Curse of the Lipomancer: Ensnared

Chapter One: The Lure

Everything had started long ago. Long before members of the Exploration Guild had vanished without a trace. Long before the first people had gone missing around the town of Little Silverhorne. Even long before the village itself had been founded by a group of well-meaning settlers from western Bitemarsh.

Of course, neither Richard nor Johanna knew any of that. All they knew is that the caverns they now walked had a reputation. When even their fellow guildmates, even a Guild Master herself, all veteran delvers of dungeons and dodgers of traps, had disappeared in this area without a trace, one knew to tread lightly.

There was no official confirmation those disappearances, the nearby and recently re-inhabited castle, and the tunnels below it were all connected of course. It was pretty hard to confirm such theories when all those sent there to do so had wound up missing or even occasionally turned up dead. And so the long-running and seemingly futile task had fallen to two more members of the Exploration Guild as rumors surrounding the town and the sorcerer said to haunt its history continued to expand, and more and more people went missing without even the slightest trace.

Lipomancer. A fitting name for that one considering the tall tales. Others from the Guild might not have survived, but there were still those not associated who had escaped those fabled dungeons, and all of them were forever changed by the experience.

The lupine barbarian and her human rogue companion had set out with high hopes on this one, despite the legacies, or rather lack thereof of those who had tried before. They had been assigned it by the current Guild Master, the daughter of the previous missing one, so neither were willing to disappoint, and neither were eager to stumble into this Lipomancer's fattening traps.

And yet so far it seemed as though neither of them would be getting what they wanted.

In the course of a single day in the caverns near Little Silverhorne, Johanna had managed to stumble into a variety of ambushes and ensnarements, causing the once muscular wolf woman to pack on almost one hundred pounds already through various means. Even though her beefy, seven-foot-tall frame made it look as though the damage wasn't too bad, she was still quite clearly softer than when she had set out on this job, the white furred, blond haired wolfess sporting a pot-belly that bulged beneath her leather vest and atop her fur-trimmed leather skirt.

Somehow Richard had managed to avoid the a trap that had filled a whole room with fudge, a nest of flying sandwiches, and hoards of chocolate insects, and yet had still suffered his own setback, one that had yet to fully play out. His body may not have been affected so far by the dungeon, but his mind certainly had been. The dark haired rogue had found himself unknowingly subject to the mental machinations of some unseen foe, the foul sorcery tainting his mind masking the attacker's will as his own thoughts, even as they grew uncharacteristically strange and perverse.

It was these thoughts that had lead Richard to suggest that they replace their dwindling food supplies with sustenance from the traps themselves when next they were to encounter one. Johanna had her doubts, but eventually her hunger had gotten the better of her...

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Still frowning, Johanna groaned and shook her head. Her stomach grumbled impatiently, and the plump wolfess let out a resigned sigh, "Fine! I trust you... let's do it!"

"Wait..." Richard said, looking rather perplexed, "...really?"

Johanna looked at him, the blond wolf pretty confused herself, "Well yeah, I mean why not? Just make sure you help me get out of it if I start getting too full..." She said, turning back to start heading down the tunnel once again.

"Right, of course..." Richard muttered under his breath, "Can't have you start getting too big can we..."

"She's a fool Richard, a lumbering oaf..."