I had heard jokes about herding cats and luckily, herding dogs was a lot easier. Likely due to their inherent instinct to form packs, even if a normal wolf pack wasn’t formed like this. Not by a collection of unrelated dogs, banding together for protection and strength, but by a breeding pair collecting their young year after year, until those young split off and formed their own pair and pack. What the dogs were doing was much more similar to the way humans banded together, making me wonder just how much they had learned from us.

We easily took some distance from the battle, retreating to an area that we had cleared earlier. A part of me wanted to simply take the four-legged furballs home, but there was a small, paranoid part of my brain that protested. If it weren’t dogs but people we had rescued, I’d be much more cautious, but there was something about dogs that made me positively predisposed towards them. Possibly the influence of Hecate, but I couldn’t be sure. It was one of those things that I couldn’t objectively analyse, simply because the tool to analyse it, my brain, was also the thing that might be compromised. So, I had to judge things as I went. And in this case, I went with the simple solution of retreating before trying to figure out just what was going on.

Looking at Silva, figuring out what was going on didn’t seem like an easy task. But then, sometimes the simplest method could yield surprising results. In light of that idea, I went with the simplest idea I could come up with, namely simply asking my canine companion.

“So, Silva, looks like somebody managed to teach an old dog some new tricks?” I jokingly asked, getting an insulted huff in return. “Could you show me your class and level? Maybe even some additional information?”

To my surprise, she let out a soft bark, information was transmitted, likely the information I had asked about. Only, I had no idea how to translate the cascade of scent and sound into anything I could actually understand. It wasn’t just a question of different languages, but one of the completely different mental architectures. Their minds processed information in a different way, their senses focused on different information and it seemed like the system was accommodating them. For creatures who used sight as their primary method of information-gathering and writing as their primary method of information-storage, the blue boxes I was used to were understandable. But for creatures who mainly used their ears and nose to gather information and transmitted information via scent-based marking? Blue boxes wouldn’t make sense to their mind, they might be able to comprehend them but it would be as difficult for them, as making sense of the cascade from Silva was for me.

“Yeah, that doesn’t work,” I admitted, getting an amused huff in return. Trying to figure out how to comprehend the information from her system was akin to learning an entirely new language, only one that wasn’t spoken or written.

It faintly reminded me of meeting Lenore and Ylva. Only, at the time, they weren’t known as Lenore and Ylva, they had their own names, names that were based in the unique mental architecture of avians and canines, names that Sigmir and I couldn’t comprehend outside of the mental connection we shared. Due to that difference in mentality, they accepted our suggestions for names and became Lenore and Ylva. This would be so much easier with their help.

“Guess we need to do this the old-fashioned way,” I sighed, “Now, I’m pretty sure you can understand me a lot better than I can understand you. Shows just how close the system’s measure of intelligence and ability to speak are linked,” I mocked, before settling down and trying to puzzle things out using simple, yes-or-no questions.

“Silva, did you have the ability to use magic when we met?” I asked, getting a growl that I took as disagreement in return. So, a negative answer.

“Can I refer to your abilities as magic?” I decided to ask, simply to cover my bases. When I got another negative growl, I started at the basics and worked from there.

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It took a while almost an hour of questions, growls and chuffs, but by the end of it, I was somewhat confident in my assessment. Unless there was something lost in translation, Silva had gained her abilities when she reached level ten and, something I hadn’t noticed, gained a class. Or something similar to a class, I wasn’t quite sure how it worked for her and her growls and chuffs had been inconsistent enough to make me think there was more to it than we had been able to communicate.

Either way, at that point, she had felt a connection that reminded her of me, and via that connection, she had gained the power to protect her pack. At that point, a small, highly amused, part of my mind conjured up a word to describe her class. She was, unless I was overlooking something vital, a Paladin, at least when using the popular definition of one.

Helping other dogs was part of the payment she had to provide in exchange for her powers, making me wonder if she’d soon start preaching to the dogs. The idea was highly amusing to me, the combination of impossibility and amusement enough to override my dislike of all things divine. In ancient Egypt, cats had been revered as gods, so why not have a congregation of dogs? It was absurd enough, even in the current situation, that I could only shake my head and accept it. It was either accepting the insanity or trying to fight reality and become a different sort of insane.

“So, what is going on here?” Lia asked after she had watched my quiet conversation with Silva and by the end of it, she looked as confused and disturbed as I felt. I explained to her what I concluded, namely that Silva had accepted some divine assistance and was, in exchange, providing some earthly assistance to the dogs in need of help.

“So, are the fleabags coming with us?” she only asked, not really bothering to question why a dog could be a cleric.

“I guess?” I could only ask and look at Silva, who happily let out a few barks, lining the dogs up in formation.

With a sigh of surrender, I gave up.

“Well, let’s get back to our house. We might have to hit up a few stores on the way, just to make sure we have enough kibble, I don’t think we want our canine crusaders to get a taste of Shattered, not if we can help it. And certainly not where the humans can see it, they might get a little queasy if you eat what used to be human,” I shook my head and started walking away.

“Mistress, I have a question,” Lia spoke up, realising that there was little chance of stealth, not with about twenty dogs of various sizes following behind.

“You talk about the humans as if you are not one. May I ask, what are you?” she carefully spoke, clearly trying to avoid any offence.

“Just like you, I used to be human,” I easily admitted, before I explained about Road to Purgatory and the Legacy of Morgana. I had shared some of it before, but now, I went into more detail, including the detail about my race. That I was undergoing metamorphosis, just like she had, only that mine was stretched out over the course of a month, and likely a lot less traumatic.

“It will be interesting to see then. I will not change too much and I believe the humans will remain as they are, but there were some races on Mundus where the transformation would cause just as much, if not more, trauma than yours did. Could you imagine becoming a centaur, with a whole equine body and everything? The sheer difference in mass would make that one insane change. Sure, the centaurs I met on Mundus were more pony-sized, their back only as high as my head, but still, that’s one massive change. I have no idea where the mass would come from, would someone like that have to eat the whole thirty days to gain enough mass?” I shook my head, knowing that I likely wouldn’t be able to find the answer to that. It, most likely, came down to it simply being magic far greater than I could control, but it wasn’t a satisfying answer. Maybe I’d have to hunt down a centaur or two at some point and try to revert the transformation. It might give me some insights, but it was a project of much later when I had the power to act as I pleased.

By the time we got back to the house, we had looted two supermarkets, both of which had been emptied of pretty much everything usable for humans - But the dog food was luckily left behind, apparently, humans hadn’t been that desperate just yet.

It took a bit of effort to secure multiple large bags on the bigger dogs, but with their help, and a shopping cart, we managed to bring home enough to last the dogs for a while

When we got home, I simply stopped caring. The dogs were directed to keep watch against Shattered but not attack people and to stay indoors, with Silva as their literal boss-bitch, while I went and had a shower, before looking for a dark corner to rest.

I was more than a little done with surprises at that point.