My dog has been catching some of crazy whiffs off the World Trees. Ozone, walnuts, welding fumes... the burnt metal reek of Nova. He started sneezing and couldn't stop till I offered him my handkerchief and let him blow. Back at home he insisted on the neti pot and lemon tea with honey. We have a reservation for the campus steam room tomorrow. He thinks it will help clean his sinuses out.

What's this about people using the World Trees for transport, @jarvis? I thought they were only about data transfer. Are they as safe as the Translation Chambers that @Astrid997 and the interns have been using?

My dog ordered a special therapeutic bed online. It came today. It's made of veterinary-grade memory foam and he was so excited he nipped the mailman.

It's part of his Dream Yoga practice. He has a guru, and says he's been learning about his illusory dog body, and how all things are unreal. I watch him twitch and make noises in his sleep as he bounds across the semantic fields, lucid dreaming cats and squirrels and dumptrucks full of chicken bones and wet bread.

He was a little upset that the sheets and matching duvet cover weren't what he had ordered, though. He's thinking about returning them.

My dog returned from Germany this morning. Now he's a certified Psychic Service Dog, with papers from the school in Bonn. Thinks it will help him get a job. He's telepathic, can move things with his mind, tell the future, and read the past from objects just by licking them. He wants to work with humans who have lost some of their psychic ability and make up for it with his own.

"Who is it boy? Who's coming?"

"Pant pant pant pant"

"Is it my sister?"

"Pant pant pant pant"

"My uncle?"

"Pant pant pant pant"

"The postman?"

"Pant pant pant pant"

"Is it Hyslopus, the oozing evil from beyond time, preparing to consume this world with its putrid essence and noxious fumes?

"Woof!"

My dog left for Germany this morning at 10am. Special training. He loves sausages, so I assume it's some kind of junket. He'll be up all hours sniffing European smells and eating Katze Kot I'm sure.

How important is this German connection, @jarvis? Surely someone has been working on this technology since Bittenhöf?

I don't have an ordinary dog, @jarvis. My dog has smelled things you people wouldn't believe. Peanut butter and bacon on fire off the shoulder of Orion. He's smelled T-bones sizzling lightyears away at the Tannhäuser Gate. He can tell what a raccoon's had for lunch from its scat at 500 yards.

If any other kind of dog, lightning beast, hell-hound, or goldendoodle has peed on any of the World Trees in the network and there's something seeping through, my dog will know it. I just wish he wouldn't smoke so much, because it could be affecting his sense of smell.

Speaking of leaks, @uva vulpis, my dog LOVES the World Tree. He makes a bee line for it every time we're out, and then just sniffs and sniffs for as long as you'll let him. Somebody told me it's like email for dogs--their noses are so super sensitive they can read deep deep data from anything they smell. So you can imagine all the info to be gleaned from a World Tree like @jarvis describes.

Also though, maybe my dog just shouldn't drink so much coffee.

My dog hasn't laughed all day. Wish I knew what was bugging him. He could be getting into one of his existentialist funks. I threw the ball and scrambled after it on all fours and put it in my mouth and he just looked at me like "what's the point?" I hate it when he gets so serious.