in question is Practical Application of Quantum Wave Theory, so not something anyone would want to read, nor can you imagine that the book itself is part of the puzzle; you try flipping through it, and just reading the first three pages gives you a headache. In the back you find a message written in dainty ink:
Congratulations on finding the hidden puzzle! I dearly loved my own journey, and I promise you have many incredible adventures ahead of you, young Study! Now, before you can continue, I’d like you to find one more book with a hidden key. What does it unlock? Well, you’ll have to solve the statue garden puzzle of my brother, Sculpture Study, to find out.
But back to the book where the clue is hidden: to find the title of the next book on your journey, you'll need to translate each letter by counting forward according to the numbers in the key—use the first number for the first letter, the second number for the second letter, and so on. You hold the key in your hooves.
Hecmcbds Qina ax Jvorhiiwsd Jvcdr
~Terri