[Mary’s POV]

I jolted awake, another nightmare having come to me in my sleep. Thankfully, I don’t remember them after I wake up, and they don’t haunt me as much by now. Still though, if you looked at me, I’d be even paler than before, and I’d probably have an anxious look on my face.

I jumped when I felt a hand rest on my shoulder, and I turned to see Alexandra looking at me with concern, “Are you alright, Mary?”

I stared at her blankly for a few seconds before slowly nodding, “Yes, yes I’m fine. Just another nightmare is all. Nothing to worry about.”

“Are you sure?” She asked, “Do you want to talk about it? That usually helps me.”

I shook my head, “No, I really am fine. They’re getting better, and I don’t even remember them by now.”

“Hm... Well, alright.” She smiled at me, “But if you do need someone to talk to, if Sarah is unavailable of course, I’ll be glad to help.”

I nodded, “Right, I will. Thank you.” There was a lull in conversation, which was broken by me. “So... Want to go do something?”

She looked up at the ceiling in thought and shrugged, “Sounds good, but I don’t know where to go at all.”

“Well...” I thought for a moment before sitting up straight and smiling, “How about the Canterlot Museum? I heard from Ardiente that it has some interesting stuff in it.”

She seemed to think it over for a moment before nodding with a smile, “That sounds interesting. Let’s head out.”

        I would go over how we spent the time getting there, but Sarah just grabbed us and ran there in a few minutes. Seriously, she just came downstairs, asked where we were going, then ran us right outside the place. That’s pretty cool in my opinion.

        Although, her saying “have fun on your date, you two” wasn’t really necessary. That got me glowing like a red lightbulb, while Alexandra just rolled her eyes with smirk and a faint glow.

        The museum was... Interesting, I guess you could say. It had some neat exhibits, mostly magic related ones though, which I didn’t really understand. There was one exhibit that caught my eye though, and Alexandra’s as well.

        In a glass case was a piece of old, dusty, worn out, torn paper. On it, the words “Wanted: Dead” were displayed under a faded, indistinguishable photograph. Below the wanted was a reward; 70,000,000 of some currency the symbol looking like a ‘B’ with line going through it and a few accent marks. Looking just above the photograph, I saw what I assumed to the remains of a name; ‘U’ a blank space, then ‘um’.

        I got curious, so I looked down at the plaque in front of the display. It read:

        “This is a wanted poster, found buried deep underground in the desert, in a form of ruins unrecognizable with any notable culture in known history. It is thought to be several hundred thousand to a million years in age, predating even the earliest of known civilizations by hundreds of thousands of years. Not much is known about who this poster was for, or what crimes they committed, but the estimated bounty shows it was something big. 700,000 0f what is assumed to be their version of bits, adjusted accordingly with inflation records, shows this criminal’s bounty to have been incredibly high. Adjusted, their modern equivalent bounty would be 700,000,000,000,000 bits, more than ten times the amount currently circulating the world today.

        Their name and face have been lost, and this is the only copy of this poster ever uncovered, having been preserved by an unknown power over the years. The subject of the poster has been named Uum (pronounced oom), as those are the only letters of their, presumed, name that remain. Alongside this fact we would like to point out; it is beyond strange that this was written in modern Equestrian, even though it is so old. We are unsure as to how this is possible, but there is nothing that suggests an answer to anything pertaining to this piece.”

        I leaned back from the plaque in surprise, many questions running through my mind. How old is this world? Who is this Uum? Just what did he or she even do?

        I was broken from my thoughts by Alexandra, who tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Are you alright? you zoned out for a few minutes after reading that.”

        I nodded and reassured her, “I’m fine. I just wish there was more information on this person.”

She smiled and shook her head, “I will admit, it does sound interesting. If we find time, we should ask around. Maybe even Death, if he’s available. He might know.”

“Don’t bet on it.” I turned to see Death, in his human form, standing and staring at the poster with annoyance. He sighed and said, “I never understood who that person was. He never appeared to have existed, and his death never happened. Even to myself, he is an enigma.”

“Well... That’s disappointing news.” I said dejectedly.

Death waved a hand, “It would have been useless anyhow.”

        Curious about him being here, Alexandra asked, “Why are you here anyway? Do we have a mission?”

        He nodded, “Yes, as a matter of fact, you do. All of you.” He handed me a folder containing some papers and said, “Go and get Sarah, then head back and meet up with everyone at your house in Ponyville. Open this and read it, and you will all receive the information you need to carry out the mission.” With that, he disappeared.

I looked down at the folder, then at Alexandra who just shrugged. I did the same and said, “Let’s go then.”

Again, pointless to describe the travel because with Sarah it only took about three minutes.

We gathered everyone quickly, and stood around the kitchen table with the folder at the center. I opened it and pulled the papers out, spreading them out for everyone to see. Guess we'll find out what the mission from Death is....

  Next Chapter: Arc I-II, Intermission IV: Intervention Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes