A Perplexing Encounter

I've written a few additions to other peoples' work, interactives and the like, on this cite before. I had this random idea a few nights ago, and decided to take a stab at making my first actual item on this cite.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Alurrik pooled comfortably, lurking in a sandstone cave that provided excellent shade from the blazing sun above. They shifted slightly within their lair. Their resting form was that of a puddle of crimson ooze, about eight feet across and three feet tall. Alurrik's form gently pulsed in and out, vague and almost humanoid shapes formed within their mass before fading away into the resting mass of ooze. Despite being unable to actually be fat, Alurrik was feeling fat and happy as a result of their latest scheme. About a week ago, Alurrik had moved into their current location, a small, sandy canyon a few miles outside of a sleepy desert town. Here, Alurrik had found the cave formed of a large boulder leaned against the canyon wall to serve as excellent shelter, a small exit at either end of the cave meant that Alurrik's liquid form could easily slither out undetected to hunt. As for hunting, Alurrik was no normal ooze. Oozes were normally known for being magical yet primitive creatures of living acid that would dissolve and absorb any organic material they came across. Alurrik however, had nothing acidic about them, and they were much more intelligent then any other ooze they had heard of. Alurrik hadn't always possessed such intelligence, they dimly recalled the first few weeks of their life which they spent scurrying among back alleys and feeding off of rats in a city far far away from this place. Alurrik knew they had come from somewhere, but wasn't sure what it could have been, they only gained the intelligence to think as anything more than a beast after they'd consumed their first humanoid prey. Being unable to dissolve prey, Alurrik couldn't feed like a normal ooze, but they didn't need to, Alurrik's touch could drain the memories and minds of their victims. In this way Alurrik fed on thought and memory, leaving their victims as a mindless body that couldn't even remember to breath on its own. But that wasn't the end, the things consumed by Alurrik became a part of the ooze's mind, not only did Alurrik contain the entire story of their victim's minds preserved within their perfect memory, but Alurrik also would take on aspects of their new meal's personality. When Allurik had once been a tiny and simple thing, the personality of their first humanoid meal had almost completely transformed the mind of the young ooze, but now that Alurrik contained more minds each new addition had a less dramatic impact on their personality.
Alurrik had found one flaw with their new home when they had moved in, there was no reason for intelligent prey to visit Alurrik's little canyon. Alurrik could have survived by feeding on passing animals, but while such meals could sustain the ooze, they never satisfied their hunger for the new knowledge they could find in the minds of humanoid prey. However, Alurrik had solved this problem with a cunning plan. Being an ooze, Alurrik could morph their physical form into almost any shape they desired, but when Alurrik concentrated they could also make incredibly detailed changes to the color of their surface. Combining this with Alurrik's memory of their past victims allowed them to perfectly mimic any of their previous victims. Alurrik had too much mass to squeeze into the shape of a humanoid, so they had learned to move their main body along behind the recreation of their previous victim, connecting the two with a thin and nearly impossible to notice strand of ooze. The disguise was practically perfect, Alurrik had only been caught once using this trick, and that was by an especially keen eyed elf who'd spotted Alurrik's main body lurking in the bushes. Using this talent Alurrik had taken the form of a dwarven merchant they had consumed a few years ago and put up an ad on a tavern door. The ad had been a bounty, promising a reward to anyone who could slay a small ooze lurking outside of town, accompanied by directions to Alurrik's canyon. The genius of the plan was that Alurrik had promised just enough money to make it believable for the easy quest offered. This way Alurrik was unlikely to attract many formidable bounty hunters, and was more likely to lure in eager, would be adventurers who were expecting a much easier fight then the clever, thought stealing ooze. Alurrik's trap had already snared their first victim, a young man with some orcish heritage who had fancied himself a wizard. It had been about three days since Alurrik had easily overcome the would be magi, who'd come prepared for acidic attacks rather than Alurrik's memory draining touch, and stuffed his mindless body into the back of their lair. The corpse had begun to stink, although it was mostly masked by Alurrik's own natural smell, a heavy scent of sulfur that the ooze constantly exuded. Alurrik was unfazed by the stench of decay, although they did worry that they'd need a better place to dispose of the bodies of their future victims, perhaps once the local scavengers realized Alurrik had no intention of eating them then they could clean up the bodies more efficiently. As Alurrik mused on other possibilities for future corpse disposal, they were jarred from their thoughts as they began to feel vibrations through the stone floor of their lair, a telltale sign of footsteps approaching their canyon.
Molding their body from the vague puddle shape they'd been resting in and into one more like a long shape of crimson slime, Alurrik slithered out the exit of their cave opposite the approaching footsteps. From the vibrations the ooze could tell that the approaching creature had entered the canyon, and so Alurrik slithered up on top of the canyon wall while taking cover behind the rock that formed their lair. Here the wall of the small canyon stood about 12 feet deep, high enough that when Alurrik slid their body up on top of the they could confidently hide from their soon to be victim standing within the canyon. Peering back over the ridge and down into the canyon Alurrik saw their prey for the first time. Alurrik's visitor was a powerfully built human woman, easily six feet tall and probably in her late 20s or early 30s, she carried herself with much more confidence then the last humanoid who'd been lured in by Alurrik's false bounty. The woman was oddly outfitted, she carried no visible weapons, and while the greaves and bracers she wore were obviously well used, she didn't wear a helmet or any kind of chest armor that Alurrik could see. The intruder's clothing even revealed her bare midriff, showing her tanned and well muscled stomach. As for the woman's face, exposed by her lack of helmet, she had curly brown hair which tumbled all the way down to her shoulders in an unkempt mane, the expression on her face was one of casual amusement as her gaze swept back and forth over Alurrik's canyon and she confidently strode onwards. Alurrik shifted a few times to avoid the human's sweeping gaze while trying to get a read on their target. The woman might be some kind of magician who had simply maintained her physique, but Alurrik found it more likely that their latest visitor was some kind of specialist in unarmed combat. This peaked the ooze's interest, while they had gleaned several martial arts techniques from previous meals, they wouldn't think any of them would be very effective against an amorphous creature such as themself. Alurrik was eager to examine the memories of their soon to be victim, however, the woman's obvious confidence was somewhat unsettling. She hadn't seen Alurrik so far, so the ooze had time to make any preparations before springing to attack. Alurrik decided it would be best to investigate this stranger. And so Alurrik pulled away from the edge of the canyon and became Emilia.
Emilia had been a young half elven woman, she'd been given a human name but had never really fit in with humans or elves. It wasn't until Emilia had discovered her talents as a cat burglar that she'd been able to make anything of her life. Unfortunately for the unexperienced but talented burglar she'd ducked into the wrong alley when escaping city guards after a particularly daring burglary. Emilia had been so focused on evading the guards that she hadn't noticed the small ooze slowly climbing up her leg, until it was too late. The half elf burglar had been Alurrik's first humanoid meal, and had dramatically increased the intelligence of the young ooze. Furthermore, by adopting so much of Emilia's habits and knowledge Alurrik had been able to sneak around the environment of the city, remaining undetected as they fed on lone wanderers and drunks passed out late at night. Even all these years later, Emilia was Alurrik's go to humanoid form. And so Alurrik's mass quickly divided into two blobs, the smaller of the two taking on the shape of a humanoid lying on her back. Slowly the shape gained detail and the colors shifted from the natural red of Alurrik's surface to the black leathers Emilia had been wearing. The recreation of the half elven thief was perfect, she had a slight build, standing about five feet and two inches tall, dressed in her dark clothing that concealed light clothing. Emilia hadn't carried any real weapons, she'd been a thief, not a murderer, but Alurrik took the liberty of adding a short sword sheathed at her side. Alurrik had even molded her pointed ears and short blond hair, despite them being covered by her black hood and mask. And so Emilia stood up from the ground next to the canyon, dusted herself off, and flippantly called out to the woman standing down below. "Hello stranger" Emilia cried before leaping from the top of the canyon, landing gracefully next to the much larger woman.
"Well hello to you too" The stranger chuckled a bit as she looked Emilia up and down "You must be pretty brave to be wearing that much black out in this heat."
"Oh I've always dealt with the heat better than most, plus I look good in black." Emilia cheerfully responded, shifting slightly from foot to foot. Atop the ridge Alurrik's main body lay flattened, watching the exchange both from their elevated position and through Emilia. Alurrik flipped through Emilia's memories, keeping in mind the mannerisms of the young thief. Alurrik also subtly adjusted the thickness of the string of slime connecting their main body to their recreation of Emilia, keeping the strand just thick enough that it wouldn't snap as she moved, but so thin that it was nearly invisible.
"Well lucky for you" The other woman continued "I've always just had to sweat it out. Tell me, you don't seem like the type to have been randomly wandering the dessert"
"Oh I'm not randomly wandering" Emilia gave one of her smiles that practically shone through her mask "I came out to collect a bounty on an ooze. I'm Emilia by the way."
"Ah, Well I'm Marta, and I must say I'm here for a similar reason, although I didn't know there was a bounty on the creature."
"Really?" Emilia's look of surprise was as genuine as genuine as she was capable of. Alurrik puzzled over Marta's response in their mind, had word of the bounty somehow spread without it being mentioned that there was a reward? Alurrik figured there was one easy way to answer the question, and so Emilia asked "How'd you know to come out here for it if you didn't see the bounty?"
Marta chuckled again before responding "Well I've been hunting these things for personal reasons for some time now, and I've picked up a few tricks."
"Wow" Emilia exclaimed as she looked up at the more experienced adventurer, somewhat playing up the amazed rookie aspect while Alurrik thought on this new information. If this Marta really had so much experience killing oozes then maybe fighting her at all was a bad idea, the reason Alurrik had lived survived as long as they had was by avoiding fights they couldn't win. Although, if Marta was used to fighting normal oozes then Alurrik's unique abilities might catch her off guard, and from what Alurrik had seen of Marta she'd make an excellent meal. But before Alurrik could decide on their next course of action Marta spoke up again.
"See kid, most oozes are pretty straight forward. They just come at you in a straight line as soon as they sense you. But there's a rarer breed, and what they do is they can change their color, so they shapeshift to look like people. But they're never as clever as they think they are, there's a foolproof way to spot them." Emilia froze, all of Alurrik's thoughts on hypothetical plans came to a crashing halt, and at the same time Marta dropped the self assured grin she'd been wearing for the whole conversation as her voice went deadly serious as she maintained direct eye contact and finished "You can always tell they smell of sulfur." And Marta lunged forward.
Alurrik was in shock, their smell had never given them away before and it hadn't occurred to them that it ever would. Still, Emilia tried to step back from the much larger woman advancing on her, raising her hands to bring her mind draining powers to bear. But as Marta lunged she opened her mouth, stretching her jaws opened impossibly wide and fully engulfing Emilia's head in her maw. Alurrik sat in stunned silence, all thoughts of memory draining or defending themself vanished as they watched events play out in something akin to morbid fascination. Alurrik found themself not only looking down from above as Marta slowly dragged more and more of Emilia's lithe form past her waiting lips, but also staring down Marta's throat from Emilia's point of view. Alurrik's first thought was that Marta must somehow be swallowing with enough strength to compress their ooze form down her throat, but she obviously wasn't. From Emilia's perspective she could tell she was maintaining her shape as she was dragged deeper and deeper into Marta's body, and from atop the canyon Alurrik's main mass could see massive the bulge of Emilia's head sliding down Marta's neck and between her breasts before settling in Marta's stomach which had already expanded massively and showed no signs of stopping. By now Marta's mouth was nearly done engulfing Emilia's torso, having easily swallowed the half elf's petite shoulders and modest chest. A curious thought occurred to Alurrik at this point, and so they drew one of Emilia's arms all the way down to her head and pushed. Sure enough Alurrik saw Emilia's handprint appear at the bottom of Marta's expanding gut, pressing against the woman's skin from the inside. Reaching around her confines Emilia couldn't feel anything but the soaking wet flesh of Marta's stomach, she could also clearly hear the heartbeat and bodily functions of the woman that was rapidly consuming her. As Emilia felt around the inside of the impossible woman Alurrik watched the various bulges and prints appearing in the outside surface of Marta's gut, which now hung in front of her. It was at that moment that Alurrik snapped out of their trance, and realized Marta was about to finish swallowing Emilia's boots. Not knowing how to save the significant amount of their own body mass which was now inside Marta Alurrik let the strand of slime connecting Emilia to the rest of their body snap. Upon being cut off from their mind the perfect recreation of Emilia instantly collapsed into a harmless mass of liquid, sloshing around in Marta's gut. Alurrik could see as the half elven imprint in Marta's distended stomach suddenly became just a giant water balloon. Marta finished swallowing what little ooze was left in her mouth before smiling down at her gut. "Aww" She coed down at her stomach "Is that all? Not even gonna struggle?" Marta then chuckled to herself before she slowly lay down on the ground of Alurrik's canyon, pillowed her arms behind her head, and closed her eyes. Alurrik for their part still hadn't gotten over the shock of what had just happened, luckily for them having the recreation of Emilia eaten hadn't actually taken of Alurrik's memories, but they had lost such a big part of their mass, which was now sloshing around in the stomach of this... thing. Alurrik had no idea what this Marta was, but they doubted she could be human after what she'd just done. And now Alurrik found themself numbly looking down at Marta, who appeared to be trying to take a nap, casually, as if she didn't have a massive blob of Alurrik inside her. Although, while Alurrik considered it a large chunk, it looked almost pathetically small hanging off the front of Marta's heavily built frame.
Slowly Alurrik's mind began functioning normally again as they recovered from the shock of what they had just witnessed. Still, Alurrik found themself struggling to think of what to do next. A part of them just wanted to flee, whatever Marta was she was clearly dangerous, but another part of Alurrik's mind wanted revenge. They couldn't just let Marta get away with that, plus she was napping, and she'd addressed her stomach when she spoke, she probably thought that Emilia was all of Alurrik's body and didn't know they were still watching her, maybe they could ambush her in her sleep. But doubts nagged at the plan taking shape in Alurrik's plan, what if she was faking it? She'd already outsmarted Alurrik once, and what if Alurrik did attack her only to lose? It had been terrible to lose so much of their mass to being swallowed like that, but Alurrik could live with only losing that much if they could live to escape. A third possible course slowly formed in Alurrik's mind, maybe they could observe this Marta creature? She'd demonstrated a knowledge of oozes similar to Alurrik. Since they'd never met another of their own kind the possibility intrigued Alurrik, but it would mean actively following a dangerous predator, and Alurrik had no idea what they'd do if Marta actually led them to another of their own kind. Marta would probably try to eat them too and Alurrik had no idea if they'd be able to stop her. And so as Alurrik agonized over the decision the large bulge on Marta's belly gurlged and began to slowly shrink as he body processed the massive volume of ooze she'd swallowed.