He couldn’t believe it.

The shock was so much that he couldn’t even bring himself to struggle as the big wolf man carried him down the hole and into tunnels that slowly drained of their color.

He had just been traded for a rope, food, and possibly a shitty basket.

What the actual fuck.

Who even does that?

Who barters with a BABY as payment?

Screw that, who accepts a BABY as PAYMENT?!

Khale was starting to feel a bit dizzy as what had just occurred finally began to click into place in his mind.

He wasn’t going to go back to his warren, and he wasn’t ever going to be in that pile of puppies again.

It was shocking how sorrowful he felt at these revelations, he hadn’t realized how comfortable being in that pen had been.

His days had just been consumed with dicking around in the dream world without a care.

Seemed like those days were over.

He hadn’t the slightest idea of what prompted this, could it have been the mushroom thing? That seemed to be the most likely culprit. But on the other hand, why would have that been such a big deal?

And what was that annoying whining sound?

It took him a moment to figure out that the sound was coming from him.

The big guy only responded by shifting how he was holding Khale, slinging him over his shoulder. It was a mild improvement at least.

Salad tried to take in his new environment as best he could given the circumstances. It didn’t look too different from the tunnels he was used to. They were foreign and unfamiliar though. Now that he thought about it, he supposed he had felt that vibe from most of the tunnels and caves. The only exception had been the cave his kennel was housed in.

Would he get a new kennel? What would happen now?

Almost as soon as he asked that question, his handlers stepped out into a large cavern filled to the brim with adolescent wolf men. All of them were somewhere between his height and the adults. The big guy carrying him placed him on the ground and ground out something in a commanding tone.

Khale, not understanding a word of what was said just stared blankly as he tried to think after being put on the spot. Apparently, that was the wrong answer as the big guy repeated himself with a lot more hostility in his voice this time. Panicking Salad tried to say something, he couldn't quite grasp the language but anything was better than nothing.

“Afwodo nosaa” I don’t know what you're saying.

The big bastard that was towering over him stopped and tilted his head in confusion. He then growled out another line at Khale only to be met with a blank stare again. He seemed to be growing frustrated again as the pup failed to answer, he then tried talking slowly before finally simply saying two words and the man turned puppy finally understood what he was asking.

“You. Speak?”

Khale shook his head the way he saw before and held up his paws thumb and finger trying to show he only understood a little.

It wasn’t terribly clear if his conversation partner was following along, but the disappointment was palpable as the big guy’s giant shoulders sagged.

Seemingly coming to a decision the big guy pointed at one of the other adolescents, most of whom had been watching the exchange. The teen wolf was on the bigger side, but still leapt up and ran over when called. The big guy said something to him then pointed at Khale and was clearly giving orders or something. It was wildly unclear what was happening so Salad just sat there and stayed silent, watching the exchange.

The teen wolf didn’t look too happy about what he was being told.

Wonder of wonders, Khale wasn’t thrilled either.

So big boss, having said his piece turned and left him and teen wolf standing there as he turned on his heel and marched back the way he came.

Teen wolf for his part looked over Salad and clearly didn’t like what he saw. Grumbling the adolescent walked off and without any better option, Khale decided to follow. A few of the others seemed to poke fun at his escort as he trudged along, though the language barrier kept any specifics vague and annoyingly unknowable for the moment.

As he traveled behind the sulking guide wolf he noticed that the floor was filled with divots. No real rhyme or reason to it, but they looked a lot like the cuddle pits he was used to, but smaller.

At that moment, Khale realized he’d never be in the puppy pile again. It was both a sobering and disappointing revelation.

Teen wolf plodded down into what was apparently HIS hole and got into a comfortable sulking position. Not sure what to do, Khale tried to join him. This resulted in a rough shove followed by some laughing spectators in that distinctive hyena laugh, which only seemed to aggravate the older dog even more.

Salad sadly dug his own little sleep divot next to his… Handler? Keeper?

Whatever he was supposed to be, he wasn’t exactly friendly.

Khale just sat and watched the others, trying to sus out a word he could understand, and watched as the older canines mingled.

It was like the worst parts of high school all over again. There were cliques, smaller friend groups, and some clear hierarchical bullshit floating around. However he could barely make heads or tails of it, he could see it was there, sure, but again the nuances were frustratingly alien.

He was getting real sick of that.

So he listened, trying to pick out words that made sense. He would hear one on rare occasion, it would be something like tunnel, bite, or meat.

After a few hours, more of the adolescents started to lie down and soon the ground was blanketed by a bunch of furry rumps.

Sleep came slowly to Khale but after a while, the boredom became enough of a sleep aid for him to pass into a troubled slumber.

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

He sat at the edge of his bed. It was game day again, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel excited.

The dream had changed dramatically in only a single day. Night? Whatever, the point was that the honeymoon period was over and there was going to be some dramatic changes forthcoming.

His supposedly lucid dreams should have been responding to him more, and he was starting to think whatever was going on sat more heavily in the ‘recurring dream’ camp.

He reluctantly went to his phone and navigated through his contacts before landing on Dr. Lin, his doctor for the past decade. He made the call and got the desk nurse and made an appointment for early the next weekend. As much as he hated the idea of going to the doctor, whatever was going on wasn’t going away on its own. Considering the rapid change of the dream, it might even be getting worse.

Better to find out he had some gnarly brain tumor now and have some small chance at living, rather than consign himself to a death sentence.

Grimacing as he hung up he could practically felt the copay leaving his bank account already.

Getting ready and slamming his car door shut didn’t dissipate the distaste felt and his foul mood kept pace as he drove like an annoyingly persistent jogger.

Trying desperately to pull his head out of his own ass he watched some goofy internet videos that helped lift his spirits before heading in to play.

Still, as the game went on it was clear his coworkers were picking up on his subdued mood.

Even the wanton slaughter of monsters and beasties of every kind only got him into the swing of things about halfway in. Scuba Steve even asked if he wasn’t feeling like playing anymore after they had called it a night.

“I know Birdman roped you into this, but if you aren’t having fun then there’s no shame in stopping. This isn’t for everyone and if you need to bow out then that’s fine. I’m not going to take offense or anything like that.”

Salad sighed and slumped, “it’s not that Steve, I just have had some trouble sleeping lately and I finally set something up to get it looked at.” He turned when Jamie snorted. “What?”

She shook her head but didn’t comment.

“Hey, Doctors and shit are expensive you know. That’s a hundred and fifty dollars I ain’t getting back.”

Jamie gave him a cross look, “How long did you wait before it became a problem?”

He paused at the comment before admitting it had been going on for a week.

It was her turn to sigh. “Typical. Look if your sleep gets fucked up it WILL make you feel like a vaguely person-shaped sack of shit. Take whatever pills you need to, you’re a big enough asshole when you DO get your beauty sleep. I don’t want to deal with whatever hot mess you turn into when you don’t.”

Growling a little he shot back, “falling asleep isn’t the issue, it's the really fucking weird dreams I have that are throwing me for a fucking loop.”

“Is it a weird sex thing?” She gave him a look. “It’s a weird sex thing isn’t it.”

“It is NOT a weird sex thing.” He grumped. “They're just weird.”

Robert jumped in before Jamie could take the reigns of the conversation again.

“So what are they about?”

Salad leaned back in his chair on how to best explain his dream, he’d have to explain it to the doctor anyway so what was the harm?

“Every night for the past week or so, I’ve been dreaming I’m a dog person.”

Jamie lit up like a Christmas tree. “Oh my god! Your a-”

Khale spun on her and pointed balefully ‘DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE FINISH THAT SENTENCE! DON’T FUCKING DARE!”

For her part, Jamie sat primly and wore the face of someone who knew they had blackmail material.

Robert shot her a dirty look but powered on. “Can you be more specific?”

Reluctantly Khale talked about his dreams, about the terrifying ordeal that was the first day, and then the puppy pile, about the following days. The weirdness when he tried to vibrate dirt. Avoiding gas attacks in the snuggle pits. The dance plank face did with an odd mushroom. The oddly sized chairs and the outdoors being even stranger and larger than he realized.

It was only once he mentioned being traded away like livestock that the peanut gallery decided to pipe up again, with Birdman and Jamie laughing their respective asses off.

“FOR A ROPE!” Birdman howled. “FOR A FUCKING ROPE!”

Salad glared at the man, he would be glaring at Jamie too, but she was on the ground crying she was laughing so hard.

“So you’re basically dreaming you’re a Kobold?” Scuba Steve was trying to keep a straight face, but the two people that were doing their best impersonations of howler monkeys made it a challenge.

That got him an odd look from Khale as he picked up one of the miniatures from the board, from a pile of dead Kobolds the party had slain over the course of the night.

“I thought Kobolds were tiny lizard people?” Indeed the miniature was of a small draconic humanoid wearing a loincloth and wielding a spear.

“The western ones are,” Scuba corrected. “Eastern Kobolds are dog people with similar characteristics.”

Upon seeing Salad’s non-comprehension he launched into an explanation.

“Okay, you know how back in the day people thought elves were actually real? Like, they’d sneak into houses and fix shoes and live in fairy circles and stuff?” After receiving general acknowledgment from his audience Scuba continued. “It was only after Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings came around that people had the concept of a Generic Fantasy world. Because of all the people aping off of what Tolkien did. The copycats made a template and it stuck.”

Seeing that his audience was still with him, he continued on. “Asian countries have their own fantasy, so they have to differentiate between the two. What took off as Western Fantasy in the east was the Wizardry series. Those video games became popular enough to become something like cultural shorthand. And those games had Orcs that had a more pig-like look and the Kobolds were dogs instead of lizards.”

He paused as he tried to figure out how to end his spiel. “So yeah,” he finished somewhat lamely.

“Asian Kobolds.”

Khale wanted to argue that they weren’t that small and that he was inhabiting the body of a literal baby. However, thinking back he remembered how the scrub brush had been around chest height for the adults. It explained why almost everything was oversized. It also brought up a concerning thought.

They had been wielding oversized weapons and the piles of refuse they had in front of his cave had been massive. So if they hadn’t made all those things, where the hell had they come from?

“I… actually you might be right.”

He then thought of the oddities with his vision and mentioned the lack of color in the lightless caves and how what had seemed to be night was bright as day.

“Holy shit!” Birdman shouted, “you even got darkvision?!”

Scuba actually pulled out one of his rulebooks and started flipping through it and eventually pointed to a section. “Yep, says right here that no color can be seen without a light source.” He paused and thought for a moment before adding in “You probably have some form of light sensitivity, if the night was as bright as day then the day would probably be way too much for you.”

Khale hadn’t even thought of that. However, it sounded spot on. He found himself smiling, and Birdman was quick to notice.

“There he is, feel better man?”

It took a moment for the man in question to parse what was asked. However, on reflection, he did feel better, like a weight he hadn’t even realized he had been carrying had fallen off his back.

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

Jamie snorted and just waved a hand. “Well we’re happy to play therapist, but you still better go see that doctor.” She held out a hand when Khale started to half-heartedly bitch about the money he didn’t need to spend. “Yeah, Yeah. Listen, money is great and all, but you only get one body and you only live one life. Both of those are more important than money. Trust me on this one.”

Grumbling in very reluctant agreement.

“Still,” She continued, “The dreams sound weird and all, but what makes it so bad? I would love to sleep in a pile of puppies.”

After a moment of thought, he replied “It’s because it feels way too real to be a dream. I can feel pain, and it doesn’t last, but it’s not like any I’ve had before. I can also remember it like it was just another day.”

“So it’s a Zhuangzi butterfly situation,” Robert commented.

“A what?” Birdman was the first to voice his confusion, though the other Steves seemed to be catching on.

“He was an old Taoist philosopher from ancient China. One thing he talked about was how he once dreamed he was a butterfly and when he awoke, he didn't know if he was a man, or if he was a butterfly dreaming that it was a man.”

The confusion on Khales face was evident so Robert explained further.

“If there isn’t a difference between dream and reality, how do you know which is which?”

Khale looked at him for a moment before commenting. “That sure is mystic and all, but I’m pretty fucken sure I’m not a fuzzy little ass rat.”

That got a few chuckles as the group started gearing up to leave.

“Hey Salad,” Robert called out. “Thanks for sharing that with us, I understand it probably wasn’t an easy thing to do.”

With a nonchalant shrug, Khale gave him a wane smile.

“Eh, it wasn’t that bad I guess.”

It was at this moment Jamie decided to prove him wrong.

“Of course, we were more than happy to help you realize that you’re actually a-”

“I FUCKING SAID DON’T YOU FUCKING GO THERE YOU SHIT GARGLING TURD BURGLAR, I WILL FU-”