Just had the idea for a thief who steals from the wrong mage and ends up with a weight-gain hex! Ended up creating a new hyena thief character because of it, who might appear in future stuff :3

Vex's thieving spree in the market quickly turns sour when he finds himself gaining weight for every item he steals...

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Hefty Hexes
By: IndigoRho

For a thief like Vex, a crowded marketplace was simply a huge payday waiting to happen. The striped hyena straightened his tunic, feeling the plethora of hidden pockets for stashing his future ill-gotten gains. Visions of jewelry, coins, and valuable trinkets filled his head, along with the tankards of fine ale he’d be buying with them later on. Yes, today would be a profitable one, he could feel it.

Vex slipped into the crowds, eyes darting from one potential target to another. The first was swiftly chosen.

A distracted, richly dressed merchant crossed paths with Vex, never noticing the paw snatching the coin purse poorly hidden behind a loose robe. Normally the tug would have been felt, but at that exact moment the merchant’s attention was elsewhere, swearing they heard a familiar voice call out their name.

There was no voice, their companions insisted, which left the merchant doubting their own hearing for the first time. Hexes did that.

While Vex was a skilled thief in general, his success was bolstered by his natural talent for hex magic. He couldn’t curse a whole bloodline or doom anyone to ill luck for the rest of their days, but he could easily shift fortune in his favor just enough to steal something right out from under their noses.
In the hyena’s wake there was a string of stumbles, misunderstandings, and obliviousness, all of which managed to fill his pockets a little bit more.

Eventually Vex’s gaze fell upon a rotund spotted hyena. The tips of his mohawk were dyed blonde and he was dressed in an opulent outfit that suggested he was either an administrator or perhaps a professor at the mage college. Whatever the position it clearly paid well, and Vex found himself unable to resist pilfering the stranger.

With the larger hyena taking up so much space it wasn’t hard to pass closeby. A little hex was flicked off right before a nimble paw went searching.

The spotted hyena’s stomach gurgled loudly, and suddenly he let loose a powerful bworrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp that shook his belly and caught the attentions of half the street. While he was busy blushing and excusing himself, Vex was already on his way, yet another coin purse snagged.

Vex couldn’t help but grin at the form his blind hex had taken. He bet the whole market had heard the belch. Perhaps he should make a habit of targeting the heftier ones.

A ring from a nearby stall was the next item stolen, but as it was grabbed a coin from the spotted hyena glowed briefly—and Vex’s flat middle rounded out.

It was a subtle change, maybe ten pounds at most, and oddly enough Vex didn’t notice the additional weight or faint tightness of his shirt. His thoughts immediately drifted elsewhere.

Vex was feeling bolder than usual, greedier. Pickpocketing was almost a compulsion now, and he wasn’t necessarily stealing objects of value each time his paw went hunting.

A brooch, a thimble, a single acorn.

Each new acquisition caused Vex to fatten a little more, the hyena getting softer and softer all over. Though his gains weren’t noticeable to crowds, his increasingly tight clothes were starting to get attention, especially once his chubby belly was slightly exposed.

The first rip of a tearing seam on his shoulder managed to shatter Vex’s own unnatural distraction, and the hyena almost tripped over as he abruptly became aware of how much fatter he was.

Vex froze in place, eyes darting all over his body in shock, from soft middle to thicker paws. The busy flow of the market forced him back in motion, Vex frantically trying to figure out how and why he’d gained weight.

Magic was the obvious culprit, but there were so many sources and approaches. It could have been revenge from someone he’d robbed or merely a prank. Some kind of bizarre allergic reaction to a potent food he’d brushed against or a...or a curse on something he’d stolen.

As good as Vex was at casting hexes, he was even better at being the victim of them, so much so that friends liked calling him Vex the Hexed. For some reason he drew them in like moths to a flame.

Vex immediately headed away from the market. He needed to either get home or at least someplace private until the curse ran out of steam.

There was another rip, and the confused hyena realized there was something in his paw: a handkerchief.

He didn’t understand how he’d managed to steal something while his attention was completely devoted to finding a way out. In a panic Vex dropped the handkerchief, but ten feet later his shirt felt tighter and a strawberry was clutched tightly in his other paw.

The nature of the hex was becoming clear to Vex, and he didn’t like it one bit. The very act of stealing was causing him to gain weight—which was frustrating on its own—but he’d also turned into a kleptomaniac.

All effort to blend in was abandoned. Vex picked up his pace as best he could, but slipping through the crowd was a challenge. To make matters worse, the disruption he was causing ensured his out-of-control paws were able to snatch things left and right.

Vex’s weight was ballooning rapidly and almost nonstop. Every attempt to keep his paws busy failed utterly, and the hyena was blushing as he felt his swelling, doughy belly bumping into people.

The far end of the market was filled with stalls selling pastries and desserts, which inevitably found their way first into Vex’s paws and then his mouth. It was a miracle the hyena could still run as he was bombarded by the endless cycle of snatching, stuffing, and swelling, snatching, stuffing, and swelling.

Clothing was shredding, Vex reduced to a waddle. His round belly bounced with every step, every shimmy, proving to be yet another distraction for passersby who wouldn’t notice their scones and donuts swiped with expert ease. For the first time in his life Vex wished people would be more attentive and protective of their belongings.

By the time the end of the stalls was in sight Vex was nearly as fat as the spotted hyena he’d robbed a short while ago. He waddled past the threshold and snuck down the first alleyway he came across, practically collapsing against a wall in exhaustion from his flight.

Vex allowed himself a nervous laugh, convinced he was finally free. He’d just need to hunker down for a while and think of whether he knew any mages who specialized in weight-loss magic.

Then Vex noticed one of his paws was still held up in front of him, a pile of sand filling it. His jaw dropped open in fear as he through the sand away as if it were acid.

He was swelling, swelling up all over, the last remaining seams ripping apart. Vex didn’t know where he’d gotten the sand from, but the hex was treating every last grain as a stolen object—and fattening him accordingly.

There was nothing Vex could do to stem the tide of pudge as dozens of pounds added to his already-rotund frame. He was gaining weight so fast his whole body jiggled, the hyena flustered beyond belief. The extra girth caused Vex to slide to the ground and roll onto his back, blubbery gut and arms pressing up against the sides of the alley. Vex grunted as he felt himself become wedged, and the fresh layers of fat were still coming.

Stripes stretched and fat wobbled. Cheeks became comically round, multiple chins formed. Vex was made completely unrecognizable, a massive butterball crammed into alleyway with no hope of wiggling free on his own. He couldn’t even express relief when the gains finally ceased.

Vex stared blankly upward, trying to avoid eye contact with his mountainous middle as best he could. It would be a while before anyone stumbled upon him, and even longer till he was freed, not to mention the actual issue of losing weight. He truly was hexed.

Elsewhere, the spotted hyena quietly smirked. Leon liked to consider himself a fairly careful man, and was impressed the thief had managed to snatch his pouch without him even noticing. Still, Leon was also cautious. A specialist in hexes himself, he’d cursed a single coin in the pouch so any thief who took it would find themselves fattened to immobility.

As far as Leon was concerned the loss of coin was well worth the delightful fattening inflicted. And of course it wouldn’t be hard to track down an immobile thief later to have a nice little chat...