bodbloat drew a really wonderful sketch of Sesh for me at BLFC, and in return I got an excuse to blimp him up with his suit of holding! Also gave me a rare chance to write some lava inflation >:3c

Naru and Bod discover an unorthodox way to defeat a lava elemental...

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Bod and the Lava Elemental
By: IndigoRho

Naru slowly circled the small pedestal, looking for signs of tripwires or pressure plates protecting the small golden statuette atop it. Eventually the dragon was content. He gave a thumbs up to the red dragon in a black latex suit who’d been patiently waiting nearby.

“It’s safe, no traps.”

“Just like the other twelve before it,” Bod said as he walked over and picked the statuette up. “At this point I think we’re just being paranoid. Whoever made this temple clearly thought building it in the side of a volcano was enough protection.”

Naru couldn’t deny the temple had been the most lightly defended they’d ever explored. The lock on the entrance was simple, the few traps were obvious and felt like an afterthought, and the only defenders thus far had been a few rusty golems that were pushovers.

And weirder yet, the place wasn’t completely looted, either. The treasure they’d already found was more than enough to justify the venture.

“Well, better to be safe than sorry,” Naru said.

“True, true.”

Bod admired the statuette for a moment, then gently pressed it against his small pot belly. It sunk in almost instantly, dipping into the suit as if it were liquid. As it vanished Bod’s thighs and belly grew slightly thicker. Within seconds the statuette was gone.

While bags of holding were a common sight amongst adventurers, Bod had acquired an actual bodysuit of holding. Anything he pressed against its surface would get stored away. Of course the amount stored would be reflected on his figure.

Bod had entered the temple relatively slim with a few notable curves, but the valuables collected had caused him to grow a small round gut. He rather enjoyed the temporary heft—and Naru did too—and rarely considered it a negative. If anything it encouraged him to grab even more loot than usual.

Naru and Bod continued onward through the temple, not running into any new obstacles while gathering a few more trinkets of worth.

Their journey finally brought them to a large, round chamber. There was a perfectly circular pool of lava in the center, taking up most of the room. The path along the pool was just narrow enough to be uncomfortable, the heat impossible to avoid.

As soon as Naru and Bod entered the room a large stone door slammed down behind them. The bubbling surface suddenly started rippling, and the two adventurers wasted no time preparing for trouble. Naru had an arrow nocked and a pair of throwing knives were already twirling in Bod’s claws.

From the center of the pool a mass of lava rose, chunks of blackened stone floating within it. The lava gradually shaped itself into the upper body of a dragon. Their roar shook the walls and sent small globs of lava flying.

“No intruders will be allowed to leave this temple alive!”

Knives and arrows were the response the lava elemental received. Naru and Bod split up, racing around opposite edges of the room and continuing their onslaught. Unfortunately their attacks weren’t having much effect on what was essentially pure lava. Taking it down was already looking to be quite the ordeal.

The elemental, meanwhile, was having just as much trouble taking out the two intruders. Both were perfectly capable of dodging the balls of lava it was shooting at them, even with Bod having to deal with his bouncing belly.

Eventually the elemental got lucky, though. Bod made the tiniest misstep and stumbled, and a glob of lava struck him right in the gut. Just like the statuette, the glob sunk directly into his suit, and his middle swelled. He wasn’t singed or hurt in the slightest, the dragon practically immune to lava.

Bod laughed, and the elemental bellowed in fury at their powerful attack being shrugged off so easily. While before it’d been splitting its attention between Naru and Bod, now they were exclusively targeting Bod.

A flurry of lava balls were launched at the unlucky dragon. Bod tried his best to dodge them all, but the onslaught was overwhelming. A few were bound to hit true.

At first Bod was only getting hit by every fifth or sixth glob. His belly was steadily growing rounder and rounder, his reflexes slowing down. Though the suit condensed its contents to a point where Bod didn’t feel the weight of what he was storing, a balloon belly certainly didn’t make it easier to run. The bigger the dragon grew the more often he was hit.

Bod's middle had swelled so large he was only able to waddle, the dragon cradling his gut in both claws as he tried in vain to avoid the globs of lava. However at that point none were missing him.

With his attacks proving to be little more than an inconvenience, the elemental’s fury only rose. They seemed to take in a massive breath, lava chest swelling, and then unleashed a torrent of lava at Bod. The dragon’s eyes widened seconds before his middle did.

The pure lava flowed into the suit just as easily as the globs had. In seconds Bod was rapidly blimping up out of control. His thighs and rear grew curvier, but the vast majority of the growth was in his middle. The straps across his chest that’d held throwing knives were starting to dig into his rounding body, creaking as the material was strained to its limit.

The elemental was unrelenting, spewing a seemingly endless stream of lava at Bod. They were convinced that with enough lava they would somehow defeat the expanding dragon. Steadily the lava pool was shrinking, more and more being redirected into Bod’s suit.

Bod’s straps vibrated before they were enveloped by the suit. His belly was so enormous he looked mostly spherical. Arms, legs, and tail were sinking into his mass, and he was too wide for the path. Inevitably gravity got the better of him, and Bod felt himself slowly toppling forward.

All the flailing in the world couldn’t prevent the dragon from falling into the lava. As soon as Bod rolled in he began to suck in lava at an even swifter rate than before. He reached a perfectly spherical shape within seconds, with just his claws and head sticking out of his body. The glow of the lava shone off his suit.

Being an orb didn’t stop Bod from growing, though. He swelled in every direction, his ability to absorb lava so great the elemental was visibly shrinking in size.

Naru hadn’t ceased his assault on the lava elemental, but the arrows stopped flying once he noticed Bod was taking in the whole pool. He had a fairly good idea as to what Bod’s capacity was, and had seen what happened when he exceeded it. Being in the same room with a ticking lava bomb was less than ideal.

Fortunately Bod was serving as the perfect distraction for Naru to make a break for the only open exit. He sprinted towards it, waving at Bod as he passed. “Keep up the good work Bod, I’m sure you’ll do swell!”

“Not funny Naru!”

Bod’s voice echoed behind Naru as he escaped the chamber and found himself in a new room full of treasure. For a moment he completely forgot about the “battle” raging nearby.

The lava pool was more of a puddle now. Bod was only getting bigger and rounder, having filled up most of the once-bubbling basin. Puny compared to the growing orb that was Bod, the lava elemental could no longer deny things weren’t going in their favor. And that they were being sucked into the dragon’s suit.

“Stop this instant! Stop it!” the elemental demanded with little dignity.

“I don’t really have that option!” Bod grumbled back, wincing as he felt his taut sides pressing into and over the sides of the basin, against stone that dug into his hide. “Ugh I hope all the loot I had stored in there didn’t melt!”

The elemental continued shrinking and protesting, until inevitably Bod swelled right into him, pulling in the last of the lava. He’d managed to nearly fill the entire room with himself, and it was a terribly tight fit. But the most concerning thing for the spherical dragon was the ominous creaking of his strained suit of holding.

The suit’s capacity was incredible but far from infinite, and Bod was afraid it’d been surpassed.

There wasn’t any more lava to seep into the suit, but there were still rocks and other scattered debris finding their way in. Bod held out hope for as long as possible. In the end, though, it was a tiny pebble falling from the ceiling that proved too much for his suit.

Bod’s whole body quaked, and in an instant the suit’s magic failed. Everything that’d been compacted within it was immediately released into Bod. He flailed his claws as the swelling renewed, his overstretched hide protesting with loud creaks. Every nook and cranny of the chamber was filled with his mass.

In the treasure room, Naru’s admiration of the gold was interrupted by the sounds of ominous creaking closing in. He turned around and saw Bod’s bloated side pushing its way through the entrance. On instinct Naru dove for cover, and not a second too soon.

Squeezed on the outside by the chamber and from within by the lava, Bod had no chance of staying intact. Leaks appeared all over his body, quickly turning to tears in a flash. The stone walls shook as Bod exploded, globs of lava hurled in every direction along with bits of suit and red-and-yellow hide.

Naru slowly rose from his hiding spot, relieved the treasure room had been spared the brunt of the blast. He peeked into the previous chamber just to make sure the elemental hadn’t re-formed itself, but the cooling lava showed no signs of animation.

“Well Bod, congratulations on soloing that lava elemental!” Naru chuckled. “Though carrying all this loot back by myself is gonna be a pain. Oh well. I’ll just have Bod treat me to dinner once he’s back together again.”

His laughter filled the room, and soon Naru was gathering up everything he could, another explosive adventure concluded...