...A while later he was stuffing shelves in the twilight hours.

Even after he had gotten to work he was still in something of a daze. He had thought he understood the basics of how the dream world worked, granted he was flailing about in the dark, but still. He had understood when he slept in the real world he appeared in the dream world and likewise when he slept in that heavenly trough of tubby puppies he would wake up in normalsvile.

It hadn’t occurred to him that he could just go back to sleep if he didn’t feel like being bothered to be a literal dog for a night. It was obvious in retrospect and he felt incredibly stupid for not figuring out he could do that. At least he knew now. Silver linings and all that.

He was so out of it he nearly cut himself, not with the box knife, no that would be bad enough. Instead, he nearly got a paper cut from the cardboard box he was handling.

For the uninitiated, one might assume that while a paper cut would in fact be less dangerous. It was, since paper cuts rarely knicked important arteries, but it was infinitely more painful. To understand consider this conundrum, would you rather be cut by a relatively clean piece of uniform metal? Or would you rather have the equivalent of a steak knife with an edge made of sandpaper? Also the reason paper cuts hurt is because of the residual chemicals on the paper used to make it, well, paper. Cardboard had that too.

Long story short, if you slice your hand open with a cardboard paper cut you are allowed to cry. Anyone who knows will understand.

Anyone who doesn’t is a asshole in the most supreme sense of the word.

Speaking of, Jamie was wheeling a pallet towards him with malicious glee in her eyes. He recognized the pallet immediately and knew this wasn’t going to be a good night.

“Really Jamster, you’re going to do this to me?” He said as he looked at the hateful pile stacked haphazardly and wrapped in cellophane.

“Bryans orders. If it makes you feel any better… Nah, screw you. Your pain fuels me and your suffering is my nectar.”

“Keep doing that and it will be bad for your health. I hear misery is fattening. Also,” He adopted a bad martial arts movie accent. “My blade begs for your blood.”

He swung his closed box knife around like he was in a kung fu movie and mimed giving it a lick.

She just rolled her eyes at him.

“Like you need any more estrogen in your bloodstream. Just work the backstock man slave.”

Scowling, Khale swore under his breath. He hated backstock, also that was a masterful five kelvin burn and he knew it.

He sliced up the plastic keeping the opened boxes steady and began doing his rounds around the sauce aisle. Checking to see if any spots could handle some more product. Backstock was the result of too large of an order for a shelf, which meant it got stored in the back room.

By some cosmic fluke, this also meant, nobody ever bought the fucking things on the shelves for some reason. He suspected it was so had to keep wasting his fucking time by making him wander around the store just to see if he could do actual work.

He mentally flipped off whoever placed these back-assward orders and kept looking at shelves.

So irate at being saddled with the chump work he almost bumped into Steve who was busy throwing freight.

“Oh shit, sorry Steve.”

The man for his part didn’t break stride and kept throwing, only giving Khale a thumbs up in passing.

The signal informing him that all was well between them, Salad moved on from spot to spot. Looking for opportunities to relieve himself of overabundant products. After half an hour he had found none. Fucking typical.

He returned to his regularly scheduled grunt work of opening boxes in large numbers. Moving from aisle to aisle, throwing boxes of mustard, cereal, and after donning his jacket, juice.

It was draining in the way extended manual labor was. The exhaustion and fatigue seemed to seep into his very bones and suffuse his entire being. He received friendly barbs and nods of sympathy as his peers learned that he would be running the gauntlet this week.

But there was no rest for the wicked. Especially in his case. As the days and nights passed he alternated from working at BoxCo and to living the dog’s life in the dream world. In a way, he kinda considered it a roundabout boon. It was like he had every other day off. He would wiggle grains of sand one at a time, though he was still unsure what exactly was going on with that. He couldn’t exert any control over it all. He couldn't even do multiple grains of sand. Just the one. Maybe this would take a while.

When he inevitably got bored with his ‘training’ he would play with his fellow baby dogmen. Rudimentary wrestling and games of tag were common. Oddly enough there was very little biting and snarling sessions only really broke out on rare occasions.

Though he was noticing that they were getting bigger, it wasn’t exactly subtle, but It took him about halfway through the week to notice. Mostly because of how crowded the snuggle pits became. Sizes were starting to vary but it seemed that the average growth was somewhere in the ballpark of everyone doubling in size

That was unusually fast, or at least, Khale thought it was weird. That said he had no idea how fast puppies were usually supposed to grow. Thought an appearance at mealtime reminded him that this form wasn’t that of a dog, just doglike. Really it was weird just how used to this he was getting. At this point, he didn’t even mind the food anymore.

Over the week he saw Birdman and wanted to broach the subject of welding, the only issue was it was never the right time. The only times they had were when they were eating lunch with everybody else, so not the right environment for a serious and likely private conversation. When they were leaving and both were dead tired, also not optimal, or when they were just arriving when they hadn’t the time.

So his questions went unasked for so long that he nearly forgot about it. Getting so swept up into the work week would normally leave him destroyed. And to an extent it was, but the absurdly restful sleep was keeping the worst at bay. When Birdman started talking about how he’d gotten some nice welding gloves was when he remembered that they needed to talk. He finally asked Steve for a time to talk and the man suggested going to the Sunday game night early and having it then.

Relieved to FInally have that out of the way but at the same time kind of dreading game night, he left the store in a state of nervous elation. It made falling asleep a bit difficult, but this was it. No turning back now,

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

This dream session had been like most, he had started out in the dogpile, practiced his sand wiggling, and then played around until something new happened. The basket keeper had a fairly set schedule, you may not be able to set your watch to it but they usually showed up around the last third of the day.

He missed having the day/night cycle for time-keeping purposes, he might not use it much in the real world but it felt strange to not have anything to measure the passage of time.

Suddenly he heard a commotion from beyond the walls of the kennel. Soon a procession of wolfmen entered their cavern, well he guessed as much, being only able to see the tips of their ears as they passed. He heard a loud thunk and an oddly dressed wolfman leaped up onto some platform and looked over… Something.

It definitely wasn’t his pack of pups he was inspecting given that he was facing the wrong way. He then remembered way back when he first entered this cavern, carried by firm hands and filled with blind panic.

He remembered that there had been multiple pens, not just this one. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about that. He had assumed they were empty seeing as he never really heard anything that would indicate other occupants. Nothing like the noises the other pups made. Maybe they housed something different?

His questions were left unanswered as the strange wolfman started to do some kind of dance. It wore some kind of poncho woven out of some rough, stringy material and a wood mask that was more of a plank strapped to the top of their head. It was also waving what looked to be a fan around until the mad dancing paused for long enough for Khale to get a solid look at it.

It was a giant ass mushroom, specifically one of those shelf mushrooms that grew on the sides of logs. He waved it around some more, then looked out over whatever it was looking at and seemed satisfied.

Khale had no fucking idea how he knew that, but something about the way they stood suggested it. However, it was to his great surprise he could hear pup noise from beyond the wall now. When the heck did they show up, did they get summoned into being or something? Then the masked poncho wearer dropped back down and the procession moved to another spot where the process repeated, though the dance seemed slower and less enthusiastic.

Listening carefully Salad heard more pups responding, in conjunction with the other he had heard before. The other pups in his kennel noticed too and made a racket too. The procession moved again, and now he could clearly see the heads poking over the wall.

They looked… disinterested.

Tiredness could have played a factor, but the masked poncho wolfman really phoned it in for them, but considering the other wolfguys looked bored Khale wasn’t getting that sort of vibe. The pups in his kennel were making a racket now, though he wasn’t sure why until the smell hit him.

Imagine walking in front of the most fragrant bakery while starving, it was like out of a cartoon where the scent clouds beckoned like the fingers of a temptress.

Most bolted and started hopping up and down at the edge of the pen and the rest were stumbling over themselves to catch up.

A few steps into following Khale paused. This was weird, was he supposed to follow and beg like the rest or was this a test of will or something of the sort?

He sat his rear down and kept quiet carefully watching the proceedings. For what reason this whole song and literal dance routine was happening he couldn’t figure out, the end result was just a bunch of bouncing wolfmen pups. You could get that at mealtime, so what was the point of all this?

He got his answer when one of the bored-looking members of the entourage noticed him and though he couldn’t see the entirety of the exchange or understand the words. The whole ‘elbow someone to get their attention then point’ routine was still hard to miss.

Some others noticed all the commotion, and eventually, all eyes were on him. Even the dancing one was obviously giving him his attention, though they never stopped their performance.

And then they left. To be honest, Khale had been expecting some kind of reaction after that. But no, they just packed whatever portable stage they had going on and left.

The pups howled after the retreating smell of bakery heaven and Khale was pretty sure it wasn’t just this kennel either.

That was supremely pointless and weird.

Having no idea what that whole ordeal was meant to accomplish he decided to try wiggling sand again. He was getting the same result, and in a fit of inspiration tried dancing at it. Nope. Just to make sure he tried dancing while pointing. Nope.

Disappointed but not surprised he continued trying to move the dirt with his mind. He was starting to suspect he was just seeing things, but he could swear it would move every now and then.

Mealtime was more tumultuous than usual since everyone's hunger had been stoked by the bakery shroom or whatever the hell that was. Still, it had the same effect it always had, conking everybody out. The snuggle pits had been expanded recently due to the recent growth spurt. So there was a fresh coating of soft and loamy dirt. Considering it had gotten pretty packed down after a while this was a nice renovation, also now there was more room for things like limbs and breathing.

He heard the resonant sounding of a butt trumpet, the farts were here to stay it seemed. Heck, they were getting worse since with the increase in size came an increased capacity for war crimes.

But hey, that was life.

Still puzzling over what exactly was going on with that whole soapbox dance thing Salad settled into rest.

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

Sunday rolled around and Khale was happy as a clam. He would have slept in but the whole, perfect sleep thing kinda kept that from being an option, it would also mean risking going back for an extra day in doggo land, and while not a terrible idea it wasn’t high on his list of things he wanted to do.

Still, he rolled up to Scuba Steve’s house in his beater about an hour early. He was starting to regret this decision, the waiting had made his nerves worse. Still soon enough, Birdman truck arrived and he hopped out, giving Khale a wave.

He waved back and got out of his own, shittier car.

“So, you wanted to talk about welding or something? What are you finally gonna join the winning team?”

Khale took a deep breath.

“Actually, that was exactly what I was thinking.”

That got him a rather surprised look, then an appraising one.

“Just so you are aware it isn’t all fun and playing with fire. It’s a job and there’s gonna be some suck in any job no matter how good it is or how well it pays.”

“Look, I understand I don’t know my ass from my elbow here,” he scratched the back of his head. “I just don’t know where to start with all this. I was hoping for some pointers.”

Birdman watched him for a moment then let out a deep sigh.

“Well alright then, if you're serious about this.” At Salad’s nod, he continued. “First thing you’re going to need is a strong foundation in math.”

This got a loud moan followed by a frustrated shout of “are you shitting me?!”

Birdman shook his head, he had a similar reaction himself way back when.

“Deadly serious, but it isn’t as bad as you think. It’s also for a good reason, welding is all about precision, you’ve got to be able to get proper measurements for cuts, and figuring out all the angles beforehand is a critical skill. So you’re going to need a good understanding of fractions and a bit of trig and a whole heaping fuckton of geometry.”

Khale was regretting this already, but his coworker plowed on.

“And no this won't be book learning, for the most part, the textbooks are more reference sheets than instruction manuals, that way you don’t have to remember formulas and shit. What people don’t tell you is that while cheat sheets aren’t allowed in exam rooms, they’re fair game pretty much anywhere else. Also,” He waved his phone around, “whoever your high school teacher was they were dead fucking wrong when they said ‘you won’t always have a calculator with you' now weren’t they?”

Well, that was better, a lot better if he was being honest. Math had never been Khale’s strong suit, but this. This didn’t sound all that bad. It sounded like this was practical stuff, he could do practical.

Their conversation was interrupted when Carlos’s four-door sedan pulled into the driveway. Robert exited the car from the passenger side door as Carlos stepped out and grabbed his stuff from the back seat. Once he was fully equipped he gave the two a wave.

“Yo guys, why are you just standing out here? Did you finally declare your undying love for one another? When’s the wedding?”

Birdman gave Salad a look, they knew what they had to do now. Khale saddled up to Steve and threw his arm around the man’s waist.

“As a matter of fact we did, wedding talk is a ways off, but…”

As this was happening Birdman relaxed and threw an arm around his partner in crime.

The two new arrivals froze, unsure of what to make of this development. Then the bruhsbands gave Carlos a four-finger salute.

That broke the spell, and all four started laughing their asses off.

“Oh,” Carlo’s wheezed, “you can’t do that to me man. I think I lost some years there.”

They collected themselves and started to head inside for the game.

Since both of the new players had a better handle on the system they had a slightly easier time drafting new characters and had a much better idea of what they were doing. At least in Khale’s case, Rob said that this was fairly close to what he was used to.

Jamie had declared herself the party barbarian, she had been the party’s healer last time and wanted more of the action. Steve put on his wizard hat again when asked what he wanted to play. Robert rolled up a rogue, Birdman was playing a bard. Carlos created a Cleric of Torag and Khale after some deliberation and input by the others rolled up a fighter.

The logic the group put forward was that a fighter would be straightforward enough to start with and something he could build on. Basically, start out as a generalist and then figure out what sounded like fun, try it and see if it stuck.

He liked the idea and the flexibility the class had so he went along with the idea.

Scuba Steve got some groans when he had the party all meet up in the tavern. However, he defended the decision by saying that since it was Khale’s first time they needed to start off with a classic. He amended it a little by saying that they were all contracted for the same job of helping a scholar delve into some ruins discovered by a dwarven mining team to the north. The scholar himself being a dwarf and wanting to meet his bodyguards before being stuck with them on the road for weeks while simultaneously placing his life in their hands, and felt that a tavern was the perfect spot to get an idea of their disposition.

So the party met with their prospective employer and assured him that they were not in fact psychotic murder hobos that would kill them the second they were out of sight of the town gate. He decided to test them on this by starting a tavern brawl and told them they couldn’t kill anyone and had to protect him to land the gig.

While their characters were far from amused the players thought it was hilarious. Everyone started pulling out increasingly ridiculous stunts. The bard started throwing out random insults and goading patrons into chasing him around the tavern. The cleric, being a dwarf himself threw down with the best of them wielding ale mugs like brass knuckles. The wizard used prestidigitation to put shit in the pants of everyone they were fighting one by one.

Roberts rogue started tripping brawlers into one another and goading them into fighting, then punching the winner in the kidneys. While the half-orc barbarian started just throwing things around the tavern, chairs, tables and eventually people were sailing through the air. With one poor bastard getting thrown through a window on a botched roll.

Khale for his part was wielding everything and anything he could get his hands on. Scuba ruled that since this tavern was kind of run down any improvised weapons were liable to break after a couple of hits. So he went from harrying foes with chairs, to table legs, to plates and after seeing Braska the barbarian in action tried wielding one of the other brawlers. After some good rolls and better targets, he was soon beating an elf over the head with a halfling. The quote “I’ll beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker” was written down for the sake of posterity.

It truly was a battle for the ages.

Satisfied his guards were at the very least somewhat comptetent the group set out on the road and after a few days of travel encountered a wagon train under attack by bandits.

That was where Scuba Steve left them off for the night and got some light booing for leaving them off at a cliffhanger.

He just laughed in their faces.

After some good-natured ribbing and some revelry recounting some moments of certified awesome, the group broke for the night and filed home one by one.

Birdman gave Khale some heads up on what was out there regarding welding and certification. To Salads surprise there were multiple types of welding as well as multiple certifications to get. And while most jobs wanted certification, there were apprenticeships out there and other opportunities that offered on-the-job training. There were courses he could take as well. That wasn’t high on his list though, after his rather wasteful run at higher education, he was leerier of the prospect.

Also, taking the certification exams would cost money.

Because of course they would.

Though at least it was a fairly reasonable thirty-five dollars a pop. So getting completely certified would only run him around a hundred dollars. Hooray.

Moving on from that he was told to look around for what sounded good to him. Certain places worked around people’s hours and most apprenticeships led you straight into a steady line of work.

Khale agreed that he'd start looking into things and thanked Birdman for the advice. When he got home he was feeling pretty good and started looking up some resources Steve had given him. They explained what certifications helped people get jobs, which ones, the specifics of each different type of welding, and so on and so forth.

It also confirmed that he indeed needed math for this. It had been a vain hope but it looked like Birdman hadn’t been messing with him.

Shutting down his computer he hopped into bed. He was dog tired and he had some investigating to do now that he knew there were other pens. It might seem silly since it was just more weird dream puppies. However, the internet had said that in order to stop recurring dreams he had to figure out what they meant and the internet had never lied to him before. Mostly.

Still, this was a new piece to the puzzle, and the more he found out the more he had to work with.

Eventually, after some tossing and turning, sleep took him.