By the time I’ve decided what I’m going to upgrade, I’ve managed to butcher the carcass of the danaris. In fact, it’s the way I do the majority of the butchering that helps convince me.

Instead of using my knife, I end up spending a while filling the carcass with mana, switching between Light and Heavy Meditation to maximise my mana regeneration. I’d love to go into Deep Meditation and experiment a bit with the ‘challenge’ that I was offered last time, but considering how removed that makes me from the world, I’m reluctant to do it right now.

I’m fairly confident of my safety: the two kiinas are here, as are Fenrir and Sirocco, so even if one of my other Tame Bound decided to try to attack me, I think I’d probably be fine. It’s more a question of if I could be woken up from it: last time, I lost three days without even realising it. This time, I don’t have that to spare.

So Heavy Meditation it is: at least I have more of a sense of time passing there.

Once the carcass is full of my mana, it’s simple to separate all the bits. I create a neat pile of mana-filled chitin, and another little pile of the danaris’ organs: its oddly-shaped lungs, its web-glands, its damaged brain – since I didn’t bother to reconstruct that – and its digestive sacs. Then there’s a bigger pile of the meat from inside its legs and body. I’m surprised at just how much there is to eat – if I can rid it of the venom within.

As it turns out, removing the venom is more complicated than butchering it, but not by much. With my mana saturating the material, all it really takes is finding the right image and applying my will to the task.

Finding a container is more of a challenge, but in the end, I actually take two pieces of chitin and reform them to make a large bowl. Then, holding each piece of meat above the bowl, I force the venom out of it, letting it drip into the bowl like water from a cloth that I’m wringing. Much easier than getting blood out of a stone, I chuckle to myself.

There’s a Core too, as expected – a large one. It was buried in the meat of the tail, not far from the sting and nestled in among the silk-glands. It’s about the size of my head, and more faceted than the natural ones. It’s brighter than all the other beast Cores I’ve encountered so far – a vibrant yellow not all that dissimilar from its venom.

I think I’ll have to use this one carefully: any who absorb it are likely to gain some characteristics of its venomous approach. However, I already have two in mind who I think will benefit most from it – and who deserve to. In one case, at least.

The thing is that my exploration of the danaris’ body has yielded an interesting fact: River and Fenrir both have venom glands.

The organs in their body which I couldn’t identify the function of are all too similar to the venom glands near the danaris’ stinger to be for a different purpose. I think that the reason I wasn’t able to identify them before was because they don’t seem to be active, or if they are active, they’re not functioning very well. Whether it’s a mutation, or even an inert organ from their ancestors which has stopped working for their generations, I don’t know. Either way, Catches-leaves doesn’t have the same glands.

Thinking about it, maybe that’s the reason for why River’s self-injury when I was testing the healing aspect of Flesh-Shaping was so difficult to heal. My healing magic at the time registered ‘foreign bodies’ in his flesh; maybe those were caused by a small amount of venom from his claws.

Perhaps if River and Fenrir absorb this Core, those glands will become active. That would add further firepower on our side: from what I can see, Fenrir’s front claws would then become venomous, as would River’s teeth and claws.

I’ll check with them first, but figure that they will probably leap on the opportunity. I’ll speak to them together when River returns.

For now, though, I go over to the cave mouth.

“I’ve managed to get the venom out of the meat,” I tell Kalanthia. “You’re welcome to have some.” The large nunda pushes herself to her feet and stretches luxuriously. I don’t take a step back at the sight of the cavernous mouth, but it’s a close thing.

This shall be a treat – I tried once to taste the flesh of the trapper, but the venom made me so sick that I never tried again.

“You’ve encountered them before, then?” I ask while moving backwards to give her enough space to walk past me.

A few times. They have never been dangerous for me, but I cleared the area of two when I moved here with Lathani: she would have been a tasty meal for them.

“How did you deal with their venom, then?” I ask curiously.

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I didn’t bite them, she replies with her equivalent of a shrug. I used my claws and the earth.

“Good strategy,” I admit. “So, how is it?” I ask since by this time we’re standing by the pile of meat and Kalanthia has taken a bite.

Delicious, she says with a rumble of pleasure. Full of mana, tender, and scrumptious.

That’s interesting. I take a piece of meat from the pile and pull out all the mana I can from it.

“How does this one compare?” I ask, holding it out to her. She takes it from my hand and I barely have a moment for my stomach to drop at the thought of her immense teeth so close to my fingers before she’s already pulling away.

Not so nice, she says pensively. Still tender, but not so tasty. Not so much mana. I remember this taste from the nere. You can fill flesh with mana?

“Yes,” I tell her. “But didn’t you know that? I’ve been doing it for weeks now.” She shrugs again.

I did not know you could do it to dead flesh, she responds. Fair enough, I suppose: I’m not sure how much experimentation I’ve done regarding that while she’s been awake – the bulk of my discoveries have been done during the dark hours, I think.

Can I try? My thoughts are interrupted by Lathani piping up. She followed us out and is evidently interested by what her mother’s eating. Mother, can I?

Kalanthia casts a considering glance down to her cub, then looks at me with an unreadable expression.

You have another authority now, Lathani. Ask your binder. Lathani seems a little taken-aback. So am I, to be honest. I wasn’t expecting Kalanthia to take to it that well. If anything, I was expecting there to be more conflict of authority, where she would continue to expect Lathani to follow her instructions.

I was mentally prepared for that, had already decided that I would let things be ‘normal’ at the cave, as long as the chain of command was clear when we went out hunting. But if Kalanthia is going to recognise the change in the situation, all the better.

Though maybe this is a test – to see how far I will push my new Bond with Lathani. Perhaps Kalanthia is trying to see whether I will deny Lathani something for no good reason, just because I can.

The young nunda herself doesn’t seem fazed, looking at me next.

Pack-leader, can I eat some? she asks next. I look back at Kalanthia.

“Yes, if your mother is happy to share,” I answer. Kalanthia holds my gaze for a moment longer before she dips her head to grab a few pieces, tossing them gently over to her cub.

Enjoy, my cub, she says, sounding the faintest bit satisfied. Perhaps I passed the test, if it was one.

Leaving the predators to their meal, I go over to sit next to the poison-laced web. Hesitating for a moment, I then touch it with one finger. Ready to pull it away at a moment’s notice, I watch like a hawk – or Sirocco – at how the poison immediately seeps through my skin and into the nerve network. It starts spreading through the network, obviously intending to do the same to me as it did to my Bound.

Unlike my Bound, however, I have sufficient control over the mana saturating my body that I’m able to immediately stymie its progress. I send my own mana into the poison, invading it as much as it’s intending on invading me.

Passing from the poison into the body of the web itself, I use my control to isolate a small section of it and cut it away. I’d like to investigate this final attack from the danaris, but imbuing the whole of the large piece I cut will take way more of my mana pool than I’d like. Even if I don’t feel as over-strained as I did the morning after rescuing all of my new Bound, I still don’t want to have to refill my mana pool multiple times. A small piece will work well enough.

Over the next period of time I experiment a bit with the piece of web and the venom saturating it. I work at separating the two, and combining them. Next, at growing the web and the venom within, then each separately. Finally, I work on changing the venom itself.

If I can strengthen it, I might have another poison I could use on my enemies in addition to the one from that mimic creature which I used on the danaris. After spending so much time working with that particular venom within the body of the spider-like creature, I feel like I might even be able to recreate it from scratch. If that’s true, that would be good – I won’t necessarily always have an example of venom to hand.

Being able to weaken a venom also has a good purpose: the danaris proved that it could inject its victims with a version of its venom which would simply put its targets to sleep without actually killing them. If I could do that, it might help me with the lizard-folk – in both the near and more distant future.

Not having a test subject is a bit of a drawback, but I decide with resignation to test it on myself: I don’t want to subject any of my Bound to something that could kill them before I could heal them, after all. I have a little bit more faith in my own ability to self-heal, but keep close at hand a couple of the healing potions I left back in the cave – just in case.

When my Bound come back from the forest, I’ll need to organise the second group to visit and get their own bedding. In the meantime, I’ll need to get the first group sorted and ensure that they’re all comfortable. Hopefully I’ll even be able to get a bit of time in with each of them, to continue building our Bonds. I need to find names for them all, after all.

Then when the second group comes back, I’ll need to plan with River and Catches-leaves. In between all of that, I need to feed myself and get some rest because tomorrow is going to be a long day. But for now, I lose myself in the curiosity of experimenting with a new substance.

One, I feel, will play a pivotal role in the coming hunt.