has been a really good friend to me for a while now, so I made him a story. 'Cause I'm just a nice dergin like that. And it's one of those rare stories where I'm not the one being stuffed with food! Shows off a bit of Callum's life at his bakery, and how much it means to him.

Callum is given brand new baking machinery to update his kitchen with courtesy of Azar! All seems like it's working out great! Or is it?

Callum owned by
Azar is
Edited by

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The wait was almost unbearable. For hours, Callum had been told to sit and wait in the dining area of his bakery while his friend, Azar, worked away in the kitchen. The gray and blue dragon had been visited by his white-scaled friend yesterday evening, and Azar had brought up an offer that just seemed too good to pass up. For years, Callum had been running his bakery with everything that had come with it. Ovens, coolers, freezers, toasters, ect. Nothing had changed because, while Callum considered his bakery quite successful, he could really only afford to keep the place running. Between the cost of ingredients and maintaining his bakery, he just couldn’t afford to splurge on fancy new equipment.

However, that wasn’t an issue for Azar. The white dragon didn’t like to boast how much wealth he really had, but Callum guessed that his fellow dragon could buy a small nation if he truly wanted. And it was through that wealth that Azar had made the offer. An offer to not only update Callum’s kitchen, but to build it all himself. The white drake was renowned for his inventing and machine building skills, so why not? A brand new kitchen with all the latest updates built by the paws of the best inventor Callum knew? Again, it was an offer too good to pass up.

The only issue Callum ran into was the emotional attachment he had to his prized kitchen and everything in it. Though they were just objects and tools to help him bake delicious confections for his customers, they’d been there since the beginning. Thankfully, Azar knew the feeling of being attached to machines all too well, and had promised to hold onto the replaced equipment instead of taking them apart to use for parts. He even promised to install them back in should Callum not like the new changes.

Now just came the waiting. Azar was quick to build things, but there was a lot to put together and Callum was anxious. It probably didn’t help that Azar was very much a “figure it out as you go” kind of builder. He had a blueprint and instructions, but preferred just glancing at those once and starting to build right away. Only when Callum heard the white feral claim “Aha!” did he know his friend was finished.

Azar pushed his way out of the kitchen doors, ducking his head so he wouldn’t scrape his gray-black horns on the ceiling. “You’re all set up! One brand new kitchen ready to go. I’d put everything through some practice runs before you open up. Just in case there’s any mechanical problems I might have missed. But you’ll find that your baking output will be easily doubled,” he said with a confident grin.

“Why’s that?” Callum asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Well I created these devices specifically to help you, and maybe help grow your bakery business. The oven, fridge, toaster, freezer, pantry, and warmer are all mechanical now. But I worked with a mage assistant of mine to make them partially golems. At the core of each machine is a gem that gives them very limited sentience. All they know how to do is be what they are made to be, but help out with baking. For example, the oven knows it’s an oven and that it bakes things. But it’ll know when something is baked and will pull it out of itself to prevent it from burning in case you’re busy with something else,” Azar explained. He sounded quite proud of what he’d accomplished and Callum knew that golems were not an easy thing to create.

“That’s… quite incredible! So it’s like I have my own kitchen of helpers?” Callum asked with a grin. “All without having to hire extra hands?”

“Exactly! Your baked goods are delicious, and I’d love to see your bakery grow without you struggling. So now you can!”

Callum looked past Azar to peer into the kitchen he could see past the feral dragon’s body. He caught glimpses of bronze machinery, but little more than that. “I can’t wait to try it out. I’ll test it out tonight and open again tomorrow to see how well it performs with customers,” he said.

“I think you’ll be very pleased. I have to get going, got another project or two to work on before the day is done. But let me know if you have any issues with it and I’ll come fix it,” he said.

The two dragons said their goodbyes to each other, Callum giving his friend a bag of cookies to take with him, and then they parted ways, leaving Callum in the quiet of his bakery. The tubby gray dragon slowly moved towards the kitchen doors, taking a deep breath before pushing them open and heading inside.

His kitchen looked almost alien, yet impressive at the same time. Every piece of equipment was covered in shiny, fresh bronze. Azar really had gone all out on updating his kitchen. It was a almost a bit too futuristic for him, but at the same time he couldn’t help but marvel at what he saw. Everything was so fresh and new, untouched by the everyday mess kitchen work brings. Callum had forgotten what a brand new kitchen looked like.

As he moved along the large bakery oven, Callum noticed one of the new, stranger additions. The oven had three-fingered, skinny mechanical arms sticking off it’s sides. The gray baker could only imagine that’s how the oven-golem would be able to take baked goods out of the heat. As he looked around some more, Callum noticed more of those mechanical arms attached to almost everything mechanical. They hung there, limply, as though they were asleep. Which Callum imagined they were in a sense. Unless he let Azar’s trademarked steam pipes start running and powering the machines, they would just stay asleep.

After moving throughout his new kitchen and getting a look at all the new changes, understanding them as best as he could, Callum gave a wide grin. He had a whole new kitchen, completely spotless and waiting to be tried out. It was time to test things out.


The next week went better than Callum could have even dreamed. Azar’s improvements to his kitchen worked perfectly. Not a single problem as far as Callum could tell. Callum was as skilled a baker as Azar was an inventor, and hadn’t had much need for help in his bakery. But working alone had caused its own problems. Sometimes a tray of baked goods would be left in the oven too long, or he’d forget to unfreeze some dough, or he’d lose bottles of ingredients.

But that all quickly changed when his new kitchen got to work. Callum was surprised at how well everything functioned, working as though they were each individual bakers themselves. The oven would grab nearby trays of unbaked goods, placing them inside itself while also taking out anything that was done. The pantry’s mechanical arms grabbed needed ingredients and placed them out on a cart, pushing the cart out to the main table in the kitchen. Even the sink had small arms to help wash dishes when Callum was busy.

With all the added help, Callum was able to get orders out to customers much faster. Which, of course, led to plenty of happy customers. And happy customers spread the word of such a quick and delicious bakery. Before he knew it, Callum was starting to get more customers than he’d seen before. Azar’s help really was helping grow his bakery!

The cycle of happy customers and increasing business continued for weeks, all the while Callum gleefully enjoying seeing so many smiling faces at the counter, all eager to pick up new baked goods. With his old kitchen, Callum might have started getting stressed and overworked trying to keep up with so many customers. But now he could handle the counter and quickly get new dishes started with one quick run back to the kitchen. Things couldn’t have been better.


It was a month and a half later and Callum was waving goodbye to the last customer of the day. The anthro bear woman waved goodbye to the dragon before closing the door. Callum went up to the door and turned the sign around to “Closed”, but as he did he noticed something odd.

It was his paws. Something wasn’t right. They were… spotless. Not a single speck of flour on his palms, chocolate under his claws, or dried frosting along his fingers. Just clean scales. In all his years of baking, he’d never finished a day with his paws so clean.

In that moment, Callum’s smile started to fade, a feeling of longing replacing his joy from the successful day. When was the last time he’d been back in the kitchen doing the work himself? The dragon looked up to the kitchen doors before hefting his way over to them, pushing his way inside and looking at all the machines around him. They were quiet again now that the day was done and their supply of steam power shut off for the night. The cooking golems were dirtier now than on their first day, scuffs and dirt from the daily work now marring their once shiny surfaces.

Where before Callum felt pride in how successful his kitchen was at practically running itself, he now felt a bit of sadness. He loved baking and that was the whole reason he’d opened up the bakery in the first place. If he wasn’t doing the baking, then his customers were really just enjoying the machine’s work, not his. He wanted to bake, to create delicious treats for others to eat and enjoy. Not simply take their payment, set out the ingredients, and let the machines do the majority of the work. He was a baker and he wanted to remain a baker!

In that moment Callum decided things needed to change. Starting tomorrow, he’d try to tone down the amount of work he was letting the machines do. It might slow things down a bit, but he didn’t care. The dragon had done just fine without the machines, so he could handle a little bit of a slow down as he put the personal love and care back into his baking.

In fact… why wait until tomorrow? Callum looked around the kitchen and smiled again. Why not do a bit of baking tonight? Get himself back into the groove and scratch that baking itch he now felt. He still needed his equipment though, so the machines would have to go on. He’d just not let them take complete control over his work this evening.

After turning the power back on, Callum made his way to the pantry to grab the ingredients. “Alright… time to make some cupcakes!” he said happily. However, on saying the word “cupcakes” the kitchen-golem equipment knew exactly what to do. Before Callum could even reach the pantry, the little arms inside were already pulling out the needed ingredients. “Hey! I can get them myself!” he said as he started to pull the bottles and bags out of the arms’ hands. The hands reached out and tried to grab for the ingredients back from Callum, but the dragon just turned his back to them.

Unfortunately the fridge-golem had already started mixing the eggs and nearby flour together. “Stop that! I can handle this!” Callum said, pushing the fridge’s arms aside and doing the work himself. “I’m the baker here, remember? You’re my helpers. I know how to make cupcakes myself, without help,” he said with a huff, starting to get a little annoyed. The fridge kept trying to reach for the cupcakes Callum was working on, but the dragon used his wings to block them off.

Once the batter was finished and poured into the appropriate tray, Callum opened up the oven and placed them inside, still batting aside the oven’s arms that tried to grab the tray and do the work itself. “You’re all being real pains you know. If you don’t knock it off and let me do baking in my own bakery, I’ll just shut you down,” he said, grunting as he leaned against the table.

Things seemed to calm down while Callum waited for the cupcakes to bake. Part of his skills at baking was that he knew exactly when something needed to come out of the oven without the need for a timer, provided he wasn’t distracted of course. The cupcakes would be reaching the perfect combination between fully baked and still soft and moist. The gray dragon reached down to open up the oven and retrieve his treats.

But the oven tried to stop him. It’s arms pushed Callum’s away and kept shutting the oven door every time he opened it. The oven had a set time it always left baked goods in for, adjusting for each type of food going inside of it. And to it, Callum was taking the cupcakes out too early. It’s only function was to bake things properly, and it still tried to do that. Even as the professional baker wanted to take it out for what he believed was the best time.

With a growl, Callum shoved the arms aside and quickly pulled out the cupcakes to set them on the table behind him before the oven could make another grab at them. The oven’s arms flailed and tried to grab the tray back. But in its flailing reaction, and Callum’s attempts to keep the tray away, one arm hit the tray just the wrong way and sent the cupcakes scattering across the floor.

That was it. Callum had had enough. He let out a roar and slammed the tray down on the floor. “That’s it! I’m through with you bastards taking over my job! You won’t even let me do my job the way I want to! You’re done! You’re never baking again!” he said, turning and storming over to the handle that controlled the steam that ran through the vents to power the machines.

Unfortunately, Callum said the one thing he really shouldn’t have. All the machines in Callum’s kitchen were minor golems now, with very limited and basic intelligence. They were made to bake, and that was their only purpose. However, golems of any level of sentience always knew to protect their single purpose above all else. And now Callum had threatened that purpose by saying they would never bake again. All the machines suddenly froze for a moment, uniformly coming to a single conclusion of how to save their purpose.

Before Callum could shut off the machines, he felt a mechanical arm grab his tail. Yelping in surprise, he turned around to pull his tail free. “What are you doing?” he questioned with a growl. He tugged on his tail, finding the grip a bit stronger than he realized. Suddenly, he heard a whir of commotion as every machine in his kitchen that Azar had built came to life. They were grabbing ingredients out of themselves and seemed to be working at baking again. “Hey! I said you were done! Stop that, you’re wasting ingredients!” he shouted to them. But they ignored him.

Callum felt more arms grab him from the fridge and oven, holding him tight while their second set of arms worked at baking. The pantry rushed out ingredients and seemed to be going into overtime to make more and more food. All the while Callum struggled to free himself, getting both angry at the machines for holding him and wasting so many ingredients on food that was meant for no one, and a bit panicked the machines were acting up so suddenly and that he couldn’t escape.

All of the sudden, Callum felt something pushed right into his open maw. It took only a second for his taste buds to recognize the taste of a cookie. “What the-” he started to say before a set of mechanical arms pushed two more cookies into his maw. Callum swallowed them down and resumed his efforts to break free, but every time his mouth opened even slightly, more cookies were shoved in. “Knock it off you-” he tried to say, but his maw was stuffed before he could get his curse out at the machines.

Only too late did Callum start to catch on to what was happening. Enough time had passed that the machines had managed to make a quick and steady supply of baked goods. And now with him held firmly in place, they were stuffing him with as much of it as they could. Every time he tried to keep his mouth shut, the arms would pry it open just enough to feed him more treats. And the continued confection assault was starting to have its intended effect.

Callum had always been rather pudgy, a side effect of being a baker. One had to test their own goods to make sure it tasted delicious after all. And Callum’s tubby frame was proof of his profession. But now the machines were working to expand that frame. If Callum was too fat to move, then he couldn’t stop them from continuing to bake.

The gray and blue dragon could feel his belly getting more and more stuffed, and with that it had to expand to contain all that extra food. He glanced down and saw his stomach rising, almost at the speed of a gently filling balloon. He kept trying to keep his maw shut, but the continued efforts to pry it back open was tiring him. So was the effort of trying to break free from the grasp of the mechanical arms.

More and more baked goods were fed to the helpless baker, his body continuing to grow. Callum felt the blue scutes along his underside spreading wider and wider apart to give his growing gut more room. His sides softened and spread out, the strap of his cooking apron cutting into his sides. Just when it started to get a bit painful, the apron tore right off. “That was one of my favorite aprons…” he said sadly before a slice of cake was shoved right into his maw.

So much sugar and sweetness all at once was causing Callum to gain fat faster than he would if he were being stuffed with all different kinds of food. His arms and thighs thickened up, rounding out his appearance more. His neck and tail grew, and the dragon gained an extra chin that wobbled as he munched down. He looked double the dragon he was, and was having difficulty staying upright with so much extra poundage.

The mechanical arms too were having some difficulty keeping Callum standing upright. Finally, they let go without warning, causing Callum to stumble and fall onto his newly well-padded rear with a heavy thump. He tried to rub what bit of his belly he could still reach with his paws and arms, knowing that he just didn’t have the strength to stop the machines now. They continued feeding him more and more, using as much of Callum’s bakery ingredients as they could to make numerous dishes. All the while Callum grew and grew, getting rounder and softer by the minute. The speed of the feeding was picked up, and Callum felt the sides of his belly pressing against the table and the nearby fridge.

Now effectively trapped, Callum rapidly looked around for any solution to his predicament. He had no idea how much the machines were going to feed him, or if they’d even stop before he burst. Maybe making him burst was their plan! The dragon’s eyes scanned around for something he could use to stop him, but the only thing he could spot of any use was the lever to the steam-power that ran them. But it was on the other side of his ever growing belly.

But Callum couldn’t let these machines stop him. He couldn’t let them take over his bakery! Summoning every ounce of strength and energy he had left, Callum pushed up with his feet. He might not have been able to stand up, but there was one thing he could do! The dragon pushed himself bit by bit, rocking back and forth and getting a bit of momentum going. That momentum kept building and building until Callum felt himself starting to rock forward more and more. With one big push from his legs, Callum managed to roll himself forward onto his belly. As he rolled, the mechanical arms were caught off guard, pushed aside as Callum reached out for the nearby lever. As he fell forward, he reached his paw out and swiped at the lever. The dragon just barely managed to catch it, flipping it to the off position.

The machines immediately froze, then the arms went limp as they shut down. The gems inside that powered the kitchen-golems may have been sentient and still working, but they were useless without power to function the “bodies” they inhabited. Callum let out a sigh of relief, simply slumping onto his belly. Rolling forward was about all the motion he could do for now, and it had taken every bit of energy he had left. The machines had done a number on his body, leaving him at least four or five times fatter than he’d been. “Guess I just wait… someone’s either going to find me or I’ll lose this weight enough to move and get out,” he said to himself before slowly drifting off into exhausted sleep.


Thankfully it had only taken two days for Callum to be rescued from his kitchen imprisonment. The first day, his bakery being closed was chalked up to its owner being gone or sick for the day. But on the second day, with no notice on the bakery door and no word from Callum, word trickled through to Azar. The white dragon went to the bakery just to check on things to make sure everything was alright. What he found inside was certainly not something he imagined he’d find.

An entire wall had to be brought down to roll Callum out of the kitchen and into the streets. Azar gladly paid for the repairs and for the ingredients lost during the incident. He also immediately uninstalled all the robotic equipment and brought back Callum’s old machines right away upon hearing his friend’s story.

“Sorry about what happened. I had no idea such an event was possible. Guess you triggered a sort of security response in the golems. Mixing even low sentient golems with machinery is still bit of a tricky business. I thought the minor sentience in these ones would make them easy for you to keep control of. But guess they’re a bit more fickle than I imagined,” he said as he looked at the machines being carted off to his workshop.

“Well at least they're gone now, and I’m more than happy to have my old stuff back. Once I can actually fit in my kitchen again, I can’t wait to get back to baking. Though I suppose business is going to slow a bit,” Callum said, still resting atop his bed of a belly.

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. In the time that you had those machines, your bakery got popular enough to start attracting some who might want to work for you. I heard it through the grapevine. Now that you don’t have your little metal helpers, you could invest in one or two helping hands. Since you’ve got the income from your high sales in the last month, and you won’t have to worry about paying for the repairs to your bakery.

Callum pondered the idea for a moment. He did like having help in the bakery, as it took a lot of the stress off of him. Perhaps it was time to open things up for one or two employees. “That’s not a bad idea actually. Guess we’ll just expand my bakery without the use of fancy machines. Though I didn’t think I’d expand this way,” he said as he looked down at himself.

“Eheh, you are quite soft now. Maybe you can advertise your bakery showing yourself off as living dough,” Azar said with a chuckle. Callum blushed a bit at the tease and swatted Azar’s paw away when he could. “Oh, there was one woman who was interested in being an employee for you. When she heard about this bit of trouble, she asked if she could help. I’ll send her your way, and maybe you can do an impromptu interview,” Azar said as he started to leave and head back for his workshop.

“What’s her name?” Callum asked.

“Mira, I think. She’ll be by in an hour or so. Until then, enjoy the day! I’ve got to take see about taking this stuff apart,” Azar said, gesturing the machines before waving goodbye.

Now sitting in the alley beside his bakery, only the passing worker who was trying to fix the removed wall to keep him company. “Well… guess I better figure out some interview questions,” he said to himself before rubbing his paws along his belly. Despite how frustrating not being able to fit in his own bakery was, being so large and soft did feel rather nice.


Back in his warehouse, Azar had all the dysfunctional machines lined up. “Alright… I think it’s time to take you all apart, maybe try something else with low-sentience golems. Maybe pets? A metal animal chassis would be really fun to build, and then you don’t have to be stuck in one place,” he said, thinking out loud more than talking to the kitchen ware.

The dragon hooked the machines back up to the nearest steam-power source. He needed to make sure all parts were working so he knew what he could reuse and what could be scrap. A normal lookover for anything broken that came back to his workshop.

Unfortunately, the golem sentience inside each machine had been stopped in the middle of what it had been doing last. All that was on their minds was to stop the dragon that wanted to stop them from baking. Keep fattening that dragon up until it couldn’t stop their baking. And worse yet, each still had contained plenty of baking goods and ingredients inside themselves that Azar hadn’t removed in his haste to get the machines out of Callum’s bakery.

When power was given back to them, the machines’ arms twitched and began to get to work. Azar tilted his head, unsure why they were getting so active all of a sudden. Then, several of the arms reached out and grabbed at the white dragon while preparing a new batch of cupcakes.

“Uh oh…”