The Rendering Pit - Chapter 27 (Patreon)

Rigel comes to term with his new, expanding body. Being a perma-berry isn't all fun and games, but when mixing in a little fermentation takes the edge off things.

This story was written by RabidBadger and illustrated by me! We thank you for your continued support, you've helped make this series what it is <3 

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Rigel was still a bit befuddled that nothing hurt when he forced his swollen, spongy bulk to get up and walk. If nothing else it made it less of an ordeal to get around, and he had to manage that at the moment – which was still awkward despite the lack of pain. He couldn’t entirely help thinking of it from an academic standpoint, which Rigel at least felt somewhat good about as a student. As far as he could sort out it was mostly a question of losing momentum to all that excess flesh flying around when he moved, a bit like a bad conductor losing electricity and generating heat. He lost speed and generated a wildly quaking set of buttocks. 

That he could live with. The floaty, pleasant buzzing in the back of his head he could probably live with too. Being the size of a gen-engineered water buffalo might take more getting used to but there were plenty of others here who were wrestling with those things, or similar ones. Having the entire student body trying to convince him to let them shove a keg tap into his butt? Rigel wasn’t having that – and either way he had been through enough today that he needed some time to commiserate, which suggested the cafeteria first and foremost. 

It took some doing for Rigel to quell the urges to at least give a few of the people who had been bothering him a gentler letdown, years in juvenile centers had left a lot of hammering into his mind about considering others first, but he could still muster the willpower to be a little selfish once in a while. There were other things to pay attention to at least, like how much walking felt like he was wearing wet sponges on his feet – except the sponges seemed to be on the inside. It was comfy in a bizarrely obscene sort of way, but luckily he was the only one that knew about it so any embarrassment over the matter was minimal as he rounded the corner into the cafeteria. 

The room was never empty in this place, though some hours were predictably busier than others. At the moment, during classes, Rigel expected to find the place a bit quieter than usual - which would lend itself nicely to trying to coax Genevieve into taking a break and talking. Or it would have had he seen her anywhere. Instead there seemed to be an automated system handling the order taking, which, as Rigel lazily found himself an unoccupied and generally open area to sit in, left him wondering just what exactly was the purpose of the whole lunch lady thing if they had machines that could handle it?

Rigel let that roll around his head briefly before giving up on the question and digging his tablet out. That wasn’t as seamless or simple a task as it had been in the past - there was just so much of him in the way, and he felt a little sluggish - like his arms and legs were dealing with just a frame or two of input lag in a game. Just enough to throw him off, but not enough to make him legitimately bothered. At least until he started trying to type with his thickened, clumsy digits. That got a bit irritating in short order. Rigel managed though, the same message to both of his room mates.

I’m in the cafeteria. Anyone free to come join me?

It was the kind of thing he expected a relatively swift response to, if he got any response at all that was. An immediate one, though? Not to mention one that was verbal, and came from directly behind him? That left Rigel startling, and in that instant feeling his whole body squish inside as it clenched up a little.

“Heh, yeah I’d say I’m free to. Kind of. I mean… I need to sit down regardless. My back hurts, and my knees are kinda off, and my- uhm.
 The entire table jolted a little when Nathan ambled clumsily into view beside Rigel, then eventually around him, across from him - the other scaled student was of course still gigantic and didn’t seem to be weathering it too terribly well. Rigel could sympathize - empathize even. 

”Nevermind. You probably know what I’m talking about.”

Rigel reached back to rub at his neck a little, or rather at the rounded lump of pliant scaled flesh where his neck had formerly held residence. He didn’t really want to comment on his curious lack of discomfort after that, even if it was profoundly interesting. 

“It uh, there’s definitely a lot of inconveniences - and apparently opportunities, or so the nurse says.”

Nathan was still breathing hard, visibly uncomfortable and tugging at his clothing to try and let more of the heat he was radiating out. Rigel mostly just felt some odd bubbling inside him, shifting of pressure, fluid movement - it was kind of nice in a fashion that left him thinking he ought not to be enjoying it so much in public. Not that he expected anyone else really noticed. 

“Yeah, thank Chrome there’s at least some options - kinda wanted to talk to you and Genevieve about that actually, which… uh, do you know where she is?”

Rigel turned his head there, not that he truly needed to. He’d seen already that the fox wasn’t where he expected - in fact she’d been gone a lot lately now that he thought of it. A concerning matter in a place like this.

“No, and she hasn’t answered either. I mean it’s not like it’s been all that long since I sent the message, but…”

Nathan kept staring at the empty center of the cafeteria and the sluggish automated system, the one thing in the whole university that seemed a little out of date - possibly intentionally. As he was doing so he fished out his tablet, which at a glance Rigel could tell already was flooded with open tabs, and swapped to his messaging program.

“I’ll throw her one too, might get her attention if it’s both of us.”

There were doubts in Rigel’s mind about that, but he didn’t see the need to voice them. Either I would get Genevieve’s attention or no. In the meantime he glanced at his own tablet, it was comparatively bare - and yet it shouldn’t be. 

“You find anything good in all that mobility assistance stuff yet?”

Watching Nathan blush was an odd thing, seeing as his scales around the cheeks went a but purple - not something scales usually did. It left Rigel staring a bit more than he intended, which resulted in Nathan visibly fidgeting and half trying to hunch his head down inside the thick mass of his chest as if he had grown past some threshold of obesity that would let him hide like a turtle.

“I uh… I mean, I had some time to poke around a bit, but- well, there’s a lot of options. A whole lot. Simple stuff, sensible stuff, pants-on-head bonkers stuff…”

Rigel snorted a little, working his way into the catalogue himself.

“Now if only this thing was sorted into those categories. Find any bonkers things that sounded good?”

That drug up a bit of a snort from the blue drake.

“Trying to lean away from that set - some of it sounds a bit… I mean, I want to keep anything I do inconspicuous. My giant butt is going to attract enough attention as it is.”

Something caught Rigel’s eye there, something about displacing mass and altering gravitational constants which claimed it could manage the whole thing with only software and a navel ring.

“...Inconspicuous seems a bit uh… scary.”

Nathan instantly set his jaw and nodded.

“Right!? It’s either that or it’s… well, some of the less crazy stuff is also low-key but that batch all seems to have an upper limit to it and I’m pretty sure our butts are well past it.”

It wasn’t as if Rigel had to actually look at his ass to confirm it, but he did anyway. At the bulbous mass of deep blue wrapped in what might as well be a cargo tarp or a tent. 

“Yeah, we have too much ass to half-ass this.”

Both of them knew that shouldn’t have been funny, and yet a moment later both immense heaps of scales and blubber were gently undulating in place as the sheer absurdity of the conversation sank in. 

“Oh shit… hah. Man, did you find anything that actually looked usable, and not insane?”

It took Nathan a moment to stop grinning - and he had to try twice. Only managing it with any real depth when he started blushing again after he realized how many eyes they were drawing, two blue heaps so bloated and huge they were just shy of developing gravitational pulls. 

“I uh, yeah - I think? There’s some cybernetic stuff in here that’s more about internal reinforcement than anything super invasive and it has some biochemical supplementary shenanigans - super controlled steroid doses for extra heavy exertion and that kind of thing - supposed to just make it easier to handle in general and it… well, it’s all stuff I understand.”

That got Rigel nodding - it made sense enough. For Nathan. For reasons he couldn’t quite put to words he didn’t want to bring up how it likely wouldn’t do in his case, what with the phenomenally altered body chemistry at the very least. The same reasons he didn’t feel aching bones and muscles right now, probably anyway. Either that or the stuff inside him was fermenting enough to take the edge off really effectively.

“So they offered you the same kinda package then?”

The question dragged Rigel back to the present sharply enough to cause some mental whiplash.

“What? Yeah! Yeah, uh. They - I - I mean the thing I made didn’t actually work. Not on me anyway. Made it - well you can see what it made it. My ass is a scaled wine cask the size of a loader bot and-”

A shudder ran through Rigel, one that ended in a vibrating cascade as he lost control of a potently fruity belch that he could swear tinged the air in front of him blue an smelled of yeast.

“Oof, Chrome I don’t think I’m getting used to that any time soon. Anyway, the thing I made is something they wanted since it would have worked if I had known all the variables. I just didn’t, got blindsided by some, and now I’m stuck this way. But the gene tracking and editing work I did is still applicable to others.”

Nathan went through a parade of expressions, but where it started (embarrassment) and ended (sympathy) were what mattered. It took the drake several seconds of arguing with himself to muster up the will to reach out and touch Rigel’s hand, giving the bloated thing a pat while pointedly ignoring the alcoholic smell in the air. 

“Same thing, kinda - different field of study but I made something they wanted. Someone here wanted, anyway. I - have you gotten any word back from Genevieve yet?”

Rigel blinked through a fresh startling again, then checked his tablet to confirm that there was still no word. A fact that led to him twisting about again, feeling the folds of his neck collide and crush together like a wreck on a highway as the seat creaked under his unevenly placed weight. It let him look at the food kiosk again though, but it lacked what he sought - mostly anyway. It didn’t have their room mate, but Rigel saw something else.

“...Hey, isn’t that her pet bee thing? You think you can talk to it maybe? Ask if it knows where she is, maybe if it can at least make sure she’s okay?”

The blue drake tilted his head slowly before he began furiously sliding windows off his workspace on the tablet and pulled up another program.

“Only one way to find out.”