With the beast lying dead, we first made sure that nothing else was nearby, about to attack. Olivia and Lenore had been tasked with keeping an eye out for danger during the fight, but it was better to ascertain something as important as that. When none of us called a warning, I began checking my companions and noticed Olivia doing the same. Not that I thought that the Manticore had managed to inflict any serious wounds in the short battle, but it was good to know that Sigmir was only lightly bruised, something a quick Regeneration-Spell would fix. Bruises were the easiest thing for Blood Magic to heal, even easier than cuts, though I had a feeling that most Blood Mages were better at healing cuts, as cutting into things, and occasionally yourself, was part and parcel of that particular magic.

On the other hand, Rai had taken damage but it was that strange, whole body not-quite-bruising that came with taking damage while within the shadows. I had a feeling it was somehow the damage, however that was calculated, he would have taken from the claws, only spread out all over his body, making it unpleasant and a stress on his system but not a gaping wound through which his guts would try to escape. For those kinds of injuries, Olivia’s healing was better suited and he, too, was quickly patched up.

“Anything interesting on that beast?” I asked Adra, who had poked around the Manticore, seizing it up for butchery.

“Claws, Fangs, those can work as trophies, maybe valuable for some enchanter or crafter-type. The stinger and the poison-glands, but I’m not really familiar with them, so getting them might get messy. And the pelt, obviously, might make for a good rug, or maybe a cloak. Not really sure, certainly not worth taking for armour, anyone who could pay decently can get something better.” she grumbled and I realised that we would be here for a bit.

“I’ll help with the stinger, might make the process less messy.” I decided, a magical poison, something I wanted to check out.

“We shouldn’t stay in the open, certainly not here, where we fought that beast.” Olivia advised us, her eyes focused on the sky once more.

“They are territorial, I told you that. Killing one of their young might draw more of them here and if they find us with the corpse, things will get really messy.” she added, getting nods in acceptance all around.

“Adra, Rai, can you quickly look around for some sort of cave or other shelter where we can take that thing apart? I’ll drain its blood, so it’ll be easier to move.” I ordered, stepping up to the corpse, realising just how big the thing really had been. Lying on its side, it almost came up to my hip and it might have made a good mount for me, if I ever had the power to force one into service.

The idea brought a smile to my face, riding around on a flying lion, possibly with a poisoned breath-weapon if I could find a suitable dragon-manticore variant, tickled my fancy. Maybe it would be possible if I managed to push my Mind Magic far higher than it currently was, even if I might have to figure out how to keep the insanity of the Dark Moon out of it, unless I wanted my ride to be afflicted by that. Not that I really understood how that part worked and the system hadn’t been forthcoming with information, meaning I would have to experiment.

But that was for later, probably for the live-release, not for now. Now, I needed to begin butchering the beast, before the lingering life-force fully faded, making it impossible to control its blood via Blood Magic.

A small Rune-Triangle, drawn around the wound where Olivia and I had mangled its wing, allowed me to cause a spurt of blood to shoot out, almost as if the beast’s heart was still beating. Magically, it was almost entirely inert, little better than conventionally spilled blood from a living creature, useless for anything but channelling spells into this particular creature.

Hesitating for a moment, I decided to capture some of the blood, as I might be able to use it to target others of its bloodline, namely parents and elders, possibly allowing me to scry on them. It wasn’t something certain, but certainly worth exploring, especially as it only took a small amount of Astral Power to create vials of Ice that would easily preserve the blood for me.

By the time there was no more blood in the Manticore, and the area around me looked rather gruesome, Adra and Rai were back, having found a somewhat secluded spot for us to use. Carrying the Manticore was another annoyance, its size requiring Sigmir and Adra to work together, while the rest of us kept an eye out for trouble. Luckily, the few local predators knew better than to investigate where the smell of Manticore-Blood came from and nothing other than the difficult terrain troubled us until we got it to the camp-site.

It wasn’t what I would call a good spot, a couple of larger boulders that stuck halfway out of the mountainside, forming an overhang that would shelter us from sight and the weather, but it was far from a truly defensible position. But needs must, and I doubted we would be able to find something better in a reasonable amount of time, so while Adra and Sigmir began to butcher the beast, carefully removing it’s internal organs into a bowl of conjured Ice, I started to make our shelter a little more secure.

Most of the openings, I simply closed off with Ice, leaving a couple to allow some air-circulation, while in others, I used the Ice similar to mortar, holding rocks in place. It wasn’t pretty, certainly not compared to the lodges I had purely made from Ice, but it was quite a bit more sturdy and took a lot less Astral Power, which were important if we had no idea if another Manticore would swoop in to find out what had happened to the one the others were butchering.

Once everything was secured to my liking, the others were mostly done with the initial butchering, having waited for me to help with the stinger and poison-glands.

A little later, and a lot more tired and slightly queasy, I idly wondered if Road to Purgatory would be a monumental flop. I had taken to the rather rustic, often gruesome and brutal world of Mundus with glee, the simple rules of the wild allowing me to act without needing to consider the rules of society and decorum my mother had carefully trained me in, instead I could mostly fall back on simple, almost animalistic, patterns, which was liberating.

But was that liberation worth the pain, though it was dulled, was it worth dealing with blood and gore? I thought so, but how many people would agree and how loud would the screaming be, once certain parts of society realised just how realistic the game was?

Shaking off those thoughts, I looked at the fruits of our labour, a somewhat small bottle made from Hard Ice, filled with the poison of a Manticore. I had no real idea just how toxic it was, though I knew there was a lingering magic within it, the smell causing the hairs in the back of my neck to stand while Lenore’s sight revealed a slight but telltale glow.

“Morgana, think you can make something with these?” Adra asked me, gesturing to some of the chunks of meat she had cut out of the Manticore's flesh. I had no idea how it would taste, but there was only one way to find out.

Nodding, I decided to treat them as I would treat steaks and roast them in our pan and serve alongside some potatoes and onions. As I was working, the smell the meat released while cooking made me frown, the smell being not quite mundane in nature. It made sense that a magical beast hadn’t just mundane flesh. With Lenore’s sight to help, I used my Darkness-Magic to partially erase the traces of magic from a thin slice before biting into it, curious at the taste.

Wild, was the only word that came to mind. The meat itself was mediocre at best, the taste a little too gamey, and it was far too tough and rather stringy, but all that paled before the taste of magic exploding in my mouth. Normally, I tasted the air, smelled the magic in the air and got a whiff of what I was dealing with. Now, the difference was like night and day, as my tongue tried to parse the countless elemental traces within the beast’s magic. It wasn’t just pleasant, the taste I associated with poison-magic was bitter, the sharp taste of fire-magic a personal dislike, but overall, it was a uniquely interesting experience.

Though one I didn’t need to share, especially not when I realised that my health-bar had taken a slight dip from the small taste and looking into my body with Blood Magic showed that there was some damage to my stomach, which I luckily could heal.

More experimentation on cooking with Manticore was needed.