This dream seemed very short to Park Chung-Ho, but when the plane began to shake, and he was taken up, he checked his watch and noticed he had been asleep for seven hours.
"You finally slept a bit. That's good." Diane was awake and finishing a cup of tea.
"She spoke to me." He murmured.
He told everything Aislinn said.
Diane Nòttdottir was thinking.
"I'll have some questions to ask fellow hunters, but what my daughter messaged to you... I don't know. It seems like we're missing something there. I don't understand why getting her full essence would be a problem if this allows her to go out."
The plane landed shortly after their discussion. He was in his mother's country for the first time in his life. This felt strange, a bit melancholic. He took a Big breath while closing his eyes, thinking about the woman in that photograph that was in the locket he had clutched in his hand.
"Why do I feel nostalgic when I never lived here?" He asked. "This feels so strange."
"Half of you come from here. Is this your first time in South Korea?"
"It is."
"Well, it must feel like you have a lot to catch. It's not something strange, I guess this is just a normal reaction."
They took a taxi from Incheon to Seoul. Park Chung-Ho wasn't missing a single detail on the road, but Seoul had too much information for him. There was simply too much information catching his eye. He didn't know where they stopped, but he saw a side street with a lot of stores and restaurants. That's where Aislinn's mother took him. The lights of the city were glowing in the sunset, and it was captivating. They took something to eat in one of the restaurants and walked in the street a bit further. There it was, an old but beautiful house with a wooden sign, written in both Korean and English : Spices and Recipes.
"Why are we at a spice store?" asked the young man.
"That's the cover of the auction house."
It wasn't shiny like many other shops in the street, but it had an old-fashioned style that was appealing. Park Chung-Ho was staring at the front of the shop. He was impressed; this was a part of his world, the World of Dreamers, and it was in his mother's country. Two sides of himself he had been ignorant of for his whole life, until now. This was more than just a building; his mother may have been there previously, it was more than likely.
"Let's get in, shall we?" Diane asked.
He nodded and followed her in. At first sight, it was a shop like the others; there were storage lockers behind the counter, all made of wood. But when he saw them, the man standing behind the wooden counter smiled and greeted Diane as if he would have to an old friend. In fact, that's what they were, old friends.
They exchanged some words in Korean, but the young man never learned his mother's tongue.
"Diane! It's been a while. Last time you came here, Aislinn was with you. I guess this is Dam-Dae's son, Chung-Ho! My name is Lee Hyun-Bo."
"Hello, I'm Chung-Ho indeed. I'm sorry for my manners, but I don't speak my mother's tongue."
"Don't worry, boy. Your mother was my oldest friend, and we've been friends since the youngest age. Probably because our familly were very close. I could have recognised you without Diane at your side, you've got a lot of your mother's look. Specialy those fiery eyes."
"He's got her curiosity, too. Always asking questions about dangerous stuff..."
"Everything is dangerous there." The young man said. "Every time I ask about something, it's dangerous! It's not that I'm attracted to danger. It's just that the dream realm is dangerous in itself."
The two hunters laughed.
"I prepared some dreams for you," the man said. "That wasn't very specific except for the layers you wanted. I got a sample of the 5 first five as you asked. You know how this works, but I'm not sure he does."
Park Chung-Ho turned his eyes in Diane's direction.
"He's a trustworthy man. You can tell him whatever you want."
"OK. You knew my mother, you probably knew my father too."
"I was your mother's witness at her wedding."
"And I'm pretty sure you know Aislinn, and it's thanks to you that she had a nightmare with a dragon."
"How do you know about that nightmare?"
"She gave it to me for training."
"How did she ..."
"Well... This is a bit complicated. She has shared a part of her essence with me. I could then access her domain, and then she gave me the nightmare."
"An essence link... Nice... You know a part of the process, but we can't share our essence with everyone. That means that there's another process for the transfer of nightmares and dreams here. I guess you're in jetlag and not sleepy yet. If you want, we can visit the place, and I'll show you everything we do here."
"I would love this indeed. And you're right, I slept on the plane a few hours ago."
"I'll let both here for now. I need to see your sister, Hyun-Bo." Diane said.
"You'll find her in her library."
The woman left them and headed to the library that was a bit deeper in the street.
"OK, I think she'll be talking a bit with my sister, so... we have some time to visit, would you like to see the whole place?"
"Isn't it all the place already?"
"No! Come with me."
One of the storage lockers was apparently a door. Behind was an elevator that they stepped into.
"We'll go downstairs to the real Auction place," said Hyun-Bo, smiling.
The travel time seemed like 3 floors, and they exited the opposite way they entered the elevator. They were facing a place the shape of an amphitheater. All around it, at the upper level, there was a passageway from which one would be able to see everything that was going on under where the auctions would take place, and also lead to many rooms.
"What do you think about our auction room?"
"That's splendid, but why is this underground? I understand that there is a cover for a Dream Auction House, but wouldn't it be better placed with natural light?"
"Oh... Yeah this could be, but it was easier to hide all the facilities underground than to have a larger shop that would seem odd in the street."
Park Chung-Ho stepped in the amphitheater part and touched the desks of bidder.
"That's a nice place..." he looked at the passageway and asked. "Where do those doors lead?"
"Ah! You want to see? This is were we realise the transfer of dreams."
"That's what you were talking about earlier. The transfer process..."
They headed to the first room and Bo-Hyung opened the door. There were 2 beds in here and a lot of instruments.
"Over the years, we modified the way we transfer the dreams. To ensure a fast and safe transfer now, we use those machines to connect two people and make them dream together so that the dream can be transferred. Diane told me you were crafting sleeping pills, we use some here to make people dream. I'm very curious about how you work on your craft."
"Well... I've been having a nightmare since I was a baby, always the same. I wanted to avoid dreaming while sleeping. I started to craft pills recently, but I haven't found the good mix yet."
"I might be able to help you with that. We do sell spices in here, but also some good sleeping pills component."
The young man was watching everything in the room, but some questions were bursting in his mind.
"Let's say you have a dream to transfer. How does it work if this dream is deep in the realms? Are you able to transfer every kind of dreams?"
"Curious, she said, but that's a good thing! We cannot transfer every kind of dreams or nightmares. If it's too deep, it's not possible for us to ensure there isn't a problem in the process.... I mean... You COULD do a transfer if both member of the trade are able to handle the depth of the dream. But the problem will be if the one who receives the dream isn't able to go out. And that's something that we haven't been able to monitor yet."
"And if this happens, you can't do a thing, then?"
"There are cases where we can wake the dreamers earlier, but if one is going too deep, it's really hard to pull him out. Sometimes it cannot be made. But this is really rare, because people who buy dreams usually are very aware of their own limits."
"I see... Maybe there would be a possibility to craft a pill that would limit the depth we could go in our sleep?"
"Maybe, but you should speak about this with someone else. I'm not knowing a single thing about substances for sleep. But there is an apothecary who knows a lot about it in the city. Maybe you'll have time to go see him, or maybe another time... Let's head back to the shop and see if Diane is there."