You stare at Idea Spark’s message. More puzzles. What is it with this town and puzzles?

Shaking your head, you examine the riddle more carefully. You decide that the first step is to decide when the hypothetical Mr. Clockwork arrived home. If he had arrived ten minutes earlier, he would’ve been halfway between 3:15 and 7:45. The difference between the times is four and a half hours: thus, halfway between them was two and a quarter hours. Adding that time to 3:15 gives you 5:30 PM; add ten minutes, and you conclude that Clockwork arrived home at 5:40 PM, having spent an hour and forty minutes on the trolley. One hundred minutes.

Now, you need to figure out how much time Clockwork spent his journey sitting. He wasn’t able to sit down until he had completed 60% of his journey: 60 minutes, leaving 40 minutes total. You go back and study the riddle again.

“When he stood up, he still had one third of the way to go as he had spent sitting.”

Thus, the time he spent sitting is equivalent to triple the amount of time he had left: X + 3X = 4X. Therefore, the 40 minutes must be divided up into four ten-minute segments, and find that Clockwork was sitting for 30 minutes.

Now, for the other clue: “Green snake=1, advancing to the left.” What does that mean? Obviously, 30 must play into it…

Your eyes stray to the door. Of course! The colored tiles on the hallway wall outside! You exit your room and, without quite knowing why, check around to make sure that no one is watching before you proceed to examine the tiles.

Before long, you find a green tile with the disturbingly realistic image of a coiled snake embossed upon it. The serpent hisses up at you, baring its fangs and tongue in preparation to strike. Repressing a shudder, you start counting down the hallway to the left. The thirtieth tile is a pale blue square with an owl upon it. The bird stares directly at you, fixing you with a piercing gaze. Why are all of these pictures creepy up close?

You reach forward and carefully pry the tile from the wall. It comes off easily, and you turn it over to examine the other side.

Scrawled onto the plaster is a set of numbers: 923.47 61-64. Letters backwards + 1. You quickly memorize the strange message and replace the tile. Glancing around once more, you are reassured that the hallway is empty and silent. Retreating to your room, you lock the door behind you, pondering this new clue.

Until you understand what it means, you decide that it would be best for you to follow your actionable lead: the factory. You’ll visit there in the morning and ask about Idea Spark. Right now, though, you need to finish this admittedly delicious shepherd’s pie, and then a shower and a bed.

“You need to leave!”

You jolt awake with a gasp, the warning still ringing in your head. After a few moments, you realize that you are still laying in bed in your new room. The sun has already risen, and is now perched in the sky, just in the proper position to shine its rays directly into your face. You turn to the bedside clock-radio. The time reads 8:30. You groan: you swear you just went to bed half an hour ago.

Yawning and rubbing your eyes, you reluctantly pull yourself out of the comfortable bed. It takes you about ten minutes for you to find the rest of your face and trudge out of your room, desperately wishing for a cup of hot, black coffee. You’re so tired, you’re imagining the addictive, intoxicating scent right now.

You sniff deeply, your eyes opening wide. You’re not imagining it: coffee! You descend down the stairs and into the lobby.

Turtledove is pouring a cup of fresh, coal black coffee from a pot into a cup that she is placing on a table that is laden with hay bacon, oatmeal, and three slices of egg-in-the-basket.

“Well, good morning to you,” Turtledove cheerily chirps, looking up at your arrival.

“Do you treat all your guests this well?” you grin at the breakfast spread.

“Here at the Nest, we believe in good beds and good breakfasts,” Turtledove replies. “I hope you enjoy!”

“You’re not joining me?” you ask, sitting down.

“I already ate,” Turtledove says, extracting a corncob pipe from behind the counter. She’s so short that she can barely smile over the desk at you. You notice that the the bowl of the old pipe has burns down its left side. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

“All right,” you wave as your hostess exits out the back. Suddenly aware of how hungry you are, you start to feast. Everything tastes wonderful, and now that you have some food in your belly and caffeine in your veins, you are quickly fully awake and ready to start the day.

Fifteen minutes later, you are on your bike and pulling away from the Nest, heading for the thin columns of smoke that are billowing from a trio of brick chimneys in the distance. You pass through the city square, casting a glance up at the great statue of the raven in the center. The great stone bird, its head facing the south, seems to scrutinize you as you pass by.

Shaking off a sudden chill, you throttle past, headed for the factory. Hopefully there, you can find an actual clue.

The Magopharmaceutical Factory is a sprawling behemoth of brick walls, high glass windows, and chimneys that send columns of dark gray smoke into the sky. You pull up to the front door and turn your engine off, swinging yourself off the bike.

But as soon as you put the kickstand down, you notice movement at the door window. A pair of eyes peeps out at you, then the shades come down as fast as a blink. You walk up to the door and try the handle, but to your surprise, it’s locked. You knock at the door.

No answer. Frowning, you knock again, harder.

“We’re closed!” a voice snaps through the door.

“I’m a private detective,” you call back. “I’ve come to talk about Idea Spark.”

The shades shift slightly and the eyes reappear, glaring at you. “I don’t know anypony by that name!” the voice replies. “Go away!” The eyes retreat and you are left standing outside.

With an irritated huff, you return to your bike. Your lead turned into a big waste of time. Kicking the engine back to life, you turn and start the drive back to town. Now what?

You slowly drive back the buildings on the outskirts of Raven Hollow, the signs and addresses passing by your gaze but barely registering to your comprehension. A few homes, their windows still dark. The post office. Grocery store. Library…

You slam on the brakes, looking up at the small white building with the sign swinging over the door. Blackfeather Quill Library, reads the sign, the bold letters accompanied with a raven feather symbol.

The numbers from Idea Spark’s message last night suddenly spring to mind: 923.47. A library book number! Parking your bike, you walk up the library steps and push open the door.

The library is a small establishment, but its patrons have been generous. There is a wide reading area with comfortable cushions set before polished maple tables, a section for foals with colorful children's books, and aisles of books that stretch all the way up to the ceiling. A few other ponies are here, all of them reading quietly. As you enter, all of them look up at you, then quickly look back down at their books.

The librarian peers at you from behind the desk. She is a tall, skinny black mare with graying hair and a beak-like muzzle, upon which is set a pair of thick reading glasses. Her cutie mark is an open book with an owl sitting upon it. She blinks owlishly at you; even from this far away, you can smell the nicotine on her breath.

“I’m just looking around,” you say to her, an unnerved chill descending down your spine. Her small lips forms into a scowl, accentuating the lines around it.

“Hey, Feather Page,” a bushy-bearded stallion calls up as he approaches the bench. “You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find a book on engine repair? The old tractor’s acting up again.”

While the librarian is distracted with the stallion, you sneak away and start scanning the aisles, studying the labels on the books spines. It doesn’t take you long to find the 920s, and then you start narrowing your search. You finally locate book number 923.47: a slightly battered blue tome with gold lettering across the spine: The Secret History of Blackfeather Quill. You take the book down from the shelf, noting that the edges of the pages are heavily wrinkled. Apparently, this book is quite popular. Taking your prize to a table in the corner of the room, you open it up to page 61. The first thing you notice is an old faded photograph, depicting an elderly black unicorn with a cutie mark of a raven sitting upon a desk, and a younger pale silver unicorn with the cutie mark of a jeweled goblet holding a golden liquid, both of them standing side by side in front of the familiar Quill mansion. Curious, you start reading.

The sirenium mines made Blackfeather Quill a rich pony: the discovery of the enchanted minerals in his mountains brought great business to his little village. Sirenium could be used in almost anything, from medicines to engines and more. Workers flocked to Raven Hollow to work in the mines, processing and shipping, and the rising population brought other work to the village.

Amongst those workers was a scientist, Gold Elixir. The young scientist, who had ambitions of designing medical machinery, came to Raven Hollow and approached the aging Blackfeather Quill with his plans. The former writer turned alchemist and the young scientist agreed that Elixir would be allowed to live and work in Quill’s new mansion overlooking the valley, experimenting with new medical engineering applications for the sirenium. In return, Quill would be granted a large percentage of whatever profits Elixir made on his machines. Elixir set to work immediately, producing an early artificial lung and dialysis machine. Famed for their secrecy, Quill and Elixir refused to speak about the details of their inventions

Some say that the two also came to another, hidden agreement. Still today in Raven Hollow, whispers abound of a secret society named “the Court of Ravens.” The Court, which was rumored to meet in an old lodge near the sirenium mines, was built with the purpose of aiding Elixir in his research and in keeping his secrets. Members would scout out local villagers for signs of aptitude and attempt to recruit them into the Court, testing them with puzzles and riddles for the purpose of developing their intellects. It is rumored that the leader of the Court kept their identity a secret from the other members: if a member could deduce the leader’s identity, they would be given a special favor. The Court would spy upon the other villagers and attempt to root out anypony that they considered a threat to their work; the disappearances of a number of visiting outsiders was blamed upon the Court. If the Court does exist, no members have ever identified themselves, although villagers still live in fear of the Court.

Unfortunately, Blackfeather Quill and Gold Elixir’s arrangement was not to last. It was eventually discovered that close proximity to sirenium for extended periods of time could cause insanity: before long, many of the workers in the mine and those who had used sirenium products had dissolved into madness, and the mines were permanently closed. One night, not long after the mines were closed, Quill and Elixir locked themselves in their mansion. Neither of them was seen again: for over a hundred years, the Quill mansion has remained abandoned. Rumors of ghosts, tales of curious ponies who vanished near the mines, and whispers of the still-watching Court of Ravens keep the villagers away.

As you finish reading the tale, you spot something odd: the corner of a piece of paper is hidden in the spine of the book. You carefully tug it out and unfold it. A message is printed upon the little sheet, beneath the embossed image of a raven’s head.

Towards the unmoving star: tomorrow at --/-./-./--

Towards the mallard’s retreat: tonight at .---/.-./-/-.-.

Towards Celestia’s rest: .../-../..../-/.--.

Towards tomorrow: two days at --/-../...

Idea Spark must have left this here for you to find. But what does it mean?

Solve the code.

Author's Note

Whew! Just barely made the deadline!

Sorry for the delay, folks, I should've started this sooner, but things got a bit hectic over Thanksgiving vacation. Ironic, considering that's the time to relax!

Congratulations to Magic Step, the Villain in Glasses, and Everfree Pony for solving last week's puzzle! I hope you enjoy this one!

Clue: there's one little "incorrect" detail that you may have missed that will help you figure out the intended message.