“Ok, so am I lying or telling the truth? All of my money is in my personal storage space that I created with my own innate arcane magic, along with the minotaur I killed, and all of my weapons.”

She crossed her arms, thinking carefully for a moment. “Ha, you almost got me with that one, but you’re bluffing for sure. You thought by making it too easy you might mess with my head, didn’t you? Nope, that's a lie.”

‘For a moment I was actually worried, but just like that I secured the win. Unfortunately… I can hardly trust her to actually let me go…’ “If that’s what you think, then what are you going to do?”

She lifted a hand to her chin, carefully looking at each of the four shackles that were suspending me in the air. “Since you went easy on me, I’ll do you a favor and go easy on you this round as well. Let's start with growing magic.”

“Growing magic?” I asked as she walked closer and inspected the shackles more thoroughly.

“Exactly. I use my magic to increase your size, giving you the most intense growing pains you could imagine. Let's see… If I did it like normal you would stretch out the shackles, and when you shrank you could escape fairly easily…”

‘Well… I can’t say I’ve ever experienced that.’ “I don’t mean to be rude… But can making me bigger really be called torture? Isn’t that like a buff? Like I’ll get stronger and stuff right?”

She shifted her weight to her other leg. “Normally yes, but that’s when the whole body grows. When parts grow disproportionally though, for instance, rapid bone growth that causes stress on joints, without growth of the muscles and ligaments to match, or massive growth of the tissues under you’re skin without the growth of your skin, causing it to stretch.”

“I suppose… That does sound rather unpleasant…”

“And of course, you’re body will need the energy to support these changes, otherwise the magic would just speed up your metabolism and kill you. For that reason, I suggest you drink this.” She pulled out a large vial of swirling brown and yellow tar.

“So I’m forced to facilitate my own suffering or die? If you ask me that’s the real torture here.” I sighed, taking a deep breath and downing it as she tilted the vial up until it was empty. ‘Whatever, this will all be over as soon as I convince her to leave, which will hopefully be the next round.’

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I felt a sudden surge run through my body as my stomach started to twist and chills ran through me. “What…” I stopped talking, forcing myself to hold back my vomit, if not only so that I wouldn’t die from the magic.

“You just ingested about 10,000 Calories, uh oh, you better not throw up, or you’ll die.”

I groaned. “You’re sure that wasn’t the torture…” Just as I spoke though I felt my whole body begin to tear itself apart. Goosebumps covered my skin as my bones stretched out and all my body's tissues started to feel like they were tearing from both ends. After a moment it stopped, and the pain suddenly dulled.

‘That… It wasn’t actually so bad… Makes me glad I bothered with all that flexibility training… Honestly being held up like this hurts more…’ I let out a deep breath. “All things considered I’d give it a… 2 out of 10.”

She ran her finger down the side of my head. “Oh please, I had to cut it short because of the lousy way they chained you up… Well, it's more like I don’t feel like finding larger shackles for you. Normally I’d go twice as far… Plus I like you. I don’t want you to hate me.”

She inspected the shackles again. I could feel them almost constricting my blood vessels. Let's see “I still have another half of the growth spell I can give you.”

I chuckled. “Oh, I’ve got it, you should give me huge muscles, you know, make me super strong. I’ve never liked being tiny.”

She laughed. “You seem to be enjoying yourself. Maybe I went too easy on you. Let's see. Oh, I’ve never tried doing this before, let's put the rest of the energy here, you said you hated being small didn’t you?”

I didn’t need to ask what she was doing, as I could feel my chest getting heavy. My ribs started to flare out and lengthen as my breasts swelled up like balloons underneath my shirt. My first thought was that it was some kind of joke… Even as it was happening that was what it felt like. But… it seriously hurt…

“You know the best part about this? All you’re nerves are on fire from being stretched, so they make you extra sensitive to anything I do now. I don’t even have to cut you, one little touch will feel the same as a knife blade… ”

I closed my eyes and reminded myself to keep breathing. When a sudden slap to my chest lit up every nerve in my torso, running down my back until the burning pins and needles made everything go numb.

“Ok, so how about round two?”

When I didn't answer she gently lifted up my head to check if I was still conscious. “Come on, you can’t be done already.”

I slowly swallowed, my eyes twitching when I tried to keep them open. “R-r-right, round two…” My head almost went blank, but I managed to remember my plan at least. “The money… Where's the money that’s the question right? Its… It’s in my house. There’s a wooden… In my house, and that’s the item I have enchanted with storage magic, all the money is in there. It’s my secret safe…”

“A wooden what?”

“A sword… A wooden sword…”

She let out a long sigh. “Truth…” She mumbled. “I guess I have to go and confirm before I let you go though.”

I lowered my head again and waited for her to leave. ‘Right, now for the great escape. She was awfully considerate when she didn’t increase the size of my hands, or maybe she was just sloppy, unable to focus on all my bones, only growing the big ones… I changed my mind… This is awful… Like at least a 6, still, that’s like half as bad as what the minotaur put me through…’’

I folded in my thumb and jerked as hard as I could, snapping the bone in two, making the world spin around me for a moment as my eyes started to water again, rolling back in my head. It hurt all the more to actually pull my hand free, but in the end, I managed somehow. ‘Counting the escape? Maybe more like a 7…’

‘It’s… Fine… I’m half way there…’