The Morpheus was a peculiar antique shop located at one of the many shady alleyways at the east side of London.
The most peculiar thing about the antique shop was the existence itself. This place is an antique shop that is located at the most non-strategic place. No one who frequent that part of London would have a dime of money to be spent leisurely on useless antiques that has no part in the life of the working class people.
The shop was situated below a tavern where everyone came and go as they like and by a busy and popular pub among the residents near the alleyway.
Despite of it's strange location, no one in the alleyway was bothered to questions the shop's existence.
Moreover, no one had ever wonder on how does the antique shop managed to stay operating despite them rarely seen any customer going in and out of the place. For an antique shop, the place was rather gloomy and filled with what seemed to be cheap or counterfeit antique goods.
It was said that, the most impressive thing in the shop would probably a lifelike mannequin that was displayed on the shop's mirror. The mannequin had never not spooked everyone who had to walked in front of the shop.
The eerie mannequin fits perfectly with the antique shop's equally peculiar owner; Mademoiselle Johanne who originally hailed from France. Well, at least that was what she told other resident about her origin.
No one in the area really believed that she was some rich widow from France. If she really was, she would not be living among them at that downtrodden part of London. So does everybody though. But no one dare to point out about that matter in front of her.
The mysterious old widow was not exactly what she was always described by the residents of the area. She was not a wrinkled middle age woman. In fact she appeared to be quite young and no more than 30 years old.
She was also unexpectedly better known as a popular clairvoyant and offered tarot reading service as part of the shop's service. Hence, most of her local customer from around the area, were girls frequented the shop for card reading. While her clairvoyant status is debatable, but her card reading was usually accurate
She also stayed in the tavern that was located at the upper floor of the building . In fact, her room was actually directly connected to the shop, hence she did not have to encountered other people while on her way going to her own shop.
As long as she was minding her own business, no one would bat an eyelashes to whatever it is she was doing.
However, little did the people know, the antique shop was always frequented by the other being. Yes. Most of the Mademoiselle's customer was not ordinary human such as them. In fact, the name 'antique' itself was only a part of what the shop was about.
Most of the time, these ordinary people would not realized that they were entities that visited the shop from time to time.
They would always pretending to be potential antique buyers or blending in with the human females who would always come for card reading.
The truth is, the shop was one of the most important parts of the Underworld Association that lurked silently among the ordinary human.
The Underworld Associate - like it's name - was used to refer to creatures who originally hailed from the Underworld. A place that was situated between the human world and the heavenly world.
It was a unique place where creatures that did not fit in the human and heavenly world settled in. Unlike the human who had no ideas about the existence of the underworld and the heavenly world, the creatures of underworld knew about the human's existence and frequently visited the earth through hidden portals that scattered all over the world.
At times , the Underworld's creature would decide to settled in the human and blending with the human as one of them.
However, the option to choose for the underworld's creature has long gone almost a thousand year ago. The underworld were no longer a place that they could call home as it was destroyed during the great war between the powerful clans that once dominated the underworld.
Nowadays, apart from the magical forest that was under the sovereignty of the King of the fairies, the underworld was covered by a barren land that could barely be called as home. Only a handful of creatures such as the trolls was able to adapt to the cruel changes.
Most of the underworlds creature slowly moving to the human world as the god and goddess from the heavenly world would never accept them.
It was easier to sneak around the oblivious humans instead of fighting the gods. Therefore, they have no other choice than going through the hidden portals to move into the human world. While most of them began to familiarize themselves with the humans, new problem arose.
The portals that has been connecting these two worlds mysteriously disappeared one by one. This is a devastating news dreaded by the underworld's creatures as loosing the portals means they no longer be able to visit their former home!
No one knows when and how did these portals ceased to exist! After a while, there were only few of them left in the world. Hence, the underworld associate decided to carefully preserved these few portals away from the human's eyes.
And one of these portals was actually located in the antique shop!
Yes!
The antique shop that was operated by the self-proclaimed clairvoyant - Mademoiselle Johanne - was a only camouflage set up by the people of underworld associate in effort to preserve one of their last connection to their home.
For the past centuries, various mademoiselles were assigned to be the guardian of the portal that would be the medium that transport the underworld associate across the two worlds And The Morpheus was only one of the few still functioning portals that exist till this date!
There were several more functioning hidden portals that was carefully supervise by Underworld Associate.
Nevertheless, the Morpheus had always been the most popular choice by the Underworld Associate to visit whenever they felt like crossing between the two world. Therefore, The Morpheus had - actually- always been a merry and chaotic place!