Clutch of the Undercity

Anatta was, for the most part, pretty good at planning out her heists. It wasn't her favorite part of the job, but she had just enough patience to spend a few days observing her target, studying how the occupants came and went, when the guards changed shift, who might be disloyal enough to take a bribe, and all the other human factors that could complicate a robbery. Her contacts in the Golgari could furnish her with up-to-date maps, and her knowledge of the subterranean labyrinth which sprawled beneath Ravnica's streets meant she was rarely left hurting for good entrance and exit points.

Not everything could be planned for, of course, and it was inevitable every plan would have to be adjusted on the fly. But there were certain hitches common enough to become almost routine, and she had gotten good at handling those as well as well; sweet-talking a suspicious guard who saw through her disguise, for example, or quickly coming up with a new escape route if her pursuers guessed where she was fleeing to.

She hadn't expected half a dozen suits of seemingly-inert armour to sprout glowing psuedopods and come after her the moment she laid a hand on her target, though. That had been a new one. The contraption she had been tasked with stealing, a bizarre amalgamation of glass and bronze gears which shifted and reconfigured itself every few minutes, now hung from a satchel slung over her shoulder. All she had to do now was get away, but that was looking like an increasingly risky prospect.

"It'll be a simple job, Nowak," Anatta muttered under her breath as she ran, parroting her Golgari handler's voice. "Four guards and a trapped door, you can be in and out in twenty minutes if you're good. That's the last time I believe a tip-off from you, Bartok."

Crossbow bolts whined past, clattering from the clay roofing tiles beneath her feet or embedding themselves in crumbling brickwork. Behind her, two armoured goblins clad in the bright red and blue colours of the Izzet guild scrambled through the window she had just escaped through herself, already fitting new bolts into place for another volley. A mass of hulking, gel-like bodies loomed behind them, each lit from within by an eerie flame impossibly trapped within their shifting forms. They were Weirds - elemental fusions of fire and water, used by the Izzet as soldiers and guardians. They were also rare and difficult to create. Or at least, they were supposed to be.

Anatta heard the distinctive clunk of the crossbows' strings being wound back and threw herself into cover with a strangled yelp, pulling her legs in close to her chest and screwing her eyes shut until the thud-thud of bolts striking wood had died away. The rank smell of bird droppings washed over her, and Anatta eased one of her eyes open, glancing for the first time at what exactly she had flung herself behind.

"Huh. Illegal chicken coop," she laughed, rapping a knuckle against the ramshackle wooden box and grinning at the dirty white birds within as they flapped and squawked in panic. "Thank you, friend, 'cause your love of free eggs might just have saved my ass."

Her good humour died as swiftly as it had come as one of the goblins called out. "Alright, girlie, show's over. Ain't nowhere you can go where you won't get shot. Come out quiet-like and we'll pass you off to the 'Zors with no more nastiness, yeah?"

"Uh, yeah, lemmie think about that," Anatta called back, peeking out from around the edge of the coop. The two goblins had settled down with their crossbows covering her hiding place while the Weirds slowly oozed one by one through the window. It was difficult not to stare at them - each held a roughly humanoid shape, the broken pieces of armour they had hidden in shifting across their bodies like leaves floating on a pond. There was something almost hypnotic about the glowing light that burned at their core, and Anatta tore her gaze away with a gasp. The building shook under the weight of their footsteps. "I'd rather not spend the next three years in an Azorius prison cell, so, uh, I'm gonna go with a 'no' on that. Sorry"

"Suit yerself. So long as master gets back what you stole, it's no skin off our noses if you get yer neck broken."

Anatta rolled her eyes. Despite her brave words, once the Weirds got her she was done for. She was a slip of a girl, twenty years old not even five and a half feet tall, pale and skinny from a life spent living underground and eating only what she could scavenge. And while her fortunes had changed of late, a better - or at least more frequent - diet easing her flirtations with malnutrition, she was still no match for a single Weird. Let alone six. Ravnica's skyline stretched out around her, the vast, endless city transformed into a three-dimensional maze of towers, ledges, overhangs and rooftops, all of which promised both an escape route and a long, fatal drop to the streets below if she misjudged a leap.

Okay, she thought, patting herself down. Right. Inventory. The only armour she wore over her dark breeches and jerkin was a light chest plate of insect chitin, which might stop a crossbow bolt if she was lucky but would crumble like bark if struck by one of the Weirds. She had caltrops and ball-bearings to dissuade pursuers, but doubted the elemental monsters would be slowed by either. Smoke bombs, firecrackers, oil flasks...she had everything she needed to confuse and evade the guards, and precisely nothing for the Weirds. Which, Anatta noted, had now all maneuvered through the window and begun advancing on her bolthole. Wonderful.

Ever the optimist, she tugged a smoke bomb from her bandolier and pulled herself up into a crouch, pushing her tangled black hair out of her face as she plotted a path across the rooftops. There was a sewer entrance two streets away, which at this time of night was unlikely to be watched by anyone. Five jumps, she thought, her head bobbing as she mimed the leaps she would have to make. Two slum-row houses, an ironmonger, some derelict abandoned by its occupants and finally the peaked arch of a little Selesnyan temple leading down to the empty streets below. Right, she thought. Fine. That's doable.

"On three," she whispered. The Weirds were getting closer, the roof groaning and tiles rattling under their heavy tread. "One, two, - "

Anatta hurled the smoke bomb at her feet. It was a crude thing, just a little clay ball small enough to fit in her palm packed with sulfur, bat guano and powdered fungus, but it did the job. With a loud crack that reverberated from the towers around them, a billowing cloud of murky green smoke blasted out around her position. She was already up and running the moment it struck, running as fast as she could for the edge, her satchel banging against her hip with every step. Anatta heard the goblins swearing as their shots went wide, followed by a low, gurgling moan from one of the Weirds, but didn't stop. Her heart thudded in her chest, her eyes locked on the edge of the first roof. She felt her foot alight on the gutter and jumped, soaring across the empty space and crashing down on the opposite building with a wild shriek of laughter.

Safely on the other side, Anatta couldn't resist looking back. She spun on her heel, her sharp, delicate features split in a wide grin as she waved to her pursuers.

"Catch me if you can, boys!" She laughed. One of the Weirds lumbered forwards, staggering towards the point she had just leapt from, and Anatta hesitated a moment longer, cockily sure it was about to take a tumble. Instead, the gelatinous thing simply toppled forwards, its long, rubbery limbs stretching out for the other side even as its feet dissolved and sank into the tiles for grip. The next elemental was already crossing the rather precarious bridge formed by its peer as the guards brought their crossbows back up, loaded and ready to fire.

"Okay, look, that's cheating," Antta whined, ducking aside as the bolts flew in. One went wide, but the second glanced off her armour, driving the air from her lungs and sending a dull spike of pain shooting through her chest.

"Definitely cheating. I'm not supposed to get shot," she added, ripping open a bag of caltrops and hurling them at her pursuers as she fled for the next building. She made that jump as well, and the next, though by the time she landed on the ironmongers' roof her pace had slowed. While the crossbow bolt had failed to penetrate, it had certainly done something, and every step felt like someone was forcing a metal spike into her lung. Panting hard, Anatta leaned against one of the metal smokestacks to try and catch her breath, wondering if the impact had cracked one of her ribs. There were healing aids in her pack, and she knew a little magic, but -

"No time!" She gasped. Though she had gained some distance on her pursuers, the elementals still came after her relentlessly, unconcerned with danger or weariness. Anatta gave the derelict building a wary look. It was a little single-story affair, one corner crushed into a tangled mess of bricks and shattered roofing beams that spilled out into the street. Other than that it seemed intact. Mostly. She hoped. With one last backwards glance, Anatta took two steps back, ran, and jumped.

She stumbled at the last moment, her left leg giving out even as she launched herself towards her target. The gap seemed to expand as she flew through the air, growing longer and longer with every terrified heartbeat. Anatta desperately tucked her legs in tight and wrapped her arms around her bag, uttering a silent prayer to Svogthos, the founder of her Guild, that her awkward tumble would carry her to the other side.

Anatta hit the opposite roof and kept going. Weakened by years of neglect even before its abandonment, the rotten timber holding the roof together collapsed as she struck home. Jagged shards lashed her as she punched through, opening up long cuts in her pale skin. Anatta flailed madly at the collapsing roof, hoping against hope to find some purchase to slow her fall, her shrill scream lost beneath the roar of shattering timber and the sound of roofing tiles exploding against the cobblestones outside. She felt herself hit something soft and curled up like a dead spider, instinctively trying to protect herself from the rain of debris that crashed down with her.

Eventually, the sound and chaos stopped. Anatta slowly, cautiously rose from her defensive huddle, wincing as a dozen or more small pains stabbed at her. She had come to rest on the previous occupant's bed, which had been left abandoned along with its sheets and mattress. Rubble was strewn everywhere, the impact filling the air and coating everything with a layer of dust. Anatta coughed, holding her sleeve up over her mouth but unable to hide the mad grin that had spread over her face.

"Oh, man, this is gonna make for one hell of a good story when I get home," she said to herself, waving her free hand to try and clear the dust from the air. "I mean, I've probably broken half my ribs and I've got more cuts than a Rakdos groupie, but hey. Can't complain."

As if in reply, the house let out a long, pained groan. Anatta looked up sharply, her eyes bright and nervous. "No, no, no you don't," she pleaded. "Come on, I just took out the roof, you weren't even using that anyway. You don't need to collapse on me for - "

But it wasn't, as Anatta feared, the walls which collapsed. She sat frozen on the bed, too afraid to move unless she disturbed something that brought the whole house down on top of her, as  the agonised groaning grew steadily in pitch. Only at the last moment did she feel the floor shifting beneath her and make a last, beleaguered attempt to flee, scrambling for the edge of the bed even as it began to plummet into the sinkhole opening beneath. With a hideous crash, Anatta and the bed tumbled through into the dark.

The world seemed to fall in on itself, reduced to nothing more than a cacophony of spinning, skidding  blackness, all chaotic noise and movement. Anatta clung to the bed in terror, her knuckles white from the strength of her grip. Its legs snapped under the initial impact, transforming it into a missile of cloth and wood which hurtled down the ancient shaft the house had been built over. There was nothing she could do but hold on and hope, when it finally came to rest, she would be both alive and in a fit enough state to try climbing back out.

Then there was another impact as the front of the bed slammed into something and broke past it, hurtling through the gap and crashing onto a flat surface. Anatta yelped as she was thrown from her perch, her skinny body hitting the ground hard, bouncing, and finally rolling to a halt. She lay still for long seconds, her thin whine of pain echoing from the walls around her. Slowly her wits began to return, drip-feeding her with slivers of information. She was alive - obviously, though the cuts, bruises and sprains peppering her body almost made her with she wasn't. She could feel an air current, so she wasn't going to suffocate. And there was a dim light shining through her eyelids.

"Oh, this was so not worth it," Anatta mumbled. She rolled onto her side and carefully unslung her pack, groping through the remains of her kit. Much of her gear had been broken or torn free during the fall, and she a surge of panic as she emptied out the remains, finally digging out a soft package at the bottom. Wrapped in three layers of protective padding lay a flask of shimmering liquid, which Anatta hurriedly uncorked and swallowed in two great gulps. Angel Tears, as the healing potions used by the Boros and Azorius Guilds were called, were rare and expensive on the black market, and Anatta disliked using them in anything other than an emergency.

Then again, she thought, this probably counted as one. She could already feel the tears working. A warm, tingling glow spread out from her stomach, seeping into her limbs and nursing the aches which filled them. Anatta lay still for a few moments, breathing slowly, letting the magic do its work. The jagged pain in her ribs eased, and one by one the stinging gashes in her skin faded away to leave nothing but bloody smears where they had been. Finally she sat up, wincing and rubbing the back of her head, and groped for her package.

Her satchel had gone. Anatta's head snapped left, then right, the fear of losing her pay stirring her into sudden action. She patted herself down, scuttled over to the ruined bed and frantically checked to see if the Izzet device had become tangled in the dusty bedsheets or caught on the bedpost when she fell. Neither was the case. Even when she heaved the mattress off and groped beneath the bed, she found nothing but broken stones and earth. Pouting in anger, Anatta dropped the mattress back into place and gave the bed a sullen kick.

"Fine, be that way," she huffed, turning away to try and puzzle out her escape. "Sacred rot, the only way this night could get any worse is if I actually die."

Ravnica was a city built atop a city, built atop a city. Thousands of years of endless growth and expansion had created a thick strata of forgotten buildings beneath the feet of its occupants. Though the Golgari - and the shadowy Dimir guild, though the latter had effectively ceased to exist after the tumultuous events of the Decamillenial - called this undercity home, they had by no means mapped its every ruinous street or district. It looked, to Anatta's eye, like she had fallen into an ancient bathhouse of some kind. The floor was pitted with deep, circular hollows from which corroded pipes jutted like broken ribs, and patches of filthy tiles still clung to the ancient walls. Great clusters of phosphorescent mushrooms had broken into the structure in places, looming overhead like huge, pale umbrellas and filling the chamber with their soft, greenish glow.

Anatta chose one of the tile clusters at random and limped over to it, wiping it clean with the back of her sleeve. Beneath the centuries of encrusted filth and cobwebs she found the branching tree-symbol of the Selesnyan conclave, circled by one of their long, winding prayers of peace and unity.

"I guess when the Izzet get bored of doing their jobs, someone has to invest in stuff like this," Anatta murmured. Her curiosity piqued, she kept wiping, cleaning off the surrounding tiles one by one. A reclining female figure emerged, followed by a bathing male, then two entwined forms, and then -

"Um, ah, right," Anatta stepped back, her hands clasped over her face as if to hide the awkward grin that had appeared there. "It's that kind of bathhouse. Well, you know, free love and all that. Always been a...uh, a big supporter of...that kind of thing, I guess, if you're into it."

Anatta glanced around, wringing her hands. "Oh, come on, you're not some silly, blushing little girl any more," she said. "You're a big, grown-up adult now, you've been to an orgy before, you don't need to justify yourself to an...uh...an empty room."

Her voice echoed back, bouncing from the cracked walls. Bright fungal spores drifted through the air like lost stars. It was only then Anatta realised the room was not, in fact, empty. At the far end of the room lay a great bathing pit. Perhaps where the Selesnyans had gathered to practice their 'rituals' in times past, but now it had only one occupant. Anatta's eyes grew wide and her jaw dropped as her gaze slowly crept up the heaving, undulating mound of leathery flesh that had squeezed itself into the hollow. The ooze was nearly fifteen feet tall and almost as wide, its mass studded with waving tendrils and psuedopods that protruded from and retracted back into the central body seemingly at random. Worse, it had her satchel. Thrown clear in the crash, the bag had landed close enough to be tangled up in the ooze's questing tentacles and carried up to its crown, where it was being slowly explored by the mass of writhing appendages.

Its movements were slow and confused, almost drunken, Anatta thought. She wondered if it had been hibernating, and the shock of her arrival - or perhaps the sound of her voice, some trace of scent she left in the air, or any other sign of her passing - had awoken it from its slumber. Certainly it had lain still and silent enough to go unnoticed as she had recovered her senses and treated her injuries, though to Anatta's eye it seemed to be rousing itself with alarming speed. Those tentacles weren't moving nearly as fast as they were a moment ago, she thought.

Oozes weren't uncommon in the undercity, and anyone who lived there quickly learned to recognise the different kinds. The Golgari made use of them, as did many of the Guildless colonies that established their own petty kingdoms beneath Ravnica's streets, binding them together from vats of sewer-muck and rotten corpses to use as guardians and beasts of war.

"I don't think you're one of ours, though," Anatta wondered aloud. "You don't look, uh, soupy enough. And there's not enough spikes or...horrible grabby bits to be Rakdos or Dimir. How did you even get in here, anyway? And how did you get so big?"

She took a cautious step forwards, pausing as a few tentacles briefly turned towards her, then advancing further when they showed no sign of aggression. If she could find how the ooze got in, perhaps she could get out.

Then she saw it. Half-hidden behind the sprouting fungi which lit the room, Anatta spied a broken hole in the ceiling above the main bathing pit. It looked large enough for a small humanoid to squeeze through, and she could see the bright wink of stars shining beyond. Sighing heavily, Anatta turned and gave the rest of the bathhouse a cursory glance. All of the original entrances she could see were blocked with rubble, or had been so overgrown with fungi it would take her an age to hack through.

"Not exactly the best choice in the world," she muttered. "Climb the horrible death tunnel, or climb the giant monster. Bartok better pay me double when all this is over with."

Anatta didn't know how far she had been carried underground, but it felt like quite a way. Certainly further than the hole in the roof was. And, if she could get to the top, she'd get her satchel back as well. She stared glumly at the creature, weighing her options. It didn't look corrosive or poisonous - the bag, certainly, wasn't melting - and its motions weren't exactly aggressive. Vigorous, maybe, she thought, watching as one of the tendrils thrust through a loop of strap. But not aggressive.

The handful of tentacles tracking her movements seemed to perk up as she approaching, shuddering in what looked like excitement. Anatta watched them carefully, holding her hands up in a defensive gesture.

"Hey, hey, look, I uh, I don't know if you can understand me, or...if you can, like, even hear at all, but I'm gonna need to climb you, okay?" she said. "And I'll, uh, need my bag back while I'm up there. That's cool, right?"

One of the tendrils drifted forwards until it hovered level with her face. It was as thick as her arm, its leathery green-black skin glistening with some kind of slime. Anatta tried to smile. Maybe some kind of magic let it see through its appendages.

There was a soft, wet noise. The tentacle split open, peeling back from the tip in four pieces like the petals of a flower. Anatta coughed, drawing back in surprise at the sweet, fragrant scent that washed over her. Concealed beneath the leathery exterior was a rigid organ of shockingly bright pink-purple flesh that drooled long strings of clear fluid, thickly veined and tipped with a swollen head. A faint frown passed over her narrow face. It was much longer, but looked remarkably similar to a man's -

"Oh. Oooohhhhhhh. Amorous ooze. Wow, uh, I thought those things were, like, a joke."

Anatta had heard rumours, and even read stories in some of the lurid picture books she had found in the earliest, most awkward stages of her sexual awareness, but never took them as anything more than that. They'd been created by the Simic, a guild of Biomancers who built creatures in the same way the Izzet built machines, as pets and living toys for Ravnica's high-and-mighty. The Simic were gone now though, destroyed in the same conflagration that had consumed the Dimir, and their surviving projects had become deeply unfashionable overnight.

"I guess your owner must have thrown you away, right? And you've been down here ever since?" Anatta waved her hand at the giant mushrooms blooming overhead. "I guess there's plenty to feed on...might explain what made you grow so huge as well. Not a lot to really do, tho-"

She stopped abruptly. "Wait. Uh. If I try and climb you, to get my stuff back and, you know, get out of here, I'm gonna get, um..."

A number of other tentacles had drifted down towards her, splitting open to reveal their own glowing, dripping stamen. Anatta grinned nervously, taking a step back and fiddling with her greasy black hair. "Um. Okay. Yeeeeah. Dunno if I'm, uh, up for that right now. Maybe I'll, uh, try option B."

She looked back over her shoulder, thinking about her mad slide through the darkness on the bed. Her lamp was broken and she didn't know how long the fungi would keep glowing if she cut off a bundle. The idea of clawing her way through a pitch-black, rocky tunnel, where any slip might see her fall and break her neck, didn't exactly appeal. And, a voice in the back of her head whispered, this thing won't do anything it isn't designed to do. It's not like you'd be sleeping with a wild animal that doesn't understand what it's doing and might decide to eat you at any moment.

Anatta glanced back, her tongue darting over her pale lips. The creature's sweet smell washed over her, like rosewater and honeysuckle. She could feel a blush creeping across her face, a nervous, fluttering feeling building in her belly. Part of her wondered if the ooze's perfumed secretions had been designed for taste as well as scent.

"I mean, I'd be in safe hands, right? Tentacles. Safe tentacles," she said, quicky correcting herself. It was hard to keep the wide, anxious smile from her face. The closest appendage bobbed up and down, its tip inches from her noise. Anatta didn't know if that was a positive response or just the creature's normal, undulating movements. "And I don't have a lot of, like, choice here, since it's either this or try my luck with the the death tunnel, so..."

Anatta reached out, gently wrapping her slim fingers around the tentacle's exterior. It was warm and slightly bumpy, like the skin of a tough fruit, but her hand slipped easily over the glistening slime. Her heart thundered in her narrow chest as it coiled around her arm in response, its grip firm, muscular, like the snakes some of the other Golgari kept as pets. She imagined how a whole nest of them might feel wrapped around her, cradling her slender body as they eased her legs apart and slithered over her thighs, and let out a small, trembling gasp of anticipation.

Very carefully, Anatta leaned into the closest tentacle and gave its glowing stamen a small, experimental lick. It was as smooth as silk, her tongue gliding over its hot, slimy surface without a trace of resistance, and the sweet-salty taste clung to her lips long after she pulled her head back.

She stood there, giving the myriad of tentacles facing her wary, sideways looks for almost three full minutes, waiting to see if there was any sign the creature's secretions were toxic. The wait was agony. Anatta had never really considered herself an enormously sexual person, but ever since she had been swept up in the madness of a Rakdos revel, she had begun to feel a deeper awareness of her own desires. On the surface she was still the same shy, nervous girl she had always been, but beneath that, something wild and adventurous was beginning to stir. Like a pair of hands on her shoulders guiding her onwards, a fire in her veins that begged to be quenched, a sultry voice in the ear whispering do it, do it, do it.

Anatta could feel that secret part of her nagging at her senses, encouraging her to give the ooze what it - what they both - wanted. But she pushed it down, waiting in trepidation for the first sign of dizziness or nausea, the first stomach cramp that would suggest she had been poisoned. But nothing came. The glowing organ remained in front of her face, trembling but eternally patient, long, stick strands rolling from its tip.

"Okay! Okay, fine, geeze," Anatta threw her free hand up in the air. "You don't have to, I dunno, guilt-trip me by staring like that."

Bringing her arm closer, urging the tentacle forwards, she let her eyes drift closed and ever-so-gently took it into her mouth. It was softer and more flexible than a man's organ, writhing around and dancing with her tongue as if she were being kissed deeply by a lover, but she could feel a comfortingly solid core throbbing at its center. She felt more descend upon her, grasping blindly around her shoulders and neck, holding her head still as the first tentacle began to slowly ease in and out of her mouth. It was so strange, she thought, to feel it twist and flex between her lips, but far from unpleasant - it reacted and responded to the flicks of her tongue and the touch of her lips, teasing her with dreams of what it might feel like slipped into other places. The fluttering in her belly had grown and spread throught her body, leaving her hot, anxious, trembling like a leaf.

Working one-handed, Anatta unbuttoned her breeches and pushed them down along with her underwear, swinging her narrow hips from side to side until both garments formed a tangled pool around her ankles. The kiss of cool, damp air against her nethers cut through her like a knife, her squeak muffled by the thick tendril in her mouth. The thing was leaking, thick strings of slick, sweet fluid oozing from its tip, bleeding from around her lips to trickle down her chin. Perhaps it should have disgusted her, but a life spent in the Golgari's mouldering ruins had left Anatta remarkably unsqueamish, and the dark voice in her ear whispered a reminder of how much she'd loved taking a man's come on her face for the first time.

She had wondered if the ooze was capable of true climax, if the sweet slime which leaked from its tendrils was simply there to facilitate its partners' pleasure, but Anatta knew what was about the happen the moment the tentacle suddenly bulged between her lips. She tipped her head back, one hand on the leathery exterior, the other stroking the fleshy underside, letting its fellows weave through her hair and caress her chin, and let out a quiet gasp of satisfaction as it came. It seemed to go on and on, throbbing and pumping, slowly withdrawing as it filled her mouth with thick ropes of hot, glutinous seed. Anatta clung on to the tentacle, letting it slowly crawl back through her hands as she swallowed, letting the thick, liquid heat seep down into into her. When it finally retreated past her lips, she smiled and stood up on her tiptoes, planting a little kiss on the tentacle's head before it rejoined the coiling masses above her.

"Wow, you must have been really backed up, huh? Stuck down here all this time, no-one to, uh...do your thing with..." Anatta wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Y'know, if I could find how this chamber connects to the undercity and get the passages cleared, I bet I could make an absolute fortune off you. Bring people down here, charge them, I dunno, ten Zloty for an hour? Though I guess I'd need to spruce the place up a bit, and that's not gonna be cheap."

She undressed as she spoke, unbuckling her armour and carefully packing each garment away in her bag. Every so often she would pause and look back over her shoulder, or peer into the deep shadows cast about the room, unable to resist the absurd notion she was being spied upon. For all her blossoming sexuality, Anatta still felt a little awkward and uncomfortable being naked. She was too short, too skinny, perpetually grubby no matter how often she tried to wash and cursed with an unhealthy pallor. Part of her always felt someone would be waiting to burst into laughter whenever she disrobed, especially if she was trying to be sexy about it.

"But I guess you don't care about that, huh?" She said, giving the ooze a conspiratorial look. "Even if you can see me, you're probably just glad for the attention."

With the last of her clothes packed away, she stood up, admiring the way the phosphorescent mushrooms and glowing tentacles painted her pallid skin with liquid hues of blue and pink and casting her bag over her shoulder. The mass of tendrils lashed and coiled above her, several beginning to split open in anticipation. Some were thinner than others, revealing long, tongue-like lashes or clusters of whip-thin feelers. A shiver of anticipation rolled down Anatta's spine. She was tense, nervous, but full of jittery excitement, her body trembling with its own need. She could feel wetness clinging to her lips, each gust of cool, subterranean air that ghosted over her sex sending a sharp twinge of pleasure through her slim body.

Anatta cleared her throat, spread her arms and stepped forwards. The satchel bounced around on top of the ooze, temptingly close to a sturdy-looking fungal stalk that would let her climb to the hole in the roof.

"Alright, uh, come and get it? Do, do your thing. Fu-"

From the moment she had finished undressing, the ooze's serpentine limbs had been creeping towards her. As soon as the words were out her mouth they descended, dozens of them, slithering around her slender limbs. Anatta couldn't help but giggle as she was groped, pawed at and caressed, delighting in the way each warm, slick tentacle would glide over her skin, leaving a shimmering trail of slime in its wake. One curled around her waist, another under her arm, its glowing head dancing in front of her face. She took the invitation, lapping and nuzzling it as more began to wrap around her ankles, slowly easing her legs apart. The lurid rumours and stories she had heard in the past had all spoke of forceful ravishment, but this was nothing like that. It was a dozen gentle touches at once, a kiss which spread across her whole body, a thousand hands which cradled and teased and set her nerves aflame with need.

Anatta felt another tendril work its way down her spine, slither between her buttocks and curl beneath her. More crept up her legs, wrapping around her calves, clusters of finger-like tongues dancing over her thighs and groping towards her lips. Others plucked and kissed her small breasts; not like a man, who would knead and fondle with calloused hands, but circling them, slithering around each small, pert mound and assaulting her nipples with tiny, teasing lashes. Anatta gasped and whined, her back arching and hips grinding back against the tentacle slowly curling into place behind her. She didn't dare look down, but could see it perfectly in her mind; that rigid, glowing stamen creeping closer, rising between her thighs as its peers lapped at her skin, surely but a heartbeat away from plunging deep into her body.

"Do it," she whispered. "Do it, do it, do it-"

Fine ropes of flesh kissed her lips, their touch feather-light and teasing as she was eased open, whetting her appetite for what was to come. And then she felt it - astonishingly hot, made monstrously large by her anticipation, thick and throbbing with whatever primal instincts the ooze's creators had instilled into it. Anatta's knees buckled as it twisted and writhed against her nethers, the wave of pleasure that washed through her almost oppressive. She needed more, she needed something inside her, to reach into and soothe the aching heat which twisted and curdled in her belly. Anatta raised her head, blowing a strand of hair away from her face, giving the heaving, green-black mound of flesh a pleading look.

The ooze was a wholly alien thing, less of a creature than a machine wrought from flesh and sinew, but in that moment Anatta felt a flicker of connection with the thing. Their mutual needs bridged the gap between their minds, the growing awareness of her own sensuality reaching out to embrace the strange, engineered monster's instinctual drive to pleasure.

And then, finally, it slipped into her. It came as a relief more than a shock, the sweet sensation of being filled washing through her, giving the tension inside her the outlet she so desperately needed. Anatta threw back her head and gave voice to a long, heartfelt cry as the tentacle began to move inside her, the sound echoing from the ancient stone that surrounded them. There was no-one here to see or to judge, she realised dimly. No-one to force or pressure her either. She could simply...be.

Perhaps that was a good thing, for the ooze was like nothing she had experienced before. Its thrusts were erratic, with neither pace or rythum, and it lacked the satisfying force of a man driving his hips against her slender body. But instead, it moved. It reached inside her, squirming and exploring, twisting around like a great, fleshy tongue. Anatta felt herself herself tensing, clenching around the strange, alien invader as it twitched and throbbed, the ooze's irregular heartbeat vibrating through her. Moment by moment she would discover another new pleasure; the thick veins tugging at her entrance, the long, gooey strands of fluid that crept down her thighs, the sheer, sweet depths the tentacle could reach as it eased itself in and out of her trembling body. And all the while its peers worked around her, stroking, teasing, tasting, holding.

The last one came as a shock. Anatta realised she could barely move. The ooze had bound her up in dozens of limbs, leaving her helpless and vulnerable to its ministrations. She struggled for a few seconds, pulling weakly at the fleshy mass that had enveloped her before realising that she didn't really mind. In fact, it even felt quite nice. Her heart kicked at the realisation, her muscles tensing for a moment before falling slack, a deep note of pleasure singing through her as she yielded before the ooze's desires. She still needed to get out, of course, sooner or later she would have to try and encourage the beast to raise her towards her waiting satchel, but for now...

Anatta grinned and let another long moan slip through her lips. She could play the defenseless maiden a little longer, especially when it felt so good. Her skin danced and tingled, her body quaking with ecstasy as it was touched and caressed from the inside. The ooze seemed to be enjoying itself too, as much as it could. A faint, pink light shone through its leathery skin, and it began to grow more vigorous in its exertions. The tentacle working between its legs began to thrust more forcefully, the peak of each motion bouncing Anatta up onto her tiptoes and drawing a thin squeak from the mouth. Another gently wrapped around her neck, holding her rigid and immobile as others slithered past her mouth, needily holding themselves out for her to suck. The perfumed scent of its secretions hung thick in the air, its off-sweet taste always on her lips.

It was all rather overwhelming. Though that first, sweet penetration had eased Anatta's frustrations, the dark, secret, sensual part of her had bloomed under the realisation that no-one was going to intrude. Without her anxieties, her desires bloomed too, and she eagerly welcomed the burning wellspring of need she felt growing inside her. She felt the first pangs of climax growing and reached for it eagerly, grinding her hips back and forth as the thick, glowing tendril worked tirelessly between her pale thighs. Anatta laughed breathlessly as one of the tentacles dancing around her head came, painting a long, thick streak of sweet fluid across her nose and forehead. Another that had been slithering under her armpit shot its burning load over her lower back, long strings dribbling down to tingle on her buttocks.

She thrashed in their grip, grasping for the threads of ecstasy weaving through her slender form, and finally came. Her back arched, her toes clenched and her knees gave out completely, sagging forwards in the oozes' embrace as a sweeping, crushing wave of pleasure flooded through her. There was a rush of liquid heat between her legs, a faint swell of pressure that bled into the energy thrumming through her body as her monstrous paramour came a third time, pouring its thick, achingly hot seed deep into Anatta's transfixed form.

The tentacle withdrew, spent, leaving the long, white strings it had flooded her with to drip down the girl's transfixed legs. The others retreated with it, gently lowering Anatta to the floor as they unwound themselves. Her delicate frame had been covered in the ooze's secretions, be it the transparent slime which coated its limbs or the thick, pearly-white ejaculate it had so eagerly squirted her with. For the second time that night, Anatta lay there stunned before dizzily picking herself up, groaning and pushing her damp, slimy hair out of her face.

"So, uh, was that as good for you as it was for me, or what?" she said, wiping fruitlessly at her chest before giving up. As if in answer, one of the retreating tendrils shuddered and spat another glob of come at her cheek.

"I'll take that as a yes," Anatta grimaced, rolling her eyes as the stuff trailed down her neck. At this rate, she thought, it's not getting home that's hard, it's getting home without having to explain the state I'm in.

Which, of course, brought another matter to light. Anatta shifted her now rather damp backpack around and stood, wobbling for a moment on shaky legs before finding her balance. As fun as that had been, she was still stuck. She waved a hand in front of one of the ooze's tentacles, trying to get its attention.

"Uh, hello? Hello? Can you hear me, or, like, understand me?" A trio of the creature's larger, thicker limbs began to descend once more, swirling around her like serpents. "I mean, you seemed to understand we well enough a moment ago, with the whole...one-for-the-road thing you did there, but...I need to go up."

Anatta jabbed her finger towards the ceiling. "I need you, to lift me, up there," she said, enunciating each word with a vigorous gesture. "Did you, like, get that?"

The tentacles rippled for a moment, then circled around Anatta's waist, one curling under her backside to form a crude seat. "Oh! Oh, wow, it actually worked!" She laughed, grabbing hold of one as she was lifted into the air, carried up towards the ooze's central mass. The old bathhouse spread out below her, the ruined bed which had carried her into it now just one more piece of rubble amidst its fallen grandeur, thankfully retreating as she was lifted towards the hole in the roof. Anatta spied her satchel below and shifted in the creature's grip, sticking her tongue out in concentration as she reached out with one of her legs, trying to hook her toes around the bag's wobbling strap.

Perhaps the ooze took that parting of her thighs as a sign, or perhaps it had misinterpreted her pantomimed gestures in the first place, for at this, half a dozen other sinuous limbs began to rise towards her, their leathery exteriors peeling back in anticipation. They seemed much bigger than the ones it had wielded before.

Anatta stared at them and gulped. Rapid, muscular spasms were rippling across the oozes' bulky body, glowing lights shifting about beneath its skin. Something about it looked excited.

"Oh boy," she muttered, eyeing them nervously. "So, uh, I guess this is the 'forceful ravishment' thing I've heard so much about, right?"

She had almost worked her outstretched foot through the satchel' strap when she found herself flipped upside down. Anatta shrieked in surprise and grasped desperately for the closest tentacle, which eagerly looped around her arm and slipped its tip into her mouth. Her muffled cries of alarm were cut short as a second, taking advantage of her confusion, danced between her wildly kicking legs and plunged into her. There was no gentle foreplay here, no gradual tease, just a single eager stab that drove the air from her lungs as it stretched her open. Anatta's eyes rolled madly, stars bursting across her vision as the two pulsating tentacles began to work her from each end. Held aloft, with nothing to brace or push against, she was jerked back and forth, each wild thrust jolting through her system.

Anatta's mind swam. She tried to concentrate, tried to push the dizziness, the intoxicating sweetness in her mouth and spasms of pleasure coming from her nethers out of her mind. It's not going to kill you, she told herself, that's not what it's designed to do. And it certainly seems to understand you at least a bit. More of them swirled around her, drawing her arms this way and that, slithering around her ankles and pulling her legs open. You're almost out, Anatta thought, so long as it doesn't dump you back on the floor you can climb the rest of the way.

She felt the thick, muscular tentacles pulsing against her thighs as they looped into place, their burning, throbbing organs nuzzling at her tender lips. Each touch was like a bright flash in her mind, sizzling torch next to the deep, pulsing waves of sensation the tentacle thrusting into her sex brought forth.

It should have been terrifying. Part of her was certainly afraid; just because the ooze wasn't going to eat her didn't mean it wouldn't drop her by mistake, or squeeze her too tightly, or just dump her back where she began. But the dark part of her was whispering again. It's got to get tired some time, it promised. You can take it. You can outlast it. Just hold on. Besides, it reasoned, what other option do you have? It's too big to fight, and you don't have any weapons to hand anyway.

The tentacle in her mouth shook, spasmed, and came, flooding her throat with its thick secretions as it withdrew. Pearly strings ran down her chin as it withdrew, another already swinging into place. Anatta twitched her head aside, a manic look in her eye.

"Alright, you overgrown jellyfish!" She yelled. Her voice was high and shrill, hardly the commanding challenge she had hoped for, but she pushed on regardless. "Do your - "

There was something pressing against her hindquarters. " - worst?"

It wasn't the first time she'd had something in her rear before, but to be taken from both sides at once, especially by a partner who wouldn't go slowly and ease her into things...Anatta's heart skipped a beat, a sudden mote of panic curdling her stomach as the slow, relentless pressure built against her backside. Desperately she tried to relax, letting out a deep breath and fighting her body's instincts to repel the invader, knowing it would just make things worse. A low groan built in her throat as the tentacle pushed steadily harder, easing the little ring of muscle a fraction wider every second, before finally popping home.

Anatta grunted. The first, the one still lodged deep in her sex, had stilled. She could feel the newcomer creeping deeper, its tip flexing around, massaging her tight passage to ease its progress. She felt swollen, bloated, her skinny little body so achingly heavy and full, and every movement brought a faint twinge of pain. She panted, swallowing hard, her eyes rolling in her skull. But she knew what to expect. The pressure seemed to swell and flow through her, replacing the pain with a dense heat that filled her belly and sent glowing sparks dancing along her nerves.

"Okay," she mumbled. Her head was pounding, the throb of blood deafening in her ears. "Okay, um, that's actually not so bad. Can you turn me the right way up, please? Or I'm gonna, like, faint."

This time the ooze seemed to understand. As it flipped her around, Anatta thrust a free arm out and snagged the satchel by her fingertips, pulling it in close and wriggling the strap over her shoulder. "Yes!" she hissed under her breath, a faint, brassy gleam from within the leather folds telling her the Izzet device was still inside. That was half her problem solved. As the ooze's multitude of limbs rose to meet her, as the two buried deep inside her began to pump and squirm once more, Anatta braced herself for the second half.

Years ago, in the same early bloom of sexuality that had seen her come across lurid stories of amorous oozes, Anatta had read descriptions of a woman being 'taken' by a man; to be so overcome by him, so helpless before his strength and desperate for his touch that she had no choice but to yield to his advances. She had never really understood that feeling before tonight, but she did now. Though it was no ravishingly deadly Orzhov nobleman or stern, dominating Boros officer, the ooze was every bit as relentless and forceful as the men in those cheaply-printed novels. She was overwhelmed, taken, fucked. The ooze was everywhere at once, its urgent limbs wrapping around her, slipping in and out of her aching, bucking body. Weird, flower-like organs pushed themselves into her hands, grinding needily against her palms until her fingers closed around them. Thin, delicate fronds wrapped around her most sensitive places, teasing her nipples, easing the little bud of her clit from its hood and assailing it with feather-light caresses that left her helpless and panting with stinging bolts of pleasure.

And all the while the ooze surged against her, its thick tentacles squirming against each other as they thrust. She could feel it, every movement, every twitch and pulse wracking her with another crushing wave of sensation, its muscular limbs moving against each other as they plunged deeper into her passages. They sought out every secret, sensitive place and assailed them without mercy, leaving her helpless and battered by a storm of ecstasy. Her hands stroked, her mouth sucked, her body clenched and jerked, taking everything the ooze could throw at her. Every now and then she would feel the hot rush of it climaxing her, or the wet slap of it pouring its seed across her chest, its stringy ejaculate tingling inside and out. Then there would be a brief pause, a feeling of emptiness as the spent limb withdrew, before another would snake up to take its place.

Was she afraid? A little. Overwhelmed, certainly. It was like nothing Anatta had ever experienced before. Even in the orgy she had been drawn into, she had only enjoyed the pleasure of one man and another woman, and they had been willing to coax her, teach her, to ensure she was okay. But with that fear came desire and an urge to test her limits to their breaking point. Against the ooze's multitude of eager tendrils she could do nothing but hold on, to ride the sweeping tide of ecstasy that swept through her. It brought her to her peak and back again, each time drawing a chorus of strangled cries from her throat as she came, the feverish pressure fading only to dovetail into the next glowing swell as it built within her.

Anatta thrashed and jerked like a puppet tangled in its own strings, pulled this way and that by the muscular tentacles which encircled her, her pallid skin painted blue and pink by her monstrous paramour and the glowing fungi above. Finally, the ooze began to slow its place. More and more of its serpentine limbs were dropping away, their leathery petals folding up as they curled against the creature's core body. Anatta coughed and blinked rapidly, the mad haze of sensation creeping back from her mind. Her whole body was slick with the ooze's fluids, a warm, pearlescent sheen that clung to her like a second skin. She hung suspended by her arms, supported by a tentacle curled under her bottom, two of the ooze's remaining limbs still buried deep within her. She let out a long breath, staring at the knobbled, glowing organs as they slowly moved, one pushing in as the other removed, sliding over each other inside her silken passages. After the frantic tempest she had awoken from, the deep, languid strokes filled her with a warm, comforting pleasure. Another dangled near her face, its glowing tip sliding over her cheek.

"Oh, go on then. Wouldn't want anyone feeling, like, left out or anything," Anatta muttered, gently taking it into her mouth, rolling the bulging, sweet head between her lips and sucking gently. It rested there, content to take what stimulation she gave it, letting the girl recover from the madness that had overcome her. She shuddered as the tentacle buried in her hindquarters came, flooding her bowels with its seed before withdrawing. Its twin kept up its steady pace, massaging her battered body from the inside, coaxing one final climax from her tired form. Anatta tensed, twitched, and clamped down around the thing, her toes curling and legs kicking as the feeling spread through her, her weary nerves lighting up with pleasure. One, two ropes of seed flowed into her before it too pulled back, squirting the last of its seed over her thighs and dropping away. Anatta hummed softly to herself, stroking the final limb with her hand, waiting for it to finish. It pulled free from her mouth, its glowing flesh rippling with need.

She sighed and tipped her head back, rolling her eyes. "Fine, fine, rot knows you aren't be the first tonight," she said, her delicate fingers stroking over the ridged organ. Finally it came, one last hot jet of fluid splatting over her narrow chin, dripping down her neck as it withdrew. Anatta swallowed and licked her lips, giving the tentacle a sarcastic wave as it sank out of sight, leaving her clasped by two of the oozes' heavy, sexless limbs. She glanced up at the hole in the ceiling, now only a few feet out of reach, then down at the ooze.

"Can you, uh...yeah, thanks," Anatta said as the creature began to lift her up. She winced and stretched, grabbing the edge of the hole and pulling herself up. Another tentacle wrapped around her hips, helping push her up and out.

She found herself in a ruined market square, behind a long-abandoned wooden stall and surrounded on three sides by rotting tenement buildings. Anatta let out a soft groan and collapsed against the rickety little stand, rolling her shoulders and trying to catch her breath. Without the haze of pleasure to cloud her senses, she could feel a bone-deep ache creeping in. Her sex hurt, her hindquarters hurt, and there was a horrid, nagging feeling of emptiness in her stomach. She couldn't tell if that was hunger, or just her body trying to adjust to not having two suspiciously-dick-like organs packed inside it. Probably both.

"I'm also, like, butt-naked and covered in ooze slime," she said. One of the tentacles had followed her out, bobbing back and forth as she sat there panting. "No thanks to you, by the way," she added with a glare. "Next time, like if there is a next time, more more than two at once, right? Do you get that?"

The tentacle withdrew. A moment later it - or one of its peers - returned, clutching the dusty sheets from the bed that had carried her into the old bathhouse. It dropped them on the ground before her then paused expectantly. Anatta gave it a bemused glance, then burst out laughing, hurriedly stuffing a hand in her mouth until the worst of the giggles subsided.

"Thank you, that's very sweet," she said, leaning over and giving the tentacle a delicate kiss. "Now go on, before anyone sees you."

It sank out of sight, curling back down into the depths of the undercity. Anatta sighed and began cleaning herself up as best she could, wiping the ooze's secretions from her skin and hair. She was tired and sore, but strangely content. As she unpacked her clothes and began to dress, she kept shooting glances over towards the hole in the ground. While the encounter had been strange, overwhelming, almost savage in some ways, it hadn't actually been that bad, Anatta thought. After walking away from something like that, really, how much was there to be afraid of?

Buckling her armour back into place, Anatta stood, grimacing a little and hanging onto the stall for support. Her legs still felt barely able to support her body, and when she finally worked up the courage to take a few experimental steps, found herself saddled with a distinct limp. Well, Anatta thought, it's better than nothing. She kicked the bedsheet back down the hole and set off, awkwardly creeping down the street to try and find her way home. It took her nearly an hour to find a familiar entrance to the undercity, an overgrown metal floodgate the Golgari used as a smuggling passage. The steps were slick with moss and condensation, forcing her to carefully pick her way down them, clinging to the wall in case her tired legs gave out on her. But soon enough she found herself back in friendly territory, exchanging brief greetings with familiar rot-farmers, insect-tenders and fellow thieves alike. Anatta paused to buy a bowl full of fried larve and mushrooms and hurriedly wolfed the salty, nutty mixture down, letting out a heavy groan of satisfaction as the hollow feeling in her gut began to subside.

"Rough night?" one of the passers-by said, a lanky Devkarin elf with jagged tattoos covering the left side of her face. Anatta glanced up and grinned, pushing her disheveled hair out of the way.

"Oh, uh, you know. Broke into someone's house, got chased across the rooftops by an army of Weirds, had sex with a giant monster. The usual."

The other woman snorted. "Yeah, funny joke. Get anything good?"

"Dunno. Some Izzet thingy," Anatta replied, pulling the ticking, buzzing brass thing out of her satchel. The thing was miraculously intact, its gears still shifting and realigning as she held it up to the chamber's light. "Dunno what it does. Bartok sent me to get it, so it must be important, right?"

The Devkarin stooped down, her green eyes narrowing as she examined the thing. Then she laughed. "Its a paperweight."

Anatta spat out a mouthful of food. "Oh, no. You're joking. Tell me you're joking. Look, it's got, like, loads of moving bits, it must be something important."

"They're moving, but they ain't doing anything. Sorry, girl. Either Bartok's information was bad, or he really, really wanted a new ornament for his desk. But hey," the elf patted Anatta on the shoulder. "There's still the giant monster, right?"

"Yeah," Anatta huffed, ignoring the sarcasm in the woman's voice. "Yeah, I suppose there's always that."