Sylvia the Baker, and Her Big Problem

“Almost... there!... C'mon... just... a little... further!”

When Sylvia moved to the village of Far Away (“Still such a stupid name.”), she'd been a twig of a neko. Those days, it seemed, were far behind her.

“You almost... got it!”

“C'mon, girl! You can... do this!”

The steady, panting cheers of her friends filled her ears, urging the humanoid feline to combat the twin forces of gravity and her own sheer girth, yet her atrophied muscles quivered pitifully as Sylvia tried to shift her monumental ass, which as of yet remained wedged in the shattered remains of their booth.

“I'm... bloody... trying!”

Sylvia, or “Syl” to her friends, had been an aspiring actress in her youth. However, despite her conventional good looks and generous bust, she was a pretty poor actress. After years of trying and failing to land any substantial parts and struggling to make ends meet, she accepted her Grandmother's offer of a job and a place to live. Not only did it beat starving to death in the alley, she'd heard from her mother that Grandma was really struggling to run her small-town bakery by herself. And once she had travelled to the distant settlement, she quickly figured out why.

Her grandmother was absolutely Huge!

Years of endless taste testing and basically living on pastries had seen her Grandma expand in a big way. Most doors weren't large enough to admit her country-wide hips, and her knee length belly made working a counter a near-impossibility. Remarkably, she was still pretty capable physically, but her stamina was nearly non-existent. Worst of all, she didn't have the spare cash to afford any help, making Sylvia's agreement to help out more then welcome.

And, as it turned out, Sylvia was a natural born baker.

In complete opposition to her appalling acting abilities, she had a knack for mixing, baking, and decorating a myriad of desserts and pastries. Within a fortnight, the bakery's output and customer base both exploded, and pretty soon they were the most successful establishment in the county.

Of course, their success had come at the expense of Sylvia's waistline.

Her grandma was insistent on tasting every product they produced, on the grounds that nothing left the establishment without being confirmed “Grade A quality.” Likewise, all the leftovers were consumed by the pair at the end of the night, the elderly matron refusing to tolerate wasting a single crumb. Toss in the massive spreads she prepared for her granddaughter's meals and snacks, as well as frequent visits to the eatery down the road with her friends, and it shouldn't have been much of a surprise that Sylvia had gotten fat.

Really, REALLY fat.

At some points, she could almost swear she was expanding by the day. Clothes that fit well when purchased were outgrown within a week, doorways and chairs continued to feel smaller and more flimsy, and her appetite seemed to grow in tandem to her sprawling, multi-rolled gut. Surprisingly, her grandmother seemed to shrink in equal measure to her growth, and pretty soon she was the one waiting on Sylvia hand and foot, allowing her granddaughter to sit and “taste-test” all day, every day, as her throne disappeared under her rapidly accumulating blubber.

There was only so long that Sylvia could lie to herself about her weight, and how easy it would be to lose it all. As her consumption and weight spiralled ever higher, she accepted that her acting dreams were long behind her. And, honestly? Being a baker was pretty sweet. Good food, good company, no bills to worry about, no crowds with rotten fruits and veggies...

However, as time passed, her weight was becoming a serious problem. Without the hard labour that kept her Grandma fit despite her advanced size, Sylvia's physical abilities were collapsing in the wake of her skyrocketing weight. Walking down the street, fetching things off the shelves for customers, hell, rising from her seat without help were all becoming hopelessly difficult as she grew and grew and grew.

Still, it proved frightfully easy to put her troubles out of her mind. Her grandma assured her nothing was wrong, and plied her with increasing quantities of decadent sweets until her worries were buried under yet another layer of lard. Trying to hold back around her friends was pointless, as they were nearly as large and greedy as her, considering it a point of pride to either close the restaurant down or eat it out of food.

Tonight had been such a night, and the group of women were good and thoroughly stuffed. Theodora, a skilled swords-elf before an injured leg forced her early retirement, had devoured enough pork and ale that her distended gut seemed to slosh with each motion, her remaining muscles buried under a monstrously thick layer of fat. Phillipa, a gold and red harpy, looked more like a well fattened turkey then a bird of prey, her cheeks and chins smeared with gravy and ketchup. Caileigh the Centaur was built like a prize winning hog, wobbling with each clopping hoof, and Vella Nazlu wasn't even identifiable as a Goblin, looking like a green ball of jiggly fat spread across a pair of creaking chairs.

Yet they all paled in scale to Sylvia.

Her gargantuan belly hung past her knees in three heavy rolls, greatly hindering her poor, ailing legs. Her thighs were as big around as a barrel, forcing her into a pathetically slow waddle the few times a day she had to move. Her posterior looked like a pair of overstuffed feed sacks fit for an entire herd of swine, wobbling slightly out of time with her lumbering steps, and making doors and normal sized seats nothing short of a nightmare. Naturally busty, her breasts had expanded massively with her burgeoning girth, spreading across the vast expanse of her belly and rippling like water with the slightest movement. Her arms were bedecked in heavy, hanging rolls, burying her elbows and wrists in pockmarked lard. Her entire body was covered in silver stretchmarks, clear signs of her enormous and rapid growth, and the double chin hanging from her round face was in permanent contact with her blubbery chest.

The nearly helpless young woman had certainly been eating befitting her size tonight, allowing her friends to egg her on, and devoured meat and cheese full-pelt until the staff came out and regretfully informed them that they had once again emptied the entire larder. And so, they'd travelled to the new place two doors down, and proceeded to eat and eat until a loud cracking sound echoed throughout the establishment. Sylvia's seat was clearly not rated for someone of her size, and the booth was falling to pieces under her planetary posterior.

Her fattened and glutted friends were trying to help Syl to her feet, the neko having given up the pretense of being capable of this on her own some time ago. Even with the combined strength of the party, they were struggling to even shift this blubbery behemoth even slightly. Theodora and Caileigh were each holding onto an arm, and heaving with all their might. Since harpies do not have hands, only vestigial thumbs on their wings, Phillipa was behind the mountainous mass of Sylvia, pushing with every bit of strength her minute musculature could give her, which was admittedly only a token effort despite the obvious strain. Vella had not even risen from her seats, for she was as pinned under her blubber as Sylvia. Instead she was acting as a cheerleader, giving what moral support she could in between bites of her most recent plate of cheesy snails.

“You guys got this!” she said, taking a moment to chew and swallow another pair of calorie-rich gastropods. “I believe in y-URP!”

If the other four noticed her ill-timed belch and the spray of crumbs that came with it, they gave no sign. The air was full of the smell of sweat and grease, gasping and cursing echoing in the tiny building as they fought to get Sylvia to her ailing legs. Sylvia felt a pop in not one, but both her knees, but still tried to force her way past it, her pride refusing to let her give up and accept her blubbery fate.

But alas, such a thing was not to be.

With a final grunt, all four friends failed their strength checks, and a look of panic came to the faces of both Sylvia and Phillipa as the former fell back, with the latter in her path. Like a boulder in an avalanche, her vastly overfed form crashed through the shattered remains of the former booth, falling to the earth with an almighty crash. Phillipa was knocked back into another table by Sylvia's fall, shattering its legs and winding up on her back, covered in fatty and decadent dishes. Her own fall, though not as loud as Syl's, was far from silent, and the overdeveloped bellies of the two rippled like water in a storm. Seams gave out on their clothing, losing the battle against their tremendous girth, and firm layers of lardy flesh were exposed for all to see.

Silence prevailed in the restaurant, save the sounds of Vella Nazlu continuing to stuff her face with goodies. Aghast staff and patrons looked at the beached whales spread out before them, and the owner wondered how in the Nine Hell's he was going to get these... things to their feet and out of his place. Both women were far too exhausted to be embarrassed, though Sylvia did blush a bit as her belly impossibly let out another growl of hunger, clearly unsatisfied with her distressingly light portions this eve.

“Um,” she stuttered, her humiliation clearly writ on her face as her stomach continued to protest. “S-sorry about the booth. I'll p-pay for it, of course. Um, I don't suppose you have any of that trifle left in the back, do you?”