> Raven Hollow 2: The Riddles of Blackmoor
>  by Magic Step
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> A Brief Introduction
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello and welcome to your further adventures in puzzle-solving!

Last year, PonyJosiah13 started the story Raven Hollow, an experimental mystery story combined with puzzles for readers to solve themselves. Recently, he approached me about writing the sequel so he could devote his writing energies to the excellent Ponyville Noire: Tails of Two Private Eyes. I was happy to help!

For those new to the series or those who need a refresher, let me explain how this works: at the end of each chapter will be a puzzle or riddle for you to solve before moving on to the next chapter. Feel free to discuss strategies or parts of the solution in the comments, but please do not post the solution in the comments section. Send answers to me via PMs and I will tell you if you're right or give you a hint if you're wrong. Or you can check the start of the next chapter which will walk you through the solution, once it's published.

I will do my best to release new chapters weekly. I hope you enjoy this installment of Raven Hollow as much as I enjoyed the original!

~Magic Step
> A Most Prestigious Client
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

   	 You’ve been sliding pieces back and forth for hours, but the giant plus-shaped piece and the large square piece just cannot change places. You’ll never be able to slide the key from the top to the bottom; you’ll never be able to escape. You’ll die in this room and no one will ever find you…

    “Hey, Rookie, wake up.”

    You start, lifting your head off the desktop. Blinking sleep from your eyes, you look around and remember where you are; back in your office. Raindrops slid down the window behind you, through which you could see the concrete and glass towers of Chicoltgo. A half empty, now cold cup of coffee sits on your table, next to the reports that up until that moment, you’d been using as a pillow; now every one of them is covered in drool, which means you’ll have to start all over.

    “You feeling okay?” Open Case asks, concern written across the office secretary’s face. His busy blue mustache twitches as he studies the half dozen puzzle cubes that are scattered over the floor, all of them in various stages of completion. “You’ve been stressed out ever since that missing pony case in Raven Hollow.”

    No, you are not okay. You’ve been having more and more nightmares, and all about fiendishly difficult puzzles.

    Out loud, though, you say, “Just tired. Tracker asked me to keep an eye on his client’s daughter for a night and that party-happy girl apparently doesn’t sleep…”

    “Well, this promises to be more interesting.” Open Case gestures for you to step out of your office.

    Wiping the reports off with your foreleg, you follow the pale yellow stallion into the lobby of Pinkeye and Sons, Private Investigators. Sitting stiffly on the couch is a faded red earth pony wearing a black suit, red bow tie, and white gloves. He turns and looks you over critically, his resigned expression indicating something about your appearance is not satisfactory to him. “The young miss is going to be disappointed,” he states in an upper-class accent.

    “Excuse me?” you say, having woken up just enough to feel insulted.

    The stallion sighs and stands up, holding out his gloved hoof. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Faithful Aide, family servant to the Studies.”

    You introduce yourself and take his hoof, wondering how he manages to keep his gloves spotlessly white. You also search through your mental library for the Studies. You’ve heard the family name before, but can’t quite remember the significance attached to them.

Faithful Aide releases your hoof and continues. “Fabric Study, the youngest member, seems to think that you and you alone can solve a… delicate family matter. I’ve been sent to acquire your services and provide transportation to the Study manor in Blackmoor.”

Open Case whistles. “You’ve got high class clients, Rookie. The Studies are respected members in whatever field they enter. And they’ve got wealth to match.”

“Adequate monetary compensation will be provided, naturally,” Faithful Aide says. “The carriage awaits you.”

“Might as well check it out,” Open Case says. “Blackmoor is only an hour away from Chicoltgo by carriage.”

You nod. “Okay. Okay. Sounds good.” You throw on your trench coat. “Something to break the monotony.”

“Please take this seriously,” Faithful Aide says.

You follow the older earth pony down all twelve stories of the office complex, your trepidation growing. When you see the small, two-seater white carriage parked outside, you can feel yourself start to sweat.

“Um… to be honest, I’d rather take my motorcycle,” you say. The thought of getting in a small, sealable box that another pony can pull wherever he pleases makes you feel tense.

Faithful Aide gives you a disapproving look. “Blackmoor is not a massive metropolis like Chicoltgo; travelling from one end to the other by hoof hardly takes an hour.”

“Yes, but I like to keep my baby with me,” you say, which is true enough. “I’m obliged to you for bringing me a carriage, but I’d rather do it this way.”

With a heavy sigh, he begins hitching himself up. “As you wish.”

Gratefully, you trot over to your chrome companion. “Like I was going to leave you behind,” you tell her as you swing onto her back. She roars happily as you turn the key into the ignition.


***


Rolling green hills and unpaved roads lead to a pleasant valley filled with flowers. Blackmoor was filled with historic buildings that looked like they dated from something like three hundred years ago: wrought iron fences with flower designs, whitewashed walls with brightly painted trim, and windows of every conceivable shape. Ponies of all ages roam the streets, most in no hurry. They smile and wave as Faithful Aide passes, with you following along behind him on your bike. It looks like such a nice town.

If only you could still believe in such things.

Faithful Aide stops outside a quaint restaurant, all natural wood texture with flowerboxes under every window. You pull up your motorcycle next to him and he says, “I must ask you to leave the motorcycle here; Fabric Study requested complete discretion, and that roaring monster is anything but.”

Fair enough; you park your motorcycle some yards away from the small building. “I needed to stretch my legs anyway,” you say, heading off his invitation to ride.

You follow the empty white carriage up a hill in the center of town to a four-story mansion with balconies on every floor and a large cage behind the mansion two stories tall. What the heck was that for?

Faithful Aide leads you around the back, and as you pass closer to the large cage, you can hear singing and a bird flies past your eye level, a whirl of iridescent pink feathers. Oh, it’s an aviary. You study the inside of the giant cage, full of natural trees and birdfeeders, with a pond in it where ducks and swans splash. Red and green parrots chat on a birdfeeder, and several tiny jeweled hummingbirds dart around a giant red compound flower.

Then a raven’s throaty cry echoes through the aviary, and you start. The sound brings back memories about that horrid case in Raven Hollow. What started as a missing pony case had led you to a town run by a secret cadre of riddle-obsessed ponies, the Court of Ravens. It was members of this group who locked you in that dark mine filled with sirenium, the strange mineral that radiated energy that drove ponies insane, the cause of all your nightmares for the past few months.

Somehow, you’d escaped and discovered the secret of the Court, that it all was founded for the purpose of keeping one madpony alive forever. He was finally dead, but the Court lived on. His granddaughter Turtledove had escaped, and you lived in dread of seeing her again.

“What is it?” Faithful Aide asks impatiently, pausing to face you. 

You shake your head and fight down the unwanted flashbacks. “Nothing,” you say, turning up the collar on your coat. “The bird just startled me.” 

Aide sighed and walked on. You fall into step behind him. 

Sprawling behind the mansion is a beautiful garden, built of flowering hedges arranged in a gentle curvy pattern, swirling around a central fountain made of four dancing dolphins. A young mare lies on her side on a bench by the fountain, idly flipping through a book of fabric samples like it’s a novel. She’s lavender with a shoulder-length, curly blond mane with a single bright red streak that compliments the darker red, flouncy dress she wears.

“Fabric Study,” Faithful Aide says. 

The young mare looks up and smiles. “That was fast.” Her horn lights up as she packs the fabric book back in her stylish saddlebag. “I’m sorry for all the secrecy, but this is such a touchy matter. I’m not even sure hiring you is a good idea…”

    “Can you tell me what you actually need from me?” you say.

    “I’m sorry; of course. But…” She bites her lower lip. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but the things I heard about you were a little… well, let’s put it this way. I have a question for you before I get started.”

    “No problem. Shoot,” you say.

    Fabric Study looks around the garden as if for a reminder of what she’d been about to say. “All right. Answer me this. Once upon a time, my father was three times as old as my mother, but just one year later he was only twice her age. My father’s 52 now, so how old is my mother?”

    Something about the wording locks out any kind of rational attempt to analyze whether this topic change makes sense or not. All you hear is the puzzle, and you can focus on nothing else.
> Feathered Friends
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

You close your eyes and swiftly consider the likeliest possibility. If her father was three when her mother was one, then the next year, he would be four and she would be two. Do the math...

“Your mother is fifty years old,” you say, opening your eyes again.

Fabric Study smiles. “Wow, that was fast. Barely had to think about it.”

“Simple math,” you say, smiling slightly.

“Good, because math is kind of what I have to speak to you about. Math and puzzles. And brothers. I’ll start at the beginning.” She slides to one side of the bench and taps a hoof next to herself.

You take her invitation and sit down next to her. Fabric Study shoos Faithful Aide with one hoof. The servant bows and heads back into the house, giving you a look like you’re a speck of dust on the countertop. You try to ignore the look.

“Okay,” Fabric Study says. “My family has a tradition. Our ancestor, Mathematical Study, was a bit eccentric. He had something that was valuable and decided to hide it behind a door that was locked with his favorite riddle. His daughter, Plant Study, loved her father very much and thought that this puzzle thing was a good idea, so she built a puzzle to hide the door. Then her own children added more, and soon it was a family tradition; each generation has added their own puzzle. When we turn eighteen, we try to solve all the puzzles set up so far.”

“And… you want my help solving it?” you ask, briefly wondering why puzzles have become such a huge part of your life

“Kind of,” Fabric Study admits, sucking on her lower lip “It won’t be my turn for another few years. But…” She hesitated, rubbing her hooves together as though for warmth. You wait in silence; you’ve done enough interrogations to know that the natural desire to fill silence with words is a powerful motivator for ponies to reveal whatever secrets they’re ready to spill

“It is my brother’s turn,” Fabric finally said. “And… and I feel like something’s off about him lately.”

Now this sounds more like normal private detective work. “What do you mean?”

Fabric Study hugs her forelegs to herself, and her voice grows quiet and slower. “I mean, I don’t really know for sure something’s wrong. But he used to not care much about the tradition at all, then suddenly he was counting the days until it came.” Then more details pour out of her in a rush, like she’s afraid if she doesn’t say everything fast, she’ll forget something important. “And he’s been out late at night more often than normal, and stopped talking to me about where he’s been, and his friends haven’t seen him much, and when they have seen him he was in the company of ponies who weren’t from around town, and we don’t get many of those. And they looked shady.”

“You’ve already talked to him and your parents?” you ask.

Fabric Study fiddles with the sleeve of her rose-red dress. “He just gets defensive whenever I ask. He’s told mom and dad he’s just practicing fencing with a new club and they’re too happy that he’s finally taking his study seriously to question it too much.”

“In denial. Brilliant.” You let out a long sigh. “So what do you want from me exactly?”

“I want you to follow him. See if you can find out what… or who… is bugging him. And since he already left on the puzzle trail, that means we have to solve the first few puzzles to know where he’s going.”

“And how do we start on that?”

Fabric Study flips a blonde ringlet over her shoulder. “Well, every puzzle is based on the family member’s study somehow—Mathematical Study did something with math, Plant Study did something with plants, etc. So I assumed my dad, Avian Study, built his in the aviary. We should find it if we look around long enough.”

And just when you thought that you’d left puzzles behind at Raven Hollow. Oh, well; you’re getting paid for it, right? “Worth a look, at least,” you say. “But… um… are there many ravens in your dad’s aviary?”

Fabric Study slides off the bench and looks at you curiously. “We have a few that dad is banding, since there’s been a strange migration into the area this month, but we don’t keep them long-term. He’s more interested in tropical birds.”

“Then this is… a bad place for that job isn’t it?” you ask, glancing out the window and noting the gray clouds streaking across the sky and the leaves in the trees shivering in the wind

“Well, yes, he’d move to the tropics if he could, but the family home can’t be abandoned. That would mean he couldn’t add to the tradition.” 

Fabric Study approaches the double wooden doors of the aviary. Excessive chattering comes from inside as she pushes her way inside. As you follow, you gasp in surprise. The air is hotter and more humid than outside somehow. Plants unknown to you grow in abundance, from small, wavy-leaved bushes covered in red pom-pom like flowers, to tall palm trees, to spikey-trunked trees no taller than eye level with huge, drooping leaves. A dirt path leads throughout the aviary, splitting into three branches; one leads to a tall, wooden observation tower in the middle, another to an out of place grove of pine trees near one side of the aviary, and the third one to a set of feeders near another. A babbling brook runs through the aviary, with a small wooden bridge allowing visitors to cross over.

Most of the birds seem to be hiding, since all you can see is a pair of adorably small and fluffy green birds who aren’t talking, but the squeaks and caws are deafening.

“I’ll take the tower; you take the feeders,” Fabric Study says, clumping her way across the wooden bridge.

You walk along the river path to the clearing, past a pond filled with blue and green waterfowl. They hiss and flap at you as you get closer. “Don’t mind me,” you mutter to them. “Just passing through.” 

The feeders are many and varied, from large boxes over trays full of seeds to scratching post shaped feeders crawling with bugs. Glittery pink and purple hummingbirds hover around a fake shrub with plastic flowers loaded with nectar.

Toward the back is something like a rustic kitchen, with jars of berries, seeds, and bugs, a scale for weighing ingredients, plastic scoops, and a small fire crystal oven designed to work without electricity. To one side is a golden perch with a bell and a small feeding dish attached to it. A piece of paper lay folded on the table.

You unfold the paper carefully; a cursory glance tells you this is probably the puzzle you’re looking for.

“Hey, Fabric!” you call out. Some purple birds fly away at the sound of your voice.

Her lavender hoof waves out from the observatory tower, then disappears. A minute later, she runs up to you. “You found it already? I knew hiring you would be a good idea!”

“It was sitting out on this table. I’m sure you could have found it yourself if you’d tried.” You hold out the piece of paper.

Fabric Study’s eyes flash momentarily in response to the jibe, but she nods when she sees it. “That does look like my father’s handwriting.”

“And as for the puzzle?”

She just shrugs. “Beats me.”

“This is your family tradition and you’re not even going to try?” you ask, incredulous. 

Fabric Study shrugs, her rose red gown rippling at the shoulders. “I mean, if you need my help I will, but if you can solve this on your own, I’d rather wait until it’s actually my turn, if that’s okay.”

You stay motionless. Yes, you can almost certainly solve this puzzle, but ever since the incident in Raven Hollow, puzzle solving hasn’t been the same. Just hearing one gets you in a weird state of mind where you can’t think of anything else except the puzzle, and if you don’t work on it fast as you can, you feel on edge; already you can feel your heart rate accelerating and the paper seems to burn in your hooves, demanding your attention. Maybe it’s lingering trauma from having lived through a situation where your life literally depended on puzzle solving. 

Or maybe it’s the effect of the sirenium...

“Something wrong?” Fabric Study asks.

Or maybe it’s your imagination. You shake your head, unwilling to explain this to her, unable to think of how to phrase it without sounding ridiculous. “No, it’s okay, I’ll solve it.” You place the piece of paper back on the table and study it closely.

The Mimicking Angel’s Favorite Dish:

Grind to a paste a number of greennuts equal to the number of cups of pearlseeds plus the number of rainbowberries.
Add to this the scraped out insides of a number of avocados equal to the number of rainbowberries minus the number of raspberries.
Mix in seven times as many sunflower seeds as the number of spoonfuls of maple syrup.
Add as many ounces of honey as you added greennuts.
Add half as many cups of pearlseeds as rainbowberries.
Pour in as many spoons of maple syrup as the number of rainbowberries plus the number of avocados.
Mash in half as many raspberries as the number of ounces of honey, and as many rainbowberries as the number of points on a compass.
Bake for as many minutes as there are greenuts in the dish at a temperature equal to ten times the number of sunflower seeds.

“So we’re feeding birds,” you say, rubbing your forehead. “What the heck is this going to accomplish?”

“The puzzles are always supposed to work without someone around to run them, so we should just try it out,” Fabric Study says. “Thank you for this, by the way. I really appreciate this.”

“Customer’s always right,” you mutter, looking over the bizarre instructions.
> Painted Liars
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The recipe is a jumbled mess, so you rip out a piece of paper from your notebook to rewrite it in a more coherent manner. The only solid number you can see is that the number of rainbowberries should equal the number of points on a compass, or four, so you write this down.

There are half as many cups of pearlseeds as there are rainbowberries, so there must be two of those.

The number of greennuts is the number of rainbowberries plus cups of pearlseeds, so there are six of those.

The amount of honey is the same as the amount of greennuts, so that is also six.

There’s half as many raspberries as ounces of honey, so there’s three raspberries.

There’s as many avocados as the number of rainbowberries minus raspberries, so there’s only one avocado.

Rainbowberries plus avocadoes equals spoons of maple syrup, or five spoons.

Seven times five spoons equals 35 sunflower seeds.

As many minutes as greennuts is 6 minutes, and 10 times the number of sunflower makes the temperature 350 degrees.

“All right. I’ve translated the recipe,” you tell Fabric Study.

“Well, don’t give away the answer, please,” she says, turning aside.

“Fine, but can’t you help me mix this thing?”

“That would require me knowing the answer, wouldn’t it?” she asks rhetorically, giving you a smirk over her shoulder. “I know it’s not in your normal duties, but I promise you’ll be paid for your time.”

You sigh in frustration. “Can you at least tell me which of these things are greennuts? And that’s not a spoiler, so don’t give me that look.”

She reaches under the feeding table and pulls out a container of furry grey-green nuts, each the size of a golf ball. “Any other questions?”

After she identifies pearlseeds for you, she turns to stare at the hummingbird-filled feeder, pointedly not looking at you.

You crack the nuts as quietly as possible so she can’t complain that the sound effects are giving it away for her. Then you put the six silky-smooth kernels, ironically colored light yellow, into the mortar and start grinding away.

“While I’m doing this for you, could you at least tell me more about the pony I’m supposed to be finding?” you ask. “I don’t even know his name or what he looks like.”

“Oh. Right. That would have been a good idea to tell you upfront.” Fabric Study sighs. “Swordplay Study is his name, and his Study is everything related to swords, as you can guess.”

“Why do you keep saying Study and not talent or cutie mark?” you ask, slicing open an avocado and tossing the pit inside under the table.

“Family tradition. That, and it’s a little bit more intense than a talent. We’re not just expected to have any old job related to our talent; we’re supposed to be the experts in our field. We write papers and books and things.” She sounds remarkably unenthusiastic about the whole thing. 

“Oh,” you say, counting out 35 sunflower seeds. “So when can we expect to read a research paper on types of cloth?” you ask, half-jokingly.

Fabric Study shoots you an irritated look over her shoulder. “Don’t laugh; there’s more to it than you’d think. Shrinkage, stainability, dye retention, fashion, comfort, cost, durability. The list goes on.”

You stir the honey into the unappetizing yellow-green seed-spotted mess. “Anyway, back to Swordplay.”

“He’s tall. Muscular. Same colors as me, but a bluer purple. Cutie mark of two crossed swords, one red and one blue. Always wears a red frilly jacket I made for him.” There’s a sad tone to this last sentence.

You stir in two cups of white, silky, spherical seeds slightly smaller than sweetpeas. “Anything else?”

“He always carries at least two swords, his favorite rapier and whatever sword he’s studying at the moment. He can also summon swords made of pure magic.”

You nearly lose count of how many teaspoons of maple syrup you’ve added. “And he knows how to fight too, then?” you ask, hoping you sound completely casual about the whole thing.

“Naturally. Experience is the best way to study something of this nature. You should see him at the tournaments; he’s beaten opponents twice his size black and blue!” She beams with pride.

A shudder runs through you as you mash the final ingredients, both kinds of berries, into the tropical bird dough. If things turn south with him, this will not end well for you at all.

“Something wrong?” Fabric asks, apparently finding the silence concerning. 

“No,” you say, patting the dough into a small aluminum pan. You put the bird cake in the oven and set the timer. “While we wait for this to bake, do you know what the next puzzle is?”

“I have a guess,” Fabric Study says. “My grandmother, Portrait Study, did a series of pictures of all the family members up to her and insisted they stay in the manor, so I’m hoping they’ll be involved.”

“How many generations do you have?” you moan.

“Counting her? Seven.”

Seven more puzzles to go? Joy.

“But hopefully we won’t need to solve all of them. After all, we’re just doing this to find my brother, right?” Fabric Study says.

“Right,” you say, massaging your eyes. “I’m getting paid by the hour right?”

The two of you discuss finances for the remaining time the bird cake has to bake. At least she doesn’t seem stingy; this certainly seems like it’ll be worth your while.

Finally the oven timer dings and you pull the dark brown crispy cracker-bread hybrid out of the oven with an oven mitt. You set it on its side in the feeder cup and ring the bell.

A small flock of white birds with gossamer-like tails and crests emerge from a nearby tree and hover around the birdfeeder, circling it and singing a sweet, twittery song. Finally, the one with the largest crest lands on the perch and nibbles some of the cake, then leaves and lets the birds lower on the totem have their share. As he takes off into the sky, though, he says something in a strange high-pitched voice. “The truth-teller’s cutie mark has no more than two parts.”

As the birds cycled through, each repeated the same phrase. One stops short after the word ‘no’, prompting the leader bird to caw at the offender in annoyance.

“Oh… so that’s why we were doing this,” you say, turning to Fabric Study. “That mean anything to you?”

“I… I’m not completely sure…” the lavender unicorn says. “But… let’s follow up my earlier theory and check the portrait series.”

“I’m game,” you say. You are getting paid by the hour, after all.

You follow her out of the aviary to a blue-grey back porch, through a large glass door, and into the rich manor of the Study family. Fabric Study leads you through several rooms with rich, creamy carpets, paintings from all eras on the walls, elaborate lighting, and expensive furniture right off the showroom floor. You pass two servants on the way; one is Faithful Aide, who looks disgustedly at your muddy hooves as you pass. Another is a pony in a classic maid dress, white frilly cap and all, who doesn’t even look at you, being too focused on the mantle she’s dusting.

As you pass through a smaller blue room, with two blue armchairs and a bookshelf, an older mare’s voice calls, “Fabric?”

Fabric Study immediately shoves you into a coat closet.

“Hey!” you protest.

“Shhhh,” Fabric Study whispers, closing the door on you.

Through a crack in the door, you see an older unicorn mare enter the room; she’s a faded blue with a brownish-red mane. Her cutie mark is two dresses, one red and one green, and she holds a dress pattern in her red telekinetic grip. “I was hoping to go over my latest design with you. I’ve already reached my conclusions about which fabric is best but I want to hear your analysis.”

“Oh, mom, just let me finish something real quick…” Fabric Study says.

“What’s that?” her mom asked.

“I’m… just… looking for a book…” Fabric Study said slowly, her eyes darting around.

“Two minutes,” was all her mom said, swishing out of the room.

Fabric Study lets you out. “Sorry,” she whispers. “I just… haven’t told them yet… and we’re really not supposed to tell anyone about the puzzles…”

“Next time, tell me that upfront,” you say, trying to keep your palpitating heart inside your chest. You can’t help but remember the last time you were trapped in an enclosed space

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Look.” Fabric Study waves at the door her mom didn’t go through. “Through there, first right, and you’ll be at the portraits. I’ll meet up with you there or outside, okay?”

“Okay,” you say, and the two of you head off in opposite directions.

The portrait hall has thick red carpet and a skylight that doesn’t let sunlight get directly on the paintings. Seven gilded picture frames hang on the walls, each with a plaque beneath them stating the name and bearing a symbol that was probably their cutie mark.

The first was a grey stallion with a silver mane. He was in profile, studying the slide rule in his forehooves. Underneath was the name “Mathematical Study” and a symbol of an x and y written in a fancy purple font.

The second was a dark green mare with a curly pink mane. She was drawn from the front, holding out a pink daisy to the viewer that matched the flower on the plaque, along with the name Plant Study.

The third was a greyish purple mare with a black mane, drawn from the front and with one hoof on her necklace, which alternated diamonds with silver stars. Her cutie mark was five silver stars connected with dotted lines to make a larger star, and her name, naturally, was Star Study.

The fourth was in profile, a light blue stallion with a silver mane studying a small green gemstone. His cutie mark was three pebbles, and the name Geological Study.

The fifth was grey with a dark purple mane. He was drawn in profile, holding a silvery tool that was probably used for sculpting, given his name was “Sculpture Study.” His cutie mark was a pair of pony silhouettes with a stone texture.

The sixth was a light blue mare with a pink mane, stumbling towards the front of the picture, a goofy grin on her face, carrying a large stack of books in her hooves, with still more books flying around her in her telekinetic grip. Her cutie mark was three more books and her name was Literary Study.

The seventh was a blue-lavender mare with a pink mane, holding a paintbrush loaded with green paint and staring intently at a canvas at the painting’s edge. Her cutie mark was a palette. Naturally, this was Portrait Study.

Well, here were the portraits. Now where was the puzzle?

You examine the walls, floor, and ceiling of the long hallway carefully, taking in every detail with the keen insight that made your profession an obvious choice. On the second pass you realize that a bit of the wooden trim that runs around the hallway at about head height has two cracks in it. You grab the short section between the cracks with your mouth and pull; out slides a small wooden table, like a drawer. On top of the table are written the words:

Seven clues, but only one true. To find which it be, use these clues three:

Well, there was a reason she was Portrait Study and not Poetry Study.

	1. The truth-teller is drawn from the front.
2. The truth-teller’s painting has nothing silver in it.

The last clue was heavily scratched out, but you can guess it’s the clue that the bird said: “The truth-teller’s cutie mark has no more than two parts.” Given how much work Avian Study had to do to add in his own puzzle, it was forgivable that his own puzzle was written on easy-to-lose paper.

Between these three clues, finding the truth teller should be a snap.
> A Real Page Turner
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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
> Stone Cold
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first thing you need is the key. The puzzle says it involves numbers and that you hold the key in your hooves. It takes a lot of thinking, but then you finally realize that the key is probably the Dewey Decimal number of the book that you’re holding: 541.16.

Following the instructions on how to use the key, you start with the first letter, H, and count forward five letters, I, J, K, L, M. The first letter is M.

The second letter is e and the second number is 4, so you count forward 4 letters, f, g, h, i. The second letter is I.

After working your way through, you finally have the book’s title: Midnight Rose by Passionate Pages. Now you just need to find the romance books…

“Get away from that!”

The loud shout in the silent library makes you jump and whirl around. The bluish-purple unicorn from the restaurant is right behind you, his horn lit up with a red aura. A glowing red sword-shaped light is about a foot away from your face, the tip aimed directly at your eye.

“S-swordplay Study,” you say, swallowing your fear.

“You have no right to know that, or to read that book!” Swordplay Study says, punctuating each word by stabbing the air near your nose with his magical sword. You back up against the bookshelf, leaving you no room to go anywhere.

“I’m a private detective,” you say, trying to will your heartbeat to slow down. He’s not actually attacking you; that’s a good sign. “I’ve been looking for you. Your sister is worried--”

Faster than you can react, the red sword whacks you on the side of your head and stars explode in your vision. It feels more like you were hit with a club than a blade; these must be the magical equivalent of wooden practice swords.

“Ha, a likely story, scoundrel!” Swordplay says, making you wonder what time period he thinks he lives in. “My sister has nothing to worry about! Everything I’m doing is for her!”

Why isn’t anypony coming over to break up the fight? Or at least to shush Swordplay for yelling in a library?

Discretion being the better part of valor, you attempt to escape by darting underneath Sword Study’s weapon and running. You only make it a few steps before you hit what feels like an invisible wall; as you blink in surprise, you see the air ripple.

“As you can see, I’ve used a silencing shield spell to give us some privacy,” Swordplay says, before whacking you on the other side of the head.

You can’t even begin to fight an opponent that can attack you from such distance like this, so you crouch to the ground with your forelegs over your head to try and protect this critical region from any more concussive blows. Swordplay, undeterred, just starts whaling on your back, but his sword is apparently growing weaker because now it feels like being hit with a plastic bat. You still yelp loudly with every blow.

“I know who you are!” Swordplay shouts. “I recognize the pin! Hawkdive warned me you’d try to steal our treasure!”

“You’ve got it all wrong,” you say, closing your eyes to try to stop the throbbing in your head. “Hawkdive is just-”

The physical blows abruptly stop, and you feel cold metal under your chin. Startled, your eyes fly open, and you find your attacker is holding a very real sword right near your throat.

“Now,” Swordplay Study says, “I may be a gentlestallion, but don’t think I will hesitate to kill you if you make any sudden moves.”

You’re shaking so much you can barely think straight. This pony could slit your throat anytime he wanted to.

But he wasn’t taking his chance to kill you. So your odds were better with him than with the Court, not that that was saying much…

“Now just relax. I won’t kill you unless you make me. This won’t hurt a bit.” His aura flares brighter, and your vision clouds with red. Gradually, your limbs feel heavier, your brain fuzzier; by the time you realize it’s a sleep spell it’s much too late to do anything to resist…


***


You slowly regain consciousness, vaguely aware of a sound like ripping duct tape and something hot at your back. The air smells musty and moldy. Your hooves feel stuck together. So do your eyes, but hopefully that’s not from duct tape.

After a few seconds you manage to blink your eyes open, but the only light source is a dull orange glow coming from behind you somewhere and the red aura of your abductor. You can make out cardboard boxes and pipes along the walls, and the roll of duct tape Swordplay Study is holding.

“Wh-where…?” you drone sleepily.

Swordplay jumps, the tape falling from his grip. “Look, never mind where you are! Just sit tight and when I come back with Hawkdive, we’ll deal with you!” He backs away, illuminating a door by the far wall for just a moment before he ducks through it. The entire door glows red for a second, and then silence.

The pounding of your heart wakes up your whole body; sure, Swordplay may not be anxious to kill you, but Hawkdive certainly will be. You’ve got to get out of this, now.

Your front and back hooves are both bound together, and not very well either. Not to mention they aren’t bound to anything besides themselves, and Swordplay forgot to take care of your mouth. By wriggling your forehooves and biting at the tape, you manage to get them free. You’re shaking the whole time though; no telling when Hawkdive will come…

Your back legs follow shortly after your front ones, and you run to the door and push and pull on the doorknob. Nothing. It doesn’t even wiggle like a locked door would; the spell must have somehow sealed it in place.

“HELP!” you shout, pounding on the door. The sound of the thudding sounds vaguely muted; Sword Study must’ve put his silent shield spell on the door.

Turning, you find that the orange glow and heat you’d observed were part of a large heater; this must be the library’s boiler room. Or for all you know it’s the boiler room in an entirely different establishment.

Boxes. You have three boxes. There needs to be something in there. It can’t end this way. You rip the tape off one and look inside.

Books. Thin paperback books. They wouldn’t even be good for throwing at Hawkdive.

The other boxes are more of the same. Vaguely, you read a few titles by the light of the boiler, but it looks like they’re all cheap romance novels from the same author. You could really use a book about negating sealing spells but it looks like that’s not happening.

You circle the boiler as best as you can, hoping some repair pony left a toolbox there or that there’s a circuit breaker you can hack to attract help, but there’s nothing, nothing at all, no loose pipes to swing, no hot steam to point at an enemy, no windows to the outside, nothing, nothing, nothing.

Your ears swivel; hoofsteps. They’re coming. They’re coming, they’re coming, oh sweet Celestia this can’t be the end…! 

Crouching to the floor, you curl up and shut your eyes, every fiber in your body trembling, your heart ready to leap out of your mouth…

“What the hay is wrong with you?” Fabric Study asks.

You lift your head and find the lavender unicorn staring down at you disapprovingly. “You normally lock yourself in closets to cry when you can’t solve puzzles?” she says.

Already, you’ve calmed down enough at the sight of rescue to feel insulted. “You think this was on me!?” You stand up and point at the torn up scraps of duct tape on the floor. “You think I taped myself up and broke myself out for fun!?”

Fabric Study looked down at the tape and gaped oddly at it. “Wh-who…?”

“No time, we have to leave,” you say. “Does the library have a back way out?”

“I mean… that’s the exit sign…” Fabric Study said, pointing down the hall. You lean out the door and spot an emergency exit.

“Great, let’s go; I’ll tell you on the way.” You race over to the door, checking briefly to make sure an alarm won’t sound when you open it, and push your way through into fresh air and warm sunshine. Relief makes you weak in the knees.

“Now start talking,” Fabric Study says, her tone whiny.

“Let’s get farther away first,” you say. You never found the book with the key in it, but likely Swordplay’s already been there by now. “Do you know where there’s a statue garden made by Sculpture Study?” 

“Fine, we can start walking there,” Fabric Study says. “But if you’re just going to curl up and cry again…”

You whirl around and barely manage to restrain yourself from smacking her. “Will you cut that out!? If you had any idea what they are capable of…”

“...They…?” Fabric Study cocks her head, confused.

“Like I said, I’ll tell you on the way; now start walking.”

For the sake of safety in numbers, you walk together through major streets where you’re never outside shouting distance of the townsponies, not that that’ll help if Swordplay can get a silence shield around you again. You tell your story mostly in whispers, about Raven Hollow, the Court, the ponies they killed, and their obsession with riddles and immortality. You mention Hawkdive and the mine where he locked you in specifically.

And at the end of your story, Fabric Study responds with a disinterested “Mmm-hmm.”

“You think I’m making this up?” you say.

“It doesn’t make a lick of sense why they’d come here,” Fabric Study says, shrugging. “There’s nothing in Blackmoor that they could want.”

“What about your family treasure?” you say.

“The one hidden behind the riddles? It’s just a random rock our ancestor thought was cool and hid to make a fun treasure hunt.”

“What kind of rock?” you ask, your interest already spiking.

Fabric Study shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Then how can you know it’s not valuable?”

“I don’t know, okay?” Fabric Study says, whirling around. “But more importantly, my brother would never work with such horrible ponies!”

“Even if they offered him a lot of money, and he didn’t know their true nature?” you say.

“He wouldn’t be so easily fooled!” Fabric Study said. “And anyway, he doesn’t need money. Our parents are rich!”

“About that,” you say. “He said he was doing it for your sake…”

Fabric Study’s expression doesn’t change, but she suddenly has nothing to say. You resist the temptation to rub it in.

“Listen,” you say, “your brother didn’t believe me when I said I was working for you, so we’re going to find him again, together, and you’re going to explain this to him and ask what’s up, because I’m not getting paid enough to get beat up twice.”

You expect Fabric Study to fly into a rant about how her brother would never attack anypony but instead she nods numbly.

Shortly after, you arrive at a small green hill; on the top is a tiled area filled with statues shaped like animals, from red lions and blue hippos twice the size of an adult pony to ducks and frogs the size of fillies. You’d somehow expected an outdoor museum-like exhibit of famous ponies that adult art critics came to observe and write papers about. This seems more like a playground.

And as you observe the odd dozen foals who run around the statue garden, it becomes apparent that this actually is a playground. Older and braver children slide down the backs of dragon statues while younger ones play The Ground is Lava by hopping around on stone ladybugs. Athletic children play freeze tag, weaving through and over statue legs, while artistically inclined children doodle with chalk on a green-painted pony in one corner. In the center, children splash and play in a shallow fountain with several child-high spouts. At the back of the fountain is a wall with a frieze of a landscape, and at the center of the fountain is a life sized pony standing on its hind legs looking through a telescope.

A signboard near the edge of the park announces:

“Animal Fantasy Garden, created by Sculpture Study to be enjoyed by children for generations to come. NOTICE: Being made decades ago, this park does not conform to modern safety standards for children’s playgrounds. The Study family and the Blackmoor Center for Parks and Recreation assume no responsibility for any injuries incurred. Play at your own risk. We especially do not recommend climbing on the Explorer statue, the largest dragon statue, or the elephant.”

“Hi Miss Study!” somepony shouts out. A few small foals converge on you and Fabric, all about elementary school age.

“Is this your special somepony?” a pink and red earth pony filly asks.

“No!” Fabric Study protests, her ears turning red. “We’re just here to… um…”

“I’m a tourist, an acquaintance of the Studies, and Fabric Study wanted to show me the park and introduce me to some of her friends,” you say quickly.

The foals squeal with excitement and introduce themselves in a rush.

“Want to play tag?” an older blue unicorn colt asks.

“Sure,” you say. Might be a good way to look all around the playground.

A tiny yellow unicorn filly runs up and pushes her nose against your foreleg. “You’re it!” she cries, dashing away again as fast as her tiny legs can carry her. The other children also scatter, including, to your surprise, Fabric Study. You give chase, leaping over stone lizards and ducking under dragon bellies. Finally, you run into the pink and red filly from before. You boop her nose, making her eep. “No tag backs,” you say, running off to hide.

Engaging in such a childish activity so soon after being afraid for your life is surreal. It makes all your troubles feel so far away.

Eventually, tired out, you join the other children taking a break near the fountain. A teal colt splashes you, so you put one hoof on a fountain jet to spray him back, making him squeak with delight.

“Hey, mister, have you tried the riddle yet?” the little yellow filly asks.

You look at her in surprise. “What riddle?”

She leads you to the frieze behind the fountain. There’s a small dish in the center of the picture with more than a dozen marbles in it; some are solid colors while others have pictures, like an eye, or a compass with the needle pointing east. Above the dish is written:

"When this courtyard was made, my friend Anna had just been let out of the hospital. She'd been there for a week, but there never was anything wrong with her: no illness, injury, or complaint from her during her entire stay. But they kept her in the hospital against her will for a full week, and while she was there, she was not allowed to do anything for herself, not even get up off the bed. And when she was finally released, she had to be carried from the hospital by her parents.

“Find five Annas and feed each one three marbles that go with their favorite element. If you do it right you’ll get a surprise! If you mess up or lose the marbles though, don’t worry; each night the marbles will teleport back to this dish and you can try again tomorrow!”

“You also need the poem down there,” the yellow filly says, pointing to the bottom of the picture.

You look down and see five poetic lines.

Wood is the sunrise and watching things grow.
Metal is the sunset and the perfume of gardenias.
Water is the din in the dark night and the most famous aurora.
Fire is hot peppers and summer in December.
Earth is your bare feet on the ground, golden no matter where you are.


Is this really Sculpture Study’s puzzle? Something out in the open that little children solve? Weren’t these supposed to be secret?

But on the other hand, it is a riddle in a statue garden, so you have nothing to lose if you try.
> Young Love
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Well?” the yellow filly asks expectantly.

“Anna was carried out by her parents… because she was a baby,” you say. “The doctors kept her that long just to make sure she was developing normally. So what I’m looking for is five baby animals.”

The yellow filly giggled and nodded gleefully.

“All right, now to find and feed them,” you say. “I know one already; there’s some metal flamingos over there that are the only statues made of metal.”

You take the three marbles that go with metal: a compass pointing west for the sunset, a picture of a nose for perfume, and white for gardenias, and carry them over to the flamingos. Sure enough a flamingo chick is staring up at its mother, beak open; you slide the three marbles into the slot and hear them rattle as they travel inside.

If you get these wrong you’re sunk; you can’t afford to wait for the puzzle to reset tomorrow. At least it seems easy enough.

The only wooden animals in the sculpture garden are some rustic bears, so you feed the bear cub the east marble for sunrise, eyes for watching, and green for the growing things.

Next you find a mother dragon cuddling some stone eggs, one of which has a baby dragon poking its head out. Dragons mean fire, so he gets a red marble and a tongue marble for the spicy hot peppers and a south marble for summer in December.

By a duck pond you find some stone seals and feed their baby an ear and a black marble for the din in the dark night and a north marble for the most famous aurora.

That leaves just one baby, an elephant. Into its mouth you put a hoof for the feel and a gold marble for the golden earth. The last marble is a compass rose with no arrow filled in, just the dot in the center.

You’ve been acquiring more and more foals following you around as you deposit all the marbles, and when the last one slides into place, all of them turn towards the fountain. You follow their lead.

The telescope-wielding pony in the center of the fountain glows and starts to spin. The children cheer and say “You did it! You solved the riddle! You rule!” and other things. You smile modestly and walk over to examine the statue.

Fabric Study joins you. “Great bunch of kids,” you tell her.

She nods. “But my brother and I solved this together when he was five and I was three. What are we supposed to do now?”

“I think I can guess…” You carefully climb on the back of the stone statue.

“That’s dangerous!” the pink filly shouts.

“It’s okay; I’m an adult,” you tell them, maneuvering your head around the statue’s stone one to look through the stone telescope. Sure enough there’s a real lens inside it; through it you can make out a house with a distinct green-roofed tower. You turn to Fabric Study. “Hey, you know where that house is from here?”

“There’s a house in there?” some of the children whisper to each other excitedly.

“Let me see,” Fabric Study says.

You step off the statue into the fountain and she climbs up, using telekinesis to keep her fancy dress away from the water. She puts her eyes to the telescope, gasps, and then pulls back, blushing slightly.

“So you do know it?” you say.

“What is it, Miss Study?” a green colt asks.

“Is it your special somepony?” the pink filly asks in a sing-song voice.

“St-stop it Lovebug!” Fabric Study tells the amorous filly. To you, softly, she says, “Yes. I can take you there. Let’s run.”

“Okay.” To the children you say, “Thanks for all the help, kids, but we have to go now.”

“Will you come back to the playground before you leave?” the yellow filly asks you with perfect puppy eyes.

“...No promises,” you say. You hate to say no to that face, but as much as you’d like to forget your mortal enemies are looking for you, you can’t afford to do so.

Fabric Study gallops off down the hillside, forcing you to dash to keep up. At this speed, the house turns out to be only a few minutes away from the hill.

It’s a quaint place with two stories and a roof balcony in addition to the round, green tower on the side. The winding path to the house is paved with a wide variety of stones and is bordered with multicolored pansies and impatiens. The windows all have either wrought iron bars in fanciful patterns or stained glass. The front porch is painted light olive green and a two-pony porch swing the same color hangs by the door, covered liberally with multishaped throw pillows in mauve and yellow.

Fabric Study trots up the steps and raps on the door. You stumble up behind her and struggle a moment to catch your breath from that dash.

“Whose house is this?” you ask, panting.

“...The Faithfuls’...” Fabric says.

That can’t be a coincidence. “So why did you blush so much?”

A panel in the top of the door slides open and a blue earth pony stallion Fabric’s age sticks his head out. When he sees Fabric, he smiles in a way that immediately answers your question.

“Fabby!” he says, pushing open the door to let her in. “I didn’t see the signal… urk.” He finally notices you.

“Th-this isn’t what you think, Low,” Fabric says. “They’re with me and we’re here because… because they’re a private detective…”

“My dad hired a detective to keep us apart?” ‘Low’ says, indignant.

“I’m here to find her brother and this has nothing to do with you,” you say. Ugh, relationship drama; like you don’t get enough of that on your normal assignments. “Fabric, does he know…?”

“Yes,” she says, nodding. “We were… trying to follow the path of puzzles to catch up with my brother, and…”

“And it led you here.” Low sighed. “...I… I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not like that…”

“A Faithful is discreet,” Fabric sighed.

“More or less. Come inside.” Low steps back a bit to allow both of you entry.

The Faithful’s living room is an eclectic mix of old fashioned tables and picture frames and modern couches and rocking chairs. A floor-to-ceiling bookcase is against one corner, but it’s mostly filled with photos, ancient and modern, arranged chronologically to create the effect of color slowly fading into the world. A single shelf is devoted to gardening books and another shelf has a few books shoved to one side of it and held up with a pegasus-shaped bookend. The titles are cleaning and repair guides, a book for managing servants, a book on proper etiquette, and an ancient book about rock collecting for some reason.

“So if you’re on the path, did you see my brother?” Fabric asks.

“Kind of. Mom was the one who actually showed him the puzzle, since I was out doing shopping until a little while ago. As I was coming back I saw him leave; he was with a stranger and they were arguing about something.”

“What did the stranger look like?” you ask.

“What were they arguing about?” Fabric says.

Low rubs the back of his head nervously. “I mean… we were pretty far away, or else I’d’ve tried to catch up and say hi. The huge dark blue unicorn he was with seemed super mad about something and Swordplay had his head low and his tail between his legs. They also were in a huge hurry.”

“Do you know where they went to then?” Fabric asked.

“None of us know the destination,” Low said. “I’ll show you the puzzle and explain…”

He leads you over to some basement stairs and descends into darkness.

“So I don’t know if you figured this out by yourself, Fabby, but the puzzles after this point are spread far and wide,” Low explains. “Some of them need maintenance while this one just needs guarding, so apparently another family got roped into the Study tradition and the Faithful tradition is to make sure the puzzles work while simultaneously not knowing what they are or telling anyone.” A lightbulb comes on with a click, revealing normal basement clutter and laundry implements.

You and Fabric follow him down the stairs. “Hence why Faithfuls are discreet?” you ask.

“Family motto,” Low says, walking to a far corner of the basement and starting to take away a pile of boxes. “And so I couldn’t tell you anything, Fabby. When your brother accidentally found the chest several years ago my dad was literally on the verge of sending me to an orphanage until Swordplay persuaded him it wasn’t my fault…”

“How horrible!” Fabric Study cries.

“How overdramatic,” you say.

“My dad only knows bossing around and being bossed around; any other relationship is a mystery to him,” Low says.

“At least you have Faithful Tender…” Fabric says.

“Yeah, mom’s a sweetheart,” Low agrees. He takes away the last box to reveal a stone chest on the floor. “It’s built into the floor and walls of the house which is why you can’t solve this in the comfort of our living room.”

A large golden key is sticking out of the chest’s lock but the chest itself is shut. Above the key are five buttons, each made of a different colored gemstone. On the lid of the chest is a bronze plaque with some text. You read aloud, “To open the chest, push the buttons in the correct order. The stones with Z in their names are in alphabetical order. No stones starting with the same letter are next to each other. The first stone you press does not start with A.”

You stare blankly at the semiprecious stones. None of the buttons are labeled with the type of stone they are. “Um….”

“Oh, right, the geologist who built the puzzle made it needlessly confusing,” Low said. “I’ll be right back with the gem book…”

As he runs off, you turn to Fabric Study. “Nice guy. What’s Low short for?”

“Faithful Fellow,” Fabric says. “Listen… please don’t tell my parents about this. I’ll pay whatever it takes…”

“Why? It sounded like Faithful Aide was most against it and he already knows doesn’t he?” you say.

Fabric Study wrings her hooves. “Low and I grew up together and we can’t bear the thought of being apart, and as soon as Faithful Aide found out he stopped letting his son work and play at the mansion anymore. Fed my parents some line about his talent not being useful to them even though we definitely could find use for a baker.” She inhales and swallows, looking like she’s fighting tears. “He spent hours, days, scolding poor Low for doing something that would disgrace our families so.”

“Both families?” you say. “Since when do servants worry about their reputation?”

“I guess… I guess because of what he just said, about how Faithfuls have their tradition and the Studies have our own. Low’s the only son they have and I guess it would make the tradition stop working if we were both the same family…”

“The Studys should be fine though. They have Swordplay,” you say. “Wait… what happens if there’s more than one Study child? Does only the oldest inherit the line of puzzles?”

“Well… it only happened once,” Fabric Study said.

“Literature and Sculpture?” you say.

“Right, but Sculpture never had any children.”

“Really.” You think about the lovingly designed statue park. “Seems sad.”

“Yeah…”

“But what about your parents? They’re not near-abusive like Faithful Aide is are they?”

The word makes Fabric jerk to attention. “No! Oh, no, Aide is strict but abusive is too…” She trails off, then says very fast, “and my parents love me and my brother and would never…!”

“Fine, fine, I get it,” you say. “But if they really love you, wouldn’t they want you to follow your heart?”

Fabric rubs one foreleg against another. “They never respect my dreams much if they stand in the way of tradition…”

“I see,” you say. “So that’s what Swordplay meant….”

“What?” Fabric asks.

“Found it,” Faithful Fellow says, coming downstairs balancing the book on his head. “Time to find your brother, eh?”

“Right,” you say, taking the book from him.

After flipping through the book and debating about minor differences in color with Fabric and Fellow you collectively figure out the identity of all the gemstones; it helps once you realize Geological Study (or perhaps a frustrated descendant) put small pencil marks next to the stones involved in the puzzle.

“So the iridescent amber-green stone is Ammolite,” you say, tracing the gem.

“The purple Tanzanite is my favorite,” Faithful Fellow says. “It reminds me of you, Fabby.”

Fabric Study blushes. “Clear Zircon reminds me of diamonds, which are a girl’s best friend, but I like the Azurite. It’s like lapis lazuli but teal; what’s not to love?”

“And the brown one is…” you flip through the book looking for pencil marks. “Enstatite. Time to solve this.”
> Mysteries of the Heavens
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.
> Hidden Dangers
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, the easy ones are Virgo at 12, which puts Aquarius at 11. The autumnal signs are Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius; Libra has to be sitting on an even multiple of 3, which puts her at 6 since 12 is taken by Virgo. What comes next though….?

You study the clues, but nothing is coming to mind. You have no idea what to do you’ll never solve this puzzle you’ll never know the answer you’re going to die you’re going to die you’re going to die...

You don’t remember how you got on the floor, but you jerk yourself upright again. No. This isn’t Raven Hollow. You’re not going to die if you don’t answer this puzzle fast. You’re not here because you have to be; you’re here because you chose to be. So nopony else would have to suffer at the hooves of the Court.

You feel like there’s stars swimming in your head every second you don’t work on the puzzle, though. Partly to ease the pain, you sit down to make a list. You know that there’s a limited number of even numbers and that Libra, Pisces, and Gemini claimed 3 of them. Virgo claimed another. Cancer must be on one too since he’s sitting next to the 3 or the 9. And for that matter, either Aries or Capricorn must be on an even number also. That’s all 6 even numbers claimed. So the rest of the star signs, including Leo and Taurus, must be on odd numbers, and those two are sitting across from each other.

That’s it. That’s the clue you needed. Now you can finish this.

There’s only two odd numbers left across from each other, since 3 and 9 are taken: 1 and 7. And Leo can’t be on 1 because then he’d be next to Virgo, whom he’s next to on the calendar, so Leo is on 7 and Taurus at 1.

Now you only have two unclaimed seats next to each other that Aries and Capricorn can take, so Capricorn must be on 5, and Aries to his right on 4.

Now you look at the 3 and 9 again. If 9 is Scorpio, then Cancer would be sitting on his right, which would put Cancer next to Leo. But those two follow each other in the calendar, so that can’t be right. This means Scorpio is at 3 and Cancer at 2. This leaves Sagittarius as the last autumnal sign and 9 as the last multiple of 3, so that’s where he sits.

Now you only have two signs left to solve, Pisces and Gemini, and only two numbers left, 8 and 10. Pisces can’t sit next to Aquarius because they’re next to each other on the calendar; so Pisces must be at 8. And the last zodiac sign, Gemini, sits on 10.

You click the final tiles into place, making the final lineup:  

Taurus
Cancer
Scorpio
Ares
Capricorn
Libra
Leo
Pisces
Sagittarius
Gemini
Aquarius
Virgo

    As you slide the last tile into place, the clock chimes melodically and the door on top of the ladder swings open with a dramatic creak. You hurry back up the ladder and feel the cool breeze blow through your mane. The door leads to the small balcony you saw halfway up the tower. It’s a small ledge with just enough room to stand on. On the wall around the balcony is a small telescope about the same size as the indent in the chest from Geological Study’s puzzle. A cheap brass stand holds the telescope in place; it can’t swivel or tilt at all, so it must be in the same position as it was when Swordplay Study placed it in.

    You put your eye to the telescope and see that it’s pointed at the forest. It’s getting late and it’s hard to see clearly, but next to an odd pink tree you see a hedge arch with a stone sign on it reading “Mathematical Memorial Garden.”

    Mathematical—that was the first Study, the one whose puzzle was the last to solve. That must be the garden Plant Study created when she turned her father’s eccentricity into a family tradition. The last stop in the path of puzzles.

Quickly, you pull a compass from your trenchcoat pocket and take headings. The strange pink tree next to the garden is northeast of the tower. You realize your hooves are shaking and aren’t sure from what. Excitement that you’re almost done? Or fear of running into the Court, or the Blackmoor Beast, or both?

You slide down the observatory ladder one final time, giving a brief, sad glance to the dead Court member, all too aware that could have been you if not for the posthumous help of Idea Spark. Why did you take it for granted that the Court would stop hurting ponies the instant their leader died? Why did you waste so much time trying to pretend the trip to Raven Hollow never happened when you could have been saving more victims?

“I’m sorry,” you tell the stiff corpse. “You shouldn’t have died. I won’t let this happen again…” What a vain promise. “...if I can help it.”

With that, you head outside to where Faithful Fellow is hugging Fabric Study and stroking her mane comfortingly.

“How was the puzzle?” Faithful Fellow asks.

“Solved,” you mutter. “Come on. One last trip.”

“Where are we going?” Faithful helps Fabric Study to her hooves.

“Into the forest, to Plant Study’s garden,” you say. “Sorry, Fabric, but this is a spoiler.”

Fabric Study’s eyes seem glassy and she doesn’t acknowledge your words.

“Hey, Fabby, it’ll be fine,” Faithful Fellow tells her. “We’re going to find your brother and we can all go home.”

She nods numbly. As you head into the forest, following your compass, the young couple brings up the rear.

The pine forest is even darker now that night is coming. You dodge around spiny branches, doing your best to keep a straight heading, your ears alert every moment for the sound of bears or something far more unearthly.

“Getting harder to see….” you mutter to your compass.

There’s a flash of white light behind you; you jump and whirl around to find a golf ball sized orb hovering behind you and glowing with the intensity of a flashlight.

“What are you?!” you shout, staring at the ball.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it’s just a light spell I know…” Fabric whimpers. “I thought it would help you…”

“...oh…” You feel your face grow hot. “Is it sentient?”

“It’ll point where your eyes do, but no,” Fabric Study says.

“Okay then.” Trying to calm yourself back down, you keep walking, all to aware that your screaming may have attracted somepony or something.

But all is silence for the next several minutes. You come to a hill with a stream running at the bottom. You look up and restrain your urge to shout excitedly. The top of the hill is covered is strange pink leaves, and you can just make out the hedge arch.

The stream is pretty wide, but you manage to clear it in one leap. Circling around at a distance seems like a good plan; best to check for any…

Your nose hits an invisible barrier.

“Thank you for walking into my ambush, you scoundrel,” Swordplay Study says.

You turn around to find that the blueish purple unicorn has snuck up behind you; over his shoulder you can see Fabric Study, her eyes wide and her mouth moving, but you can’t hear her through Swordplay’s infernal silencing shield.. She’s splashing slowly and delicately across the stream, trying to save you while still keeping her dress dry.

“Turn around—” you try to say, but his practice sword smacks into the side of your head, managing to hit the exact sore spot from your last fight. You grit your teeth in pain.

“I actually didn’t believe Hawkdive when he said you were dumb enough to follow us,” Swordplay Study said. “Tell me, how is it you solve so many puzzles and yet are still so incredibly stupid?”

“I’m not the one who helped an obviously evil pony capture the same innocent guy twice in a row and is currently not noticing his sis—”

Swordplay whacks you in the head another time.

“Ow! Your sister is right behind you and she can explain!” you shout as fast as you can. Should have led with that; you might have been spared a smack.

“I’m not falling for that,” Swordplay Study said as Fabric banged on his shield spell behind him.

You try to gesture to Fabric to walk along the edge of the shield into Swordplay’s field of view, but when you try she suddenly whirls around, ears pricked, staring at the forest.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” Swordplay says, telekinetically holding your head in place.

“Why are you doing this?” you say. “Your sister still looks up to you—”

“And well she should!” Swordplay says. “You mean to tell me you haven’t figured out what this is for?”

“You want money to help Fabric Study follow her dreams, financially independant of her parents,” you say.

Swordplay’s suddenly blank expression makes it clear he underestimated your intelligence.

“I meant why are you working with scoundrels and doing things that your sister doesn’t want you to do?” you continue. “This can’t possibly be the only way you and Fabric have to make money. Why sell your precious family heirloom?”

“Why not sell it?” Swordplay says. “Precious? What a joke. It’s a dumb rock that does absolutely nothing. It’s only valuable because of tradition.” He spits the word out like it’s disgusting, but you suddenly find yourself distracted.

Behind Swordplay, like a silent horror film, a strange, ghostly white form fills the dark spaces between the trees, slowly emerging, a strange quadrupedal creature made of a gluey substance stretched too thin near the joints, sometimes a see-through membrane, sometimes full of holes, revealing bones stained dark red. Its huge, muscular forehooves…. forepaws?... had six huge silver claws each, serrated and looking mechanical instead of organic. It had holes with glowing yellow light where its eyes should be and a gaping, toothless hole where its mouth would be. The top of its head and the back of its neck were covered with dark matted hair. It tossed its head back in a silent howl.

“Turn the hay around!” you order Swordplay Study.

Swordplay Study’s horn flares, and you feel like someone stuffed a rock in your throat. You fall to the ground, choking and coughing.

“I already told you I’m not falling for that trick,” Swordplay Study says. “This family tradition has gone on long enough. Now our family is forced to keep a dangerous children’s park open, own a home of Geological Study’s childhood friend, and now Fabric and I will be forced to sustain a displaced flock of tropical birds because of this stupid, stupid, stupid tradition!”

Through your blurring vision, you see Fabric banging desperately on the shield, and then silvery blades descending onto her head.

Somehow, someway, despite feeling near unconsciousness, you launch yourself upward, slamming your head into your dense opponent’s shoulder and forcing him to turn to the side from the force.

“Oh my Celestia!” Swordplay Study shouts.

You don’t get to see the expression on his face because you hit the ground again with a head-jarring thud. The pressure on your throat ends though.

A wild cry echoes through the air, a piercing wail that certainly is unique. You pull yourself to your hooves and whirl around to see Swordplay Study blocking the Blackmoor Beast’s descending claws with his two real swords. Swirling red energy collects around him in a maelstrom, finally hitting the monster with explosive force and sending the grotesque creature flying over the trees.

Refusing to be impressed, you run over to where Fabric Study lies, a pool of dark blood by her side, two wounds in her head near her horn. You kneel by her and check her vitals, sighing in relief as you feel a pulse beneath your hoof. As nasty as the wounds look, considering what the beast did to that poor Court member, she’s very lucky.

“Fabric!” Faithful Fellow runs up.

“Where the hay were you?” you say.

“I told her to run! I thought she was behind me! Oh Celestia…” Faithful Fellow kneels by her side. “Oh my gosh… oh my gosh… I’m so sorry Fabby…”

“Is she…?” Swordplay asks.

“Do you know any healing spells?” you ask him.

“I-I-I-”

“Answer!” you shout.

“I-I can stabilize her but first aid is… is…” Swordplay is shivering. He falls by her side. “I’m such an idiot…” he says, tearing up.

You don’t correct him. “Then do it. We’ll run back to town—”

“You’ll never make it,” Swordplay says. “You’re hours away. Just fetch Hawkdive and-”

“NO.” you say.

Swordplay doesn’t argue with you, just stares at Fabric, his eyes narrowed in concentration as his sister is surrounded by a red aura.

“Th-the… the garden…” Faithful Fellow says, his eyes widening.

“Huh?” you say.

“My mom told me the Evergrannets are almost in season,” Faithful Fellow says, inhaling sharply. “Wound-curing fruits. They only grew in the frozen north except under Plant Study’s magical care. But once you pick them their magic only lasts an hour.”

“That’s enough time,” you say. “You come with me to the garden. Stay careful and quiet.” You turn to Swordplay Study. “There’s not another ambush in the garden, is there? And remember, if you lie to me, your sister dies because of you.”

Swordplay swallows. “Th-they were all going to the crypt. I was the only one on guard.”

“Good. We’ll hurry.”

You and Faithful Fellow creep up the hill as fast as you dare. By the side of the garden is sign and you study it carefully.

“To find the water garden, follow anticipation until you reach slighted love…?” Faithful Fellow says, reading the first direction aloud in a whisper.

“Ignore that,” you say. “We’re only worried about two locations.” Scanning the list, you find the important passages.

“For healing plants, let magic lead you to wealth and success, then follow them to fame. And if you seek my father’s grave, let a happy marriage take you to domestic happiness, but then beware, for a deadly foe is near.”

The prophetic nature of the last clue makes you shudder. “All right, Faithful, how good are you at plant identification?”

“Decent. My mom’s a gardener after all. But none of these are flower names.”

“That’s fine; I didn’t expect them to be. This is how you’ll find your way…”
> The Secrets of the Studys
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s not hard to realize that Plant Study must be talking about flower meanings, not the names of actual flowers. Those nerdy days of reading Flower Witch comics might actually pay off for once.

“You go to a patch of ferns, then follow a trail of yellow poppies, then tulips,” you tell Faithful Fellow. “You’ve got that?”

He nods.

“Now be careful. I’m going to go spy on the Court. If you hear anything from over there, don’t be a hero; just go help Fabric, and the three of you go back to Blackmoor and get help. Got it?”

He nods again.

“Good luck.”

The two of you slip inside the garden, ears pricked. You see several paths lined with flowers; Faithful Fellow heads down the one lined with ferns. You, meanwhile, follow the one lined with peonies, keeping an eye out for holly bushes for domestic happiness and monkshood for “a deadly foe is near.” You still can’t get over how prophetic that turned out to be.

The garden would obviously be very beautiful in the daylight. Flowers in neat geometric patterns, bordered by trim hedges and evenly spaced trees, are everywhere in sight. Several of the plants are ones you’ve never seen before and many come with labels, like Plant Study meant for this to be some kind of living museum of botanical knowledge.

As much as Swordplay Study was full of it, you’re wondering if Star Study secretly hated her mom; this garden was clearly a labor of love for Plant Study and now it’s only seen by one gardener and once by each Study, all for tradition’s sake. 

Of course, the whole thing can’t help but put you on edge as you stealthily creep through the bushes, seeing enemies behind every tree and rock. Somehow there are too many places for your enemies to hide and not enough places for you.

Before too long, you find the purplish flowers of monkshood, also known as wolfsbane. It leads you along the bottom of a cliff to a small, shallow valley rimmed with rosebushes. Dodging thorns, you cautiously peek over the edge.

The cliffside continues, and at the bottom of the valley is a cave, dramatically sealed with a stone filled with carvings of intelligent-looking sages. Surrounding the cave is ring after ring of cloaked ponies. A few hold torches, but despite that, you can barely tell where one ends and another begins, All you’re sure of is that there’s dozens and dozens of members, all of the Court of Ravens.

You feel dizzy and your breathing accelerates. From the sheer number of victims they’d created you’d known the Court had to be larger than just Hawkdive and Turtledove, but you’d had no idea there’d be so many. You didn’t even know there were this many ponies in Raven Hollow.

At the entrance to the cave, a small orange mare is convulsing on the ground, her eyes nearly rolling into her head, looking like she’s possessed by a demon. She can’t be more than eighteen. She’s screaming wildly, her cries occasionally interjected with random numbers.

Pacing around the fallen mare is an ivory unicorn with a pretty pine green mane lightly dusted with gray. Short as she is, she somehow looks imposing. You recognize her immediately; Turtledove, granddaughter of the founder of the Court of Ravens, and it’s current leader.

“It’s no use,” she sighed. “This one never was much for math. The loss of Stellar Physics is even more deeply felt.” She glared at a Court member in the front row.

“I did my best, I swear!” His back is to you and his hood is up, but you can tell by the voice it’s probably a middle-aged stallion. “I grabbed him, but he pushed my hoof away. Poor nutty guy literally jumped towards that monster’s claws…”

“Mmm-hmm,” Turtledove said, apparently not convinced. “Save your excuses for later. Meanwhile, the rest of you keep working on the puzzle. Or, if we’re lucky, that silly Swordplay will bring that detective right into our hooves.” She turned to look up the path to the cave, which is far too close to your hiding place for comfort. You’re sure she can hear your heartbeat from how loud it is in your ears.

When she turns away, you start counting ponies, circling slowly so you can make out their faces. Twelve, thirteen…

Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no. Where is Hawkdive?

You scan the faces of the Court members as quick as you dare. The few that match the unicorn’s bulk are clearly either the wrong race or the wrong color. Your mind is racing. Where could he be? You have to find him. What if Faithful runs into him?

You turn and start up the path as fast as you dare. You make it to the holly path, still travelling behind bushes, when you hear somepony coming the other direction. You crouch to the ground, trying to make yourself look as much like a decorative rock as possible. You hear… sobbing. Then Faithful’s voice. “Please. Please. Do whatever you want with us, just please let us heal Fabby.”

“My sister will die if we don’t get to her within the hour,” Swordplay says. His voice sounds strained.

“Don’t care. It’s Turtledove’s judgement you have to worry about now,” Hawkdive says.

You let yourself peek slightly through the bushes. Hawkdive has Faithful Fellow and Swordplay on either side of him, both of them with magically formed leashes around their necks; you recognize the spell that Turtledove once applied to you. Swordplay’s horn is badly cracked and sparking. Both his scabbards are empty.

Great. Just when you could really use an ally with lots of fancy sword spells.

Hawkdive suddenly freezes and pricks his ears your direction. You don’t know what, if anything, he heard and you don’t stop to find out; you just leap out of your hiding place and start running.

You make it about five yards when you feel your throat constrict and your breathing is cut off by something yanking you backwards. You stumble to the ground, thrashing, feeling a third magical leash tighten around your own neck.

“Well, look who’s here,” Hawkdive sneers, jerking you to your hooves. “You just don’t know when to give up, do you?”

You attempt to come up with some biting retort, but you’re too scared. Plus, the leash is too tight for you to talk. Hawkdive somehow takes offense at your silence and electrifies the leash. You collapse to the ground, the pain so great you can’t even scream.

“L-leave them out of this!” Swordplay says.

“Oh no. This one of all ponies we can’t leave alone.” Hawkdive yanks the leash again. “On your hooves, rookie. We have one last riddle for you.”

You somehow force yourself upward and stumble after him. All the abuse you’ve endured today has finally caught up to you, and you close your eyes to shut out the tears. This is it. There’ll be no coded message from Idea Spark, no surprise rescue from Fabric this time.

“I’m sorry,” Swordplay whispers to you as you walk back the way you came. “When Hawkdive found me and my injured sister he offered to take me to the healing plants and it would have been suspicious if I’d refused. I tried to warn Faithful by being as loud as possible, but I overdid it, and Hawkdive caught on…”

You push him in the shoulder to try and get him to stop talking; you have no patience for excuses right now.

Hawkdive drags you into the ring of cloaked ponies, who jeer and hiss at you. He stops to ‘tie’ Faithful and Swordplay’s leashes to a tree, then drags you over to Turtledove. “Look what we found.”

The small unicorn glares at you in the way that you remember from your nightmares: an icy, piercing gaze that seems to penetrate your soul. Then her horn lights up.

You don’t remember anything definitive about the next few minutes; only pain, stars dancing before your eyes, and the sound of Turtledove screaming that you’re a murderer. When it’s over you can’t even find which way is up, you’re bleeding in several places, and you can barely stand.

“I have so much more I want to make you suffer,” Turtledove hisses. “But sadly, it seems we need you for one more riddle.”

In a meager act of defiance, you say, “And why would I h-help you? Will you let me leave if I answer this puzzle for you?” You’re not in much of a position to bargain but anything’s worth trying.

“Oh, no,” Turtledove says. “Neither you nor Swordplay is leaving alive; you both know too much.”

“M-me!?” Swordplay cries, sounding like he only just started paying attention. “Why me? I don’t know anything!”

“But if you solve this diligently, honestly, and within the hour, I agree to let the other two live,” Turtledove says, ignoring Swordplay. “Of course, if they don’t matter to you, we’ve brought some sirenite with us.” She nods to the writhing filly. “It would be satisfying to finish what we started with you.”

You don’t buy that; if that was a viable option, Turtledove wouldn’t even be bargaining with you. You close your eyes; Faithful and Fabric didn’t ask for this and hardly knew what they were getting into, despite all your attempts to warn them. It’s hardly fair that they should die.

And yet, if it helps the Court….

“What do you even need in that crypt so badly, anyway?” you say, opening your eyes. “If it’s just that you’re so sirenited that you can’t bear to leave while a riddle’s still unsolved, I’m not doing it.”

“Oh no. Our goal is what it always was. The final defeat of death; nothing less.” Turtledove nods to Swordplay Study. “And the rock your ancestor so selfishly and childishly sealed away will make that happen.”

“It’s not sirenite, is it?” you ask, dreading the answer.

“Fool. We have plenty of that.” Turtledove sighed and shook her head. “The stone was created by Mathematical Study’s brother, an alchemist named Philosopher Stone. When a strange monster with metal claws tore apart Philosopher’s lab and killed him, his silly younger brother kept the rock out of mere sentiment and sold anything valuable. After much searching, one of our members found Philosopher’s old notebook, where he wrote about how the stone could grant immortality if its surface was scratched with a metal instrument, and he was looking forward to testing it the next day. This was the last entry he ever wrote before the monster attacked.”

“That monster with metal claws… was that the Blackmoor Beast?” you ask.

“It matched the description except for one important detail; the monster that killed Philosopher Stone was green,” Turtledove answered.

You stare at the ground thoughtfully, pieces falling into place. “Philosopher Stone… didn’t happen to have a green coat, did he?”

Pause. “Yes… What are you saying?” Turtledove asked.

A wild cry echoes through the air. Speak of the devil.

“Oh Celestia,” a court member says.

“It’s him again!” another cries.

“Run!”

“No, stay here!” Turtledove shouted. “We are many, and between us-”

A few cloaked ponies were already leaving; the remaining ones shuffled around uneasily.

“You saw that beast tear Stellar apart, didn’t you?” one shouted.

“It was killed before and we can kill it again,” Turtledove said. “Stay calm and get ready-”

The strange, shrieking cry sounds again,  much closer now, and the grey beast leaps down the cliff and lands in front of Mathematical Study’s grave. Its metal claws flash in the dim light as the grey, gooey monster lunges at the thrashing mare, who is too far gone to see the danger she’s in.

The Court member who’d let Stellar die dashes toward her, trying to drag her out of the way, and the sharp metal claws slice through his side like paper. The cloaked stallion collapses in a puddle of dark blood.

Any control Turtledove may have had over her Court members is instantly lost as they scramble to get out of the way, screaming in terror. You try to join them only to fall flat when you reach the end of the leash.

“Come back now!” Turtledove shouts to her followers, even as she retreats herself under the apparent pretense of chasing them down.

The wild cry sounds again, and you lift your head from the ground. You find yourself staring straight into the beast’s glowing yellow eyes. Death grips your heart with an icy hoof; in your panic, a desperate idea latches onto your mind.

“I-I know who you are!” you shout, your voice shaking. “You were a Study once. That rock mutated you into this beast when you came to fulfill the family tradition. That’s the kind of ‘immortality’ Philosopher’s stone granted!”

The beast snarls at you, strands of bloody drool dripping from its black void of a mouth. It raises its claws again.

“You have to remember who you are!” you shout at it. “Remember-!”

And as the metal blades descend on you, you call out the beast’s real name.
> The Final Challenge
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Sculpture Study! Stop!” you shout just as the claws flash down towards your head.

Your eyes squeeze shut, like being eviscerated will somehow be less painful if you don’t have to watch. After five seconds, you open them again.

The Blackmoor Beast is frozen, staring at you, like the name somehow petrified it.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” you whisper. “Maybe you wanted to sculpt Mathematical’s stone, or maybe you just wanted to learn more about it. Maybe your father Geological Study put you up to it. Whatever happened, you scratched the surface up with a metal tool, and just like Philosopher, your transformation was near immediate. That’s why you’re the only Study who died without any children.”

The beast looks down at its huge metal claws. The hollow eye sockets and hole for a mouth makes its expression nearly impossible to read, but its head tilts a little. Maybe in confusion.

“You must remember!” you shout. “Your father was Geological Study. Your sister was Literary Study. You built a statue park for children and that was your puzzle!” You pause. “Or was it? Or did you just build a puzzle-like game for children and your surviving family added on the spinning statue so that the chain wouldn’t be broken, and they could still say you were part of the tradition?”

The grey gooey beast rests its head in its claws in a picture of complete dejection. Then it throws back its head and howls its eerie cry, but now it’s one of sadness. With a loud crash, it falls back, rolling on its side and curling up in a small ball, shaking like it’s crying.

Softly, you walk over to the monster. The leash around your neck seems to have vanished now that Turtledove left. “You do remember, don’t you?” you gently whisper. “Wood is the sunrise and watching things grow. Metal is the sunset and the perfume of gardenias.”

“W-water is the din in the dark night,” Swordplay says, walking over. “And the most famous aurora. Fire is hot peppers…” He pauses, uncertain.

“And summer in December,” you finish. “And earth is your bare hooves on the ground—”

“G… g… golden…”

The beast’s voice is still oddly shriek-like even though he’s now whispering. He slowly uncurls his claws.

“No matter… where… you are…” he finishes.

The hole where his mouth should be only changes size a little when he speaks; how he’s actually able to produce sound, you don’t know. Maybe it’s magic.

“You do remember?” you say.

“Yes… yes… dad always told me he regretted not taking a sample, so I thought I’d surprise him with a small shard, but as soon as the tool hit, I felt like I’d been electrified…” Sculpture Study stares down at his metal claws. “How… how did my sculpting tools get so big? And attached to me…?”

“Why have you been killing creatures?” Swordplay asks.

“Shut up,” you snap. “Go help your sister.”

Swordplay glares at you, then gallops off.

“What did he mean…?” Sculpture Study turns his glowing eyes to you. His faltering voice is the only sign that he’s fearful of the answer.

“Nothing. Just some hurt wild animals,” you say. If the poor thing can’t remember murdering ponies, you sure aren’t going to tell him.

“Every… everything’s just a blur… a huge blur… and pain… so much pain…” Sculpture Study is shaking. “I almost died. I almost was free… but it didn’t last… I have no tear ducts anymore so maybe you don’t believe me…”

“I-I do. I… I’m sorry,” you say. What an empty sentiment. You have no concept of what it feels like and you don’t ever want to think about it. You look over your shoulder and notice that Faithful is gone too. Probably to help Fabric also. Everyone wants to help the cute girl over the hideous monster; you can’t blame them much. You turn back to Sculpture. “Can I… help?”

Sculpture Study curls his gooey clawed legs under him awkwardly, like a precursor to standing up. He’s almost sphinx like. “I… I don’t know. How many years has it been?”

The ponies who can give you an exact answer aren’t around. “That lavender jerk earlier is your great-grandson,” you answer.

“Oh gosh…” Sculpture Study shivers. “Terri’s dead?”

“I… I technically don’t know,” you say. “I’m sorry. I only found out about Blackmoor and the Studys this…” was it really only this morning? Gosh. “Today.”

“Who are you then…?” Sculpture asks.

“Just a detective.”

“And who was that crowd of fleeing ponies…?” Sculpture asks.

“They’re called the Court of Ravens. They’re obsessed with immortality, because their former leader claimed he’d seen the afterlife and there was nothing there, and they think that that rock can make them immortal.”

Sculpture Study cocks his head to one side. “Ironic. When I was dead for an hour or two, when the Blackmoor villagers ganged up on me to try and kill me, I thought I saw all the other Studies before me, welcoming me home…. There was a garden of all kinds of… art supplies and science tools and… it’s so vague, but it was a world where we didn’t have to worry about being the best anymore. We had a giant playground to discover and create things in forever… maybe it sounds corny.”

You just shrug.

“I don’t know if that was real or just a dream, I guess. But I guess we don’t know.” Sculpture Study digs his claws into the dirt. “So you’re saying they want to become like me? Are they that desperate to avoid death?” Sculpture asks.

“That or modify it to make it work,” you say.

Sculpture puts his claws under his chin, the picture of a pensive monster. “Would they test it on other ponies…?”

“They would, and they wouldn’t hesitate to kill failed experiments,” you say.

“Then the path is clear.” Sculpture Study stands up with a sigh and turns towards the crypt. “We have to destroy it.”

You nod and move to stand next to Sculpture Study. “Do you remember the answer to the riddle?”

“Um. No.” Sculpture Study bends to look at the crypt. “My vision is too blurry to read… I’m sorry.”

“That’s fine; I can do it,” you say. That probably also explains why Sculpture hasn’t noticed the dead Court member, or the still twitching mare. Just as well. You’ll figure out how to explain this to him later.

The familiar magnetic pull of a puzzle greets you, and your vision narrows to tunnel focus as you read the inscription carved into the crypt:

“Following the 1/6th of my life I lived before I got my cutie mark, I spent 1/12th of my life studying math before I was ready to create theorems of my own. Then, 1/7th of my life later, I got married. Five years after I wed, I was blessed with twin children, a boy and a girl, but sadly, my son only lived half the time I was alive before passing away. Today, four years after his death, I too will depart from this world.”

Beneath the cryptic epitaph is the date of his birth and a hyphen. Where the date of his death should be is a set of four dials marked with digits. You turn one experimentally and hear the click of ancient tumblers; this would probably be somewhat easy to lockpick if you had time to get the equipment, but maybe the Court of Ravens, like you, were unable to think of much besides the puzzle.
> The End of the Beast
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Darn Mathematical Study for making such a complicated puzzle.

Oh well; the good thing about math is that there’s logical ways to puzzle it out. You know that you could build a linear algebra equation based on the clues, but you don’t feel like pulling out your notebook, so you resort to brute force. You know because the fraction 1/7th is in it that it’s a multiple of seven, and by the same logic it’s probably also a multiple of 12.

Twelve times seven is 84, so he took 14 years to get his cutie mark, then spent 7 years studying and 12 years as a bachelor. Five years later he had a son who lived 42 years and then died, and four years later was Mathematical’s last year. It all adds up to 84. The answer checks out.

You hadn’t realized you were holding your breath until you inhale to sigh with relief. You twist the dials to display the year 84 years after Mathematical Study was born.

“That was fast,” Sculpture Study says approvingly.

“Was it?” you say; you lose all sense of time when you read puzzles.

The final dial clicks into place, and a startlingly loud grinding of gears rewards you. Cracks appear between sections of the mural and the pieces slide slowly apart, revealing a small tomb the size of a walk in closet. A slab of marble that probably holds Mathematical’s mortal remains takes up most of it. To the side of it is a fancy stone stand carved to look like a tree. Resting in its branches is a nearly spherical rock, a dusty blue with silver streaks and an ugly crack in the top.

A shudder runs through Sculpture Study’s body as he looks at it. “Oh Celestia… to me it’s like it was yesterday…”

“If you’re too scared, you don’t have to help,” you tell him. “As long as I don’t touch it with anything metal I should be able to carry it away safely.”

“No… no… this… this is my fault…” Sculpture Study says.

“It’s no one’s fault. You didn’t know, Mathematical didn’t know, and maybe even Philosopher Stone didn’t know. It was an accident,” you tell him. 

You remind yourself that even though the Blackmoor Beast existed for probably over a hundred years, Sculpture is probably still just eighteen in his head. 

“Even so… I… I can’t be much worse off than I already am,” Sculpture Study says. “Even if I die, I think… I think I’ll be better off…” He walks over to the rock and sits by it, raising his heavily clawed forelegs. They’re shaking.

“We don’t know that you’ll die,” you say. “We don’t know anything.”

“R-right. It could be fine.” Sculpture Study still manages to sound like he’s about to cry, even without tear ducts. “Will you stay with me? I… I mean… not if it starts exploding or I start going crazy again but… but…”

“I understand. I’m here.” You wish you could do more. You wish you could promise him it would be fine. You wish you could do anything. But you really can’t do anything else. Useless.

Sculpture Study still hesitates. “Can I… ask first… you… you mentioned the riddle I wrote. Does that mean…?”

“Your sculpture garden is still there,” you say.

“Kids still use it?” Sculpture sounds so scared to hear the answer.

“Yes. Daily. In drove,” you reassure him. “They all love feeding the marbles to the animals. You’ve reached a lot.”

“Thanks. I… I always liked kids… never liked mares but always wanted to adopt a small family… I… am I boring you?”

“No, no you’re fine,” you say. Listening is the least you can do.

Sculpture Study lowers his claws closer. “Just so scared…”

“There may be another-” you try to say.

But Sculpture, acting hastily, jabs three or four claws into the rock at once. Two ear piercing shrieks ring out in unison, one like nails on a chalkboard and one like the Blackmoor Beast’s cry. Sculpture’s gooey gray skin begins to melt into an even more formless blob than before as Sculpture spasms like he’s being electrocuted. The rock is cracked all over its beautiful surface and has turned from blue to red, radiating heat so intense you can barely stand to be so close, but you don’t step away.

Despite his obvious pain, Sculpture Study presses his claws in deeper. A light comes from the rock’s core, glowing brighter and brighter until you can no longer see Sculpture Study, or anything else. You close your eyes to stop your retinas from burning. A high pitched metallic whining drowns out Sculpture’s agonized screams, and the cave is so hot that your coat feels like it might be on fire.

Then there’s a loud bang, and everything is silent. The light fades away and you open your eyes.

Shards of the stone lie scattered on the ground, their beautiful radiance faded to charred black. By the pillar is a charred black skeleton lying in puddles of ashes and shards of metal.

Tears sting your eyes. Shakily, your head still spinning from all the light and loud noises, you stumble over and half-kneel, half-collapse next to the skeleton. Why did it half to end this way?

And was there another way you’d let yourself miss? A solution to this puzzle you’d ignored until too late?

You pound your fist into the ground in frustration. He did nothing to deserve this…

“Ow.”

You start. Who said that?

“Help. I can’t move,” Sculpture Study said.

You scramble to your hooves and circle around the skeleton, confused, looking for a sign of life. “I mean… the… the destruction of the stone also burned away all your muscles, it looks like…” you say lamely.

“Why do I have to still be alive…?” Sculpture whimpers. You see the smallest yellow flicker in the empty eye sockets, harder to make out now that the eyes are open to ambient light and not closed dark caves, much like a flashlight being harder to see in the daytime. “What’ll it take to finally end me…?”

“I don’t know. Magic is annoying.” You rather self-consciously try to stroke the empty skull, feeling a little creeped out and a little doubtful Sculpture can even feel it. “Th-the good news is, now that the rock is destroyed, we’re not pressed for time anymore and maybe you can find a specialist who can figure this out. Maybe.” Does anyone study magical anomalies this weird?

“Thanks… thanks for still being here…” Sculpture Study says.

“It’s literally the least I can do,” you say. Actually, it’s literally the most you can do, but still.

“Detective!” Fabric’s voice calls.

You turn around and have a split second to see the lavender unicorn’s happy expression before she nearly knocks you over and hugs you tightly. She sobs into your shoulder. “I-I thought we were all going to die….”

“You don’t even know the half of it,” you tell her, stroking her mane comfortingly. Faithful and Swordplay also enter the crypt.

“We heard the explosion,” Swordplay says. “What the hay happened?”

You realize that since he never saw inside the crypt, he can hardly notice that the family treasure is missing or that there’s not supposed to be a charred skeleton next to the podium that used to hold it. “Well, you got your wish,” you say. “There’s no more family treasure. Now the tradition is over.”

“Oh, don’t say that!” Sculpture Study says.

Faithful scrambles back so fast he trips over his hind hooves while Swordplay just shrieks like a little filly. Fabric yanks her head away from you and looks around wildly.

“Ah…. I should have explained sooner,” you say, feeling almost mischievous. “Swordplay Study, Fabric Study, meet your great great great uncle.”

“H-hi. S-sorry I scared you,” Sculpture Study says.

“Is he…?” Fabric asked.

“He was the Blackmoor Beast,” you say. “But when he destroyed the family treasure to keep it away from the Court, well… this is all that’s left.”

“The detective restored his sanity a little before I left to save you,” Swordplay says. “Before he was a mindless monster.”

“Wh-what kind of monster…?” Sculpture says fearfully.

“Not now,” you say. “Sculpture can’t move on his own and I don’t think it’s safe to move him if even vibrations hurt him. Are there any mages in Blackmoor?”

“Not really,” Fabric Study says. “If there was a Study with a healing study right now…”

“What about the Evergrannets?” Faithful Fellow suggests. “They restore missing flesh and blood and muscle. Maybe they can cure wounds even if… um… the wound is over the whole body?”

“I don’t see how it could make me worse off,” Sculpture Study says.

“Great; I’ll go fetch a dozen,” Faithful says.

“I-I’ll come too,” Fabric Study says, clearly just not wanting to be in the same room as a talking skeleton. The two lovebirds head out, pausing to nuzzle each other comfortingly.

“Are you still here, Swordplay?” Sculpture Study asks.

Swordplay nods, then catches himself and says, “Uh-huh.”

“You’re the oldest, right? Or is Fabric…?”

“It’s me,” Swordplay confirmed.

“Hopefully it won’t come down to a single line of descent like it did with me and Terri…” Sculpture says sadly. “Anyway… promise you won’t end the tradition, even if the treasure is gone? It… it was never about the treasure anyway. It was about how even generations apart, we still were family, and how every generation builds on the one that came before. And… and… and it lets us preserve the most important pieces of ourselves. My dad never had to worry that the house he and his friend spent so many happy days in would eventually be sold away and remodelled and maybe one day completely taken apart. My sister never had to worry that her favorite books would someday be sold and forgotten. And I… I died young and suddenly, sort of, but it meant everything to come back and hear that children still get joy out of what I consider my best work. I don’t know if I’ll be able to resume a normal life among ponykind or not, but if I can’t… promise me you won’t let the tradition die?”

“I… I…” Swordplay swallows, looking like he’s trying not to cry. “I promise.”

“Thank you,” Sculpture says, sounding relieved.

A stream of flying light-red lumpy fruits suddenly trails into the cave, held aloft in Fabric’s magic aura. The caster herself follows shortly, walking side by side with Faithful Fellow, their tails entwined. “Ready?” Faithful asks.

“You’re back already?” Sculpture says.

“Yes, and we brought many fruits,” Fabric Study says. “So should I just squeeze them over…?”

“Start with one and let’s see…” Faithful says.

“You may want to leave, detective,” Swordplay Study says. “It’s not a pretty sight, watching everything regrow.”

“W-wait…” Sculpture says.

“Also that mare lying outside is chanting a strange riddle and I think she’s going to hurt herself if somepony can’t calm her down,” he tells you.

“I won’t be far away,” you shout at Sculpture Study, then hurry outside.

The mare has stopped convulsing randomly and is sitting with her back against a tree, looking around wildly and shouting an alphanumeric code. When you approach, her breathing speeds up but other than that she calms down. After a few minutes, you figure out she’s trying to ask where the Court went.

“Away,” you say. “Can you remember your name, or where you’re from?”

Instead of just answering, she tells you a riddle about seashells, then a riddle about the number of siblings in a family. You can’t decide if she’s trying to tell you she lives in a seaside town and is worried about her family, or if she’s just telling you random riddles. You’ve never seen a sirenite case this severe. Come to think of it, you’re not sure if anyone has in almost a hundred years.

“Okay, just answer yes or no,” you tell her finally. “If I take you back to Chicoltgo and find you a nice place to stay at while I search for your family, will you be okay with that?”

The request seems to take her a long time to process, but she nods.

“I won’t let the Court take you again,” you promise her. She starts to tear up, so you hug her and stroke her mane for a minute or two.

You hear a small commotion inside the crypt, so you gently pull away from the mare and peek inside.

In addition to the three ponies you expected to see there, there’s now a fourth pony. A completely white pony with no mane, no mark, and no color anywhere on him except his black pupils in his completely white eyes. He’s looking at his forehooves in confusion. “It feels odd, having normal flesh again…” the weird creature says in Sculpture’s voice.

“I have no words…” Fabric says.

“Why? What’s wrong?” Sculpture Study asks.

“You don’t look like yourself at all,” you tell him. “You look like-”

“Like one of your own marble statues,” Swordplay says. “We can’t bring you back to town like that!”

“That may be a plus,” you tell him. “If the Court knew there was an immortal pony in Blackmoor, they might come back to take you away to cut you apart. This way you just need some dye and wigs and you can start a new life as somepony else.”

“A new life…” Sculpture says sadly.

“Our family can sort out the details later,” Fabric Study says. “Wait until our parents see you!”

***
By the time you get back to the Study manor, it’s in the early hours of the morning. There’s been so many details to sort out and so many loose threads to tie up that you felt like you would never get done, between introducing Aviary Study to his great-great uncle, getting your motorcycle fixed, calling ahead to Chicoltgo to try and find a place for your Jane Doe, and of course, making sure you get paid. You were promised a huge reward and you earned it, darn it.

It doesn’t help that in addition to Sculpture Study’s existence, the cats all got let out of the bag regarding Fabric, Faithful, and Swordplay’s plans to break their family traditions. It’s not really anything to do with you so you didn’t interfere much, but since the discussions were held within earshot of you and not behind closed doors you figure it doesn’t count as eavesdropping to overhear.

Turns out Swordplay’s plan was to join the Royal Guard instead of just studying swordplay techniques for the rest of his life, but after getting mixed up with the Court and spending the better part of a day attacking somepony completely innocent, he no longer feels he’s mature enough to be in the Guard. You know you should tell him to follow his dreams anyway but you don’t feel that charitable towards him really.

With Swordplay willing to stay and continue the family tradition, Fabric’s mom is persuaded to stop trying to remake her daughter in her image. On the other hoof, Aviary Study had to threaten to fire Faithful Aide before he agreed to let his son court Fabric out in the open.

Finally all the arrangements are made, and you prepare to head home with the ex-Court member. You have to rent a sidecar to bring her home in, but it’ll be worth it.

Before you go, you find Sculpture Study to say goodbye. He’s sitting alone at a tea table, gloomily staring into space. He has on a hat to make his lack of mane less eerie but that’s all the Studys had time to give him for now.

“How are you?” you ask him, sitting across from him.

“Aviary told me what I’ve done,” he says bluntly.

You lower your head. “I didn’t want you to know…”

“Thanks for trying to protect me,” Sculpture says, still emotionless.

“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know what you were doing,” you try to tell him.

“Knowing that doesn’t make it better. Faust, I wish I’d just died long ago…”

“So what are you going to do?” you press.

He slides down in his chair. “I can’t do anything to fix the past. Killing myself now won’t fix anything and I don’t want to waste all the work you’ve done to save me. Thank you, by the way.”

“So what are you going to do?” you repeat.

“I don’t know! I have no idea! All my friends and family are dead and their descendants aren’t replacements at all!” Sculpture Study folds his forelegs. “I could go back to sculpting I guess, but it just feel so empty now… so meaningless…” He sighs. “Except for my park, apparently nothing I ever made has anything except sentimental value now.”

“That’s because you only made it to eighteen,” you tell him. “And your art doesn’t have to make it into history books to be special. Also, what about working with kids?”

“Sculpture playgrounds apparently aren’t safe for kids to play on anymore. Who the hay decided that?” Sculpture Study huffed. “But… I… I guess I’ll figure something out. When I get used to being alive again.”

“Keep in touch?” you say, standing up to leave.

“Oh… okay. If… if you want…” Sculpture says.

“I’d like it,” you reassure him. “And if you or anypony else in Blackmoor sees signs of the Court returning…”

“Oh, Faust, I hope not,” Sculpture says. “And what about you? Will you and that mare be safe?”

“I don’t know,” you admit. “Nopony’s really safe as long as they’re still out there…”

“Oh, gosh…” Sculpture says. “How do you live with that over your head?”

“Same as everypony lives,” you tell him. “One day at a time.”

With that, you wave goodbye and head outside to your beloved motorcycle, good as new after a tuneup. You help Jane Doe get strapped into the sidecar and fire up the engine. As you pull away, you can’t help but notice a small flock of ravens soar across the sky...