Night Terrors

by TikiBat

Chapter 6: Further Beyond

As Silver trotted forward towards Morgana and Koruk’s area, he was immediately struck by how massive their framed-out structure was. It clearly wasn’t going as smoothly as they probably wanted it to, but given the fact that he had encountered his own hurdles with dream crafting, the monolithic structure was nonetheless impressive.

“Hey Eclipse,” came the voice of Morgana as she landed next to him. “What’s up?”

Silver tore his gaze away from the wireframe structure. “Just curious to see what everyone’s up to… I kind of had some issues crafting what I wanted, and I’m guessing you two probably did too?”

Koruk joined the pair and shook his head. “That’s one way to put it.”

“It’s why there’s only a frame,” Morgana clarified. “That was the easy part, but getting everything to fall into order is proving a lot harder than I thought.”

“Mhmm,” Silver nodded. “That’s exactly what I was having issues with. It’s like I could spawn in what I wanted, but for some reason or another, it just didn’t want to line up with what I wanted.”

“Kinda like a disobedient kid, eh?” Morgana laughed. “It’s gonna sound weird, but it feels like the realm’s fighting against me or something— like it has its own idea of what it wants to exist in here, and we’re not a part of that.”

Silver nervously gulped but hid his concern behind a stoically neutral face. “I think it’s a sign we should quit while we’re ahead. I know I said we’d explore what we could do here, but it’s very obvious we don’t know what we’re dealing with and everything I’ve learned up to this point tells me that’s a sign we should leave.”

The mare shook her head. “You really think so, Eclipse? If anything, I think it’s a sign we should show it who's boss and who really calls the shots here.”

“Mhmm,” Silver skeptically replied. “I appreciate your passion for learning something new, but who says we need to be the boss of it anyways? Don’t you think this might be a sign that we shouldn’t even consider that? I know we’re in the dream realm but that doesn’t make us invincible, even if the damage doesn’t seem physical.”

“I think it gives us more of a reason to try to broaden our horizons,” Morgana continued. “Maybe once we spend more time here, we’ll get a better feel for how it all flows.”

“How it flows?” Silver raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”

“How the realm does things. You know how every dream is different; I bet you this is probably just like that. Maybe it’s not someone’s dream or some weird part of your dream, but it’s got its own vibe that we need to figure out and work with.”

“I see…” Silver responded. “Look, I know you’re smart, but you’re also a little quick to jump into things without fully thinking them through. That isn’t meant to be an insult, but it is something I’ve noticed from our adventures, and I really think we need to plan this more.”

Morgana rolled her eyes and leaped into the air. “Look around, Eclipse. See your students out there? They’re all working on their own things and haven’t come running over like a bunch of scared school fillies. You want to go rip this lesson away from them because you got surprised by something not going your way?”

“It’s not that—” Silver started. “I just… I’ve always trusted my instincts on this kind of stuff. They’ve never steered me wrong, so why break that streak now?”

“Because you’re dealing with something you never encountered before,” Morgana replied with a groan. “This isn’t a normal dream, sure. But neither is Somewhere. You found a way to do something that others can’t.”

“Others can, they just haven’t done it the way I have,” Silver corrected.

“Okay fine, but just hear me out,” Morgana continued. “What if this place is just another part of that? Maybe it’s not your mind, but your soul or something else we haven’t discovered yet. Do you want to just run away with your tail between your legs and abandon it?”

Why yes, I do, Silver thought to himself. “No… I just… Maybe we should call Psychic or some other warden over and have him take a look at it. Just for the sake of doing things the safe way?”

“Trust her, Silver,” Koruk pleaded. “She might not always look it, but I bet you by this time tomorrow, we’ll have a whole castle built up here.”

More like this time in a month, Silver skeptically thought to himself. Instead of voicing his skepticism, however, he simply shook his head. “Fine. But the first sign that anything is awry then we regroup and talk it through. I don’t want to say that I’m the one in charge here, but the gateway is in my dream and therefore it’s my decision whether we go in again or not after today, okay?”

“If it makes you feel better, then sure,” Morgana smirked. “But go look out and see what the others are up to, I’m sure you’re just shaken by the experience you had.”

Silver didn’t know whether he was just being paranoid or whether his fears were sound. With as fiery and rigid as Morgana could be, he didn’t see the merit in starting an argument so instead he’d do exactly what she said. Maybe he was just overreacting… but yet that little voice in the back of his head kept warning him to get out, and he wasn’t just going to drown it out. With nothing else to say, he just nodded and leaped up into the air, but quickly dropped back down as his wings flapped uselessly. He groaned and sat up, looking back at his wings as if his disappointing glare would change the fact that he failed at something that was by all accounts ridiculously easy in a dream.

Undeterred, Silver stood up and slowly flapped his wings, focusing on channeling the latent magic he rarely ever had to actively think about using. With a few heavy beats he was off into the air, but this time he rocketed into the sky. Adrenaline started pumping as he plummeted back to the rocky surface island he had launched from. The wind blew in his face, and the sound of his heart frantically pumping briefly distracted him, but with some quick thinking, he spread his wings and slowed his descent to a safe speed.

Touching down onto the ground, Silver took a moment to catch his imagined breath. Feeling a little more antsy, he slowly began to flap his wings again, though this time he tried to strike a happy medium between the two extremes that he had tried before. Slowly but surely, he flew up into a hover, and he took a mental note that flying in here was going to be incredibly frustrating to get right. Feeling confident enough (or at least as confident as he could be in such an alien place), he set his course towards Emily and Moonlight, who were sitting on a stone-like bench in the void between areas. He understood Emily’s hesitation to craft something, but given Moonlight’s affirmative vote, he was surprised to see her not involved in building anything.

“How are you two doing?” He came to a stop next to them.

Emily’s ear flicked, and she looked over at him. “I figured I’d sit this one out and let the others be the guinea pigs.”

“And I didn’t want her to be alone,” Moonlight Dream added.

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with some pony watching,” Silver laughed. “So got any plans, or are you two just going to hang out here?”

“I’ll probably hang around until the others actually get something built up,” Emily shrugged. “After that? Maybe I’ll play around in my own area if things go well and don’t blow up in our face.”

“And you?” Silver looked at Moonlight.

The mare shrugged indifferently. “Probably the same as her… at least for now.”

“That’s fair enough,” Silver replied. “I can’t blame anyone for playing it a little safer. That’s kind of a big reason why I’m looking around now.”

“Have a bad experience or something?” Emily raised an eyebrow. “Feels out of character for you.”

Silver shrugged. “You could say that, but I’ve also been feeling a little out of it lately. So there’s no harm in taking things a little easier, right?”

“Never said there was. It’s good, though, means that you’re taking things seriously, unlike a certain two ponies in the group that seem to like jumping into danger like it’s nothing.”

Silver glanced back over towards Morgana and Koruk’s space. “Yeah… I get what you mean. That’s why I was so stubborn about this, though, and why I set the rules that I did.”

“I know they mean well,” Moonlight chimed in. “They just have a weird way of showing it.”

“Mhmm,” Emily replied. “I’m just saying that hopefully, they know that that’s not how this works when you’re deciding something as a group.”

“Believe me, they know,” Silver reassured her. “I’ve been making that very clear to them, and I’m going to hold them to it.”

Emily slowly nodded her head. “Good.”

Silver glanced over towards his remaining two students and then back to Emily. “Did you catch what those two were up to?”

She shrugged. “I think Star was making some workshop, and Phoenix was putting some library together or something like that.”

“Thanks,” Silver smiled. “I better go check out what they’re up to then.”

“Have fun with that,” Emily smirked again. “Seems like they’ve been having about as much luck as everyone else has.”

Silver hopped up into the air and nodded his head as he awkwardly flapped his wings to try and balance himself against the unfamiliar physics. As odd as this was to get used to, it wasn’t as odd as the fact that for some reason this dream-space had its own set of physics, which while being very extreme, were surprisingly almost like the waking world’s in their own weird twisted way.

He let out a breath at the unexpected effort he didn’t usually have to put into flying, and nodded his head. “I’ll try to keep that in mind. You two enjoy yourselves; just give me a call if you need anything at all.”

Moonlight waved goodbye. “Catch you later, Silver.”

---

It was impractical to ascribe measurements of distance and direction to places in an endless empty void, so the best way Silver could describe his path was through the different landmarks he saw. The landing— which was the hallway after the gateway, was the natural starting point for this realm: after that was a large gap that stretched relatively far out until it reached Morgana and Koruk’s castle. Off to the right from that sat the halfway point that Emily had thrown together, which was best described as a small grassy plain with a simple park bench and a lamp post illuminating the surroundings. Beyond that was his next destination, a large empty space containing a lone workshop built up from patchwork walls. Not far from that sat another framed out building, similar in style to what Morgana and Koruk were clearly trying to make, but at a far less ambitious scale.

For all the trouble he and the others had had, their progress so far was nonetheless impressive, for other less adept dreamers would have probably had a harder time constructing what they had managed to do, even if it still eluded them.

As Silver approached the workshop, the true state of it started to become blatantly obvious. Electrical transformers sparked and fizzled on the walls and a nearby workbench, and shattered glass littered the ground all around. Stardust sat a short distance away, staring at the structure in confusion, and his face almost even seemed to betray a little fear.

Instinctively keeping mind of the broken glass below, Silver flapped his wings hard to scatter it before coming to a soft landing. However, he clearly missed some of it, which wouldn’t normally be an issue other than the fact that now he had a painful cut in the tender part of his hoof.

Stardust’s eyes opened in surprise for a moment, and he flapped his own wings to clear the glass before trotting closer to Silver. “You okay?”

Silver stifled a curse and instead summoned a wrapping to at least cover the wound— which to his own surprise had managed to materialize properly. Taking a moment to dress his wound, he let out a groan and looked up at his student once more. “Let me guess, things aren’t working out so great for you?”

Stardust breathed a sigh of relief and nervously chuckled. “I mean they’re not completely going wrong… just not really going right.”

“I’ll bet that you’ve got an idea in your mind, try to manifest it, and then it kind of works but not in the way you’re expecting it to?”

“Well, unless I’m thinking of exploding neon Pac-Man signs that come to life and chase me around, then yeah, you could say that.”

Silver raised an eyebrow. “That really happened?”

The dark blue stallion nervously glanced around at the piles of shattered glass. “Yeah… I thought a good starting point would be something I already do.”

“But it didn’t really want to conform to what you had in mind?” Silver guessed.

“Exactly.”

Silver took a few steps closer and nodded. “You’re not alone. Everyone else who’s been trying to make something has had basically the same problem, which is kind of reassuring to me because it’s scary when you try something you’re normally good at and it doesn’t really work.”

“Glad I’m not the only one losing their head over this. So what’s the plan then? We sticking around here or are we jumping ship?”

Silver didn’t exactly know the answer to that question himself. If he was the sole person calling the shots, he’d seal off the gateway and leave it behind… But his group had voted to come here, so he was going to hold to that vote until there was either a compelling reason to overrule the vote, or his group voted differently— or both.

He looked back to Stardust and shrugged. “Hard to say right now. We voted to explore this place, and some of the others still seem content, so I’m not going to force us all out. For all we know this could just be something we need to practice with, so unless there’s an immediate danger, which considering it’s a dream nobody is in danger, I’m not going to make anyone do anything. So if you still want to try making stuff, be my guest, otherwise…” Silver held up his hoof in the direction of Emily’s small park. “Otherwise, Emily and Moonlight have a nice little area set up you could go hang out in if you don’t want to leave outright.”

Stardust glanced in the direction that Silver had gestured to, and then back to the decrepit workshop. With a nod he turned to Silver. “Maybe I’ll take a little break, see how the others are doing before I commit to anything.”

“Not a bad idea,” Silver nodded. “Do whatever you need to do, I won't be offended either way.”

The other stallion smiled. “Thanks Silv, you’re the best.”

“Mhmm, no need to thank me.”

Stardust slowly hopped into the air, kicking up small clouds of dust and sending the glass scattering across the ground again. With a wave goodbye, he flew up towards Emily’s area, leaving Silver alone once more.

The solitary stallion eyed the workshop again, but didn’t dare investigate further lest something suddenly come to life on him. It wasn’t that he was against a little thrill every now and again, but he had had his fill for today and wasn’t interested in having any more surprises today.

Instead he leaped into the air and made his way towards the final area, where Phoenix was likely awaiting him.

Phoenix’s area was about the same as the ones that he had visited before, though perhaps with a less unnervingly eerie feel. Gone were the unnerving whispers and otherworldly sounds that Silver had been largely tuning out, and in there place was a deafening silence that almost made him feel even more alone. If it wasn’t for the fact that he could see Phoenix inspecting a twisted bookshelf a short distance away, he would have turned back and ignored this zone.

“Whatcha got there?” Silver asked as he came to a soft landing, slipping slightly on the layer of torn book pages that he hadn’t noticed before.

Phoenix held out a hoof and helped Silver steady himself, to which the stallion was very grateful for.

“An interesting anomaly,” Phoenix replied almost nonchalantly. The yellow stallion brushed a lock of his jet-black mane out of his eyes and met Silver’s gaze. “Would you believe me or call me crazy if I told you that I tried to make a library but all I managed to do was make a pack of killer books that grew legs and tried to eat me before they all burst into flames?”

Silver looked around at the tattered papers around him, noting that indeed a fair amount of them were singed or burnt. Looking back up at Phoenix, he kept his voice in a calm, yet reassuring tone. “I would say that it sounds like you’ve had basically the same experience as everyone else, so you don’t have to worry about sounding crazy.”

“I kind of figured as much,” Phoenix nodded his head. “So what horrors have the others conjured up?”

Silver looked back over at the different zones in the distance and then back to Phoenix. “Honestly, nothing too crazy. Morgana and Koruk tried making a castle, Emily and Moonlight were just hanging out in a little park, and Stardust created a neon Pac-Man that tried to chase him.”

“Glad I’m not the only one who’s creations tried to eat him,” Phoenix laughed. “I wanted to try and make a library— kind of like the dreams I made back in the day when I met you for the first time.”

“And it didn’t really work out the way you wanted,” Silver finished for him.

“Evidently,” he replied. “From the books coming to life and the only being able to make weird twisted shelves— it’s not exactly been what I had in mind for a nice relaxing library.”

“I see…” Silver replied. “What do you make of everything then?”

Phoenix raised an eyebrow. “You want an honest answer? I think we’re dealing with things we don’t really understand, and probably won’t. We haven’t been cast out of here, but there’s clearly something fighting against what we want to do, and it’s hard to tell if it's a sign we should leave or if we’re just not on the same wavelength as the rest of this place and we should keep trying.”

“What do you want to do?” Silver asked.

“Me? Well I don’t know to be completely honest. I think that perhaps we need to wait it out a little and work more as a group— at least to test out some theories or see if we can do more together. It’s not easy to construct something in another pony’s dream after all, so this could just be similar to that.”

Silver nodded. “It’s not a bad idea. I’ll have to run it by the others tomorrow.”

“Not enough time today?” Phoenix asked.

“We have all the time in the world,” Silver replied. “But I need to take a little field trip, and I don’t know how long that’ll take.”

“I see,” Phoenix grimaced. “So what should we do for the rest of today then?”

“Whatever you want. Just play it safe and if you’re not feeling comfortable staying here, you’re free to tag along with some of the others, or head back into your own dreams.”

Phoenix nodded again. “Noted. I’ll probably play around here a little more, then maybe go tag along with some of the others.”

“Sounds like a solid idea. Just seek me out if you need anything, I’m going to head back into the open dream realm for a little while.”

“Will do, happy dreaming.”

It only took Silver a few moments to fly back to the landing point, and thankfully the uneasy silence had subsided. The ambient sounds that were seemingly ever present here filled his ears again, and to his own surprise, the eerie phenomenon was surprisingly welcome. As welcome as this area of the realm was, he still however kept a cautious distance from the building that had seemed to come to life on him. It wasn’t as if he was afraid… but the feeling of losing control shook him a little more than unexpected discord usually did. As such, he elected to avoid it altogether, at least as much as he could for the time being. The stallion took another passing glance out towards his students, the different conversations he had had still echoing in his mind. The more he focused on the detail they had already started to craft, the more the little whispery voices seemed to echo around him again, though as much as he focused, he couldn’t manage to comprehend them no matter how hard he tried.

Shaking his head, the noise seemed to fade into the background, giving him at least a brief respite from their almost beckoning calls. Turning towards the entrance, he flapped his wings a few times and quickly ran through the hallway and open gateway, and before long he was back on the familiar shores of Somewhere.

Silver took a few moments to revel in the familiarity, and the calming sense of peace that had washed over him. However it wasn’t long until the waves of uncertainty came crashing back down onto him. He still had questions left to answer, and he could think of no better place to start than with the pony who’s nightmare had started it all.

---

The prospect of jumping back into Sapphire’s dream brought on feelings of genuine anxiety, and despite his best efforts to just jump right through the portal… he just couldn’t muster the motivation to budge. He wasn’t unwilling to visit his friend— that wasn’t the problem in the slightest, but for whatever reason, the thought of jumping into another one of Sapphire’s dreams just made his legs refuse.

The stallion took a step back and breathed in deeply— something that wasn’t necessary in the dream realm, but still nonetheless helped calm his nerves. In a somewhat cheesy move, Silver decided to give himself a mental pep-talk— which again was likely unnecessary, but the action at least served to distract him further.

It’s literally just another dream, you’re going to be fine this time, you’re going to take control the second you’re in, and you’re going to talk to Sapphire before anything can go wrong.

Closing his eyes, he took a leap towards the portal and!…

Nothing.

Once again he just simply couldn’t bring himself to head into her dream.

The stallion was now starting to grow frustrated at his own mental block, and with no one else around, he started to let out a series of frustrated groans.

“Why am I being so stupid about this? There’s literally nothing that can hurt me here and even if there was, all I’d have to do is mentally call out to a warden and they’d help!” He shouted into the void.

Taking another breath, Silver closed his eyes again and started to envision Sapphire from when he had first visited her up in Michigan, deciding that a mind reinforced by positive memories would help give him the mental fortitude to continue on. Visions of the first big family outing he had danced around in his head, and a warm sense of peaceful calm began to wash over him. Without thinking, he started to slowly step forward, forcing his mind’s complaints onto the back burner behind the happy memories leading him on.

A quick jump through the portal that he had summoned was all he needed to finally quell those feelings, at least temporarily.

Much to his own surprise and confusion, the dream he found himself tumbling uncontrollably through was very different than what he was expecting, mostly consisting of scattered colors and sounds dancing around with a handful of abstract visuals floating around the somewhat psychedelic void. Right off the bat his senses were thrown into overdrive, and an overwhelming feeling of nausea and disorientation struck him like no other dream had before.

For as talented and adept as he was with this kind of stuff, there were still those rare dreams that completely threw him off, and this was one of such dreams. Fighting back the urge to vomit as he mentally righted himself, he closed his eyes and focused on pausing the dream, at least so the swirling colors and cacophonous sounds would cease their assault on his senses. He wasn’t going to take any chances today, and once he had successfully wrangled control of the dream he focused on pulling Sapphire’s consciousness into awareness before anything else could spring out at him.

“Silver?” The blue pegasus looked up at him in surprise, before her expression relaxed as she took in the surreal visuals that had faded to a soft calming blur of colors softly shifting around them. “What kind of dream is this?”

Silver nodded. “Sorry to intrude… I just….” His thoughts began to drift again. “I’ve been having some weird nights and I guess I just needed to talk to a friend who isn't involved.”

Sapphire took a few steps forward after briefling smirking at the novelty of walking on a ground of nothing, and nodded. “What’s up?”

Silver thought about what to start with first, but decided to just speak what was on his mind. “Ever since I pulled you to my dream things have been weird. I was magically exhausted and then we found an entirely different dream realm that we know nothing about—”

“Slow down for a second,” she held up a hoof. “Talk to me like I have zero clue about dream stuff.”

“Have you ever had weird dreams?” Silver asked bluntly. “Like dreams that were super super vivid that you felt you could control or do stuff in?”

Sapphire raised an eyebrow. “I’ve fallen out of bed once acting out a dream but nothing like that.”

Silver sighed. “Look, it sounds dumb, but I guess what I’m trying to ask is whether you maybe have some latent dream magic you just don’t know about or not. Your nightmare was the only thing I can actually link back to the other weird stuff that’s been happening, and as stupid as it sounds, I figured I’d ask.”

The mare rested a hoof on his shoulder. “Silver, she’s not a real thing, just part of my overactive imagination, and I don’t have any dream magic. If you have problems with your dream stuff I can’t help you.”

Silver nodded. “Yea— I don’t know what I was thinking. Stuff’s just been… interesting and it’s got me thinking about things, like a few years ago when some weird dragon creature visited my dream and started talking about destiny and the ability to do more than what we think we can do.”

“Weird dragon creature?” Sapphire asked with a hint of curiosity and familiarity carrying in her voice. “Go on.”

“I never really told anyone about this because I just didn’t know what to make of it, and haven’t spoken to her since. But it made me feel like I could do anything and when I was able to pull you out of your dream last time, it felt like that was true. I’m good at dream magic, but I’ve never pulled anyone from their dream— especially a non dream walker, so it just made me wonder if maybe you had some abilities you didn’t know about. That’s where that all came from.”

“I might have a few abilities I don’t know about, but dreamwalking is not one of them.”

“Mhmm,” Silver replied. “Was just a thought because things seemed to get a little wonky right after that, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t starting to get really unnerved by it.”

“Sounds a bit like you’re avoiding asking the ones who might have answers. I’m just a simple pegasus, making her way in the world, and I stay out of dream business. You should be seeking out one of those wardens.”

Silver considered this for a moment, and nodded. “You’re honestly right. It was always the plan to see one, I just needed to get my random questions out of the way first.”

He started to turn away, but as he did, Sapphire called out to him.

“Not a problem,” She paused for a moment and grinned. “I better not hear that it was heat stroke, after all the brouhaha we had getting your pegasi some training.”

Silver laughed and gave a weak shrug. “Maybe, I’ll have a talk with them about working hard or you’re going to come down and scare them again.”

“Guess we have an understanding then, well until you wise up and live in a better climate, I’ll send you a few pictures so you know what you’re missing.”

“Maybe someday I will,” Silver joked. “Thanks again Sapphire. I know you couldn’t do much but it’s nice just talking with a good friend, you know?”

“Of course. Tell the little squirt I said hi too.”

“Consider it done.”

With a final wave goodbye, Silver placed Sapphire back into her own dream’s narrative and departed, leaving for the open dream realm this time. The dream realm didn’t exactly have a real dimension or sense of location to it, and in reality the way that one could perceive it varied from pony to pony. Some saw it as a star field, others saw it as a hallway of endless doors— sometimes it was a mix of the two, or perhaps molded by a playful dreamwarden adjusting the reality to entertain themselves. To Silver, his perception was the star field, but with his closest friends and family’s stars brighter and more vibrant than the rest around him. Some from a distance seemed to even make an illusion of constellations. Normally this would be the point where he’d choose one to dive into, but instead he sat down on nothing and simply closed his eyes.

“Whoever’s listening, I have a question for you.”

Silver had learned his lesson about trying to seek out a warden in the dream realm enough times before to not attempt it again, lest he suffer a painful migraine. He didn’t quite know what others attempted in these kinds of scenario, but he always found the short waits to be the perfect time to just sit back and meditate. More often than not it resulted in whichever warden who happened to be present pulling him into their own space, and sure enough he didn’t have to wait long for the peaceful sounds of nature and the gentle brush of the breeze through his mane to greet him.

“Hello Psychic, I’m sorry to bother you again.”

“You need not worry about bothering me,” the familiar voice of the warden replied. “You are troubled by something I presume.”

Silver knew that the warden’s second half of the statement was more of an observation than a question, yet he still nonetheless answered as if it was.

“It ties back into what you’ve already been helping me with.”

“Your magical exhaustion. Are you still feeling it’s effects or have they subsided?”

“They’ve pretty much all cleared up, but I guess that’s why I have another question or two to ask.”

“Then ask away,” the ethereal stag replied indifferently.

“I told you about the nightmare and the part where I brought my friend into my dream, but I never had a chance to follow up with you about what happened after,” Silver paused, contemplating the best way to explain this, knowing that no explanation would be seen as stupid to the warden. “A day or two later a gateway appeared in Somewhere, a gateway that I can’t control or modify. I thought it was just some weird remnant of whatever I was feeling interacting with my subconscious mind… but then it opened.”

“And what was inside?”

“I…” Silver started to stammer out. “I don’t really know what to call it to be honest. It doesn’t feel like either of my dreams, and it certainly doesn’t feel like the dream realm,” he held up his hoof, showing the cut he had gotten and the bloody bandage that now wrapped around it. “Not to mention the fact that I cut my hoof on broken glass in there… and it carried over here.”

Psychic inspected the injury and nodded. “Could you show me this space?” He asked, with a tone that Silver could almost swear was close to curiosity.

“Uhh, sure. Yeah I can do that.” Silver replied.

Before he had a chance to conjure up a gateway, the serene forest was replaced by the all too familiar Somewhere, and most importantly, the gateway to the world beyond…

“Is that the gateway you mentioned?” Psychic’s voice calmly asked from somewhere inside Silver’s mind.

“I… that’s new,” he commented at the unexpected feeling of having an unseen voice talk presumably just to him. Instead of commenting further however, he nodded his head. “Yeah, that’s it.”

Not needing any prompting, Silver trotted through the gate and into the strange realm beyond, feeling a jarring sense of unease wash over him as he stepped back into the alien realm.

There was a distinct lack of communication from the warden, though Silver could still feel his presence with him, albeit noticeably weaker than it had been before.

Nonetheless, Silver trotted through the hallway and octagonal space with the weird living furniture and paintings, and proceeded out onto the landing that overlooked everything else.

“This… is very interesting,” finally came the voice of Psychic Calm. “You and your students can craft here too, correct?”

“Mhmm,” Silver confirmed. “But not as easily as we can out there. Let’s just say that things don’t seem to materialize in the way we want them to, and the stuff we can make tends to have a mind of its own.”

“We need to return to your dream at once,” Psychic replied a little more sternly than he usually did.

Silver raised an eyebrow, but given the Warden’s slightly more emotive tone, he didn’t feel like arguing. Without a reply, he trotted back through the hallway and back into Somewhere, but the moment he crossed into the familiar dream he was suddenly swept away into Psychic’s region of the dream realm again.

This time the Warden was visible to him, and despite the more urgent tone he had briefly taken, his face continued to betray no emotion.

“I can’t explain it and I don’t understand it, but whatever that gateway is, leads to something not of our dream realm.”

That simple sentence was all it took to completely change Silver’s demeanor, and those feelings of anxiety started to come back to the surface. “What do you mean?” He asked.

“That realm is a distinct plane separate, yet connected to the dream realm. I do not know enough to judge whether that’s a good or a bad thing, but considering that I am not bound to it—“

“You’re inclined to think it’s a bad thing?” Silver interrupted him, understanding the implications of what Psychic was saying. “So I’m guessing that we probably shouldn’t be hanging around there?”

“In my honest opinion, no. However, given that it’s entry point is tethered to your dream and subconscious, and the fact that I have no control or obligation over that realm… I can not enforce anything. That said, it is unwise to meddle with something you know nothing about, so do keep that in mind.”

“I see…” Silver weighed the options in his head. “So what do we do about it then?”

The warden didn’t react in any noticeably expressive way, which was surprising enough given the revelation that somehow Silver held the key to accessing an entirely new realm. “Again, I’d suggest leaving it be, though perhaps it is in our best interest to study it so we might get a better understanding of whether it’s something that needs to be quarantined or neutralized.”

The implication of that sent a chill down Silver’s spine, a reaction that would only make sense for a pony like him.

“You mean cutting me off from the dream realm?” He replied in a shaky voice.

Psychic nodded. “I understand your dissatisfaction at the idea, but if it should prove to be malignant and pose a threat then that’s the only action I can see us taking. Which is why it’s in your best interest to avoid it for the time being.”

Silver didn’t need to be told twice, and knowing that that outcome was possibly looming over his head, he nodded. “Just give me a second to round everyone up and then we can discuss anything else you might need to.”

Psychic Calm nodded his head, and Silver was suddenly back where he had started. With a frantic pace, he ran through the gateway and back out onto the landing, and magically projected his voice.

We need to regroup in Somewhere immediately!

It didn’t take long for his group to quickly make their way back to him— it wasn’t often that he’d make such a frantic request after all, and once they had all returned to Somewhere he conjured a barrier around the Gateway.

“Eclipse? What’s going on?” Morgana asked curtly.

“I know I said I wasn’t going to veto this, but I just talked with Psychic and needless to say, we somehow managed to break into another realm.”

The mare raised an eyebrow and took a few steps closer to Silver. “What do you mean we broke into another realm?”

Silver held up his injured hoof. “See this? This happened in there and it stuck with me back out in here. Dream stuff never carries back over. And another thing? The other day when we were exploring it I swore I felt like I woke up in a different world, and I don’t know about you but I’m inclined to believe that this place isn’t good.”

“The realm beyond that gateway is similar, yet distinctly different to both Earth and Equestria’s dream realms,” came the voice of Psychic Calm’s stag form who began to materialize in front of them. “As such, it poses an unknown danger to our dream realm.”

“Which is why I’m closing it off for the time being,” Silver finished for him. “I know we all agreed to step inside, but I don’t want to take any risks— at least until we know that whatever it is, is safe.”

The majority of the group nodded their heads in understanding, though Morgana and Koruk clearly seemed predictably agitated. To Silver’s advantage though, the fact that a Dreamwarden had given them the explanation would keep them from protesting for the time being. Time would only tell what would happen next, and somehow Silver knew that this wouldn’t be the last time they’d discuss this realm.

It was just a matter of who’d begin to butt heads first…

Comments

[TikiBat]

11089158
Thanks for the feedback. I tried to go in and clean some of that up and even rework the opening a bit. Whether it's successful or not... I honestly don't know, but I like to think it sets some of the tone a little better from the get-go.

[ProgAltRocker]

AN interesting chapter. I think the first to butt heads with Silver are not the intrepid explorers of Morgana and Koruk. It might be Moonlight and Emily since they didn't do anything in the new realm and would be rather curious from the experiences of others.