The problem with chopping up and skinning a beast like a moose was that it was large. The process of butchering was never easy, and when you lacked the proper tools and had to make do with a kris and a gutting knife, it made things even worst. However, Arthur knew he had to work fast, and luckily, he wasn't exactly looking to get to the meat.
Oh, he chopped off one large leg, tearing through flesh and then carving in-between bone to get to what he needed before tossing it away. Then, afterwards, he went for the monster core. That meant gutting the creature, pulling out the entrail sack and then yanking it all away before he moved on.
In through the stomach and guts into the heart and lungs, searching around the chest till he finally found the monster stone. There, he had to cut it free entirely by feel till he pulled it free, slicing into his fingers a couple of time due to the angle and size of the creature. Then, tossing the stone aside with the hunk of leg he'd sliced apart, he began the next process.
Kris slicing into the neck, he began to tear into the creature's neck. He would have to do something about stripping the moose antlers from the head itself at some point, and if his guess was right, he might not even need to do that. But he would rather be safer than sorry, and that meant beheading the dead monster.
Of course, wiping away blood and skin as it kept flooding the water, it was not simple. The kris was not a butcher's cleaver, meant more for cutting in simple sweeps and slices rather than chopping at the body. In the end, he had to pull and cut with long sweeps of his blade, watching muscle part before he hit spine. Then, he had to wiggle the kris around to part the spine before moving on.
Head detached, Arthur booted the creature away and watched it roll along the ground till it began to smoke and smolder against the grass where the antlers touched the ground. Frowning, Arthur hoped that it was not going to start a problem before he turned to the next step.
Skinning.
Grab flesh, pull against the fur and use skinning knife to slice upwards where the fat and flesh and fur joined together. He kept tearing and sweeping his blade against the parts that came out, slicing along the skin of the legs downwards and circling the hooves so that he could tear it outwards.
Arthur had some skill with this, but he'd never done such a large body. Still, without the danger of getting burnt by the moose antlers, the entire job was simpler. Falling into the routine of parting flesh and fur, Arthur ignored the pain from healing his burnt body, only stumbling to an end when he rolled the furless body once again.
Woozy and exhausted, Arthur stared at the fur partly soaked in the water and gave up. He knew he should pull it out, let it dry and... something. But exhausted, he just stumbled further up to the monster stone and just crashed, staring up at the sky and relaxing.
When he next opened his eyes, he blinked blearily around him, taking a long moment to realise where he was and what he was doing. It took him a few minutes to realise that, and even more to locate his spear in the dark.
"Shit... that was a bad idea." Arthur gripped the spear tight to him, as though its presence now could protect him against the danger of being burnt to death if a grass had caught fire or a monster had found him while he was asleep. But, of course, it was not possible. He really had been worst off than he had realised, to have crashed that badly.
On the other hand, looking around, Arthur grinned.
His guess - educated, from the wiki in this case - had been right. The damn creature was unique. And while the fur - damn it - had not been left behind, nor the hunk of thigh and leg, the monster stone was still here. As were the antlers, now lying quietly by themselves, glowing in the dark but no longer smoking and heating the earth.
Sneaking over carefully, Arthur reached out and touched the antler, grinning as he confirmed they were hot; but not scorching.
"Score crafting materials."
Now, he just needed to figure out how to carry them with him.
***
"I'm looking like a damn pengemis," Arthur muttered to himself, resettling the rope around his shoulders. Dirty, disheveled and smelly, just like a homeless beggar. Thankfully, his guess had been right, and after rolling up the antlers in the fur, the massive things the size of body on each side, he was mostly ready to go. He'd strapped the entire thing to his backpack after spending some time sewing some basic patches and replacing the straps with rope, so that he could still carry the entire thing.
The ropes themselves were set-up so that he could release the entire contraption with a single tug, because if he had to do anything like fight with it on, he was going to fall on his face. But there was absolutely no way he was going to be at all effective or balanced with the creature hanging off him.
Arthur was also, quite firmly, not thinking about the various burns and injuries he'd found on himself after he had stripped down. Aloe vera had, at least, been part of his first aid bag along with rolls of bandages; all of which he'd utilised. Of course, he had not enough aloe vera to cover himself, so he'd focused mostly on the deeper burns before packing them with gauze and bandaging the entire thing and putting a proper pair of pants.
As for the previous pair, those were shorts and rags now.
Bag refilled with water at last and the antlers on his backpack and a snack consumed - if nothing more than the restorative properties of tastiness - Arthur was ready to finish with this platform.
Turning over the antlers and the Tower information, he began the trek to the next level.
Thankfully, outside of dealing with some large groundhogs, Arthur's trip to the edge of this platform was simple enough. And, amusingly, there was even a slope to ascend.
Which, of course, screamed trap to Arthur.