This choice: a open field, lush with strange plants • Go Back...Chapter #5a weird realm, high calorie fruit by: Uno  It was a strange sight to behold; they stepped inwards and entered outwards, into a huge open world distinctly foreign to their own. A pink sky canvassed the landscape, a forest of blue and purple plants encircled their clearing. Some strategically placed rocks with strange patterns carved into them dotted the ground.
Once the last of them were inside Crom stood on one of those rocks to command his troops. Relaying various orders but Rubin and Crom weren’t really listening, they were too busy taking in the sights.
“Whoa, Crom, this place is amazing.”
“I know, how could that Sarcous guy make all this…” suddenly a pair of black paws landed on both of their shoulders, startling each of them. “With that ultimate magic he encountered boys; even with just a little bit he created all this place!” it was Loagi the alchemist, “but be wary, it’s not called Sarcous’ Tomb for nothing. So few have entered and ever returned, none with the fabled orb of power. Their historical accounts of this place are sketchy at best, describing it as corrupt and perverse, nothing to be trusted, so young ones like you best be careful, eheheheh”.
“and you two best stop slacking and help carry some supplies, rabbits!” Bart yelled at them, Rubin scowled.
The group then proceeded to follow a path out of the clearing; apparently it was the right way because the magic folk could read the special stones scattering the path. It was pretty exhausting work, ontop of everything else the hunters had dealt with that day already.
It was when they were trudging by a long canopy of oddly coloured fruit that the first incident that marked the strangeness of this place presented itself.
Up ahead of Rubin and Crom there was suddenly a commotion, Jin, the jokester cat assassin, was being wacked over the head by a pissed off Alec with his druid staff, “Ow! Hey, ow stop!”
“You fool, why did you consume the fruit, you could have been killed!”
“Ow! Jang dared me! Ow! And I’m not dead, or I might be if you don’t stop hitting me with that damn stick!”
“Well how do you feel?” Liz asked with concern. “Rrrgh, besides some bumps on my head now… I… I actually feel kind of great!” Jin said, “Wow, but… I do feel different, everything feels… lighter?”
“You feel lightheaded! That’s not good” Liz replied. “No, no. I mean everything feels lighter!” he suddenly grabbed the kind of chubby panda girl and lifted her over his head with ease. “Waaa, put me down!”
After some brief testing, it was confirmed that somehow the fruit had made the lithe cat boy somehow as strong as the giant tiger Bart! The group mage performed a simple detect sickness spell on the assassin, and determined that he was in perfect health.
There was one odd drawback however, whereas before Jin had been skin and bones, there was now a small dome of chub centred on his belly. He was very displeased he now had a small potbelly, and his brother Jang teased him mercilessly about it.
Now a difficult question was posed to the group of bandits, should they partake of the strange fruit and make their journey easier, or stay weary (and totally skinny)? They had to decide soon though; they had waisted enough time on this distraction already.
“Rubin,” Crom spoke to his friend, “I know what you’re thinking, it’d be great to be super strong, but I really don’t think we should eat these things, you heard what the alchemist bear said earlier, this place can be really dangerous…”
“Buddy come on! Super strength! And guess what? That odd bear guy is eating one of them fruits as we speak.”
Crom turned around to see it was true, the black bear was greedily chowing down. “Ugh, that’s not the point, I get a… a bad feeling about them. Plus they’ll make you fat”
“Heh, firstly Crom, scientific magic has assured us they are perfectly safe, and secondly it’s only a little bit of pudge, I could work it off in a week if I tried! Well, I’m going to try it, with out without you…”
“Certainly without, I just hope your right about this…”
Rubin plucked one of the pear-like fruits off of an overhanging branch, there were hundreds of them, all icy blue.
With a little hesitation Rubin opened his maw and took a big bite out of it. It tasted very sweet, like custard.
The pair waited a few seconds with bated breath. “Ha ha!” Rubin declared, “yes, I can feel it!” he picked up the heavy crate he was carrying like it was a feather. “Yes Rubin, and I can see it” Crom said, pointing at the roo’s gut, almost as fast, the previously trim and fit abdominal was covered in a layer of soft fat. “s-Shutup!” Rubin snapped back and blushed. Crom wouldn’t mention it, but he was sure Rubin’s backside had also just plumped out a little bit, it was hard to stifle his laughter.
The rest of the group was pretty evenly split on if they tried the Strongfat Fruit, as they had uncreatively named it. Bart was quite happy to eat one, but Herc was far too vain to even let an ounce of fat get on his frame.
Nethertheless before they left they stocked up on a large pile of the fruit, who knew how long the effects would last after all, and super strength could always be handy in a bind.
After a little more walking…
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