She had been a normal girl once. Now she barely even remembered her name. Ellea. She had to repeat it to herself every morning just to remind herself of the life that had once been. The daughter of a fisherman, she had once lived by the sea in a pretty little town called Nante. She had hated it as a child, hated always smelling of fish, but now she would have given anything just to smell fish again. She had hated the frequent rains, the gray skies, the constant wind, but how perfect it all seemed after being kidnapped.
Ellea had been beautiful too. All the boys of the villages around Nante had vied for her hand before their testicles had even dropped. Now it had been years since she had even seen a mirror. Her breasts had come in a long time ago, and her figure had filled in in many other ways, but what man would want her now? A musclebound brute, built for pummeling. And it was all the doing of Arroal, the demon lord.
He ruled the land since before she was born- before her father had been born too. But her pappy still remembered. His armies had crushed the kings of old and asserted their dominance over the land. He demanded absolute loyalty and imposed his iron will upon all. Life was tenable, it wasn't awful enough to spark too many rebellions... But by far the worst of it were the tributes. Every month, a village was selected, and an armed contingency of goons ranging from goblins to fallen aasimar would demand the village's most beautiful girl, and remove her, never to be seen again. Everyone knew where they went, though. The coliseum.
In the city of Darrak, the second largest trading hub in the empire- and the location of Arroal's summer home- was host to the annual Valkyrie games, wherein women of all fair races would compete in brutal, yet nonlethal gladiatorial combat. The winners were rewarded, the losers went back to their cells to await the next game. It was tremendously popular, and had been one of the empire's most celebrated events for years, even before Ellea could walk. And soon it would be her turn.
She knew very little about what awaited her, except that it would be grueling. She had been trained for this, every minute of every day since her captivity. The only moments of respite were her carefully monitored sleep hours, and meals. Right now she sat before a bland meal of salted lean beef, some sort of flavorless vegetable gruel, a thick cracker, and a potion to wash it down. It was a particular potion, brewed specifically and exclusively for trainee gladiatrixes. It was delicious, and they regularly changed the flavors, and Ellea hated it. She hated it because she knew what the game was. Every other part of the meal was catered to drive the girls to drink. Dry, salty, flavorless, the potion was their only joy. The potion was their luxury. And it was also the most potent part of this entire operation.
She gripped the neck of the bottle so tightly her knuckled turned white. A hairline crack appeared. She gulped it down quickly, caring not to spill a drop. She hated the potion, but it was her only hope as well. She had to grow stronger. She had to overcome others, even ones who had been here longer than she.
She flung the bottle and it shattered against the wall outside her cell. A goblin on the other side whimpered and hurried to brush it up. She now had half an hour of rest. To digest. The nutrients had to take, the potion had to enter into her bloodstream. Then it was at its most effective.
She sat, eyes closed, and simply waited, reminding herself once more of her name. Ellea, daughter of Lod the fisherman, from the village of Nante. Nante, where she longed to return to. Where she would return, even if it cost her her life.
The first sign of the potion's work was the heat in her loins and the hardening of her nipples. She fought the trembling, but she couldn't help it. The first time, she had made the mistake of trying to masturbate, but her captors hadn't allowed that. There was only one way to get off in the dungeons: work.
The door opened, right on schedule, like on clockwork. An orc who had once towered over her but now looked small by comparison lugged in a complex array of stones and leather straps. He set to work and she quietly allowed him. She was laden with a heavy leather harness, weighed down by incredibly dense and heavy volcanic stones, placed on strategic spots to work her muscles as efficiently as possible. Yet her most vulnerable and womanly parts were bare. These work 'suits' were the only clothes afforded the girls of the coliseum. Functionally naked, she rose, easily handling the weight that the orc had struggled with. Soon he would be replaced with a stronger slave, one who could handle the next level of harness. She was ushered from the room at spearpoint- crude stone, but with the threat of steel behind them if she resisted- and made to join a procession. Girls of so many races- human, elf, halfling, gnome, aasimar, tiefling, tabaxi, half-orc- walking single-file toward their day jobs. Or were they night jobs? You never knew, a mile underground.
Deep into the caves beneath the mountains they were led, handed heavy sacks of ore and stone bigger than they were, ultimately to their stations. Were it not for the potions, this would not be possible. The aphrodisiac was just a motivator, the true power of the potions was its strength-boosting and muscle-growing potency. No strength potion had its lasting effects. At least not without a severe cost.
Ellea was led to the furnace. She would be shoveling fuel. She dumped her enormous bag into the hopper, and out came the shiny, black lumps of coal, tossing up a cloud of coal dust. She flung the bag away and another girl picked it up- a small one, probably recently captured. Ellea picked up a shovel- ironwood with a lead core for weight, and a head of a metal she didn't know but hated for its incredible weight, with a spherical counterbalance on the other side, made of the same metal. She could break even this shovel if she wanted to, but then how could she grow strong enough to escape? She set to work.
Additional weights were added to her lower body, and she was made to switch positions with another amazon regularly, working their legs to match their arms. Moans began to chorus through the caves. Muscles burning, Ellea could feel her own pleasure mounting. Her first orgasm was coming quickly today. She tightened her inner muscles, coaxing herself closer to that sweet release, but she bit her lip, refusing to give her captors the satisfaction of hearing her cry out in ecstasy. The straps on her breasts rubbed her nipples perfectly- specifically designed, she had no doubt, and a small piece of smooth, polished metal rubbed against her button. Every little movement drove her higher. This was how it always was. She knew most of the girls loved the work, because of the heights of pleasure it gave them. But for her, this was just another thing to endure.
Her pleasure built rapidly, and before her second shift of positions, her inner muscles were already contracting, her juices flowing liberally down her thighs. A kobold guard approached her with a waterskin. She jammed her shovel into the ground, splitting the rock beneath, and lifted the small male up with one hand. She didn't even feel the difference. Her muscles bulged, deltoid and bicep each bigger than the dragon-like creature's head. He held up the water fearfully and she brought him closer, close enough to hold it to her lips. She drank deeply, then he pulled away. She grunted and swallowed, then set him down. She was still thirsty, but if she drank too much she would get sick, and her captors knew that. A sick girl couldn't work. Couldn't grow stronger. She would get another drink the next time she came.
Five orgasms later, she was taken off of forge duty and brought to the mines. Her hands were fitted with gauntlets made from the same metal as the shovel head, and she was thrust into a corner. She didn't know the name of the metal she was mining now, only that it turned the rocks blue. She wound her arm back and brought her fist straight into the rock, the spikes on her knuckles driving into the stone, ripping it from its spot. She got to work, swinging away, only the weight behind her punches available to carve through the solid rock. Smaller girls- though bigger than most men out in the world- scurried between the other miners, collecting the fallen stones in huge sacks, carrying them off to the smelters.
Ellea came another four times by the time break time was announced. She was led with the others back to their cells, and the cursed harness was removed, the orc grunting as he lugged it from the room. The back door was opened, allowing her access to the underground hot spring. This was no leisurely dip, however. The girls were scrubbed roughly of grime, cuts disinfected harshly with salt and alcohol, and then brought back to their rooms. A clean girl was a healthy girl. And a healthy girl could work and grow strong.
It was a perfect system, Ellea mused as she laid down. They did labor nobody else wanted to, fueling the empire's coffers and their war machine, all while growing stronger, conditioned to love it, and motivated to perform well in the next games. If they performed well, more people came, and more money was spent. Ellea would have thought it elegant if it weren't so utterly heinous.
She could feel the potion continuing to work inside her, the tears in her muscles being knit faster than would be possible without it, her gains being retained at a spectacular rate. By the time the one hour rest was finished, she would be almost as fresh as she had been that morning, though not quite. Her upper body work was finished, so next would be core and back, then another rest, followed by lower body, and then sleep. It was the same day in and day out, the order rotating twice in what she suspected was a year. As she felt the potion's effects, she was reminded how her feminine form was somehow also retained- likely another effect of the aphrodisiac. Her breasts remained full and plump, her butt soft atop her tremendous glutei, her hips broader than her father's shoulders. She wondered if that was by design too, and if so, for what purpose?
