Some Direction Required

Sherlock glanced about the Ponyville Library as he entered. He was delighted to find the place utterly vacant. His last few visits had involved other ponies being present and forced social interactions with them. This was against the stallion's preference, but it was something he had to put up with in order to be enabled to operate freely in society.

Hanging up his hat and saddlebags, he returned to the section of the library he had ended his latest visit in; the geography section, paying particular attention to the regions of and around Ponyville and the Everfree forest. He needed to find a safe way into the forest and was seeking out a map of some form; drawn or described in text. He was slowly piecing together a vague comprehension of the forest, or at least the known forest, but it seemed as though the locals had very little sense of adventure. In fact, beyond a few caves and the hut of a Zebra, there was very little documented about the forest.

" What happened here that caused all the shelves to brake. Oh well at least nopony was hurt." said Rez fixing the third shelve up. "I should be done in no time at this rate." he said optimistic. he looks around and notices that there were hardly any ponys around and thinks that makes it to be more safe. " almost done." he said fixing the second to the last shelve.

The sounds of a pony talking to themselves caught Sherlock's attention. He stepped around one of the bookshelves and saw a red and black pegasus fixing one of the broken ones. He rolled his eyes then began the mental process of adding this individual to the 'ignore' list he kept handy in his head. Once put on there, Sherlock could easily ignore the random mutterings and the sounds of reconstruction being completed.

He returned to his table and flipped through the pages of the books on the everfree forest. There were various drawings and half-made maps but none were any helpful, and most were dated so long ago that Sherlock doubted their usefullness. Most of them were actually from the history section as nothing could be found in geography that was helpful.

As rez was finishing the last shelve he noticed a pony look at him and leave. he finished the shelve and deceided to take a look. he noticed the pony sitting at the table looking at what seems to be history books. as he passed by he noticed that he was looking at badly written of theverfree forest. He thought to himself that he couldnt let him try to go into the woods with those maps and why would he want to enter the woods anyway. So he went up to the tables and asked " why are you looking for a map to the everfree forest?"

Sherlock heard hooves approaching and closed his eyes, repressing the urge to sigh. He opened them when they stopped and a question was posed. At least it wasn't something as pathetically pedantic as Whatcha doin'? or Whatcha readin'? The question was actually a valid one and had taken the observational skills a few levels above the common riff-raff; evidently this pony had at least taken a few seconds to look at what Sherlock was doing before pursuing deeper information.

"I'm planing an expedition into the forest," Sherlock answered abruptly, hoping the local fear of trees and shadows would scare the two toned pegasus off.

" Well if your going to do that then you would probably need a better map then those. looking at them you can see that the authors either took observations from the edge or barrely took a few steps in. either way these maps suck. said rez looking in the books " and trust me theres a lot more stuff in there then that ive been in there." he said pointing at a map.

Sherlock was rapidly losing his little patience with the blathering imbecile behind him- wait, did he just say he's been in? Sherlock thought. He spat the pencil from his mouth and turned to look over his shoulder. He analyzed the pony; strong hooves for a pegasus, undoubtedly from the construction he did, but the stallion had a keen eye that had more crinkles beneath the eyelid than is normal for a carpenter, who would wear goggles when doing something that would require squinting. He focused on small things and details. There was a slight flare to the stallion's mane on the one side of his head; the same side that the more damaged hoof was on. This indicated his main side, which meant that he put something up in his ear frequently. Not a carpenter pencil; those were too small to affect the mane and too broad to leave so little effect on the way his ear went. It looked more like a quill.

Handypony with an attention to detail and frequent quill use. Sherlock thought. Has gone into the Everfree forest and critiqued my research. Not the research, its content. Educated on the local geography. Travels. Explored the Everfree Forest. Uses a quill. Not a writer; no ink smudges on forelegs from spills. Details. Geography. Exploration. Critiquing the maps.

Map maker. Sherlock came to the conclusion in the time it took him to form an answer to Rez's inquiries.

"Would you be willing to sell me your own maps of the Everfree Forest?" he asked.

" You know what if you come back alive you can keep it besides i have many more copies at my place anyways." He said handing him a map. " one thing is avoid this area it is filled with wild creatures and i couldnt even get in there with smelling the stentch of a timberwolve and that usually means danger." He said pointing at the circled part of the map.

Sherlock was quite surprised that the pegasus was carrying one of the maps around with him. How peculiar. But there were many things peculiar about Ponyville, so he did not dwell on it; merely filed it away in his memory in case the fact became relevant later.

Accepting the map, Sherlock nodded. "Thank you," he said, despite the condition placed on the maps price being rather absurd; if he came back alive it was free. If he died, he'd have to pay for it was the implication. Still, Sherlock was not one to turn down a free tool to further his studies.

He got up and returned to his saddlebags to put the map away. He then went back to the table and grabbed two books that had been most informative on the subject of Everfree flora and fauna and would help him his research and went to the counter to check them out.