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The others were exploring the abandoned smuggling warehouse with glee. Hawke had always been attracted to shiny things, even if those shiny things happened to be a pair of torn trousers ("I can use the fabric!"), and was thus well occupied with a box of trinkets that he was sharing with Merrill. Isabella was off doing her own thing, knelt before a chest with a sturdy lock and lockpicks in hand. Anders, meanwhile, was a little less excited by the prospects of picking through dirty junk when it was taking time away from the clinic.
If he was going to be stuck here, then he might as well work on his manifesto. And if he was going to do that, then he wanted to be somewhere quiet and away from the eyes of the others.
"I'm going to explore the offices," Anders declared – he wasn't about to wander off without telling them where he was going.
Hawke put a hand up in acknowledgement, too busy making eyes at Merrill to figure out how to speak. Anders sighed. What Hawke saw in Merrill, he would never understand.
He wandered into a corridor off the main warehouse, and into what he assumed were the offices. There were stacks of paperwork on the desks. Dusty. Yet some of the furniture had sheets thrown over them, as if to protect them from the dust.
Whoever had used this office had been planning to go away, thought Anders as he stripped a chair of the dusty cloth. It was handsome, dark leather and timber bolted together with brass.
Comfortable too.
Justice reminded Anders that comfort was not the priority. Anders rolled his eyes.
"An observation," he said. "Not something I sought out."
He found his ink and quill in one pouch, then the parcel of papers that made up his manifesto from his coat. This was a good desk as well, he thought, shifting some of the old paperwork so he could write.
The other cloth-covered furniture stayed at the back of Anders' mind, like an itch that got worse the longer he left it unattended. Justice grumbled something and retreated, leaving Anders free to stop working on his manifesto after half an hour of flicking his eyes across the room in curiosity.
Dust made clouds in the air as Anders pulled the fabric off a filing cabinet, a lounge, a set of drawers, and a mirror. It was the mirror that was last, and yet it captured Anders' attention immediately. There was magic in it, Anders could tell. It was too old in style to be recent magic, but he recalled seeing something similar before. Merrill's eluvian? No. That wasn't right. The shape was different.
Oh! It was another mirror of transformation, like the one in the Black Emporium. Anders had wanted to change his nose, but had been too shy to do so in front of the creepy shopkeeper. It was too big and childhood taunts had never quite left him.
He peered into the mirror. It shone purple and red, fading to a misty background. Anders could see himself, as he was, and then thought hard about what he wanted, assuming that was how the mirror operated.
His mirror's nose shrank.
His real nose also shrank.
Anders backed up, hands over his nose, just to make sure, and looked around to see that he was still alone. Justice was curiously quiet, but Anders didn't let that stop him.
He went back to the mirror, and saw that it was playing out little images of what it could do. There was a woman with perky, full breasts, someone's ass grew bigger, and Anders spotted a crotch bulging out.
That was next. He'd always thought that he was a little on the small side. Anders parted his coat so he could see his trousers in the mirror and thought about his cock growing.
Pleasure jolted through him as his mirror image's cock grew into a bulge, and his trousers started to stretch around a larger cock. Anders cupped it, lingering on the sensation that the growth had provided, and realised he hadn't matched his balls to his cock.
Anders stared at the mirror and willed his balls to grow, and he let out a soft gasp as his trouser front started to strain.
He undid his buttons, pleased at how his smalls could barely contain him, and shivered as he tucked himself away with difficulty.
What else? Anders spun on the spot. Well, his ass wasn't as good as it used to be. Eating so poorly had been a downfall to his body.
The seat of his trousers went taut, his ass inflating to what it had been when he was younger. Anders touched it. Ah yes, he'd missed having this. A good dildo (or actual dick, Anders didn't mind) and he would be in heaven.
The mirror stopped showing off the options around the frame. As Anders faced the mirror again, he noticed his reflection had a slightly pronounced belly. Perhaps his thoughts of being malnourished had slipped in somehow.
This was probably enough, Anders thought, admiring his nose in detail. Or maybe just a touch less of a bridge –
His stomach felt tight, and he absently put a hand on it to rub it. Probably ate something bad.
Anders touched up his nose. There. Now to wait for his body to respond.
His belt cut into his belly, breaking Anders' concentration. The mirror showed his belly pushing out, and for a moment Anders had a vision of a woman he'd helped through birthing her children only two days ago.
He yelped, realising his own stomach was as large as the one in the mirror.
"No, stop," he ordered firmly.
He felt the waistband on his trousers slide under his firm gut. It was as if he were filled with air, his skin turning stretchy. It wasn't that bad yet, only as if he were a few months pregnant, but the mirror had to change it back right now.
Maybe it was because he had made the other changes? Anders quickly willed his nose back to its old size, but his belly surged outwards. It was like watching a pregnancy progress extremely quickly, and Anders judged himself to be at the five month mark.
He unbuttoned his coat, rubbing his belly, trying to push it down as his tunic pulled out of his trousers, trying to cup the extra girth.
Anders tried to shrink his cock but it was stuck at the size he'd made it, and heard the stitches on his tunic starting to give at the sides. The mirror was determined to make Anders bigger, and Anders was determined to reverse it.
A dispell burst from his fingers, sliding through his body and the mirror. Anders staggered for a moment, still staring into the mirror as that pregnant woman appeared in his head, waddling about with three babies inside her, overdue by two weeks, and –
Anders' tunic tore away, belly growing to match that memory and he stumbled back, landing on his newly padded ass and breaking his sight of the mirror. The shock broke the buttons on his trousers, gut resting in his lap, the round, plump, firm skin pressing against his cock.
The growth stopped, and Anders sighed in relief. He ran his hands over his belly as far as he could reach – which wasn't far – and growled in frustration.
Justice seemed amused, having woken from his slumber, or whatever it was when he went quiet.
Your vanity has tripped you up.
"Did you know this was going to happen?" asked Anders.
I had an idea that it might backfire. If you had cared to ask, there's a carving on the edge that says there are defects in the mirror.
"Well I can't go around like this," said Anders.
It also says the defects are reversible, but not how.
Anders got up. Well, tried to get up. Now that he was down, his belly prevented him from moving his legs around, and so he had to roll to one side, tucking a leg underneath him (and wincing at how it pressed against the reminder of his foolishness) and wriggled onto his knees.
Using the table for support, Anders dragged himself up, carefully not looking at the mirror and scrabbling for the cloth that had covered it. He threw it over the mirror, and glared at the covered form.
It wasn't the mirror's fault. It was his. The mirror was just doing what it had been magicked to do. Except who would keep a faulty magic mirror?
He pulled at his torn tunic, and his coat, but his belly was too firm and round to stretch his coat over the mass that was now a part of him.
"Anders!"
Oh no.
Hawke was coming.
Anders had to fix this now.
"There you are," said Hawke, and he froze. "You didn't tell me you were expecting!"
He laughed. Then his face turned serious.
"But seriously, what did you do?" asked Hawke.
Anders sighed and his his face in his hands.
"There's another mirror of transformation. It has a defect though," said Anders. "It's under there, but don't look at it Hawke."
Isabela popped her head in, took one look at Anders, and burst into laughter.
"You found the mirror!" she said gleefully. "I took a peek but there was a carving that said it had a fault. Right on the edge of the frame."
"You knew this was here?" demanded Anders.
"Of course I did. I do my research when I want to break into smuggler warehouses, sweet thing. You look adorable all puffed up, like an angry little bird," said Isabela.
"Where is everyone?" called Merrill's voice.
Oh please no.
"Oooh, are we having an office party? Varric told me about those. The Merchant–Anders, what's wrong with your belly? Did you have an allergic reaction?" asked Merrill, in that innocent way of hers.
Anders stepped behind the desk and sank into the office chair. It creaked ominously. At least he was somewhat obscured.
"No, I did not have an allergic reaction, I am not an angry bird, and would you stop staring and help me fix this?" he snapped.
He wriggled in the chair, noting that it was smaller against his ass than it had been before the mirror. Well, at least that hadn't gone wrong. That and the cock was surely going to be pleasant once he got rid of this belly.
"I think I like it," teased Isabela.
Isabela was next to Anders before he knew it, one long finger poking into the flesh of his belly. Anders tried to ignore the thrill that ran through his body as she patted his belly fondly.
"You could have gotten so much bigger," she said. "Shame the mirror wasn't faster. Oh, careful Kitten. Don't look into it directly or you'll be as round as Anders here."
Merrill had pushed the cloth off the frame of the mirror and was reading intently. She nodded, and dropped the cloth.
"I think I have a solution," she said. "But I don't think you'll like it."
"The day can't get worse," said Anders.
Merrill wrung her hands briefly and lifted the cloth again, presumably to double check that she was right.
"I can dispell you, but if it doesn't work, you'll get even bigger, maybe even all over," she said. "Or I can disperse the mass over your body, and it'll start to fade off after a few days."
"What if I do nothing?" said Anders.
"It will still fade, but you'll be stuck with it for a month, I think," said Merrill.
We should not meddle further, said Justice.
"Dispell me," said Anders.
Sucking in a deep breath, Merrill prepared to dispell.
Anders closed his eyes, the rush of the dispell flooding through his body, pricking at his stomach, and exiting through his toes. Then he felt his gut shifting under his hands and Anders opened his eyes only to see his belly shifting outwards, the flesh pressing into his lap, pushing against the sides of his chair, and slowly rising upwards.
It stopped, but Anders was barely able to walk, his belly forcing his legs apart in a waddle. It was as if he had a fourth child growing inside him.
"I'll disperse it?" asked Merrill meekly.
"Please," said Anders.
She cast a different spell. As Anders' belly went down, he felt his body puff up, his trousers growing tight with thick thighs and calves, his chest becoming puffy, his ass forming a crack as the waistband could barely slide up his body as he buttoned it. His arms, too, were chubby, but he had the strangest sensation of being firm at the same time, like he had been inflated with air.
"That's a pretty cute look. Chubby Anders," said Hawke. "Now what, Merrill?"
"Wait a few days, measure, wait a few more days," Merrill replied.
Anders buttoned up his coat, still tight but not about to pop. He patted his ass, and blushed at the size, grabbing it firmly for a moment. It was soft. Round.
"It'll restore Anders to his original state. Eventually," said Merrill.
"Which is why it's fun," said Isabela. "Nothing's permanent if you have the right spell."
Damnit, thought Anders, and he picked up his manifesto.
"You can always try again," said Isabela. "Once you've gotten the first lot out of your system, of course."
"May I have the mirror?" asked Merrill.
"Of course," said Hawke.
Anders was about to comment that two magic mirrors in the Alienage was asking for trouble, but he remembered that Merrill had moved in with Hawke a month ago. They had plenty of space. Better it in their hands than a band of smugglers. Perhaps it was how they tortured any misfortunate captives.
Anders really hoped they weren't going to do anything kinky.