Book Club: "Bad" End (Commission for Teddypimm)

As if on cue, her belly groaned loudly enough for the old man to develop a bright blush, rapidly excusing himself with several dozen apologies before vanishing into the corridor. The rhythmic pitter-patter of feet outside didn’t take long to make itself known, after which the same group of robed madmen that had fed her the night before began to pour into her cell once again. Kela was ecstatic; somehow her bluff had worked and the cult was going to let her have seconds, despite the obvious danger involved in indulging someone as capable of beating their heads in as she was. The gnoll, however, was happy to let them bring their full trays in, eager to get a good breakfast for the road.

Much like the previous night, and even if she knew that giving in to the feeding was a one-way ticket to prolonging her stay, it was impossible for Kela not to succumb to the earthly delights being served to her in such massive quantities; very quickly the gnoll was moaning like a slut for more food, loudly demanding it even when her throat was stuffed too much for her to make any actual sounds besides gurgling. The effects the feast had on her were magnified as well; if her first feeding session had left her far fatter than anything realistically could, the second one managed to match the first one pound for pound within just thirty or so minutes! 

It was very clear to Kela, or would be if she had retained any semblance of her conscious self, that the cell was kept at its current size precisely so she could feel herself touching and then riding up the walls, even when her feet were still very much planted in the middle of the room. For the cultists surrounding her, it was as much an exercise in devotion and worship as it was simple indulgence; wouldn’t take a lot of effort for all of the floor to be covered in gnoll fat, with the former brawler’s form spilling out in every direction and ending up pinning her (comparatively) small body underneath a literal ton of hot, heavy pudge that refused to hold still for even a moment. Faced with limited options, the feeders took to climbing over her in order to get at Kela’s mouth; while this did slow things down considerably, seeing as only one could do it at a time, it did allow her to feel the overwhelmingly powerful sensation of being able to hold up a fully grown adult with her belly fat alone, all the while being so utterly massive that she spilled out of her cell and into the corridor outside like a gigantic blob of dough.

With her body being in the way like that, the second stuffing had to keep going for far longer than anticipated, and only really stopped when the doorway was no longer usable; Kela was still starving, obviously, with no amount of food being able to satisfy her, but she was still stuck inside a cell, and therefore feeding access was limited the moment the gnoll bloated hard enough to completely clog the doorframe. Inside, there were maybe a few inches left between her and the ceiling, with the rest of it consisting of Kela herself, turned into a small-scale replica of the cult’s goddess and made to rest until she could digest everything she’d been given.

Somewhere in there, the gnoll still had something resembling consciousness, even if it was buried underneath several tons of her flabby self and the unending appetite she’d suddenly developed. It should be impossible for her to want to eat even more, and yet there it was, nagging and gnawing at her as much as the very real emptiness in her stomach; never mind that she felt like there was no more room inside of her, her stomach letting Kela know in no uncertain terms it was, quite literally, full. None of that mattered compared to her hunger, her ravenous need to consume even more, to indulge herself and find new heights to elevate herself to. It took a significant amount of effort before she consciously set those thoughts aside, only to have them constantly trying to muscle their way back in the moment she let her guard down.

Kela had to think. Her intention had been to run away at her first opportunity, and yet instead she allowed herself to be bloated again, this time to such a degree that it was doubtful she’d be mobile even after digestion. She still wanted to escape, though… she thought. Honestly, it was difficult to tell if the desire to leave was still there, or if it was just something the gnoll figured she’d have to attempt out of some weird sense of honour or adventurer’s code; she was a prisoner, technically speaking, therefore it was only right that she try and leave.

But why do that? Freedom? The freedom to have to go fight draconids and other beasties for a sack of coin and the ability to rest at an inn for a week before needing to find something else to kill? The freedom to struggle to eke out an existence, even when she was as skilled as she was, perhaps. It felt like a less and less attractive prospect the more thought she gave to it, especially when compared to what the gnoll had right there if they just did absolutely nothing: an endless supply of delicious, well-cooked food, and a cult full of people who worshipped her, truly and well saw her as a divine avatar. Sure, she had to throw away the ability to move from place to place, but quite frankly she was probably too fat to do that anyway, and the only reason she did it at all was to get enough coin to sate her tremendous appetite; that… was her motivation, she was pretty sure. Kela had an odd feeling that she might’ve thought something differently before, but was reasonably certain that it all turned into an endless cycle of beating stuff up for gold to spend on food.

That is why she was so large even before meeting the cult. Surely.

With the math done, it felt downright idiotic to want to just leave. What would she be accomplishing in doing so? Mending her bruised ego? Maybe having glory shone upon her? Who would care for the former but her, or for the latter after a week had passed and the town forgot about her passage? No, to escape would be to condemn herself to a life of not knowing what it would be like to be treated decently, to be given all the respect, admiration and adulation that she rightly deserved. Her true place was there, among the feeders and the worshippers, to be used as an object of adoration and given all the delicious snacks and treats she, as the goddess’ avatar, had rightfully earned by virtue of existing.

A comforting, warm thought to fall asleep to, along with the ever-present churning of her gluttonous stomach… but sleep was not good enough for her. Yes, Kela tried, but right when the gnoll was on the cusp of losing consciousness, she realized that to deny herself the experience of watching her body grow as it went through all of those consumed calories would be heretical, outright blasphemous; the eating and gorging were but the first step, with the ritual of self-indulgence not being complete until she got to experience her body turning all the immobilizing mass into yet more delicious, divine gnoll for the cult to feast their eyes, hands and ears on. Thus, she resolved to stay awake during the night, entering a sort of meditative trance that allowed her some modicum of rest while still keeping her alert enough to watch as the cult’s magic worked through her.

It was, beyond the shadow of a doubt, very dark and most likely highly illegal magic at work there, accelerating her regular bodily processes until what would take weeks was compressed down into short hours. She could see her blob of a body shrinking down, slowly revealing more of the walls as it did, the digested mass turning into soft flesh that settled everywhere that it could. It was hard to tell what it was doing while most of Kela was still buried by… herself, really, but the results were immediately obvious as soon as that hefty belly was finally lifted off the ground, some time after the sun rose and the gnoll’s trance broke.

Her full size was a thing of beauty. While her tubby midriff didn’t quite reach the ground, it just barely grazed it, hanging a few inches above it and threatening to rub against its coarse surface every time she attempted to take a step. Her belly had effectively become too big for itself, billowing outwards all around her in a cascade of fat rolls that hung over one another and wobbled furiously every time they were given the slightest push or shove. Her whole body was like that as well; any motion at all would cause ripples to form and propagate through her fat, arousing her even further and spiking her need to grow bigger to a point even she thought impossible just moments earlier.

Her assets got in on the fun as well; though not to the same extent as her distended stomach, her ass had widened considerably, enough to make Kela wonder if it would even go through the door, with the mountainous cheeks of flab pouring down into her immense thighs and even managing to shove some much-deserved meat onto her lower legs. Up above, each breast was several times the size it used to be, even if they looked positively tiny when forced to rest on top of a belly like the one she was sporting. Were the gnoll to be fitter, maybe even go back to her old weight, her tits would easily dominate her figure and be impossible to control when moving around; just another reason why she should stick around with the cult, when her own body was turning into something more akin to a living sculpture than it was anything fit for adventuring.

Kela attempted to move, finding that, to her great surprise, she was still capable of doing so. The former brawler had expected simple motion to have become an impossibility, with steps being too much of a strain on her to be considered, and yet, with some difficulty, she moved about inside the cell for a little while… at least until she was sapped of energy entirely and her muscles started screaming at her to have a lie-down, a demand she was happy to oblige.

By her estimation, she had been pacing slowly around the cell for barely two minutes before the thought of moving about became unbearable. To her old self, this would be alarming, proof that she needed to exercise in order to get rid of all the excess flab, but to the new Kela, the one who had embraced her divinity and supernatural heritage, it was simply a sign that she was headed in the right direction.

The cult was conspicuously nowhere to be seen, probably having deduced their prisoner was simply too big to escape. Kela, meanwhile, was eager to try out the door anyway, just not for the reasons one might be expecting; the cult’s leader would arrive a good two hours later, drawing his hood over his head and reciting the ominous speech he had prepared the night before, only to find the gnoll collapsed on the middle of the hallway leading to her cell, covered in debris and rolling around unable to get back up; poor thing had spent the intervening time pushing her belly through the door, basking in the experience of being too big to go through, without realizing that the strain she was placing on the wall around it would eventually cause it to crumble completely, leaving her unable to get back! No thoughts were spared for the lucky bastard left to guard the door overnight; he came back from the kitchen at just the right time to be the first one to truly experience his goddess’ favour in the most direct way possible. 

The cult’s leader was overjoyed with the results of the second session, having to visibly restrain himself not to lunge at the glorious body splayed out on the floor in front of him. The bulge in his pants was more visible than ever before, and when he spoke, it carried none of the whispered mystique or unspoken power that it did before; rather, the man had been reduced to yet another sniveling supplicant, whatever force of will he had in him eroded by the sight of his goddess manifested into physical form. What he did end up saying, he did through gritted teeth and plenty of pauses and deep breaths, informing Kela that the “final procession” had been arranged and that her body would be allowed to “ascend” later that day. No more feedings would be provided, to keep her in “just the right state” to truly go overboard; while the gnoll had to frown at this, she understood it as being a necessity, and thus didn’t press the issue.

Of course, there was the problem of what to do with herself now that the cell had become much too small to contain her burgeoning form. The house it was built in was surprisingly tiny for a building used by a weight-worshipping cult, the corridors being just wide enough that Kela could squeeze herself through them with some effort, having to take frequent rests every other step to deal with the pressure of hauling around what had to be a good ton of gnoll on two stubby legs. Cracks appeared on the plaster whenever her body moved an inch, dust falling from the ceiling on her pushing through a corner. It was obvious that she had already outgrown that place; it’s just that the house itself hadn’t quite caught on to that fact and kept thinking it could keep her in.

The cult’s leader was adamant that she refrain from causing any kind of wide-scale damage, however; there were far too many preparations that had yet to be done, and as the goddess’ avatar, it was unbefitting of her to go into a berserk, building-destroying rage… at least not until she grew big enough to literally burst said buildings open from sheer presence. His words were like honeyed wine to Kela’s ears, who drank all the promises as eagerly as she had the actual gallons of mead served to her a few hours before, the mental picture of her body post-ascension beginning to form in her mind. She could picture it, though just barely, like it was simply too much for her yet-mortal self to comprehend.

Sadly, all of this meant that the cult expected her to wait around for several hours without really doing any eating, and while the gnoll thought she was ok with that, it quickly became evident that the concept of not eating for more than a few minutes at a time was just too unbearable for her to even think about. Whatever the two stuffing sessions had done to her, her appetite was something out of that world, and Kela couldn’t really guarantee that some of the cultists wouldn’t end up serving as snacks if something wasn’t done about her food situation.

Ever resourceful, her worshippers decided upon an alternate route; while they were under strict orders not to feed her further, there was nothing in those slips of paper that said they couldn’t lavish love and attention unto their goddess whenever they could, and finding volunteers for massage duty was as simple as breathing. Everyone wanted a turn at rubbing down Kela’s belly, sinking their hands into the multiple feet of warm, wobbly fat and submitting to the glory that was the gnoll’s body. In turn, Kela herself was happy to have something distract her from the hungering black pit that was her stomach; the kneading wasn’t exactly a replacement for stuffing her face with food, but it was an adequate… well, something to pass the time, really. Just enough to get part of her mind off of the fact that it would be several hours before she nibbled on even the smallest crumb, something she was going to punish the whole cult for after she took her rightful place among that world’s pantheon.

The sun continued its slow journey through the heavens and gods almighty was Kela getting unbearably peckish. She demanded more and more of the cult to come take care of her, until her pudgy self was positively covered in supplicants, most of whom had taken off all their clothes and were shamelessly taking full advantage of their goddess being pinned down by a massive, gurgling belly. The gnoll didn’t care about it so long as it kept distracting her, which of course meant that her patience had run dry about two hours prior and she was a single bad comment away from smashing someone’s face in.

The gnoll was just about to chokeslam someone who dared use her belly button before the cult leader walked into the room she was in and gave everyone the good news: the preparation rituals were complete and their goddess could be transported to the church for the ceremony! Kela was so overjoyed that she leapt to her feet, truly leapt, bowling over several cultists in the process and not even caring for the structural integrity of the building before plowing through the nearest wall and trying to make sense of where she was.

As expected, it was just past sundown, and the town’s streets were completely empty. A few locked doors and barred windows betrayed the complete control the cult had had over the locals, with the gnoll spotting a few furtive eyes peeking through wooden planks before vanishing into the interior of their domiciles. From behind her, filing out of the hole left behind by the gnoll, two long lines of robed individuals walked out of the house and began taking their positions on either side of the nearest road, marking the right way for Kela to take. The gnoll felt insulted at the thought of having to carry herself to her destination, but with some minor prodding by the cult’s leader and the promise of the grandest feast of her life, she thought it best to play along for the time being.

And she was glad she did, for the sight of the final ritual was simply too much for her to take in, for even her mind to process without breaking in half.

The town’s church had been fully converted into the site for her ascension, the pews replaced with dinner tables and the altar at the other end turned into some kind of bed or massive couch, lined with pillows where Kela was instructed to lie down on. They were so soft as to be a delicious snack in and of themselves, and if not for the tables in front of her being so laden with food, the gnoll might just have considered that new seating arrangement to be an adequate gift.

But that wasn’t what they were there for.

One by the one, the many cultists that lined the way to the church shuffled into it, grabbing one of the many trays stacked at the door and placing as much as they could on it; and just like the last few times, the unending cycle of feeding and fetching replacement meals began, with Kela being treated as the divine figure she deserved to be, always with at least five different people there to rub her swelling belly, allowing her to gorge herself more easily.

It was just a formality, really; after just a few minutes, said belly had effectively become far too big for any mortal hands to caress properly, and were it not for Kela being such a merciful goddess, she might’ve thought to punish her followers for continuing to waste their time rubbing her down rather than fetching even more food for her to consume. The gnoll quickly lost the ability to stand, her rump landing heavily on the couch-bed and completely destroying it in that one single motion; not that it mattered much, as her body was all the support she needed! With an ass wide enough to start pushing against the former altar’s walls and a stomach bloated to the point where her fat rolls were taking over the small flight of stairs leading to her elevated dais, all Kela had to do was remain seated and her beautiful self would do all the work for her.

The amount of growth was accelerated to an absurd degree, with each bite adding pounds and every tray causing her to bloat out several feet. It made sense to her that the cult began emptying the tables closest to her first; within just fifteen minutes her body had blobbed over them, crushing the solid wood underneath her weight as easily as one would crumple paper. At that point, her head was simply too far off the ground to be accessed normally, and thus the cultists were forced to climb onto her body to keep feeding their object of worship, after a while just dumping whole trays of food down onto her mouth, when the gnoll’s neck had grown so wide and full that her head sunk into it.

From the outside, the church would look perfectly fine, up until its stained glass windows started to take on a very odd, beige hue to them, quickly followed by cracks forming on its panes, and then right afterwards every one of them shattering when Kela’s body burst free from its confines and bulged out from every opening the church offered. As if that weren’t enough, the church itself would soon be deemed too tiny for the burgeoning goddess, and with a mighty roar, the gnoll freed herself from the much-too-small roof, giving the whole town a perfect view of her colossal belly and gigantic breasts overflowing from the sides of the wrecked building, having finally devoured everything the cult had amassed for her.

The final step was ready.

Rather than a slow, hours-long digestion leaving her as a fatter version of herself, this, the last moment of her mortal existence, would be her apotheosis: she would turn every ounce of food stuffed inside of her into something usable, into soft and pudgy gnoll flesh, into breast and thigh and ass and hip, into belly and heft and weight. She would rumble and quake, forcing the ground to shake underneath her as the enormous quantities of mass being shifted around made the foundations of every building around her tremble and crack under the pressure.

Kela was refashioning herself, in accordance with the divine ideal she had created for herself, the body she had envisioned before but couldn’t quite see. With every pound that was turned into more of her, however, that sight became clearer, easier to discern, a guide for her to use on the path to divinity. It was quite simple, after a fashion, to will the fat somewhere she needed it, be it to one of her asscheeks for the sake of balancing, or a breast to plump it up. And when she was done, when all the food had been digested and processed faster than it had been consumed, the statuesque, giant beauty that was Kela forced everyone present in the ruined church to kneel and beg for her mercy.

Three feet taller than anyone else in there, several times that in width, and so unbelievably heavy and dense that the only reason the ground didn’t crack with every step is because it had already done so underneath the heft of her floor-grazing belly, or an accidental bump by one of their couch-sized asscheeks. Though smaller than at her peak stuffing, she was still tall and large enough to very easily bump into the roof… were it still there, of course. Small streams of milk poured from each teat, capping off a pair of breasts that could’ve easily given Kela’s original stomach size a run for its money each, and the gnoll’s tongue danced around her lips when she envisioned the whole world waiting to give her even more food. 

The first feast had been finished.

It was time for the other ones.