Carcasses and decay
Bodies left behind become food and leave a temporary poisonous trace as they decay.
After combat, hunting and the natural death of many wild animals, a body remains in the world. Carcasses thus join several cycles: for Magma, the result of a hunt and a possible meal; for Undead, sought-after carrion; for other slimes, at first an obstacle or sign of past danger.
Not every death leaves an accessible body. Where nothing remains, no carrion supply is left for later foragers.
Finite nutrition
Size and origin determine how much food a body contains. Magma and Undead can eat where it lies; Undead may also pick up carrion and carry it to the nest as a food parcel. Magma do not hunt every animal that leaves a carcass: even defensive woodland animals can enter this cycle through violence, and short-lived wildlife through natural death.
What remains after the body
An unused carcass decays over time. As it loses its colour and crumbles, its mass stays in the world: whatever Magma and Undead left becomes a few ordinary food parcels that any species can pick up, a little less than the fresh body held. A toxic trace forms where it lay at the same time, threatening other species and briefly favouring Undead. Unlike a natural poison source, the trace fades again; rain speeds the whole decay. The remains of a long-past fight can thus feed another colony later.
By morning, the body was gone. In the toxicity view, its shape still lay on the ground like a pale shadow.
