Chapter 1

Hero grunted as he swung the sword at the bandit. He'd been in so many skirmishes that he had no need to think about what he was doing - the moves came instantly and instinctively. In fact, Hero couldn't remember a time when he wasn't either in a fight, recovering from a fight, or preparing for the next fight. Monsters, sorcerers, dwarves, bears; he'd fought and killed it all.Sometimes he looked a little different, sometimes he had different magic or weapons, but there had started to be a depressing sameness to his life. Odd that he'd never noticed it before...

As soon as the last bandit had been messily dispatched, the Voice spoke again.*Go to the market, and buy food to heal.* He sheathed his sword, and started the long walk back to the last village.Odd also, he'd always heard the Voice, but he'd never wondered about it. Who was it? Why was it giving him directions? Did anyone else hear it? Hero felt as thought a fog was slowly lifting from his brain. Ideas, strange and new, began to spark in his mind.

The market was as it always was - about a dozen people wandering about, and a handful of merchants selling items. There was the weapon merchant, the potion merchant next to him, followed by the armor merchant. Across the square was the food merchant and the arms trainer. He walked directly to the food merchant and looked at the list of items and prices hovering over his head. He picked out a few of the lower-priced items, and began to eat. An apple knitted together the fracture in his leg, some spring water shrunk the bruise on his ribs. The pie...wait, what? The pie healed the slash on his forearm, but also suddenly expanded a little bit of round softness on his belly. Not enough to be really noticeable, but very unusual nonetheless. As far back as he could remember, his hair and his face had changed from time to time, but his body had always been firm and muscular. He poked at the new flesh with great interest.

*Go to the Howling Valley, and rescue the captives from the zombie elves.* The Voice filled his ears. He shook his head in annoyance. Why did *he* have to be the one to rescue them? Honestly, it seemed like every farmer, villager, or bumpkin he'd heard of was forever getting captured by something. He heaved a sigh and started out toward the Howling Valley. But a note of dissension stayed in his thoughts, and his hand kept straying back to the slight bulge at his waist.

After every battle from that point on, he made certain to buy pies, cakes and other fattening foods to help himself heal. Sometimes he ate six or seven of the delicious foodstuffs, and he ate them even after he had been fully healed. Each time he swallowed the pastries, a little more of the flabby bulk was added to his otherwise muscular frame. After a couple of weeks, the change in his body was noticeable to even the casual observer. He had developed a nice hefty pot belly, and he pectoral muscles had rounded out and down a little. In the mirror, he could see that his face had filled out, and that his cheekbones were not nearly as prominent as he had become used to.

He was beginning to feel the effects in other ways as well. Walking out to remote castles and caves was still no problem, but he was much slower heading up mountain passes. When he stopped, he could feel himself breathing hard and deep. Never in his life had he been winded, not even after that prolonged battle with the half-orc warchief demon mage emperor. His interest in these changes grew more intense with each passing day.