Books and Conspiracies

In the custom of the island unless I was sleeping, working or doing other activities I or nopony else wanted to see I left my door open while I ate and did some light reading. It was dull and boring so whom ever decided they wanted to follow me to my hotel from the beach. I took a long winding path to both throw off the tail and browse through the flea market haggling for cheaper prices for knock off name brand items like like a pair of sunglasses and a hat. I thought that I lost him or her, wait it was probably a she, in there but she had ended up just keeping an eye on all the exits and waited for me to leave and follow me to my hotel room and figuring out quickly who it was I had figured I would just bore her till she finally came in.

"Are you just going to wait outside the door waiting for me to invite you in?" I asked as I turned a page. "We should really get started on decoding the book News"

The light pink unicorn mare walked in with the most bored expression on her face. This being the mare who sat for hours at a time for who knows how many stake outs. I had half expected her to have already waltzed in and start chewing me out for leaving her with out cause or explanation.

"You are so fucking boring," she said as she strutted into the room with each word.

"That's kind of the point when trying to lose a tail," I stated dryly as I got up, closed the door and walked to my bag in the closet. It took a few minutes of digging around the archaeologist tools I kept part for show and part for practice. Through each train station, port, checkpoint and airport customs it's a lot easier to keep the appearance of research and work with the tools of the trade with a little nine millimeter for protection than just the gun alone.

"Well you could have gone to like a brothel, or a bar, or just anything other than walking through a market and about the town,"

"What can I say? I enjoyed the architecture and the food,"

She could easily make out the sarcasm in my voice. I could feel the look she was giving me bearing down on the back of my head. I took another minute or so of digging around before I managed to find what i was looking for with out breaking or damaging the equipment I owned.

"Did anypony follow you?" I asked, it was one of my ticks I was hoping it was one of my habits she picked up.

She shook her head, pretty much confirming my hope. "Well at least she's gotten more cautious" I thought to myself. I made my way back the the room's desk and pulled out my own personal notebook and opened it up. I flipped through a couple pages rereading some of my notes pertaining to somepony that, when I was younger, boasted was related to me. I found the section where I cataloged his journal and speculated what was in it. In addition I toyed with the idea that he might have more journals. I pulled out the yellowed journal and began cross-referencing contents of it with my personal theories of his expeditions for either Celestisa herself or some other pony who happened to be ruling equestria.

"Okay, so what are you looking for in all of these," News Write said looking over my shoulder at my notes.

"Well if what I'm thinking is correct. Then this is the second journal of Sir Pyrite Ripple, my anciently great grandstallion ," I replied as

"And just how do you suppose that?" News Write asked.

"Well here," I said pointing a hoof at some bullet points of an extremely rough time line of his expeditions, or at least any that where recorded. "I found in a few books that pointed out a majority of his expeditions, but each of those books pointed to a quite a few instances of no news on his explorations. So for all anypony knows he just disappeared or he wasn't on any recorded expeditions,"

"Okay? So what does this have to do with anything specifically, that journal?"

"Like I said this might be his second journal,"

"Because, his first journal is in some exhibit back on Equestria?"

"No, that one is in his coffin on the bottom of an ocean floor. I've gone on a few personal, and commercial, trips to look for it,"

"Obviously turning up nothing I assume,"

"Nailed it,"

"So back to this being his second journal,"

"Yeah," I turned back to the journals. "After his first expedition which was charting the water routes, exploring some new discovered islands, and finding enough artifacts to completely alter the current beliefs of where ponies came from and how we came to be we are today. He seemingly dropped off the face of Equestria, but not before being spotted leaving the castle of Queen Earnheart the First,"

"So the theory is that she sent him on some under the table exploration?" New write said with heavy skepticism in her voice.

"Well, yeah. There were supposedly tons of them. Through a majority of the Pony Era of Exploration most, if not all of, the biggest explorers had at least one,"

News Write just looked baffled. For whatever reason it didn't make sense to her. She was however intrigued, despite not knowing a whole lot, if anything, about the near gibberish I was spouting. She pulled up a chair and sat down next to me as I continued to read and flip through my notes, adding new ones along the way. Every now and then News Write would stop me and ask a question about a piece of text or diagram.

"Well it's official," I stated leaning back. "This is his second journal,"

"Wa-Huh?" News Write asked groggy and confused.

"Pyrite Continually references 'the other book' and some island of the coast of a zebra homeland. He says that it can or could control life and death, IF the specific conditions are met,"

"I'm going to guess that he never says what those conditions are," News said still extremely tired

"Ding, winner," I said rubbing my eyes, I looked at the clock. When did it get this late? I thought to myself. I slowly trotted to my bed taking off my scarf and holster for my pistol and flopped on my bed. I felt a body flop next me, no doubt that news write was as tired as myself. I drifted off thinking about what could be the conditions of whatever Pyrite found was and how to find it.