//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 
// Story: My Little Pony: Masks are Magic 
// by Wuten 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 6


“Mr. Anonymous?! What happened?”
Oh yeah; you must have fallen asleep while reading. You can see a small indent in the huge book you were reading where your face was. You made some progress into learning the writing style, but it was still fairly alien to you. It was strange, yes; but at least you were scratching at the surface.
…Until you dozed off, that is.
“Um… Mr. Anonymous?” you hear a female’s voice above you.
You look up; it’s the purple pony from earlier. She has a surprised, worried expression on her face. “Sorry, I… it was just a nightmare, nothing else.” You were partially telling the truth, but it was a lot weirder than that. The dream felt more… real?
The pain you felt during said dream still lingered slightly despite waking up. You grip your temples, rubbing them and your eyes.
“You should get some real sleep, Mr. Anonymous. It’s the middle of the night, and it’s not good to work with no sleep; trust me, I know,” she says, letting out a heavy sigh.
You nod and stand up, but you’re stopped mid-movement when realization hits you like a ton of bricks.
That mask the salesman gave you is supposed to keep you awake no matter what, huh?
Time to put it to the test.
You pull out the mask and stare at it for a few moments.
”What’s that?” she asks, looking at the mask.
“It’s called the ‘All-Night Mask’; supposedly, it should keep me from falling asleep.”
She lets out a stifled giggle. “That’s silly; how could a mask do something like that? Even when it’s enchanted, magical items can only go so far…” she says, rubbing one eye and walking down to you, examining the mask closely herself.
“Well, only one way to find out.”
She nods, and then you lift the mask up to your face. Almost immediately, you feel a rush of energy though you and your eyes widen, eliminating any semblance of drowsiness from your body as the mask takes its effect on you. “Whoa… I feel great! Like I could do this for hours!”
You quickly sit down and open the book, scanning the pages and processing it at speeds you thought you’d never go.
The mask, it really works!
After nearly ten minutes, you’ve finished reading through the huge book you were reading, and you sit back, cross your hands behind your head, and turn to the purple pony.
The expression on her face was enough entertainment for this entire endeavor to be worth it.
You give her the most shit-eating grin you can. “So. What do you think?”
She shakes her head quickly, and turns around. “But magic… magic shouldn’t be able to do that!” she exclaims, turning back towards you. “You… how did you get this mask?”
Wait.
Wait Anon.
Wait just a fucking minute.
“I have a bunch of them. I’m a…”
DON’T YOU FUCKING DO IT, ANON!
“…mask salesman.”
…Great. Smooth move, Anon.
“A mask salesman? What other masks do you have?” she asks. 
Well, you got yourself into this, Anon. Think fast. “I have many masks, but unfortunately this is the only one I have with me at this time; the rest I’ve hidden away somewhere.
“Oh? What if somepony were to find them?”
“Trust me. Nobody would dare try something like that.” You doubt anyone WOULD try something like that, especially with the salesman guarding them.
And that creepy.
Fucking.
GRIN.
She nods, sitting down next to you, still eyeing the mask.
You take notice of this, and take it off.
Almost immediately, you’re overtaken by a great feeling of tiredness.
“Looks like it really works, doesn’t it?” she asks, smiling up at you.
You nod, and hand it to her. “I’m selling this mask right now if you want it. Only 14 bits and it’s all yours.”
“Oh my, I couldn’t do that…” she mutters, but still stares at the mask, never making eye contact with you.
“Are you sure? You could try it out yourself before you buy it, if you like.”
Try it, before you buy it. Smooth.
“Would that be okay?” she asks, finally turning to look at you.
“Sure; but for now, I think it’s time I got some sleep…”
She giggles, and nods. “You look tired. Here, follow me,” she says, and you politely oblige, walking up the stairs despite your feet feeling like lead blocks.
You see the bed that she had set up for you, and you immediately use all of your remaining energy to run towards it. 
You’re out before you even hit the pillow.

You slowly open your eyes, and it’s still dark out.
Luckily for you, sleep entailed actual sleep, and no nightmares this time would stop you from getting it. You lift yourself up, looking around.
That pony from before was gone.
…Great. She made off with your mask while you were sleeping. Smooth move, Anon. Try it before you buy it, what the hell were you thinking? Now you’ve got to go back to the salesman, and tell him you fucked up.
Again.
You remember what happened last time. And you’ve promised yourself that you’re going to suppress that memory as soon as you can.
You step out of bed, and walk over to her bed. It looks like that reptile companion of hers is still sleeping. You lightly tap on its head, and it slowly stirs awake.
“Wha… huh? What’s going on?” he mutters, rubbing his eyes with his front claws.
“Do you know where the pony went? I need to find her.”
“Huh? Oh, uh… she was in the lab, last time I checked…” he said, still half-asleep. You assume that’s also why he hasn’t freaked out yet from seeing you.
“Can you tell me where it is?”
“Uh huh… yeah… sure, it’s in the basement,” he says, slowly getting to his feet, walking down the steps to a door, knocking on it before opening it. “Hey, uh, Twilight? Yeah, that human-thing’s here and wants to talk to you,” he says lazily, turning to look at you. “Hey, you’re alright,” he says, holding up a fisted claw to you. “You might sleep a lot more than us, but you’re cool. Plus, Twilight seems to like ya, too, after you gave her that mask thing.”
You smile, and the two of you bump fists, before you walk down the steps to the basement.
Once you get down, you see the purple pony from last night, hard at work with some sort of insane calculation on the chalkboard.
“Hey, so you like that mask then, I take it?”
She turns to look at you, and grins. “Like it? I love it! I’ve already solved three of the problems that I was having with this machine, and I’m looking to solve three more by morning!” she exclaims, walking over to you.
“That’s very impressive. Now, about the payment for it…”
“Are you kidding? Take them! Take all of my bits, just… let me have this mask!” she says, throwing coins left and right at you.
You could get used to this. 
You laugh and nod, leaning down to pick up the coins. Wow… there’s at least 20 here, probably more! “A pleasure; just remember, you’ll need to take that mask off and get some sleep sooner or later.”
She nods. “I’ve already scheduled days for me to catch up on sleep,” she says, holding up her calendar.
…Wow, she’s going to be at this for a while.
“Thank you for this mask, it’s going to make me so much more efficient!” she smiles, walking over to hug you. “You may be different to some, but I can see you can be quite the good person deep down. Besides, with masks like these, I have a feeling you’ll be able to make a living here as a mask salesman in no time.”
You smile and hug her back.
“Thanks a lot for letting me stay the night; that was more than enough thanks.”
“Oh, the night? Silly, you were in bed all day! You came here at night on Thursday, it’s…” she turns to look at the clock, “9:38 PM, Friday.”
Holy shit. You never thought your body was tuckered out THAT much.
“But that’s alright. After all, I don’t mind. It’s always nice to get visitors every once in a while. In fact…” she says, pulling up two fairly small, yet cushioned chairs, and sitting down on one. “Would you mind if I got to know you a little bit better? This mask will be able to help me be a lot more efficient, but it’s nice to take some time to just sit down with a friend and just talk.”
You sit down in the other chair, and smile. “Yeah.”
“So, Mr. Anonymous, where are you from?”
You sigh, and stretch your arms, getting comfortable.
It was going to be a long night.
“Well, I’m from a planet called Earth…”