Other than avoiding the table during mealtime, way too much begging around the table, staying with weredogs that were all obsessed with Day took almost no energy whatsoever. The dogs, rottweilers, corgis, pitbulls, cattle dogs, even a Plott hound, mixed together easily in one super pack. A Great Pyrenees visited, sniffed in derision at those pack losers, and left just as quickly. The hounds looked down on all other dogs as suck-ups. The terriers ran around the house with border collies, all of them working dogs. And the toy category ran between taller dogs fearlessly. A few low content wolf weredogs and coyote weredogs hung out in the “exotic” section howling together about these normie weredogs.

  Day apparently could practice her chiropractor trade openly on multiple species making her especially helpful for a weredog, to get both their human and dog natures and spines in alignment. Mostly this consisted of back scratches and head tilting. The dogs ran the place with firm paws.

  When they stepped in, lounging on every available soft surface, including each other, Greyhounds carpeted the floor. Their long lean bodies stepped over and on by other paws without a care in the world. Often two or three stacked on each other, their narrow pointing heads tucked away to sleep. In this place, you let sleeping dogs lie.

  A series of stairs went up to only one massive room with the door open. Framed by the double wide open doorway, a group of poker players, mostly bulldogs, rotated out but the game never seemed to die. There was always a dog in the game. Occasionally, a dawg even showed up.

  They were given a single room, full of three donut circle beds in dark brown fur, and told to pile up. Everywhere they looked dog piles existed. Most picking their dog forms for ease of comfort and increased speed falling to sleep. Awkwardly, the humanoids couldn’t actually fit into the room to sleep and didn’t intend to lay on one another. So, they let Nettle take the combined three beds as one human bed, and the rest of them, except Day, probed up against the hard walls.

  Cut into the wood walls various scenes of dog power ran throughout the whole house. The entrance had running Greyhounds. The main tables showed a pack of hunting hounds. Head carvings of toy dogs ran the hallways, and upstairs had the squish faced dogs all gambling, including throwing bone lots and shooting pool. The place smelled like Fritos, fur, and unused forks.

  But they didn’t have to pay anything. Nettle curled up in the corner. He’d handed off a suspiciously light coin pouch, not everything he had, and then commenced dozing. Everyone not recovering struggled to sleep. One heard phantom yipping at night, rusting of movement and many dogs getting up and ground around the house. Their nails clicking a tap-tap-tap that never ended.

  The thing about werewolves is usually they coordinated better than weredogs. Also, they didn’t have such large groupings. And really the mass of dogs made a difference. Finally, the night passed and they all collected outside the dog house, minus a sleeping Nettle. After a few sniffs and a number of dogs going by it became obvious, they were standing in the pee and poop patch on the right of the house.

  Day wore the clothes from yesterday and poofed out shed hair with any movement. From long white floaty hair to short spiny bristled, the human wore more hair than an Xoloitzcuintli.

  Day patted herself trying to remove the offending hair. “We need new clothing.”

  “I wore a hole out walking, riding, fighting, and even after using all of my other clothing for the thing I just actually have this big problem that my clothing does work for hard travel anymore. Plus, we need waterproofed stuff if we’re going into the Goblin Haze. You know how unpredictable weather is there.” Laural pointed out the hole exposing her calf in her current pants.

  “I hate my current style,” admitted the chiropractor easily. “I want to change my clothing out every once and awhile just for fun. You know?”

  Slightly awkwardly Bodi admitted, “I actually seem to need slightly longer pants legs.”

  “Still growing?” Spoon questioned, knowingly.

  Bodi looked uncomfortably. “I just picked the wrong size back in Adville and now you can tell better and it’s uncomfortable.”

  Spoon finally very reluctantly agreed. “I do have too much city clothing. I’ve already damaged a few of my outfits far more than expected on the saddle rubbing. It’s also quite constricting when I’m trying to run.”

  Laural and Day gave each other bemused expressions. Spoon hadn’t exactly been training for a marathon that they’d noticed. And it wasn’t like he needed the movement for combat since he never did any.

  Kriti declared calmly. “I have perfectly appropriate attire and no reason to change it.”

  Laural shifted. “I could also use new horse blankets for the cold but they’re not essentials. I do need a resupply of food and water, and sugar lumps.”

  “It’s hard to know exactly what you’ll need at the start of a long journey and over time you may realize your supplies need reworked.” Day sounded chipper. “I hope Nettle can afford this.”

  “Should we ask the super pack about seeing a man about a dog?”

  Bodi grinned. “The best place for a dog and pony show?”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Day lifted her chin. “Every dog has it’s day, but that would be barking up the wrong tree.”

  “This dog-eat-dog world doesn’t make sense when dogs don’t eat each other?” Laural tried weakly.

  “More like a pig eat pig world. Keep away from animal puns. That dog won’t hunt.” Kriti winked at her.

  Day gave Laural a pat on her shoulder. “You just can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

  “Except you totally can unless you’re a horrible trainer,” grumbled Laural.

  “I’m dog tired of this conversation having gone to the dogs.” Bodi winked at her, proud of himself.

  Laural threw up her hands. “Aren’t you supposed to be illiterate?”

  “Illiterate, not stupid. They’re different things.”

  “Tail wagging the dog,” Day shrugged. “Are we shopping or beating a dead horse?”

  They left the dogs’ house without asking them for anything. Unlike their previous experience the day before, they found most shops closed. A few signs told them why.

  “Wall Breach Anniversary.”

  Mooning Castle had a commemorative holiday for when they got their ass kicked into its shape. It consisted of mooncakes and Yakitori, chicken skewers. And a lot of people not selling anything unless it was for the festival. Fox masks in varying levels of complexity adorned the adults. Children had theirs painted on by friendly artist that sat in front of the closed traveling food supply.

  Everywhere people went around laughing and joking. The tragedy turned into a day off where people vaguely made comments about the past and completely forgot to be sober.

  All the shops left were new.

  “Ba, sing they.” Declared a sheep's skin shop. Leather fox masks were for sale.

  A passing human saw the new handwritten sign and muttered to himself, “He thinks he’s so clever with that name.”

  They walked by a man with an empty cart and twitching eyes. At every noise he jolted.

  Next to the empty cart, a man selling fox themed clothing waved over Day. She inspected the scarves while the others tried not to weirdly just stare at her.

  “What does he sell?” Bodi nodded towards the seller beside him.

  “Cabbages,” the full troll answered, “but I don’t think you should attempt to buy from him.”

  “Oh, why?”

  “Really bad PTSD. He thinks that empty cart has cabbages and if you appear to take one, he throws a fit about it all. You can give him a coin if you’re so inclined, but it doesn’t charm you or increase your honor. Nothing special.”

  “A veteran?” Bodi gave the seller a coin anyway. “What can it hurt?”

  The man snatched the coin grabbing his empty cart and trundled away muttering about “Those darn kids.”

  Day bought a hat with fox ears, and Kriti a number of the brighter white on green background scarves. Today she wore a pattern of marbled sea. For some reason, this optical illusion pattern appeared to be moving ever so slightly. The ocean tides itself.

  Finally though, they saw the chain. The sign declaring “wwWEARS”. A huge building behind here was open. Outside she had really bad looking mooncakes. They might have been sat on during shipment.

  Behind her, the rest of the shop twinkled with useful good.

  The tabby woman twitched her ears and then said in a bored tone: “Khut has Wares.”

  “You’re also Khut?” Laural shook her head trying to remember.

  She rolled her eyes. “We’re all Khut. It’s corporate branding.”

  Day sighed. “Everybody knows that Laural. What are you today’s Nettle?”

  “Do you have a hierarchy?” Bodi asked far too flippantly.

  “I’m sorry I can’t help you with that.”

  “Damn, it’s an actual NPC.” Bodi sighed.

  “More like damn it’s a merchant who’s making bank off you stupid travelers who never prepare well enough for this kind of trip.”

  “Ouch. Ok, I’ll stop. But I think I like you less than the last Khut.”

  She pulled out her claws and started inspected them. “I think you’re wasting everyone’s time underteeth.”

  “Fine. I’ll shop then.”

  “You do that.”

  They all did. This Khut, put out by working on a holiday, mostly ignored them. A real cat then. After a long time of shopping and a great deal of exclamation about the marked up prices for the holiday, they checked out. This Khut barely spoke to them. She did not negotiate, just taped the prices and waited to be paid. They gave her the bitcoin.

  After this, they heaped all the supplies onto Bodi and told him to take it home. The rest of them wanted to spend time in the festival. Who knew what new things might be in Mooning Castle during the celebration?

  Eventually they found a very busy location offering many types of alcohol. Once a big enough spot cleared, they jumped at the table. Once the brews arrived, all four of them began drinking hard. Nobody wondered why Bodi hadn’t returned. They’d started off sampling local beers and ended up drinking far more than any of them had expected. It wasn’t so much the quality of the wine but the lack in quality of the company. Libation made the company better.

  They’d fallen into a strange conversation that all intersected on. Measuring things. They complained how a cup here meant two and a half there. How a pot of soil hadn’t grown any plants for weeks in Laural’s house. Once Day needed repairs to foldable drop table she kept inside the wagon. Her repairman insisted on giving her too small of securing belts insisting that no woman like her needed necromancer measurements. Per body simply isn’t as accepted as one might think. Kriti told stories about “chefs” making meals that were didact tales of how to slay without making them croak too early or too late.

  Laural told a ruckus story about how one of her horses became a pony when traded into one region, then a horse after he bought it, and finally got accidentally marked a giant breed when a halfling veterinarian tried to extrapolate height of her horse by using hoof measurements.

  The stallion had hoof curse which is precisely why she needed the hands’ measurement for the correct tonics not at all to see how tall my horse was with my own eyes. Apparently, the third buyer’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when she’d shown him the pony with its rare cursed by an off worlder to keep growing hooves.

  But they would have kept on going if it wasn’t for a slight shift in conversation.

  “Now that your boss is away. What do you think about this quest then Laural? You have the most information having been piked first for this.”

  “It’s just another waste of time,” she admitted. “But I wanted a little time away and needed the money. Don’t tell Nettle I said that.”

  “I’m sure none of us will say anything we learn from tonight,” a slurring Day pounded her glass into the wooden table. Her drink sloshed everywhere. “We’re fine. Totally.”

  Kriti hadn’t changed despite drinking more than the others. Laural swayed in her chair. Spoon leaned back, mouth open, his vampire fangs extended and drool out of his mouth as he slept, despite the noise.

  Day got up, her half full glass in hand. “This isn’t right. I need more of that first stuff. Don’t try and water me down.” As she tried to accost the servers, she spilled her drink onto the next table.

  They jumped up shouting. “Apologies!” “Hey!” “You drunken idiot.”

  With in vino vertas, Day helpfully told them, “You look like a group that lost to a fancy battering ram and now is blaming me for good wine.”

  It was just the wrong thing to say.