“No,” I went on, “I’m going to see how they fare against each other. Combining my monsters and using their different powers together is going to be a crucial part of creating effective dungeons.”

“What? You’re going to just pit them against one another?” Astrid seemed doubtful. “Will that work considering that they are both your monsters?”

“Let’s find out,” I said with a shrug.

I was beginning to feel drained by having the full ten Draginlings summoned and waiting, so I dispersed all but three of them, reabsorbing the mana from the other seven. Of the three that I kept, I sent two back over to the waterfall to continue working on gaining the stacked magic defense bonus.

The third I called over to my side. “Let’s try a Flesh Muncher or two to begin with.”

Raising my hands and drawing on my Summoning Sphere, I called up a whirling green portal on the ground about four yards away. To my satisfaction, the portal appeared exactly where I intended. That placement was important to be able to get right; because the Flesh Munchers couldn’t move once they had been summoned, I had to be sure I was placing them to maximum effect each time.

From the bubbling green portal that opened up on the ground, the thick, blood-red leaves of the Muncher’s base rose up like a monstrous flower. Then the stem twisted up, a vine nearly as thick as my arm. When it reached about the same height as my head, a bulbous, gray, skull-like head appeared, with no facial features except a massive mouth full of a mess of razor sharp teeth. The whole process was like one of those sped-up time-lapse videos of a plant growing, except it was a plant out of a nightmare.

When the Muncher was complete, the portal below it faded and disappeared, leaving the monstrous plant swaying contentedly in place, its toothy jaws slavering slightly as it waited for prey. I could feel the insatiable hunger of the creature vibrating gently along the psychic connection I had to it. The Flesh Muncher had no other instinct but hunger, and aside from summoning it and dispersing, I was unable to issue any commands to it.

“It’s a beautiful monster, isn’t it?” said Kyrine’s disembodied voice enthusiastically. “It has only one emotion—hunger and the desire to consume—but for all that I feel a certain kinship with it.”

What with Kyrine’s murderous dungeon instincts, I didn’t actually find her sense of kinship with the Flesh Muncher all that surprising, but I thought it best to keep my thoughts on that to myself. I glanced at Astrid, who met my eyes, deadpan.

“I think I’ll have a go at defeating it with the Dragonling,” I said.