Atticus Lark’s Journal - Part 3
First, and foremost, I would like to thank fortune, fate, and all the-

(The line ends abruptly, with a scrawled, jittery scribble. A stain of ale has marked the corner of the page.)

Pardon. Had a bit of a mishap involving a disruptive burp and irritating growl from my stomach. Penmanship can be troublesome with interruptions like that! Now, where was I?

Oh, yes - thank all the saints! Business has been spectacular these past weeks, and it’s all thanks to the ever-growing group of adventures that so kindly graced the dear Full Moon Inn - each day, more and more people from all around pour on in, eager to drink our booze, eat our food, and (as has become increasingly common) strain our beds.

It all started in earnest when Kahvie and his crew stood up to the vile Wolventhrone in a way no one would expect. A battered kobold messenger from the Duke stumbled into the bar one night, delivering terrible news.

For weeks, wolven scouts had been launching incursions and establishing supply lines across the countryside, likely to overrun our ill-prepared towns and villages! The Duke was the only one willing to defend our backwater little lands, and sent messengers out to recruit heroes to aid the cause and push back the assault. Most of the other messengers were cancelled, and the scaly steward hardly escaped with his horns intact.

The battle with the bandits had taken a good deal out of Kahvie, Jorji, and Kelton, but they were willing to help, after they healed themselves. I hardly caught his name… It was something like Sails, Snails, or maybe Scales. We’ll go with Scales - after all, it’s quite fitting, after all, he’s bound to be tipping plenty of those now!

In their downtime, Kahvie and his crew took it upon themselves to improve themselves and the world around them. Kelton helped me with my barkeeping, and was even able to secure some proper ale for us - hardly watered down at all! Where the boy got those barrels, or even managed to haul them here, I don’t think I’ll ever know - but I don’t rightly care, so long as there’s real, honest-to-God alcohol!

It reminded me of just how good the stuff tastes - and how bad I am at drinking it in moderation! Then again, how else would I have gained my svelte, barrel-like figure, if not for my love of booze? Well… booze, and, Kahvie’s new project… because hot damn, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever touched!

Kahive and Jorji enlisted Scales in helping them with a little “science” project - the three harvested loads of herbs and ingredients from the surrounding woods and mines, coming up with a stock that’s worthy of a proper alchemist! And, they even found a few small wandering slimes, to boot! Jorji couldn’t help but “accidentally” let one stuff itself down his gullet, but the grassy, glorping forest thing made him awfully queasy.

Kahvie sprung into action to alleviate his friend’s upset stomach, using his new ingredients and experimenting with the slimes he had! The original globule took very nicely to all the herbs he threw at it, and seemed to grow larger with booze - but, when he added a pinch of his “wondiferous” sugar, the thing positively glowed, and split itself in two!

WIth every pinch, it’d do this again, and the same went for the new slimes, allowing him to experiment freely - eventually, he took to adding a healing potion to one of the grassy slimes, along with a stomach-settling herb, and fed it to his ill friend. It worked like a charm! Jorji was far fitter - and fatter - than he was mere moments before!

As payment for his aid, Scales was given a small dab of the most lustrous of the slimes, which he gobbled down without a second thought. I saw it all with my own eyes - one second, he was a scrawny kobold, and the next, he grew flabby and round, his mass oozing into a delightful, slightly glowing pear shape!

The glow faded, and, after a moment of shock, the Kobold was overcome with delight and pleasure at his new size - as was Kahvie, Jorji, and Kelton, who slunk back in around that time. Kahvie had struck gold with this concoction - a healing, swelling slime that worked like a potion, with even less effort from the user, on account of it stuffing itself into ya instead of you having to quaff it.

The stuff’s damn well delicious - they offered me some, and I couldn’t resist… the fat you get from it just feels delightful to have around - pun very much intended…

The trio played around with the slimes some more (with plenty of hefty self-experimentation), and created some sort of purple slime they were keen on getting out of my place as soon as possible - a shame, because I would’ve loved to try some, but, I’d have t wait a hot minute.

After they were all done licking their wounds (and stuffing their faces), our valiant heroes set out with their pudgy kobold guide to track down and rout the Wolventhrone. Well I, and any other reasonable man, would’ve expected some tremendous, blunt assault, Kahvie apparently took to what he called… “gorge-illa warfare” - or, in normal speak, they’d try eating through the supply lines in timed ambushes and assaults. Of course, with these three, the word eating was quite literal - from what that kobold told me, Jorji especially seemed to gobble down enough food to feed a legion! And oh boy, does it show… That gnoll’ s gut looks like a great sloshing balloon, always fit to swell and grow some more!

They did this for a week, their bellies stretching and waists growing, and they were finally starting to make a real dent, and always having leftovers to spare for Scales when they got back to camp. From what I gathered, the kobold was their main scout, but stayed out of the action himself.

Course, as mighty as their appetites were, they weren’t able to eat it all and resist getting caught by the Wolventhrone - especially with a cunning commander at the helm of incursion. While stuffing themselves, they noticed a donkey prisoner set aside in a cage on the cart, rather plumped up himself, and eating uncontrollably.

He claimed that a Wolventhrone battlemage put a curse on him to make him eat till’ he was fit for a proper wolf feast - as the main course! The trio couldn’t pry him from the food, and well Kelton and Jorji thought it best to leave him and rescue him later at the camp, Kahvie would not relent! He thought of the perfect way to save him from the magically addictive food - they’d eat it all themselves!

Kahvie was the first to gorge, followed by Jorji, and, near the end of the extreme and wonderful feast, Kelton joined in. Right after the fox’s first bite, a devilish smile rose on the donkey prisoner’s broad mug, and he rattled off a shrill burp-yell! The other two were fully in the haze by then, so they hardly paid it mind, but Kelton could tell what it was - a signal! He tried desperately to pull the others out, but he was too late…

An ambush of wolf legionaries descended upon them - far too many to fight, especially with all the glutting. A legionnaire gave the donkey a potion, totally alleviating his appetite enslavement. The doughball let out a wicked chuckle, declaring himself as Senator “Pompey,” or something like that. Fitting name for a Pompous Pomp-Ass like him! In his villainous monologue, he revealed himself to be a cunning turncoat who sold his people out to the wolves, in exchange for a cushy political position.

(The pages become strangely smudged after this point… It looks as though some type of slime has corrupted the text!)


…gave Kelton a choice - either fatten himself up like the good little fox he was, or…

…If not for them, our inn, and likely the entire duchy, would have fallen to the Wolventhrone!

…Of course, I don’t think anyone was prepared for just how the crew went about handling these problems. They set out a night after the incident with the minotaur, with figures far fuller than the night before, after the surprisingly…

…The exploits of Kahvie and his crew have reached ears far and wide, as well as news of the…

(One final paragraph remains clear…)

On one final note, I aught to acknowledge just how fat I’ve gotten since meeting these fine lads - and fine lads they are! But oh, what pains on the belt notches they’ve been… these slime pies are too good to pass up! I used to prize myself for my lean, wiry body, but alas, those days are far behind me now - and I don’t think I’ll be slimming down! Then again, I’m far from alone in this establishment…

—-
This commission is one of the most important pieces of art I think I’ve ever worked on. The post for this is coming very late, as I originally worked on this commission all the way back in 2021, but, after waffling back and forth on the story and presentation of it for literal years, it’s time to bite the bullet and get it out.

I present to you all… Dungeons and Doughballs. A story of three heroes and the inn they base themselves out of. Over the course of this sequence, the party, and the tavern they call home, will change drastically - especially when it comes to food, drink, and of course, fat!

This piece was commissioned by my dearest friend  Jiskcar, and it features his characters Kahvie and Jorji, as well as Kelton, a character I made from an old D&D game I ran with him and some other friends called Bountiful Bloodlines.

This commission was produced at a rocky time in my life, and although there were a lot of bumps in the road, both in regards to the commission itself and my life at the time, I think this piece represents some of the best of my work. I’ve never used quite the same shading style for another piece, mainly because of just how complex it is! I did learn an awful lot from this commission in particular though, it occupies a special place in my heart and has influenced my art greatly.

Posting this piece after all this time is a great kind of relief, and I’m very pleased to share it with all of you. I wanted to give a huge thank you to my friend  Jiskcar for commissioning me to illustrate such a wonderful idea, and I thank him also for being such a dear friend for all these years. He is a constant inspiration to me, and I’m not sure I’d still be in this fandom without him.

I hope you all enjoy this piece, and thank you for taking the time to read this.