//------------------------------//
// The Dream Quest of Unknown Equestria 
// Story: The Dream Quest of Unknown Equestria 
// by Lobstercraft 
//------------------------------//


Second Chapter: The Dream Quest of Unknown Equestria


Many days passed in the Dreamlands as Phillip became reacquainted with the place. But, as is often the case in dreams, the traveler forgot what he was doing. He was abducted by Nightgaunts and dropped into the great abyss before he remembered he was locked in a crazy guy’s basement. Phillip focused as he strained to wake up. And he did!
“BLAAAHH!!!” Phillip shouted awake.
“Great Scott!” exclaimed Professor Yates.
“Holy shit!” Phillip tried shaking the adrenaline off.
“Quick!” Yates shook Phillip, “You must tell me what happened!”
“How long was I out??!” Phillip panicked, “And what’d you do to me!!?”
“You were asleep for five hours and twenty-seven minutes!” Yates replied, “What did you see!? Did you DREAM!?” 
“Y… yeah.” Phillip recalled his fun but for the most part unexciting adventure. “I was in a place that I… I had a dream I used to have as a kid.”
“Eureka!” Yates danced about, “I knew it! Phillip! The ponies are REAL!!!”
“Huh?” Phillip looked around as he tried freeing himself again.
“They exist in the Dreamlands! It’s your untreated sleep disorder! You’re half asleep when you’re awake and half awake when you’re asleep! And you, Phillip, are a dreamer! And a powerful one! In the ranks of Randolph Carter and King Kuranes even! You’ve just now finally REALLY been able to fall asleep! That’s how you were able to return! Where did you go Phillip???? Tell me the names of the places you’ve visited!” Yates shouted as he shoved his face and bulging eyes about four inches in front of Phillip’s. 
“Uhhhh…” Phillip was still worried, but getting used to the situation and his excitable stalker/captor. “I pretty much stayed around the river Skai near the Enchanted Wood.”
“DAMNIT!!!” Yates screamed in his face, which scared Phillip. “I have charts of that region! Unknown Equestria can’t be anywhere near there!!”
“Equestria?” asked Phillip.
“Equestria! The homeland of the talking ponies!” Yates explained, “The source of your visions!”
“Assuming we’re sane, how do you know all this stuff?” asked Phillip.
“That’s a big assumption,” smiled Yates’s daughter, who was sitting at a table playing Sudoku and drinking orange juice.
“My grandfather was a friend of a friend of a powerful dreamer! I have his notes, you see. It was King Kuranes himself who told Captain Merritt of Equestria!” Yates sat on the floor in front of Phillip and seemed to calm down. “Mysterious, unknown Equestria… A peaceful world where mankind is forbidden and unable to tread… a more gentle world…” the professor seemed saddened as he continued to speak, “King Kuranes is the only dreamer to my knowledge who has ever travelled to the dreamlands of other worlds and come back sane… Perhaps Equestria is beyond that maddening gulf… beyond our reach.”
“Maybe,” replied Phillip.
“But you!” Yates jumped up, shaking a finger at Phillip, “You’ve seen it! You’ve seen the creatures King Kuranes described!”
“... and that means?” Phillip asked worriedly.
“It means you’ve gotten close somehow!” Yates seemed to panic a bit, “You-you have to be! How else-why else would you see it?” The professor paced back and forth frantically. “Equestria is protected from our kind… Impossible to find… But YOU! You have been allowed to see it! Or you slipped by their notice somehow!!...”
“Their?” Phillip wondered who he meant.
“The Hidden Gods of the Earth,” answered Professor Yates. “And no man can defy their will… almost…”
“So somebody did?” 
“Once… a man named Randolph Carter. He risked his soul to find them at their home and demand his dream back… But I’m not certain as to what happened to him. He disappeared, you see. But!! You have the advantage here! Somehow! Something slipped, someone messed up, or maybe they want you to see it! Maybe you are SUPPOSED to GO there!!”
“Is that how that king guy got there?” asked Phillip. “They let him?”
“Yes, he was invited. But King Kuranes is certainly the most powerful dreamer humanity has ever produced. It isn’t strange that he was allowed to go, when you put it in context.”
“Maybe I’m super powerful too,” smiled Phillip.
“Don’t go getting cocky when you don’t even know anything,” spoke the beautiful girl.
“I’m not gonna walk you to school if you keep it up with the sass," replied Phillip. She laughed at this. The professor got incredibly serious. He hit a button on the side of Phillip’s chair that released his arms. Phillip just sat there rubbing his wrists.
The professor handed him a bottle of pills. “To help you sleep,” he explained. 
Phillip looked at the bottle and back to Yates.
“You act tough and sarcastic now, but I read your blog. I know how you really feel,” the professor spoke much quieter now. “I’ve always wanted to see the dreamlands, but mine are normal dreams. I don’t have access like you do. I can’t make you do this… but then again I know I don’t have to. But please… if you make it back… write about it for me.”
Phillip stood up and slowly walked to the stairs… “Yeah… Yeah, I will.”