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Custodiet Supra Cartogres – Gaze Beyond The Map’s Boundaries

It's hard to take seriously, a group of students who have dedicated themselves to the occult and the mysterious, in a place of science and learning. But it would be a dire mistake to underestimate a member of Custodiet Supra Cartogres (or the CSC, as they are known). It’s impossible to deny the strength of will that an older CSC student possesses, as much as it is impossible to deny the shadows under their eyes. What have they seen? 

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Woo! Today we have another lil' treat! An insight into the Fifth student body of The Rendering Pit, the CSC! Members of the CSC are often mocked for their adherence to tradition and superstition in a place of progress like The Pit, but they must be doing something right to have survived so long, in a place so hostile. Perhaps there's something to their voodoo after all? The following story was written by me, and illustrated by me, and it's my very happy pleasure to present! I hope you enjoy! <3

The following contains: weight gain, slight mind control, mystic elements, humiliation and pet play! 

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Custodiet Supra Cartogres – Gaze Beyond the Map’s Boundaries

Cody grunted and took a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow. He knew he should have installed that internal thermal control suite. If he had he wouldn’t be sweating like a pig about to be roasted. Instead, the buck relied on his other internal monitoring systems, his endocrine control modules allowing him to gently pull himself back from the verge of panic. As he regained control of his breathing and his heart rate lowered, Cody made a mental note to thank the school nurse for the implants, as creepy as she was. Maybe all that extra hard-pudge would come in handy after all. If he made it out in one piece, that was.

The buck was in a CSC dormitory, and those guys were nuts. If he was caught, he suspected he would serve at least one term as a bookshelf for them. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t remember doing it. Now that the panic had subsided, Cody took stock of his surroundings. His one crystalline horn buzzed softly, intercepting and decoding the miasma of wireless activity of The Pit and showing him any useful information it could find. Which was, at the moment, very little. From what he could tell Cody was in a library, old fashioned and almost pitch black. His WCS couldn’t find an access for any sort of light switch, which was weird enough, but stranger was the fact that in the dim light, Cody could swear the bookshelves in front of him were made of actual wood. It had to be fake, but if it were real, the Custodiet’s must have had some very generous contributors. The books themselves looked normal enough, rows upon rows of dataslates and holodisks extending from the floor to the ceiling, and through what appeared to be a second floor, somewhere above. But books weren’t what Cody was here for, and every moment he lingered he risked being caught. 

Gathering his wits, Cody made one last wireless pulse from his crystalline horn and, not detecting any indication of nearby students, thrust himself out of the library. He stumbled into a dimly lit corridor, finding his feet on a soft black and red carpet. The corridor was lined with mirrors, each as tall as a person and perhaps half as wide, reaching up to the ceiling. Between each mirror were doors, dorm rooms Cody suspected, but couldn’t detect any form of wireless connectivity through the wall.

As he made to continue, Cody caught sight of himself in one of the mirrors and paused. The buck that looked back at him was almost nothing like the young man who had walked through the massive gates of The Rendering Pit a year prior. For a start, he was perhaps a hundred pounds heavier, his gut pooching out and forming a roll of cream coloured blubber between a shirt three sizes too small and a pair of black pants that were almost skin-tight. He grimaced at the sight of them. He couldn’t exactly requisition new clothes when he was spending all his credits on new body mods, and the mods themselves didn’t exactly come without a cost to his physique. A year ago, he might have found all this weight repulsive, but now? The jiggle of his arms, the way his thighs rubbed together, they’re nothing more than signs of progress. A badge of honour, showing his willingness to do anything that had to be done, to win. 

Leaving his reflection behind, Cody made his way forward, through the dormitories, towards his prize. It was that, which had drawn the young buck here in the first place. Lambda Nihil Interit had offered him refuge from his failing grades, a source of assistance and collaboration he desperately needed. In return, all they asked of him was that he retrieve an idol. One of those stupid little things that the CSC are always carrying around. Custodiet Supra Cartogres, they called themselves – pathetic. It hadn’t taken Cody long to figure out they were the lowest in the pecking order at The Pit, and for good reason. They clung to idols and superstition, where everyone else was here to learn science. Fact. Reason. Logic. 

And yet, as much as he might look down on them, the CSC terrified him. They tended to have this presence about them, a way of looking at him that made him shiver to the bone. Cody had to remind himself that he was only there to get an idol, and get out.

The dormitories were small, and almost felt cramped, like the students rooms had been shoved between other more important buildings and laboratories, but the dim light worked in Cody’s favour. Whenever he heard the sliding of an opening door he managed to duck himself into an archway, or behind a statue to hide until the echo of footsteps faded completely. It was one such incident that lead Cody to the idol. 

Hearing the opening of a dormitory door, Cody had dashed across the hallway and into an adjoining room. As the door shut behind him with a gentle ‘shoosh’, he found himself to be standing in the middle of a reading room of some sort. Thin red cushions lay around the room in the shape of a circle and in front of them, and hanging from the walls, were honest to goodness candles. Actual fire, for Chrome’s sake. Cody rolled his eyes, some people would spend their credits on anything. To requisition actual animal fat for candles though was straight up wasteful. He smiled as he thought of the tale he would spin for everyone back at Lambda house about the CSC and their savage ways. His smile would grow wider still, as he saw across the room, a statuette sitting smugly atop its pedestal. That would do.  

He made his way briskly across the room to examine the statuette in better detail, stepping over candles, pillows and lines drawn in chalk on the floor. It was a mouse, or at least a close approximation of a mouse. Cody didn’t usually judge other people for their tastes, but wasn’t carrying weight around bad enough, without having to worship it too? The person depicted here was outright obese, her dainty little feet nearly completely obscured by her stone stomach, which hung down to her ankles. She clutched her hands above her chest, and if Cody didn’t know better, looked almost as if she was smirking at him, as though she expected some great tragedy to befall him.

“Not today, fatty.” Cody said scooping the little statuette up. He grunted as it turned out to be heavier than expected. Despite its stone appearance, It felt like it was made out of lead.

“Oh dear.” A voice echoed throughout the room. “You’re not supposed to be here.” 

Cody whipped around, clutching the statuette in both hands. Despite his endocrine control suite, he could feel his pulse begin to race. Maybe that wasn’t so bad, it would help him if he had to run. Not that the person in front of him cut a particularly imposing figure. At least, not by herself. 

She was a fox, Cody discerned slowly, through the haze of candlelight. From the bags beneath her eyes, one who had not slept in some time. Her shoulder plate bore the badge of a third year student and, despite having lived in the Pit for so long, she was barely ten pounds overweight. She had maybe the tiniest bit of stomach chub, held in by her corseted black dress. In another time, and another place, he might have found the black-haired vixen alluring. Although he didn’t necessarily have a thing for overly intricate dress, if he did she’d have taken the cake. It looked almost like her entire dress was made of black ribbons and bow ties. Or, Cody conceded after a moment, perhaps it was made out of blackened bandages.

She stepped forward. 

“What is your name, little one?” Cody felt the answer to her question rise from his throat unbidden, but perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing. He had nothing to hide.

“Cody Redwood.” The words trickled from his mouth, a little shaky, a little unsteady. Somehow she towered over him, but Cody could have sworn when he first saw her, she was shorter than him. He wondered how she’d entered the room without him hearing the door open. Had she always been here? If she had sat perfectly still in the darkness, perhaps he just hadn’t seen her. 

“Cody...” She replied, tasting the word, cooing it. “Asarial’s Bell doesn’t like it when you hold her like that.” 

“Asar’s...” Cody blinked, his thoughts squirming sluggishly behind his eyes. “This?” He asked, holding the statuette up dumbly. The vixen nodded, and suddenly Cody felt a little sheepish. Honestly, Custodiet’s weren’t so bad, certainly not bad enough that he should have tried to steal from them. Feeling distinctly like he was being scolded, Cody returned the statuette to its pedestal. As he pulled his hands away from it, he snagged a palm on a rough edge he hadn’t seen before. It came away red and left a bloody smear across the idol’s stomach. “O-oh! Sorry...” The buck didn’t think he could feel more stupid if he tried. 

Although he expected the vixen to frown, or be angry for defacing the statue, she actually laughed. It was a light, high pitched, chime like sound that seemed like it shouldn’t come from someone as tired as she. “Oh dear,” She said, stepping forward to close the gap between them. In barely a moment she was before him. “It looks as though she’s given you a little kiss, hmm?” The vixen took his hand in hers and turned it over, pressing her fingers gently against the scratch in his palm. It wasn’t deep, but it was enough that a small pool of blood was already welling up beneath his fur. Her eyes sparkled as she beheld the wound, but it was with a sympathetic tone and a gentle yet firm tug that she said, “Come now then, you have a long journey to make and little time to make it.”

Frowning, Cody followed along slowly. The pain in his hand was little more than a dull throb, but between it and the girl leading him, it was all he could think about. He blinked as his vision blurred and, for a moment, the buck wondered if the wound was deeper than it had seemed. It felt as though he had been following the swish and slide of the vixen’s black robes and bow ties for the better part of five minutes before it occurred to his sluggish mind that he could diagnose himself. He had the equipment, after all. 

Stumbling to a halt, Cody reached out with his mind for the familiar tingle and buzz of his crystalline horn. An expensive little body modification, It would show him the wireless signals in the area and translate them into a visual matrix, showing him the comfortable blanket of nearly unintelligible information that flowed throughout the university. Only, it wasn’t there. He couldn’t connect to his implant, he couldn’t sense anything. His endocrine control suite, his wireless diagnostics tools, the User Interface that would answer him at the merest thought, none of it was responding to him. The buck grunted in panic, but above him he saw the face of the vixen, friendly and sympathetic. She squeezed his hand gently, before reaching up to brush the hair from his face. 

“Oh dear child... you need not worry about such silly toys. They will abandon you in the end.” 

He barely heard her. Cody had the singularly uncomfortable sensation of feeling his own horn pulled gently from his skull. It was bloodless. Painless. He could feel the crystalline implant simply dislodge, as though it had never been grafted onto his bone in the first place, much less integrated with his entire brain. She held the horn, his horn, up to the dim light of the hallway, regarding it with amusement before letting it slide from her hands to clatter across the floor. Cody nearly went after it, except she pulled gently on his hand and once again, he found himself being guided slowly along. Feeling about through his hair, there was no evidence that the horn had ever been installed.

“What’s...” The words came slowly, to his surprise, his tongue felt thick and sluggish and his teeth impeding its movement. “happening... to... me...”

“You’re going to make a choice, I suspect.” The vixen replied, turning to lead him onwards. Though some part of the buck wanted to stop and resist, he felt himself continuing to follow her, his feet moving on their own. The mirrors and doors they passed blended into one blurry mass of shapes and colours and for a moment, through the haze in his mind, Cody wondered if they would ever stop.

“Ah, here we are.” 

Once more, her voice seemed to echo. It cut through the fog that had crept into his mind and suddenly, Cody saw that he was standing in another room. It was a bedroom, one bed – no bunkmates. The same black lace that seemed to make up the vixen’s dress, was also draped across the walls, decoratively hung from light fixtures and pinned in dizzying spirals from the roof. The room was larger than he could recall his being, and he shared his with two other students. Suddenly, and after everything that had happened, Cody felt the overwhelming urge to sit down. The red carpet on the floor looked soft and comfortable, and he made to kneel before he felt a gentle, yet insistent tug from the vixen holding his hand. 

“Not yet, young one, but soon.” She said, her words as soft, yet melodic. She smiled at him, and Cody couldn’t discern the emotion behind her eyes. 

“Where-“ The buck tried to talk, but found the words wouldn’t form, instead he emitted a low, confused grunt. 

She seemed to understand him, the vixen replying as she pressed in close to undo the buttons of his shirt. “This is my room, although I shall have to request another, I suppose.” As he tried to prevent her undressing him, she rolled her eyes.

No. 

The voice didn’t come from her mouth, in fact, Cody realised, it didn’t come from her at all. His reaction to it was instant and involuntary. Cody stopped struggling, his hands falling limply by his sides. The vixen smiled, a gentle little smile that Cody couldn’t believe would ever hide malice or threat. She cared for him. She wanted him to be happy. 

Why was he doing this? Why was he just standing here, like meat on display? The thought crept through him – he could still run. Couldn’t he?

But why?

Why what? Run? He had to escape from the Custodiet, the vixen, these strange halls and the haze that had settled in his mind.

Why are you so eager to return to that which you were?

Cody blinked. What was he? A student, no. A failure. He knew where his road was heading, an alliance with Lambda had been the last act of a desperate man, but they would use him like they used the others. He would fail, in the end, and then what?

I offer you a better life.

The voice came from in his head, and the scratch on his palm burned with its every word. The pain, though dull, offered him a clarity he’d not had since before he’d started this misadventure. He realised now that he stood upon a precipice, although he didn’t quite understand how, or why. Two roads had opened up before him, in one his life was fraught with danger and suffering, the other he shared with the vixen in front of him, in comfort and happiness.

Choose my way, and be free from the perils of the world. Choose my way, and be loved.

Cody chose, and in that moment, felt the choice slip away from him. His mind raced to recall the last few seconds he’d lost. 

“Good boy.” Once more the vixen’s bandaged fingers began to deftly work through the buttons of his shirt and pants, leaving him standing suddenly naked in her room. She stood back and Cody realised that she was almost appraising him, with the way that her eyes roamed over his body. He found himself hoping he was good enough. “Big boy.” She added, sounding almost impressed as she circled behind him. “But we can make you bigger.” He felt her hand slap against his butt cheeks and he blushed. “We might have to do something about this,” she said, squeezing his groan firmly, yet not enough to hurt. “I’ll take you to see the nurse before we introduce you to Snowball, I don’t think Lilly wants to be looking after kittens, just yet.” As she walked back to his front, Cody saw her pull a strip of fabric from her wrist, it fell away cleanly to reveal scarred flesh underneath. 

“Why?” He asked, curious, but once more the word came out as little more than an animal-like haw. Still, she smiled.

“Because you have chosen your path, my pet, and I have chosen mine. I will take care of you.” She held the bandage up towards him. “It is traditional that those touched by Asarial’s Bell be collared by their owners. This is will do for now.” 

As he heard those words Cody’s doubts evaporated. It all made sense, after all. The vixen had found him in his most dire moment of need, where he had no option but to run errands for Lambda, who cared less about him than they did their equipment and modifications. Even though he had stolen from her and the CSC, she had guided him to her room and would tend his wounds and protect him. He looked up at the tired eyed vixen and in that moment felt love and gratitude well up inside. He mouthed the words, ‘thank you’, as she wrapped the ribbon-like bandage around his neck. 

* * *

Sophie grunted, the red-tailed sparrow casting a dark look towards the mistress. “Dawn, do we have to study here? I can’t concentrate with that thing making so much noise!” The mistress only shook her head, reaching down to scratch her pet gently between the ears. He grunted, piggish grunts, as he choked down his food. But he managed to pull his head out of the feeding trough for long enough to nuzzle at her delicate, bandaged fingers.

Cody had only grown in the three months that he’d stayed with the vixen, and Dawn had turned out to be a very accommodating mistress. It wasn’t long after she was set up in a new room that she had a feeding trough installed for ‘her hungry little piggy’, as she liked to call him. No matter how hard he blushed, he always found himself waddling back towards the feeding trough. And he had blimped. Dawn said she enjoyed his fluffy new look, and Cody couldn’t help but drink up her compliments and teasing. If he had walked into the CSC dormitories a husky but manageable two hundred and fifty pounds, he was now closer to seven hundred. His sleek black collar was lost beneath the thick roll of his neck flab, although not so much so that Dawn had any trouble attaching a leash to it when it came time for walks. His chest had ballooned from a pair of subtle moobs to outright breasts that hung heavily over a gut that could brush against the floor when he walked. The buck was so wide he had to take most doorways sideways, and even then sometimes Dawn would have to push his massive gut through, kneading and pawing like she was stuffing a pillow.

But for what felt like the first time in his life, Cody was happy. After the first couple of walks, he stopped feeling humiliated to be seen shuffling around public with only his fat to conceal his modesty, and started feeling proud. If his mistress could be proud of him and his body, why shouldn’t he be. Seeing the nurse to have the birth control mods installed was a little bit stressful, but his mistress had been with him the whole time and cooed her soft reassurances to him that the process was completely reversible, if he ever wanted to have it reversed. So far he hadn’t been the least bit inclined, and it made his visits with the other pets that much more enjoyable. But as much fun as his playtime with the other pets was, Cody always looked forward to feeding time. To stretching his massive, cream coloured belly as much as he possibly could, eating a little bit more every time, to the praise and adulation of his mistress. He had learned pretty early on that such feats of gluttony would reward him with displays of affection and love, and he had learned to enjoy the tight ache that accompanied a full stomach, pushed past capacity. 

“Did you even get it registered with the head office?” Sophie asked, barely concealing her look of disgust. Cody had never much cared for Sophie, the first year was almost more concerned with appearance than she was with anything of substance, and she made it clear she wasn’t impressed by him. Not that he cared, the trough was full of pasta today, must be overflow from the lunch rush. 

“Of course,” Dawn replied, “And don’t call him ‘it’, you know how Anna gets about her disciples.” 

Sophie scoffed. “Oh yes, wouldn’t want to displease Queen Fat Tits now would I? Really you take it all too seriously sometimes. I thought this was bad enough.” She made a gesture that managed to encompass both Dawn and Cody. It was a feat made easier by the fact that Dawn was currently sitting on Cody’s back, something the pair of them enjoyed. Dawn professed to claim that he was the most comfortable seat in the dormitory, and Cody? He just enjoyed having the warmth of her body against his.

“I had forgotten you’re still a bit of sceptic, aren’t you?” Dawn curled a lock of Cody’s hair around her fingers and smiled. “Perhaps you ought to see Asarial’s Bell for yourself. She’s quite beautiful, impeccable craftsmanship, for a lesser deity.” Cody didn’t need to see his mistress’ expression for it to set a shiver down his spine.

The sparrow laughed and shook her head, but after a moment or two’s eye contact with the mistress, she seemed to agree. “Alright Dawn, you’re on. It’s Y’soth’s hall, right? You can show me before next class.” 

Cody felt his mistress sliding from his bulk, she gave him a gentle pat on the head before walking towards the door. He watched her go, having always admired the wonderful grace with which she did something as simple as walking. “Come then, child.” She said, glancing towards Sophie, who found herself following after the older student. Cody could feel the scar on his palm burning like it did sometimes, and though he didn’t need to be told, he knew there would be a new pet to play with soon.