//------------------------------// // Mysteries of the Heavens // Story: Raven Hollow 2: The Riddles of Blackmoor // by Magic Step //------------------------------// The stones with Z in their names are in alphabetical order. That means Azurite, Tanzanite, and Zircon are next to each other.  No stones starting with the same letter are next to each other. So Ammolite doesn’t go before Azurite. The first stone you press does not start with A. Ammolite and Azurite can’t be first and neither can Tanzanite or Zircon since they have to come after Azurite, so that means Enstatite comes first. Ammolite can’t be between Enstatite and Azurite so it must be the very last stone. You press the buttons; Enstatite, Azurite, Tanzanite, Zircon, Ammolite. The chest clicks open, revealing nothing but a velvet cushion with a cylindrical dent in it. “Oh no,” Fabric Study says. “That… that doesn’t make sense,” Fellow says, looking over your shoulders. “I know my mom doesn’t know where that leads, but Swordplay just kept going after solving the puzzle. Did you skip around like he did?” “No…” Fabric Study says. You push the chest open all the way. There’s a crude map scraped into the inside of the lid. “Hey, look.” Fabric and Fellow lean over to look at the map, accidentally bumping their heads together. They smile and giggle at each other. “You have any idea where that x is?” you say, pointing at the obligatory X carved into the map “It’s not in Blackmoor,” Faithful Fellow says thoughtfully. “It looks like it’s out of the valley.” “Oh, the observatory!” Fabric Study cries excitedly. “Of course! Star Study had a special astronomy tower. That must be where we’re going.” “Maybe the object that was in here was a telescope,” you muse. “But if we don’t have it, how will you keep following Swordplay?” Fellow asks. “He left the key behind for us,” Fabric Study says, pointing to the key. “I think he wants us to follow him. Maybe he’s even in trouble!” “Maybe…” you say. “Or it’s a trap…” “Oh no, it couldn’t be,” Fabric Study shakes her head, “and even if it is, it’ll only be a trap for you, not me, so everything will be fine.” You mean you’ll be fine, you think, annoyed. “I’m coming with you,” Faithful Fellow says. “I’d love that,” Fabric Study says. “No, wait, I just got done saying it might be a trap,” you sigh. “Swordplay wouldn’t hurt me,” Faithful Fellow says, shrugging. “Swordplay isn’t the problem!” you snap. “You can’t still not believe me about the Court, can you, Fabric?” Fabric and Fellow are hugging each other and not really paying attention. “Guys!” you shout. “We’ll find the treasure together,” Fabric Study says to Faithful Fellow. “I’m so glad you’ll be by my side…” You give up. “Just don’t do anything stupid, okay…?” you sigh. “We won’t!” they both say in unison, which makes them giggle and smile at each other. Your gag reflex is starting to become very hard to fight down. “Let’s just start walking,” you say. “After you,” Fellow tells Fabric. “Oh, you gentlestallion,” Fabric purrs. It takes an immense measure of willpower for you to not vomit. They lead you out of the house and out of town, continuing to say cutesy things. You miss your motorcycle; she was so quiet by comparison, and made much better conversation. The hills surrounding Blackmoor are covered with grey-green grass and tan rocks of various sizes. In a few places, hardy wildflowers bloom. The hike takes almost an hour; at the ten minute mark, you seriously regret not leaving your now-sweaty trenchcoat behind. Even Fabric and Fellow eventually get too tired to say cute things to each other. The sun’s starting to set by the time you reach the observatory near the edge of a dark pine forest. It’s a round building of bricks that look like they were made of the same rock as the tan stones on the hillside. The roof is a dome of glass. About two stories up there’s also a small balcony with a small telescope on it that’s pointed down for some reason, but it’s too high up to see well. The wooden door was left ajar. Your nostrils flare as you get closer. The smell of blood fills your nose. Fabric apparently senses it at the same time. “Swordplay!!” she cries and dashes into the tower. “What about it being a trap?” you shout pointlessly after her. She makes it as far as the door before falling to her knees, shaking. “Oh Celestia…” You can’t hear anything from inside the tower so you run up beside Fabric Study’s shoulder. “Oh gosh…” you say. The inside of the observatory is round, lined with bookshelves and a staircase with a compass pattern etched into the floor. Blood and some strange white glue-like blobs are all over the floor, walls, and some of the books,. At the foot of the stairs lies a pony in a tattered, bloody cloak. You push the fainting Fabric aside and run to get a closer look at the pony. It’s a stallion, unicorn, with a cracked horn. Plum colored, with a black and white mane that hides one of his intensely blue eyes. He stares at you, chest heaving in a struggle to breathe, a trickle of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. Best not to try and get him to talk. As best as you can you try to pull the cloak open to look at the wounds. Deep slashes reveal internal organs that look dangerously close to tumbling out. Wincing, you close the cloak up again, feeling ill. The fact that he’s even still alive at this point is a small miracle. “H comes before R…” the stallion gurgles, before coughing again. “Shh,” you say, reaching up to brush his bangs out of his forehead. “Don’t try to talk.” “E comes… before O… what… what am I spelling…?” He looks up at you; his earnest expression and half-smile doesn’t match either a dying pony or a pony trying to tell you a riddle. You feel a pain in your chest. “I’m no hero. A hero wouldn’t have let you get hurt like this.” He shakes his head slightly. “Hope… that there won’t be others… like me. Like us.” “What do you mean?” you say. He coughs up more blood. “19… 20… 1… 25…” “No riddles, please.” You take the dying stallion’s hoof. “Do you think… there’s something there? Somewhere where there’s no more riddles...no more...voices?” he asks. “Hmm?” you ask. An emotion beyond fear flickers in the pony’s eyes: despair. “He said… nothing there. Nothing there. Nothing there. Nothing… there….” The dying stallion is past speech now. You hold his hoof and smooth his mane until he grows stiff and colder. You wish you could pretend you didn’t know the meaning of his last words. The Court of Ravens was originally founded by a desperate madpony who wanted to live forever. He lived his life hooked up to an elaborate machine that brought him back to life each time he died. According to him, he’d seen the other side hundreds of times, and there was nothing there. As far as you knew the rest of the court believed him completely. That must be why, despite the death of their leader, they still sought the secret of immortality. A vain search to avoid an eventual fall into complete oblivion… A shiver runs through your body and you turn away, unable to meet the dead pony’s eyes anymore. As you do you notice Fellow hovering at the edge of your vision. “Is he…?” Fellow whispers. You nod numbly. “There was nothing we could have done. Nothing anypony could have done.” “Who was he?” Fellow asks. “A member of the Court of Ravens,” you say. “Unwilling, by the sound of it. More than that, we may never know.” “Did… did the Court attack him?” Faithful Fellow says, confused. “None of them had claws as far as I know,” you say. “I mean, I guess there might have been a dragon member I didn’t know about. Or a griffin.” “It was none of those…” Fabric Study mutters in a daze. You turn to her; the young mare is looking like she’s about to faint. “What was that?” you say. “Claws… gluey grey puddles…” A shudder runs through Fabric’s body. “It’s the Blackmoor Beast. It must be.” “Blackmoor Beast?” Faithful Fellow says. “That can’t be right. The townsponies killed it decades ago!” “That’s what they thought. But it was a lie… a nice lie to keep the townsponies in the dark about the immortal beast that stalked through the forest….” Tears roll down Fabric Study’s cheeks. Oh, great, there’s an immortal monster, too?! “Start over,” you say. “What is this monster you’re describing?” “A legend,” Faithful Fellow says, helping Fabric Study up and leading her away from the observatory. “I w-wish.” Fabric Study takes deep breaths of fresh air. “When everypony thought the monster was dead, it was taken back to the Study manor. But a few days later it got up and smashed its way through the walls of the house again and left a trail to the forest. The servants helped clean it up and hide what had happened. Daddy told me he saw the beast a few times, once or twice; more often he finds animals mauled by it. It doesn’t need to eat to survive. It just does it out of pure sadism.” A shiver runs through your body. “But what type of monster is it? How did they temporarily kill it the first time?” Fabric shakes her head like she’s trying to shake disturbing images out of her brain. “They just cornered it and attacked it as many times and in as many ways as they could. Unicorns fired their strongest spells; earth ponies threw rocks; pegasi dropped heavy objects on it. Everypony assumed it went down from brute force.” “And what even is it?” you ask, knowing you won’t like the answer. “Grey and sticky, with long claws. That’s as much as my dad ever saw,” Fabric Study says. “And it has a peculiar screeching cry. That’s kind of how Daddy got into bird studies; he wanted to find a bird that could imitate the cry so he could teach future Studys to avoid it.” “Um… why not just use a record?” you ask. “That would require getting closer than seemed safe, but the monster doesn’t attack birds. They’re beneath its notice.” Talking clinically about this seems to have calmed Fabric Study down somewhat, but you see no need to risk upsetting her again. “All right. Keep an ear out for that cry then. I’m going back to the tower to try and find out where your brother’s gone,” you say. “...Assuming the beast isn’t hiding in the tower.” “You’d know if it was,” Fabric reassures you. “It’s not very stealthy. Which is why it hasn’t killed the fauna of the whole forest yet.” You nod and head back into the observatory. The nightmareish smells of blood are becoming almost unbearable, but you press on, looking for clues in the tower. After a brief fruitless search, you climb up a ladder against the observatory wall to get a better view of the surroundings, and find a puzzle written on a door at the top of the ladder. "One special Nightmare’s Night, the night when the veil between earth and sky is the thinnest, I witnessed a rare treat. The twelve members of the zodiac came to have a tea party on my clock face, each taking their seat on one of the numbers. If you can recreate that magical night by following the clues below, I’ll let you through. "Because they were so bored of always following each other in the same order, it was universally decided that none of them would sit next to the constellation that immediately followed or preceded on the calendar. Pisces, Libra, and Gemini insisted on sitting on even numbers. Aries sat to the right of his friend Capricorn and Cancer sat to the right of his friend Scorpio. Taurus sat as far away from Leo as possible. Vain Virgo insisted on being the top of the clock. Aquarius, who loved her, sat at her right hand. The autumnal signs all sat on multiples of 3.” You lower yourself down the ladder and find a clock on the other side of the room. All of the numbers are recessed in square shaped holes. In slots around the clock body you find square tiles of zodiac signs that fit neatly into the numbered holes. Star Study was the third descendant of the Studies; soon you’ll be at the end of the line. Time to find the Court.