Illuminating the Darkness with Flames

"Right this way!" the drowzee spoke with calm enthusiasm, gesturing for the red fox to follow him. He made his way through the rough shack to the rooms where they performed the different services The DreamCatchers had offered. This new customer was the first one in quite a while, Morpheus was beginning to have difficulty expelling the worry that he was going to go out of business in his mind lately. The friendly tapir motioned to a rather comfortable looking nest like bed.

"Just have a seat and we can begin. I'm going to have to hypnotize you, so don't be alarmed if you suddenly fall asleep. Some rather odd things may happen once you're asleep and dreaming, but just don't move and keep calm. I've done this plenty of times. Any questions or concerns?" he asked, wanting to make sure the vulpix didn't feel as if it were in danger or nervous about anything.

The orange vixen listened carefully to the Drowzee, padding over to the bed that he had motioned towards a few moments before. She had to admit, she was strangely hopeful. Back in Serene Cave, she had a similar dream twice in a row, and each time she had it she woke up in a cold sweat. Perhaps traveling through her dreams would offer some sort of solution. And besides, it never hurt to try and grow stronger.

"No, I believe I understand. Thank you." Lumina said clearly, with a small dip of her head. She sat down, clearing her mind, preparing to fall asleep when the psychic Pokemon hypnotized her. She repeated what he said in her mind, going over it. All she needed to do was stay still and stay calm. She could manage that much, surely.

The drowzee nodded and began the process, hypnotizing the vulpix with a chant and focusing intensely on the Vulpix. He was able to put the vixen into a slumber with ease due to the factor of resistance not existing.

The vulpix was sent into a deep slumber, in the slumber, the dream was filled with darkness where the Vulpix was all alone with nothing around her. It was sheer and utter darkness. It took a moment, but a ball of flame suddenly appeared before the vulpix, before splitting off into nine more. The orbs of fire surrounded Lumina, circling slowly at first before building up speed until they were nothing but a blurred ring of flames.

The flames then began to grow brighter, and brighter, but one still could not see anything else within the darkness but a blank floor that the vupix stood/sat upon. Once the flames seemed to reach a constant speed, the suddenly flung themselves outward, away from the vulpix and into the darkness. Wherever their light touched, the darkness was replaced with something else. The flames continued outward until they finally seemed to have hit a wall.

Color and light flooded the "room" as the dream began to take shape. The vulpix was now standing within a circle of homes that looked similar in structure to those of Grassveil's residence. The homes seemed to be crowded together though, as they allowed no way of passing them. In front of the vixen, stood a tower that seemed to go so high one could not even spot the top of it. The tower seemed to share the style of a tree, with rather intricate carvings carved into it. They took shapes of familiar pokemon to Lumina, the carvings of the pokemon becoming more intricate and detailed based on how much Lumina knew of the pokemon.

Morpheus decided it was time to step in, appearing next to the fox out of seemingly nowhere and marveling at the tower that appeared to be the trunk of a tree with designs carved all over it.

He said nothing though, instead waiting for the vulpix to speak.

At first, she was puzzled. Lumina felt oddly aware that she was dreaming this time, something of an oddity for her, as she was rarely a lucid dreamer. She reminded herself to stay calm and stay still, taking deep breaths as she sat alone in the darkness, her eyes lightly closed as she waited for her guide to appear in her dream.

She stared at the ball of fire splitting off into nine more - perhaps a symbol of her evolved form, if she had to take a guess. But she hadn't been expecting what would happen next, as the small fireballs zoomed off and filled the inky blackness with colour, momentarily leaving her breathless.

It looked like Grassveil, almost a perfect copy, save for the tree towering over it. She stared, taking in her own dreamscape, before feeling a pair of eyes on her. She glanced back over at Morpheus, her brown eyes wide. "I..." She wasn't exactly sure what she was going to say. She was simply awestruck. Managing to regain her composure, she cleared her throat. "... I take it this is normal? I wasn't expecting this, though..." She trailed off, taking in the intricate scene.

The drowzee nodded, "Yeah, but its different for every pokemon. Sometimes the tower will change slightly depending on what the pokemon has experienced, if one's experienced in stuff such as this they could interpret different meanings. For example, a customer I had really liked the sound of thunder, so the dream tower would give off the sound of thunder now and then because of it."

Morpheus looked to the vulpix, glad that he could share the wonders of the dream tower with more pokemon. He just hoped that this trip was more successful that most others, all of which were failures that had resulted in him eating the sickening nightmares.

"Hmm... I've moved to Grassveil just a week or two ago, so that might have something to do with how it looks right now." Lumina considered, wandering a bit closer to the tree. She saw many carvings of Pokemon on it, right now, the most detailed one seemed to be a Riolu. But she also saw a Meganium, a Zorua, a Swablu, a Ninetales, even what looked like a Drowzee. There were some more, carved so faintly that she needed to squint to see them, some to the point that she had trouble making out what Pokemon they were supposed to be.

((Btw if you want to do some plot about those dreams you were having just PM me letting me know about the details of what you want to do and we can do that if you want ^^))

The drowzee nodded, "Well, I guess we 'ought to get going. Its not like we'll get anywhere sitting around here doing nothing!"

Morpheus moved ahead of the vulpix, he didn't know what was in this tower, but he couldn't risk the client getting too harmed. This was one big escort mission to him, it was his job to escort the client to the floors that carried the DNA that held their desired move. He seemed to be rather optimistic about it, not quite caring for how the tower looked. It was his duty to escort, not sight see.

His father would usually speed through the tower whenever he had a client, but whenever they were in Morpheus's tower, they would always stick around, do different things, play around a bit with how the dream tower functioned.

((also pick your number please ^^))

The Vulpix followed after her guide, not protesting that they continued moving on. Her thoughts wandered back to the repeating dream she'd been having, that was what had drawn her to this service in the first place, after all. What better way would there be to try and stop a bad dream from returning than to face it? And what better way was there to face her dreams than to travel inside them?

She couldn't really call it a recurring dream, as she'd only had it twice. But both dreams had similar tones. A dark city, vague encounters with a Ninetales and a Flareon, and the five words: Don't live in her shadow. They could've been spoken by someone or incorporated into the dream itself, sometimes both. Though whose shadow her subconscious was warning her to stay out of, she only had vague suspicions.

"Sounds good. Lead the way." Lumina nodded, doing her best to return to the present. If anything from her dreams the last two nights showed up here, in this Dream Tower, she could deal with it when they got there. It wasn't something she was sure about how she could plan for, honestly. Perhaps it would be best to just take things as they came.

(Hmm... That could be fun, I'll try to come up with a good plot for them. Also, for the numbers, I'll pick 8, 16 and 11.)

The Vulpix padded forward, carefully approaching the set of diverging paths. She couldn't see very far down either of them, making it useless to try and peak down the corridors. "I think we should go left." She decided more or less at random, but seemed satisfied enough with her decision for the moment.

Morpheus, having no other real reason to object even if he had wanted to, nodded and turned to the left, beginning to lead the vulpix down the narrow hallway that seemed to be growing more and more narrower as they continued forward. Morpheus thanked the fact that he was skinnier than most drowzee by nature, otherwise his sides probably would have been pressing against the walls. He hoped that this didn't get so skinny that the two wouldn't be able to proceed though.

Behind the duo, once they were a fair distance away from the entrance, a dark shadow seemed to lurk into the path they had chosen. It seemed to be taking its time, but once it was inside, the opening behind it began to close. The torches, that had been neglected to be mentioned earlier, seemed to be going out once it had gotten within their light, the flame flickering off, and seemingly never to be lit up again.

At first, Lumina hadn't noticed the torches flickering out behind her, or the dark shadow that seemed to slowly be lurking closer. She followed after the Drowzee, slowly starting to regret her choice in the pathways as the walls grew closer and closer together. "Can you see if there's a room farther up, or if this is just a dead end?" The Vulpix wondered, unable to see past him with how thin the walls were growing.

Swish. That was the faint sound of yet another torch going out, a sound which finally got the vixen's attention. She turned around, noticing... something that was putting out the torches. It was too dark for her to see what it was, but she had the instinct that it was bad news. "Morpheus?" She questioned, staring into the darkness, a hint of nervousness leaking into her tone. "I hate to say the obvious, but I think we've got something following us..."

Morpheus turned, looking towards the darkness that had slowly been growing closer and closer to them behind them. The darkness stopped advancing when Morpheus turned, he stared into the darkness, to find a shroomish suddenly seemed to be running out of the darkness, seemingly crying before tripping a few feet away from the vulpix. It fell flat on its face, laying there for a moment before beginning to kick its legs and bawl, as if it couldn't get up.
"Huh?" Morpheus spoke, confused at the anticlimactic appearance of a cry-baby shroomish.

"Er..." Lumina stared, confused, tilting her head as she tried to decode whatever this could be about, but she was at a loss. "... should we just move on? Somehow, I don't think it's going to attack us." Or if it did strike out at them, it probably wouldn't be very dangerous. She felt a bit embarrassed at letting this pitiful thing spook her.

The shroomish continued to squeal and bawl while flailing its legs, it seemed to be trying to get back up onto its feet. It seemed to be failing at its task despite the simplicity of it. Morpheus kind of pitied the shroomish, though he knew that the pokemon of the tower lacked actual emotions. They were images of the dream, this little shroomish didn't actually exist, it had no thoughts, no feelings, it was just an image. Despite this knowledge, he couldn't resist nearing it, and giving it a push to flip it back onto its feet. The shroomish looked about, as if confused.
"Okay we can go now.." Morpheus spoke, a bit embarrassed that he had stopped them to help out the technically nonexistent creature.