What Dreams Can Come

by EsotericPhantasm

Chapter 3. A Sticky Situation

After retrieving my orb of light I started making my way through the cave while guessing at where I might emerge.

If I truly was in Equestria there was only so many places I knew of. I could be in a cave within the Everfree Forest, making me very close to Ponyville itself. But, I could just as likely be within the deepest parts of the catacombs beneath Canterlot.

I laughed at how casually I had just referred to near legendary landmarks in Brony fandom that I might actually now get to visit in reality.

I abruptly interrupted my jovial attitude to consider my serious predicament. I guess I’m excited that I’m here and all, but shouldn’t I also be scared, or at least wary? Equestria isn’t exactly all roses and sunshine. There are dangerous aspects to it as well.

Letting out a sigh I kept my internal dialogue going as I continued navigating the cave. So what is the best first course of action? First I need to find out where I am, which I’m working on. Then I need to get the basic necessities since I have absolutely no resources, so food, water and shelter is needed. Does that mean I’ll have to hunt since I’m pretty much a carnivore? I hope Dragonkin are at least slightly omnivorous. Their diet was another unknown in the game. I guess I’ll just find out soon enough.

These things didn’t even cover what I would do once I got the essentials out of the way. It was likely I would be here for a very long time, if not forever. There were just so many things I could think to do, but another question was, why was I sent here?

Since sending me here wasn’t just random, but obviously premeditated, there had to be a reason or agenda for it, and if so, what? There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, so it most likely will cost me in some way.

Who exactly was Hypnos anyway? A god? He certainly proved he had it in him by changing my species and sending me to another world. Then again he could easily be a wizard from a dungeons and dragons universe, but who’s to say? Hopefully I’ll eventually get answers to these questions, but for now it wasn’t my top priority.

I spent the next twenty minutes hiking at a slow cautious pace and making a mental list of what I could do once I didn’t have to worry about survival. Things like researching magic, which would be awesome, and what I might do for money and other resources.

The cavern kept curving left and right every so often, but the path never split. It had the characteristics of a primary cave, which is a cave formed along with the surrounding rock. There was the occasional crystal formation on the ceiling or wall, but not many other features.

At least there weren’t until I arrived at a large chamber that revealed a sizable underground lake. It seemed pretty deep, as the light from my orb didn’t penetrate it enough to reveal the bottom.

It also smelled like something lived here or at least in the water. Nothing I could recognize as I was still getting used to my enhanced nose and tongue. The best way I would describe it would be: murky. Like the smell of a fish tank occupied by a shark.

I was now wary to approach too close. I didn’t want to find out if a monster lived in it the hard way since I didn’t know how I would defend myself from something like that.

This thought put learning how to breathe fire as one of my essentials. Dragonkin could supposedly also create it with their hands, but that would probably be more difficult to learn.

I was far from defenseless at the moment because I now had claws along with my years of training in martial arts. I would still need to retrain quite a lot because of my new body. Nevertheless, it was just good sense to not get myself in a situation I didn’t know how to handle.

There was a good fifteen feet of space between the path, which whipped around a corner about a hundred feet away, and the lake. With the thoughts of water beasts plaguing my mind I placed my orb within the folds of my left wing. Since the orb was weightless, and would go where I pushed, this wasn’t too cumbersome. My actions doused the light it emitted to near pitch black, but there was just enough light for me to make out the wall.

To ensure the least disturbance, I tentatively walked to the other the exit of the chamber. Within a couple yards of the exit I heard a slight splash and I froze in step. I waited a few moments, but surprisingly nothing happened and I made my way to the exit.

After entering the tunnel I retrieved my orb from my back to illuminate my surroundings while still staring in the direction of the lake to ensure I was still in the clear. Another splash was heard and I caught some movement, but nothing broke the surface.

Now I was getting justifiably paranoid. I reluctantly turned around to discover I was in a small tunnel with a fissure in the ceiling at the end of it. This was obviously not the official exit, but I wasn’t going to complain.

There was a smaller path that branched near the hovel I was currently in, but there was only about five feet of space between the wall and the lake along long stretches of it. Now it was either risk a monster attack or find out if the fissure led anywhere.

When I got to the fissure I looked up to find that it led to what seemed like even more caves. Wonderful!

The fissure was narrow enough that there would be little chance of me falling while climbing it, and it only went up about 15 or 20 feet.

I was no stranger to climbing fissures as I’d been spelunking before, and had even grown up exploring many of the rocks and small caves in the hills near my home.

Though there was a strange buzzing noise that seemed to come from the caves I was going to climb up to. The buzzing noise wasn’t very loud, but it was distinct. It sounded like a wild bees nest, which would mean an exit. If there were bees I certainly didn’t like the idea of being stung. Could Dragonkin, or even just dragons, be stung? That was unlikely given the toughness of their hides.

Once again I held my orb with my wing in order to free up my hands. I adjusted it under my wing until the light was muffled to the point that I could now see that something was illuminating the chambers above me. Perhaps it meant I was close to the official exit, but I wasn’t too sure since it didn’t look like daylight.

I spent a few more minutes inspecting the fissure to determine the safest area to climb. Luckily the fissure was also situated against the wall so it wasn’t too difficult to navigate up to it once I started my climb, and having claws helped make up for my lack of equipment.

My progress was slow, but methodical, as I didn’t want to risk slipping. I felt a nagging feeling in the back of my head when I got about halfway up the fissure. Why is that buzzing bothering me so much? No, it’s not the buzzing. I feel like I’ve forgotten to remember something. Is it the buzzing? Is the buzzing supposed to be familiar? Why do I feel like I’m holding the idiot ball right now!?

I decided whatever was bothering me would have to wait, as I needed to focus on safely scaling the fissure. Obviously, the buzzing increased in intensity the higher I went.

It actually only took about five minutes of climbing before I dragged myself up into the other cave system. The buzzing noise was a lot louder now, but still distant.

Surveying my surroundings, I saw that these caves were covered with green phosphorescent lines that seemed to pulse like blood veins. It all seemed built and maintained, and the path diverged several time into different tunnels the farther I looked. Peering behind me I saw that the situation was the same in that direction as well.

It reminded me of an ant farm I once had, or those termite mounds in Africa. Only now, it was big enough to walk through. Wait, did that mean I would encounter giant termites?

Just then I heard one of the buzzing noises get closer. I turned around and out of one of the offshoot tunnels a changeling flew out. For what reason it was here at this moment I’ll never know. All I could think was, I’m in a changeling hive! I knew I was holding the idiot ball just now! What other creature makes that noise that I know of in Equestria? Nothing, that’s what!

While I was thinking all that I also came to the conclusion that standing still and hoping I wouldn’t be noticed wouldn’t work, as it seemed the changeling spotted me immediately and started approaching me in an aggressive manner. Most likely because of the faint light my orb was giving off under my wing.

At this point jumping down the fissure might get me injured since I didn’t know my limits yet, and I also didn’t want to likely encounter an unknown monster. Instead I decided to take the brilliant action of running the opposite direction.

I fell several times, as I hadn’t had a chance to practice running, yet somehow the changeling didn’t catch up to me. However, it was still tailing me.

I wasn’t yelling yet as I knew that would only attract more changelings. I just hoped I would reach an exit soon enough before a swarm was on me.

I didn’t run into any of the offshoot tunnels as I was hoping the one I was on would take me to an exit since it was larger and most likely a main tunnel. It at least was curving slightly upward.

After about two minutes of running I finally saw the exit, along a whole squadron of changelings blocked it. Turning around I also saw that a squadron had joined my pursuer. I had been herded.

Well life is really a bouquet of roses right now isn’t it? Two choices now, which is either surrender or try to break out of here. I didn’t like the odds but…

Quickly grabbing my light orb from the folds of my wing, I rushed at the squadron blocking the exit screaming, “Freedom!”

They started shooting volleys of green light at me. I dodged most of them by the skin of my teeth until one finally hit me. It felt like getting hit with Ping-Pong ball while wearing body armor. Might as well have been tossing air at me.

Obviously the spells were meant to do a lot more damage, but I was heavily resistant. After all, draconic beings are supposed to be highly resilient to magical attacks. With this in mind I started just making a beeline for the exit while ignoring the magical assault, which was really just an annoyance.

Finally reaching the first line of changelings I tried to barrel through them like a linebacker while swiping at them with the claw in my free hand. I clipped one on the wings, but the rest just flew towards the ceiling. The ones in the back then transformed into manticores of all things.

The other squadron had caught up now so either I try to jump over the manticore changelings, and hope I don’t get mauled, or finally surrender. I wished I had learned to fly, or just breathe fire. Hopefully necessity would be the mother of invention right now.

Using the momentum I had already gained I sprung into the air while spreading my wings. I seemed to start gliding over the manticore changelings, and thought I was home free. Unfortunately the one below me did an impressive leap of its own, boosted by its wings, and swatted me out of sky into the cold hard dirt, knocking the wind out of me.

It seemed it would take a whole lot more to knock me out, but that really didn’t register at the moment because I was now roiling on the ground in agony.

The changeling that swatted me caught me completely by surprise so that I didn’t even blink when it hammered me into the earth. As such it had gouged both of my eyes, so I was busy wallowing in pain with my eyes slowly bleeding out onto my face. It hardly mattered that my face itself didn’t even have a scratch on it. Eyes were just too vulnerable no matter what you were.

As some adrenaline kicked in to dull the pain I finally realized I was probably surrounded, and really only had one logical option at the moment. After putting my orb, which surprisingly I had held on to, back underneath my wing, I held up my hands in the universal sign of surrender.

The changelings seemed to understand my meaning as I felt something grab both my arms, which soon began leading me to where I assumed was back into the hive. I didn’t resist at all since that would most likely just get me killed.

Surprisingly, they didn’t take the orb from me. But that was barely a small comfort since all I knew how to use it for was lighting, and now I was most likely blind.

I had already tried opening my eyes, and I saw nothing but darkness before shutting them again. I had no idea if they would recover at all or even how much damage was inflicted.

Now all I could really do was stew in my own thoughts as they marched me to what was most likely a prison of some sort. How did this happen? Why did this all go so wrong? Why did I end up in the worst possible place I can think of?

Was this supposed to be some kind of test? Throw me into the lion’s den and see if I make it out alive? What kind of sick game is Hypnos playing at!? It finally dawned on me that this really might be just a game to him, and I was his pawn.

So I now knew part of his agenda. Making sure I can survive in the worst situations and putting me through a refiners fire so to speak.

At least I was alive, so that counted for something. I just wish I had spent the time to at least learn to breathe fire. Even just pressing my offensive earlier probably would have worked. Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20. “Oh, well,” I sighed in defeat.

I sensed a reaction from the changelings from my quiet ‘outburst’. They probably were just wondering what I was referring to. I almost thought to try and strike up a conversation, but it didn’t seem like that would make much of a difference at this point.

Deciding to occupy my time at least in a constructive manner I began tasting the air as I had before. It was strange since I could still smell with my nose, but what I could sense with my tongue felt similar yet completely different.

For example with my nose I could smell that it was dry, but with my tongue I could taste the humidity in the air, and pinpoint the odors I picked up with my nose. At least that’s the best way I can describe it.

I could also feel the vibrations coming from the flying changelings surrounding me with my scales, although it was very subtle. It felt strange that I could actually tell that I was surrounded rather than just flanked, but without practice I could hardly tell how many, or what their positions were and such.

I kept testing what senses I had left to see how I could use them to navigate in case I would never see again. A very morbid way to look at it, but if that was the case I needed to start practicing.

My hearing was better than when I was human, so that was a plus. Combining my hearing with my other senses I was beginning to have an understanding of what they could tell me.

I could feel many different vibrations with my feet, but it would take practice before I could interpret the sensations in order to tell such things as direction, number and size.

As I mentioned earlier my sense of smell with both my nose and tongue were now a lot more acute. For example I could tell which direction the changelings were in. The changelings, by the way, did not smell very pleasant. It was like that strong smell you get from squishing a black ant on your finger.

Getting a feel for the airflow coming through the tunnel was a little more difficult. Normally our bodies filter out such sensations since it’s not important or necessary, but now I needed every advantage I could grasp. After a few minutes I could tell that there were several changelings in from of me that were flying because of the disturbance in the air their wings created.

Perhaps if I can practice enough I can eventually create a decent picture of my surroundings. I wonder if you can sense magic? Ah, who am I kidding. I don’t know the first think about magic here, much less sensing it. Maybe I have to do some sort of special meditation?

I continued practicing until I felt that we had entered a large chamber because the air moved and spread out more while the buzzing noise echoed farther. I also smelled something different other than the changelings.

They moved me towards one of the walls while I heard some of them prepping an object I could only guess at. It sounded like they were opening a gooey membrane of some sort, which I soon found out was pretty accurate.

I felt myself being lifted off the ground and unceremoniously tossed into what felt like sticky high fructose corn syrup. I quickly sank as I realized it could only be one of those changeling sacks that they keep their captives in.

Within moments I was completely submerged and started to panic. I had no way to breathe. I started to thrash around. Whatever opening it once had was already sealed, and any impact I tried to make in the shell was completely slowed down by the slime I was engulfed in.

I tried clawing my way out, but it didn’t seem to have an effect from what I could tell. It felt like trying to cut water. Most likely as soon as I made a dent it sealed back up. If there was a way to break out I didn’t have enough time to figure it out before I drowned.

I could barely think straight, but I at least managed, I guess this is it. Death by drowning. What a way to go, and on my first day in Equestria too.

Finally giving in to the urge that I knew would kill me I gaped in a mouthful of viscous fluids. Oddly it brought relief instead of pain. I started breathing the surrounding liquid in earnest until my panic subsided.

It felt odd, and it reminded of that liquid oxygen they used in that movie The Abyss. Turns out that was real science. Was this magic instead of science, or some glorious combination of both?

I didn’t get to dwell on that thought for very long because I could feel myself becoming drowsy. Of course it’s going to send me into a magic induced coma of some sort. Will I ever wake up?

That was all I could manage before my body embraced a deep slumber.

Comments

[_CheckMate_]

Well, we get a look at changeling lifestyle; glad you decided with this rather than the cliche (for the chessverse) 'get captured by D-Dogs, kill the alpha, and leave' scenario for your intro arc.

[phallus of malice]

Wow. I've never been mad at a cliff-hanger before. Bravo.
Bravo.
Regardless, this is still getting a fav.

[EsotericPhantasm]

3294697

Thanks I'll try to take this to heart.

[PetitPoney]

As I said on the CGotG forums, your texts lack a lot of punctuation, and that makes the story sometimes monotonous as well as barely understandable. For example, the very first sentence of this chapter requires a comma, and could even use two.
It could be much, much better; without even changing the words. Try working on that.
Nonetheless, have my Like.

[EsotericPhantasm]

3294911

Woops.

I guess I forgot to make sure the thought punctuation was consistent. It's fixed now. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Emerald Knight]

its not to bad good idea but out of the blue here I think that one dude was discord man how that possible man I think its discord

[rikusorasephiroth]

update?

[rikusorasephiroth]

It's dead.

[Icyeclipse]

Is it dead?

[EsotericPhantasm]

6702433 It's not dead. Yes I know I haven't touched it for a long time but I was honest when I said I was creating notes for it.

I'm glad people still care about it which does help more than you know, and I know what it's like to read something you found interesting only for the writer to quit. I hate it but now I know myself how much life can get in the way and cause procrastination.

For example, "I'll start the next chapter right after I finish this book/movie/YouTube video/Web article/etc." Pretty soon a year has passed and you go, "Holy fucking crap! Where has the time gone?"

I'm barely eking out about a paragraph a day at the moment if I'm lucky of my other story but it helps. There's a reason I'm not rich/famous/ruling the world and that is that I still need better persistence.

Perhaps writing these stories will help with that.

I'm not sure if I can find it but I did start the next chapter and I know how it goes at least to a point.

My problem was wanting to incorporate more of the other people's stories or at least alluding to them. As cool as that would be, at this point it will be better for me to simply disregard that or else get bogged down and never finish.

So what do I do now? Well how about this. I'll spew forth, vomit up and polish the next chapter once I finish the one I'm working on with my other story, which as I said is progressing unlike before when I started this one.

I don't know if it's like that for other writers but for me it's like giving a speech. You prepare for it and plan it out but in the end you simply go with the flow and not even you know everything that will come to mind as you converse with your audience or in my case what I'll write.

I almost feel like I could start an essay on this topic now that I've gotten going. It's ironic since I hated English growing up and now I excel at it more so than the average Joe. Still, a second pare of eyes from a proofreader still helps spot any errors I may miss, but I've found it to hard to find one.

I digress.

Perhaps I need a way to really have a deadline. I know some fanfiction writers have started using Patreon to accomplish that.

I think I should do at least 5 or perhaps 10 chapters before proposing that but the idea of it giving me a definite deadline might be worth setting it up just so I can force myself to give you content. The entire dilemma of being your own taskmaster.

I think I've gone on long enough since I feel I have said enough on the matter for now.

Let's see if I can give myself a deadline as long I have it in writing. Hmm. How about, Thursday morning since that's when I return to my day job after a few days off.

Wish me luck XD

6680012
See above

[EsotericPhantasm]

I've done it. I've finished and posted another chapter on my other story which means I can work on this one.

I'm liking this deadline thing. For this one I'll say by Tuesday morning there will be a chapter. Now to dig through old files and reread the story myself.

Wish me luck!