Warmth suffused his world, he hung in that blissful place between wakefulness and rest. He was suspended in a sea of soft cushions that gently held him aloft and couldn’t imagine wanting to leave. It was like he was sleeping in a colony of sunkissed clouds. One of which farted directly into his face.

That broke the spell and Khale shot upright.

“Yip ayouro offo.”

Ack, gross dude that went in my mouth!

As his mind fully came to wakefulness he realized he recognized where he was, or more specifically he recognizes his stubby little puppy arms.

“Ofo”

Oh no

“Awawawa”

Oh no no no.

“Fuf weiiiiiii!”

Fuuuuuuck.

His whining disturbed the rest of the pups who retaliated with kicks and some small nips. He was then unceremoniously ejected from the snuggle pile. Landing in a heap he flailed around as he tried to stand.

He immediately whacked his nose as he fell forward and face planted, he promptly learned two important things.

One, it was way harder to balance with what looked like digitigrade feet and legs. It was all dog down there and did NOT make staying upright easy.

Two, hitting his nose fucken HURT. It was like getting kicked in the scrote but on his face.

Curled up in a ball on the ground he gently held his aching schnoz. The pain receded fairly quickly but it took him a moment to recover enough to move again. He propped himself up on all fours and against his better judgment, started thinking about his situation. He was back in the dream again. Seemingly right from where he had left off when he woke up from before. At least he thought so, though it was hard to tell. He hadn’t exactly been keeping track of things.

He also noticed that he was full of energy again like he had slept the sleep of the gods. Though when he considered where had been resting, a nap in a literal puppy pile probably made for one of the highest quality beds out there. Ass blasts not withstanding.

His head shook trying to dislodge the olfactory memory from his mind, that smell had been the worst he’d ever come across in his entire life. Like rotten sewage left out in the sun next to a milk storage plant that had its entire supply curdle overnight.

Putting the war crime level gas attack out of his mind he tried to figure out what was happening. The pain he had experienced would usually indicate that this wasn’t a dream, but then what was happening? Thinking on it provided no plausible answers, so he decided to put down what was currently going on as simply a very vivid continuation of his last dream. He had heard that there was something called lucid dreaming, he hadn’t the slightest clue what that involved but maybe that was the answer? Was he lucid dreaming? Was that what was happening right now?

If that was the case he needed to get his bearings, no telling how long this was going to last.

With that thought, he began exploring his body. For better or for worse, he had to know what he was working with.

Sitting down so as not to repeat the face bashing, though this resulted in him inadvertently rolling over onto his back it was good enough for him and he appraised his appendages.

His arms and shoulders seemed to be the same as he was used to, if a bit short. However, his hands didn’t quite fit the bill of ‘hands’ anymore but weren’t quite paws. They still had four fingers and a thumb, but the digits were shorter and he could see claw tips poking out the ends. Flipping them over he made a rather perplexing discovery. He had paw pads.

He gently poked the soft tissue with his claw, it didn’t hurt. He pressed harder, nothing. He then placed it on the ground and put his weight on it, he felt some slight pressure but it was fine. Eventually, he hunted down a sharp-looking rock for him to put to the test, and it only gave him a bit of discomfort.

Okay, that was interesting. His hands were pretty tough, even though he was basically a newborn. At least he thought he was since he was in what was essentially a kennel full of wolfman puppies he felt the odds were good. Context clues and all that.

As he ran his hands, paws, paw-hands? Screw it, dog hands. As he ran his dog hands over his legs it became apparent that while his paw pads were tough, they weren't sensitive like human fingers were, which he guessed made sense.

Just like he had observed before, his legs were that same kind of 'lean without being spindly’ zigzag that all dog legs posesed. His feet were paws, not even a little crossover from what he was used to. Things like heels, he missed his heels, they made not falling on your face so much more of a simple process.

Also definitely still a dude, if what he was seeing was any indication, which was nice. He was a whole new species, just handling this was hard enough, he didn’t need any more curveballs today.

Moving onto his torso it was a mixed bag, his chest had a similar layout to his human one, just more compact. But everything below his rib cage had a definite canine tilt to it, his hips didn’t feel anything like what he was used to.

Lying on his back and looking down at his body he noticed a small bit of movement directly below him and pushed himself right side up and onto his paws to take a look at it.

Except it was gone.

He looked around for a moment and none of the other pups were near him, there was no sign of anything. As he looked for more answers he was barely able to spot some movement in peripheral vision and spun in place.

Only to find nothing. Again.

He was starting to lose his calm at this point and backed up towards a wall, whatever he had seen always seemed to appear behind him. So if he put his back to the wall there would be nowhere to hide. This was a great plan until something touched him in a place he didn’t even know he had.

With a yip, Khale leaped forward and faceplanted for a second time, though he had landed on his chin instead of his nose this go around. So, progress? More importantly, he had felt something touch him, but he had no context for where. It was like he had brushed something way past his tailbone on something.

Freezing in place he realized the answer and stuck his head down between his arms and looked back to see…

His tail.

He covered his face with his dog hands, which immediately cost him his balance and sent him rolling onto his side. He didn’t care. He had to face the facts.

The last-minute and a half of freaking out had been him trying to chase his own bushy little tail. He should have known he had a tail, he could SEE the tails on every other pup in here!

“Auugugrur.”

A howlish growl was the best he could do for a scream of frustration at the moment.

Morosely he started pawing around his face, it was just like the rest of the other pups, very doglike. Long snout and jaw combo with big ears, though his seemed especially large. He looked at a pair of pups that were playing a short distance away, they both had perky pointed triangle ears like that you’d expect on a wolf. But from what he was feeling that wasn’t the case for him. They drooped over the sides of his head and the tips hung at around the same height as his jawline.

That was weird, though that was the summary of this whole scenario. So, par for the course at this point.

Using the wall from before he tried to walk upright like he had seen the big wolfmen do. He presumed they were adults, but all he had was speculation at the moment. He was barely able to balance with the wall as a guide and had to bail out to all fours again several times. It was like his body wasn’t made to stand upright.

Considering that all the other pups weren’t standing or even making an attempt to, that was probably normal. Maybe adulthood brought the ability to stand upright. Then again he was for all intents and purposes, a baby trying to walk after not even being a day old. Forget mastering walking, he needed to learn crawling.

So he started testing out moving on all fours, trying to find some sort of coordination. It was difficult but in a very specific way. It was sort of like trying to ride a bike after not touching one for years. He was essentially crawling, but not exactly and it was that tiny bit of adjusting that was tripping him up.

Quite literally, he ate dirt several times. Though for whatever reason, the earth in the pen was soft and squishy. As a result of his repeated falls, he started to get a sense of how to fall properly, specifically, don’t land on your nose ever or on your belly when you could avoid it. Landing on the stomach felt like the ground was kicking the wind out of you.

However, once he got the hang of it, almost any other time tripped he could bring it into a forward roll. It was like doing somersaults when he was in elementary school. Once he learned how to do it without hurting himself it was kinda fun. He tried to get it so he could land on his feet and started somersaulting all over the place. The hardest part was that he had to tuck his back legs in otherwise he’d just flop onto his back

He had to stop after he got too dizzy and to his surprise saw that a few of the others were watching him, a few were even trying to imitate him.

Seeing no harm in it, he went over to the others and demonstrated his technique slowly at first, then faster. Eventually, he got lucky and landed with all four paws underneath him and was able to pop right up into a run. That really got the other puppies going and they began copying him.

Soon the tired puppy pile started to take notice and apparently the consensus was ‘hey, that looks like fun, I want to try!’ and they immediately started rolling around. This included over each other, into one another, and a few unlucky ones ran smack dab into a wall.

If the situation surrounding the scene wasn’t so weird Khale was certain it would be diabetes-inducing adorable, and here he was without his insulin. The only thing that saved him was the fact that while these pups were cute as heck, they were also all as big as he was and that diminished the effect somewhat. Still adorable though.

The rolling riot only stopped when a familiar scent approached the pen, one he recognized from last time. Soon the basket man had come. Hauling a basket of meaty goodness. Well, less meaty goodness and more marginally edible meat scraps.

It was odd, now that he could focus on the smell he could feel himself salivating. At the same time he rememberd his nausia when he was awake. His body and memories were clashing in ways he could barely understand.

Still, after all his tumbling, the exertion had made him ravenously hungry. His body wanted food, badly. He wasn’t sure if it was the body rebelling against the mind or the other way around. It was clear that there wasn’t likely to be any other food aside from what the basket man was going to give him.

So he firmed his resolve and marched toward where the scent was coming from. Unfortunately, his indecision had cost him, all the other pups were crowding the wall, all up on their back legs and hopping trying to get even a bit closer.

He watched as the basket keeper arrived, dragging the giant container behind them. They removed the lid and started tossing in meat like someone would feed barnyard animals. Those close enough snapped chunks out of the air while others bore their brothers to the ground trying to grab at even the smallest morsel.

As he watched he noticed two things, first the basket keeper was starting from the front and working and working their way toward the back.

Second, none of the pups were trying to use their paws to catch the meat, though, considering how accurate they were with catching things in their mouths, that was far from a problem.

So he stood at the rear, using the backs of those in front for balance as the meat came closer to their row. He tottered and teetered as the pups in front of him bent down to eat the giblets off the dirt, and a good portion of dirt while they were at it. Had to be vitamins in there somewhere. He was still able to balance on their backs, so when the next wave of flying meat he was able to enact his master plan all the better. As the basket keeper was about to swing out the next handful of meat chunks Khale used the bent back of the puppy in front of him as a springboard and launched himself up, throwing his arms wide. He was able to catch a lucky giblet with his mouth and more than a few strings of the grisly meal with his outstretched arms.

As he fell backward he shoved as much of it as he could manage into his mouth and down his throat. The only issue was that the pups next to him descended like ravenous adorable vultures and yanked off any stray piece of meat they could get their jaws around. Which led to Khale getting nipped more than a few times.

As he got up he noticed the basket keeper was looking at him with an expression. If the standard dog head tilt translated to this place then it was a look of confusion maybe? It certainly looked that way. They had even stopped the feeding, though that was only for a moment as some rather insistent yipping got them moving again.

It was the same as before, working front to back and Salad was ready for round two. To his surprise, so were the other back liners. He caught a paw in the face as a good number of the rear guard jumped with him, some jumped too soon and one jumped after everyone else had landed. However, that paw had whacked him on the nose so he was sent sprawling as he clutched his abused sniffer.

The end result was that he was lying on the ground writhing in pain rather than eating, which meant by the time he was done there was nothing left. He heard what sounded like a hyena cackle as he saw the food purveyor was watching him again, and laughing at his misfortune.

For whatever reason the basket keeper was feeling merciful and threw another handful to the back row, letting him get at least a few more bites in before things returned to order. After a few more rotations, and dodging flying elbows their caretaker looked them over and decided we had been fed enough and then left. Dragging the basket and its contents out of sight.

After the pack had decided that no more food was going to rain from the sky the consensus was that it was nap time again, as the horde started moving toward the spot that had been pretty much zoned as the sleeping area. The dirt had been dug up into a bowl shape and pups settled into sleep.

Seeing this as a golden opportunity to explore without interference. Khale worked his way around the kennel. It wasn't very big, all there was a yard for the pups to play in, some kind of creek that ran through one side, and what smelled like the bathroom. Ew.

The only other place he could see was the snuggle pits where everyone had decided to sleep. He was getting tired, though something occurred to him as he made his way back to the pile.

He hadn’t seen a light source, in fact, he still didn’t see a source of light. He looked around, everything was still in the grey palette he had gotten used to. He looked at his hands and then planted one on the ground. He then began to pivot on it, slowly moving around it without lifting or taking his eyes off of it.

No shadows. Now that he looked around, he didn’t see a shadow cast anywhere.

Now that was odd.

He wasn’t sure what was going on with the ambient light levels, but he was fairly certain he wasn’t going to figure it out any time soon. With his eyes drooping he finished making his way back to the puppy pile and made himself comfortable. Right as he got settled he realized that he really had to pee.

It seemed some things never changed.

He went to the bathroom corner and relieved himself, and after looking at the water and not seeing anything that screamed danger took a drink. Tasted like cold water. He didn’t know what he expected but whatever.

Business taken care of he returned to the snuggle pit and made himself comfortable again, this time situating himself so he was facing towards the outside of the pile. He did not need to eat another fart, the first one could have stripped the paint off of a car and he wasn’t in any hurry for a repeat performance.

As he drifted off he wondered if this was going to become a regular thing.

Though if he was honest the puppy pile almost made all this weirdness worth it.

One of his neighbors ripped a fart that was long and loud. So much so, that it startled the farter awake.

Yep, almost worth it, the keyword being almost.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Khale sat up in his bed feeling energized and well-rested.

He was also feeling more than a bit perturbed about what was going on.

His alarm went off right then and he started pondering what his last dream sequence meant as he silenced it. Was this a lucid dream or something? He had heard of recurring nightmares, but that was supposed to be the same dream over and over again. This felt different like he was continuing his dream from where he left off.

The internet would have answers. So Khale booted up his old warhorse of a computer and started searching. He started by looking up lucid dreaming. From what he could find, that was what happened when you were aware you were dreaming, inside the dream and you could sometimes control your dreamscape.

This kinda-sorta fit the bill, he knew he was dreaming, but the dream didn’t feel like one. The hits to the nose felt vividly painful in all sorts of ways he hadn’t ever experienced before. So he wasn’t sure about it, but it wasn’t debunked at least.

Next was recurring dreams, those were the same dreams experienced repeatedly over a long period of time. For whatever reason it also sounded like they were links to psychological trauma or unresolved issues and the best way to make them stop was to figure out what the meaning behind the dream was.

Recurring dreams didn’t feel quite as on the mark as lucid dreams did, but it was also hard to discard that explanation entirely. Maybe he had to find the meaning of why he was having these dreams in order to make them stop, or could it be a combination of both?

Khale reflected on what had happened, the meal had been disgusting again, but it was only now that it felt that way. In the dream, it hadn’t been a big deal. He had no idea what that meant, maybe he only had a weak stomach when he was awake?

Also, this was a lot less terrifying the second time around, no one had even manhandled him.

The situation was oddly stressful, in that it wasn’t overly stressful. Though that may have been a side effect of the godly rest he got, which so far seemed like a package deal with the dream so far, both awake and asleep.

After searching around the internet for a little while longer, he couldn’t see anything else that seemed to fit. He had even tried putting his symptoms into one of those online medical self-diagnosis sites. It had suggested brain cancer.

Well, at least that was something he could talk to a doctor about. If he mentioned he had frighteningly realistic dreams about being a baby dog person he would probably get sent to a shrink.

Though, now that he thought about it, that might not be a terrible thing if that got him off this ride. Then he remembered how much therapy cost and cursed, this definitely wasn’t going to be cheap.

Shuddering mentally at the likely outflow of a sizable amount of cash, he started surfing the net before realizing he had somewhere to be in a couple hours. He had a quick shower and got ready to go out. It was nice to be out of uniform for a change.

He decided to splurge and bring some snack foods and soda. He bade his landlord good evening and made his way to his car. An old beater he had gotten for around two hundred bucks. Shit brown everywhere except the hood, which was bright red, and the dark blue driver side door.

It wasn’t pretty, but it had the best feature a car could have in Khales’s humble opinion. That was he did not give one fraction of a fuck what happened to it. This thing could get dumped into a trash compactor, rendered down to the size of a five-foot cube and it would only be a mild inconvenience. Sure it would suck to have to get a new car, but it wouldn't impact his day-to-day that much.

The other unofficial feature of the vehicle was that its incredible shittyness more or less guaranteed it would never be stolen. After all, people only took things that they thought were valuable. Turns out even crack heads have standards, who knew?

Hopping into the car he looked up Scuba Steve's address and put it into the GPS. He had driven there a couple of times before, but he hadn’t quite gotten comfortable enough with the route to trust himself without directions. He then cursed himself for being an idiot and then looked for a store on the way. He figured something from the gas station would be fine, set THAT as his destination, and sped off towards the local gas and go.

Half an hour later he was ringing the bell of a fairly well-kept house. Cheez-Its and Dr. Pib in hand.

Scuba Steve shouted for him to enter, Khale was a bit early, but not by much. He found three Steves at a dining room table crowded with chairs. They gave him a hero’s welcome. Which meant they insulted his choice of fashion, drink, and food. The first two he could forgive, but the last one demanded retaliation. After all, as a gaming snack, Cheez-Its was king.

They were in full swing into their argument on the ever-important topic of snack foods when Jamie arrived, she came wielding a binder and a bag of dice that she fished out of her gym bag.

Salad still couldn’t understand why someone as exercise crazy as she was would have any interest in pretending to be a gnome warlock of all things, and said as much.

She responded by gently informing him that she was allowed to have a hobby and that her exercise routine was more of a lifestyle choice. This was all said while she kept him pinned in a headlock.

He complained that she was infringing on his first amendment rights and also crushing his windpipe.

Her retort that he was infringing on everyone's rights by going outside without a paper bag over his head got some backup jeers from the Steves. Who awarded the burn a two and a half out of five kelvins on the burn scale. A classic burn, but unoriginal.

This was about the time Carlos and Robert arrived. The former bearing pizza boxes, apparently opting for the cheaper pickup option since he was buying this time around.

Robert meanwhile had brought a binder and a set of dice. He asked why Jamie had such a big bag of dice and her only response was to say, “shiny number shapes go clicky clack.” in a husky goblinoid voice then vigorously shaking the bag.

This did not answer his question, but Rob decided he didn’t want to know what that meant.

The Steves congratulated him on his infinite wisdom.

Conversations picked up again as Carlos insisted that the Steve’s start an acapella group.

“Come one guys, it would be great!”

“We don’t have enough guys for it, we need at least four. So unless you can find another Steve the idea is a non-starter. That's not even taking into account OUR COMPLETE LACK OF SINGING TALENT!”

Carlos waved a hand dismissively, “you guys could learn to sing. Can’t be that hard, OOH!” He pointed at Khale, “he could be your fourth, you could call your group Three Steves and a Salad!”

That got a laugh and everyone finally started to calm down and settle into their places.

“So what are you guys wanting to play character-wise?” Scuba asked,”I’ve talked to most of you about ideas, but I think it’s good for everyone to hear what everyone is planning on playing.”

Khale looked confused, ”Why? Can’t we just play whatever we want?”

“It’s so we have a balanced team,” Robert chimed in, “good party composition goes a long way for covering for some classes weaknesses and making sure everyone has different strengths.”

Most of the others were nodding until Salad asked, “why do we need all that, what’s stopping us from all just rolling up wizards and wrecking shop?”

Rob shook his head and started to explain why that was a bad idea, but noticed the deafening silence at the table. He looked around and saw more than a few eyes filled with mischievous glints. Carlos, Birdman, and Jamie all slammed their hand down on the table while simultaneously declaring that they wanted to be a wizard.

Suba looked around the table with dismay as Robert looked horrified and turned to Steve, who for his part simply pulled a wizard hat out of his bag and placed it upon his head. Scuba Steve blew out a long breath before conceding.

“It would be a good idea to do a one-shott so these two can get used to the system.”

He closed a thick binder filled with notes and pulled out some sourcebooks and a blank notebook.

“SO! Everybody roll up a wizard. We’re going on a completely original adventure in Wogharts, magical school for witchcraft and sorcery.”

He sighed heavily as he started writing furiously in his notebook.

“Those of you who know what you’re doing help those who don’t, I’m going to work on my own magic trick of pulling this adventure out of my ass.”

Carlos helped Khale figure out how to set up his character and Jamie helped Rob do the same. Birdman offered advice of questionable quality to both while original Steve helped Scuba with adventure building.

Soon they were all playing an adventure that only danced the line of copyright infringement instead of charging over it like a coked-out sprinter. Pizza was eaten, arguments about rules were had and Khale eventually figured out which dice were which and even when to use some of them.

Before anyone knew it, Scuba was wrapping things up. “So the headmaster is taken away by the wizard police for reckless endangerment after six children were eaten by a three-headed dog. Though, since you all were teenagers the dog was given a bone and told it was a very good boy rather than being put down.”

Carlos rounded on Birdman, “really? You had to fireball the sleeping monster dog. Just couldn’t help yourself.”

Bird Steve threw his hand up into the air, “It’s what my character would have done! He was from the evil house!”

After a rousing chorus of boos and jeers from the rest of the table, Steve looked at his watch and moved to adjourn the meeting.

“Okay guys, it’s approaching six o’clock. I love you all, but get the fuck out of my house.”

Khale blinked and pulled out his phone to confirm, it was indeed that late, or early depending on who asked.

“Holy shit, that was nearly eight hours.”

“Time flies when killing trolls brother.” Birdman punched him in the arm before turning to the rest of the group “Same time next week?”

“You’re forgetting about week to week scheduling hombre.” Carlos pointed out, though Scuba came to the rescue.

“Actually I talked to Bryan and he said he can do something about our scheduling, all you guys need to do is talk to him to confirm but he’d said so long as there aren't extenuating circumstances he can accommodate.”

And there was much rejoicing.

Hopping into his beater, Khale made for home and after taking the usual route got ready for bed, but paused. He took a deep breath, if he was having lucid dreams all he had to do was take control of it. He hadn’t the slightest clue how that would work but he didn’t really have any other choice than to try.

He crawled into his sheets and after his nerves wore off, he finally succumbed to sleep.